I learned this today. Fruits have been preserved as jams since at least before the ancient Greeks. Since the Paleolithic period, people have been preserving foods in different ways. Drying was the easiest way and probably the first form of preservation. Chilling would have been possible in cold climates, but not all year round. People […]
#121 When did people start making jam? Read More »
I learned this today. Gin was sold from a cat in London in 1739 because Captain Dudley Bradstreet found a loophole in the 1736 Gin Act. Between 1690 and 1751, England went through a period of high consumption of gin. In 1743, it was estimated that people were drinking an average of 10 liters of
#120 Why was gin sold from a cat in London in 1739? Read More »
I learned this today. Dark matter is a hypothetical matter in space that doesn’t absorb, emit or reflect light, yet has gravity and keeps the universe together. It is theorized that dark matter makes up 27% of the universe. The part that we can see, the ordinary matter, only makes up about 5%. If dark
#119 What is dark matter? Read More »
I learned this today. Pykrete is a frozen material made of 14% sawdust and 86% water. It is as strong as concrete. Pykrete was put forward during World War II by Geoffrey Pike, who was the head of Project Habakkuk, an idea to use pykrete to build a floating aircraft carrier. The material was like
#118 What exactly is pykrete? Read More »
I learned this today. A society without money is not only possible, it is probably the best way that society will survive the rise of automation and AI. Money has been with us for about 5,000 years and our entire society is based on money. The majority of our time is spent trying to earn
#117 Could a society without money work? Read More »
I learned this today. People stormed the Bastille during the French Revolution not to free political prisoners but to get at its stores of gunpowder and weapons. The storming of the Bastille is taken to be the start of the French Revolution, but the revolution technically started on May 5th when a number of different
#116 Why did people storm the Bastille on July 14, 1789? Read More »
I learned this today. Nuclear pasta is a theoretical matter that might exist in the crust of a neutron star. It would be the strongest material in the universe and would be ten billion times stronger than steel. A neutron star forms when a supergiant star collapses. Stars are made up of hydrogen and helium.
#115 What is nuclear pasta? Read More »
I learned this today. Smallpox was responsible for as many as 500 million deaths in the 20th century, but it was completely eradicated by December 1979. Smallpox is a disease caused by four orthopoxviruses. They are variola, vaccinia, cowpox, and monkeypox. Variola only infects humans while the other viruses can infect other animals as well.
#114 What happened to smallpox? Read More »
I learned this today. Thomas Edison used thin strips of bamboo in his early light bulbs because carbonized bamboo has a very high electrical resistance. When Edison started trying to improve the light bulb, there were two basic forms of light available: arc lights and incandescent lights. An arc light is one that makes light
#113 Why did Thomas Edison use bamboo in his light bulb? Read More »
I learned this today. The first evidence for a wedding ceremony between a man and a woman is from Mesopotamia in 2350 BC. In the time of hunter-gatherers, people lived in small groups, probably of about thirty people. Each group would have several male leaders who shared the women. They would all care for and
#112 When did people first start getting married? Read More »
