Stannous Flouride's Book of Truthiness

Image Credit: WISE, IRSA, NASA; Processing & Copyright : Francesco AntonucciExplanation: Dusty emission in the Tadpole nebula, IC 410, lies about 12,000 light-years away in the northern constellation Auriga. The cloud of glowing gas is over 100 light-years across, sculpted by stellar winds and radiation from embedded open star cluster  NGC 1893. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, bright cluster stars are seen all around the star-forming nebula. Notable near the image center are two relatively dense streamers of material trailing away from the nebula’s central regions. Potentially sites of ongoing star formation in IC 410, these cosmic tadpole shapes are about 10 light-years long. The featured image was taken in infrared light by NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station took this photograph of Florida in October 2014. The peninsula is highly recognizable even at night, especially when looking roughly north, as our map-trained brains expect.

Illuminated areas give a strong sense of the size of cities. The brightest continuous patch of lights is the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area, the largest urban area in the southeastern U.S. and home to 5.6 million people. The next largest area is the Tampa Bay region (2.8 million people) on the Gulf Coast of the peninsula. Orlando, located in the middle, has a somewhat smaller footprint (2.3 million). A nearly straight line of cities runs nearly 560 kilometers (350 miles) along the Atlantic coast from Jacksonville, Florida, to Wilmington, North Carolina.

South of Orlando, the center and southern portions of the peninsula are as dark as the Atlantic Ocean, vividly illustrating the almost population-free Everglades wetland. The lights of Cocoa Beach trace the curved lines of Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center, an area well known to astronauts. Dim lights of the Florida Keys extend the arc of the Atlantic coast to the corner of the image. The small cluster of lights far offshore is Freeport on Grand Bahama Island (image right). The faint blue areas throughout the image are clouds lit by moonlight.

Ideas, good, bad, and WTF?!

I find this quite pleasant to watch.

HIGHLANDERS have used it through the ages to help them perform great feats of strength while staving off hunger and thirst. Roman soldiers also took it to give them the endurance to fight prolonged battles against the barbarian hordes.

Now heath pea, a long-forgotten wild Scottish plant, is to be reinvented for the 21st-century as a potential aid for dieters.

King Henry II was rumored to have given it to his plump royal mistresses. Monks were sure to do it to help them fast for days on end. Yes, all of them were eating the heath pea.

Also known as Lathyrus linifolins or bitter vetch, the heath pea was used during the Middle Ages to curb appetite. A native to the picturesque morrows of the Scottish Highlands, the heath pea is a fern-like plant with purple flowers.

Much to the interest of nutritional entrepreneurs, historians recently stumbled upon this Scottish native in archaeological digs and in freshly found manuscripts. The manuscripts articulate that when the Scots ate the bitter vetch, they experienced no hunger pangs and claimed to maintain a constant energy level throughout the day. Mostly used during times of famine, the heath pea greatly increased the Scots’ liveliness.

Before you run out to your closest morrow–which is great exercise–and grab a bitter vetch root, wait until the results come out in the coming years.

Read more:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stories/new-bloom-for-heath-pea-as-a-slimming-aid-1-1412434

http://healthdailyonline.com/2011/11/heath-pea-offers-medievalists-a-solution-to-weight-loss/

Three Reslo microphones, along with their stands, that were used by The Beatles – along with a host of important early British rock n’ roll acts – at the famed Cavern Club in Liverpool will form the centerpiece of an exceptional grouping of Beatles and Beatles-related memorabilia in Heritage Auctions’ Dec. 6 Entertainment & Music Memorabilia Auction. The microphones are estimated at $5,000+ each and will be offered individually. “If only these microphones could play back for us the music they helped create in those early days,” said Garry Shrum, Music Consignment Director at Heritage Auctions. “Talk about a piece of material culture that bore witness to greatness. The Beatles became The Beatles while singing into these mics.” The Beatles gave more live performances at the Cavern Club than at any other venue – 292 to be exact. It was at the underground club on Mathew Street that the group perfected their stage presence over hundreds of hours spent on stage. The group often used the club as a rehearsal space as well, working through many of their early compositions. Nearly every photo of the Beatles at the Cavern shows the group with Reslo microphones on stage. In addition to the Beatles, many of the other Merseyside groups from the era used the Cavern Club’s microphones: Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Searchers, The Big Three, Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas and many more. The microphones were in the possession of Mal Jefferson, a sound engineer and bassist for the Mastersounds (the group that assumed the Beatles’ Cavern residency in 1963). They have been in Jefferson’s possession from the 1960s until earlier this year, when they were sold to the present owner.

For sale along with a huge raft of incredibly cool RnR memorabilia you can’t afford at Heritage Auctions:
http://entertainment.ha.com/c/search-results.zx?

Iris Lee Gay Jordan, 92 (left), and Fred Upham, 93 (right)—two of the few remaining children of veterans of the Civil War—appear as they might have had they lived in the 1860s. The photographs are tintypes, made on a chemical-coated wet plate with a lens manufactured in 1862.PHOTOGRAPHS BY PETER ESSICK, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Despite sounding like a tall tale and a mathematical impossibility, it’s documented truth. Fred’s father, William,

was a private in the Union Army’s Second Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He was severely wounded at the First Battle of Bull Run, in 1861, and later personally appointed by President Lincoln to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/special-features/2014/11/141111-veterans-day-150-anniversary-civil-war-memories/#at_pco=tcb-1.0&at_si=546a30ea09384dac&at_ab=per-2&at_pos=0&at_tot=4

C

(Shown: not actual study participants)

The results showed that people would sacrifice an average of 20p per shock to prevent shocks to themselves and 40p per shock to prevent shocks to others. For example, they would pay on average £8 to prevent 20 shocks to others but only £4 to spare themselves 20 shocks.

Similarly, people would need an average 30p incentive per shock to increase shocks to themselves and 50p per shock to increase shocks to others. This means they would need a £10 incentive to give others 20 shocks but would do the same to themselves for £6.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-11-people-profit.html