What is a shorthand?

Shorthand is a system of writing words quickly by using symbols that stand for sounds or for whole words or phrase.  Can you write as fast as you can speak?  

Most people can’t.  people talk faster than they can write in long hand or ordinary writing.  But often it is necessary to take dictation, or record what someone says. 

Symbols

One way of doing this is to write in shorthand.  Shorthand is a method of writing words quickly by using little marks, or signs, instead of the letters of the alphabet.  A person trained to take down shorthand is often called a “stenographer.”  

A stenographer writes by sound.  He omits all letters of a word that are not actually pronounced.

For example, the word “knees” becomes “ne” in shorthand.  Other shortcuts include writing whole words and entire phrases of several words using a single symbol, or sign, without lifting the pencil, from the paper.  

Expert stenographers can write more than 250 words a minute, faster than most people can talk. – Dick Rogers

What is pond life?

Pond life is made up of many kinds of plants and animals that live in a community in or near a pond.

A small pond may look like a quiet place.  But if you look carefully, you may see that the pond is really a little world of its own.

In spring and summer the pond is teeming  with many kinds of plant and animal life.

Plants & Animals
Community

Water striders skate over the surface of the pond, while near shore, a crayfish grabs and eats a worm.  Later it, too, becomes a meal for bass or a wading bird.

Small, fish-like frogs (called tadpoles); water beetles and snails are also found in many ponds.

On some pond surfaces, the nectar-filled pond lily is the delight of the bee.  Frogs and dragonflies use its pads for resting platforms.

As winter nears, pond life become less active.

In the North, frogs and turtles spend the winter buried in the muddy bottom of the pond and only a few pond creatures stir under the ice. – Dick Rogers

How did April Fools’ Day start?

The custom of playing jokes on April 1^st may have come from an old Hindu spring festival in which people were sent on foolish errands.

The first day of April is a fun day—April Fools’ Day.  On this day people day play silly harmless jokes on their friends.  The victim is called an “April Fool.”

Jokes

No one knows how the idea of April Fools’ Day began, but we do know that people have played pranks on that day for hundreds of years.

Some people think that they custom came from an ancient spring festival held on that day, in which people were sent on foolish errands just for the fun of teasing them.

Still another idea is that April Fools’ Day began a long time ago when New Year’s Day was on April 1^st.  

When New Year’s Day was changed to Jan. 1, some people forgot and still celebrated at the old time.  So they were called April fools.

In France a person who has a joke played on him on April 1 is call an “April fish.”

If a joke is played on you in England on April Fools’ Day you are called a “noodle.” – Dick Rogers

How did the lima bean get its name?

America's Favorite Beans

Although pronounced differently the lima bean gets its name from Lima Peru, where the bean has long been used as a food.

Lima bean are one of America’s favorite beans.

This large, flat bean takes its name from the city of Lima.  Peru, where the bean has long been cultivated as a food.  (Although the city’s name, Lima, is pronounced LEE ma, the bean is properly called LIE ma).

Like other beans, limas are seeds that grow in pods on bushy plants.  The broad pods develop from butterfly-shaped flowers.

The large limas often grow an inch wide and ¼-inch thick.  Only the lima bean seeds are eaten.

Beans are among out most important vegetables.  They grow in almost every country and are often used as an inexpensive substitute for meat.

Bean plants help enrich the soil with nitrogen, which other plants need for growth.

Beans have become so commonplace that when a person doesn’t have much sense we say of him.  “He doesn’t know beans.” – Dick Rogers

What is a safflower?

A safflower is a thistlelike plant widely cultivated for the edible oitl and dyestuff that it yields.  It is a large flowers that may be white to brilliant red.

Thistle-like Plant

The plants grows about 3 feet high and has broad, spiny leaves.  The safflower has been grown in China, India and in other dry parts of the world for many hundreds of years.

At one time, people used the dried flowers of this very useful plants to make a red dye called carthamin which was used in making rouge and for dyeing silk and cotton fabrics light red.

Today, safflower is grown mainly for the oil obtained from its seeds.  Because the oil does not yellow with age, it is used in making paints and varnishes.

Most of the oil, however, is used in the preparation of such foods as margarines. Cooking oil and as salad oil.

The oil is also used in diets for persons with heart diseases and certain other illnesses. 

The meal, made from the crushed seeds, is fed to livestock. – Dick Rogers

What are the Northern Lights?

The Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, are the magnificent display of colored lights that occurs near the earth’s north Magnetic pole.

If you live far enough north, you may have seen the magnificent display of glowing, flickering colored lights high in the clear night sky.

The northern lights are one of nature’s most dazzling shows.  They begin as tiny flickering lights.  They grow and grow until they seem to light up the whole sky.

Sometimes they look like a great, fiery curtain with flames of red, orange, green and blue.

At other times they may flash here and there like giant search-lights, or the brilliant rays may spread upward in the shape of a gigantic fan.

Aurora Borealis

The northern lights are caused by the sun.  On the sun there are often great storms.  We call them sunsports.

Streams of tiny electric particles shoot out toward the earth.

When these electric particles reach the rare gases high above the earth’s surface, they cause them to glow brightly, very much like a neon sign glows.

People who live near the South Pole see glowing lights, too!  These are the aurora australis, or southern lights. – Dick Rogers

How are ship models put in bottles?

The ship model is first constructed outside the bottle.  The builder then folds the masts down slips the ship down the bottle’s neck and pulls up the masts.  

Did you ever see a ship model in a bottle?  If so, then you may have wondered how the ship got inside the bottle.

Workmanship

To pass the time on long voyages, old-time sailors often made model sailing ships in bottles.  To get the ship in the bottle, the sailor first constructed the ship outside the bottle.  

The masts and rigging and other parts of the ship were made in fine detail.  Carving them took careful workmanship. 

When the ship was finished, the sailor tied a thread to the from mast.  Then he carefully folded the masts so that they lay flat on the deck.  

Now the model ship was small enough to slide through the narrow neck and into the bottle.  

inside the bottle, the sailor pulled up the first mast with the thread.  That tightened the rigging, and the rigging pulled up the other masts.  Ship models in bottles make interesting collectors’ item. – Dick Rogers

What is a Quasar?

Bright Stars

The mysterious quasars (KWAY sahrs) are intensely bright, star like objects on the edge of the universe.  One of the big mysteries about the quasars is what they are.  

Not stars and not galaxies (groups of stars), quasars have baffled scientists since they were discovered in the early 1960s.  

A quasar is many times brighter than an entire galaxy and a strong emitter of radio waves.  When first discovered, scientists called them quasi-sellers, meaning “somewhat star like” radio sources.

The  name was later shortened to “quasar.”  One thought is that a quasar is a kind of super atomic furnace, too hot to be solid.  It is a huge ball of gases that glow with a brilliant light and sent out strong radio signals.  

A typical quasar may be millions of times bigger and brighter that the sun.  Quasars are so far from the earth that they can only be seen through the largest telescope. – Dick Rogers

When was the parachute invented?

A parachute is a big, umbrella-like device with which a person may float safely down from an airplane high in the air.  

The idea of parachutes is an old one.  Leonardo da Vinci sketched one in his notebook in 1514.

Umbrella-like Device

The first practical parachute was not invented until the 1780s, when a Frenchman named Sebastien Lenormand demonstrated the principle of the parachute by jumping from a high tower.  

The modern-day parachute is a nylon canopy about 24 feet across.  A parachute is carefully folded in a pack on the parachutist’s back when not in use.

The parachutist pulls a small ripcord to release the folded parachute.  A smaller parachute pulls the main parachute out of the pack.  

Once the parachute opens, the strong force produced by air resistance to the parachute’s large surface slows the parachute down and allows the parachutist to float safely to the earth. – Dick Rogers

What is an aqueduct?

A big city needs a lot of water.  Some cities are near big lakes or rivers.  They find it easy to get enough water.

But very often the lakes or reservoirs upon which a city depends for water are many miles from the city.  Then aqueduct must be built.

The word “aqueduct” comes from two Latin words which mean “water” and “to lead.”  An aqueduct, then, is a man-made channel to carry water from a lake or reservoir city.

Water and Lead

Some aqueducts are huge steel pipes laid above ground.  Others may be canals, open troughs or tunnels.

Most aqueducts gradually slope downhill so that the water flows by gravity.

In some cases, great metal siphons carry the water over hills, under rivers and across valleys, in much the same way you might siphon water from a bucket with a rubber hose.

Pumps may force the water through the aqueduct where it will not flow by gravity. – Dick Rogers

What makes poison ivy itch?

The leaves and stem of poison ivy contain a poisonous oil that is very irritating to the skin.

Poison Ivy is one of the most common and  most-feared poisonous plants in North America.   Few people can touch the leaves or berries without being poisoned.

The poison is an oil that is extremely irritating to the skin, causing it to blister and itch.  Some people are poisoned much more easily than others.

Because poison ivy is very common, everyone who goes into the woods and fields should learn to recognized it.  It always has three leaflets on each leaf.

Poisonous Oil

Remember the warning, "Leaflets three, let it be!"  Poison ivy may grove as a vine twining on a fence or as a bush.

The leaves are shiny green in the summer, turning scarlet in fall.  Later in the season clusters of poisonous white berries form.

After the oil has touched the skin, it is wise to sash several times with plenty of soap and water. – Dick Rogers

Climate change seen helping short-lived creatures

OSLO (Reuters) — Climate change is likely to disrupt food chains by favoring animals with short lifespans over often bigger rivals that are worse at tolerating temperature swings, scientists said. The researchers in Germany and Canada said that studies of the physical characteristics of animals showed that all have widely differing "thermal windows" — a range of temperatures in which they best feed, grow and reproduce.

That meant that climate change would not affect all equally.

"Climate change will favor species with wide thermal windows, short life spans, and a large pool amongst its population," the journal said of the findings. Big fish such as cod, which have narrow thermal windows, were moving north in the Atlantic, for instance, partly because the food chain was disrupted by a shift to smaller plankton, reducing the amount of prey on which large fish can feed.

A shift to smaller plankton meant that juvenile cod in the Atlantic had to use more energy to feed, slowing their growth. Female cod tolerate only a narrow "thermal window" when they produce eggs, part of a strategy evolved to cut energy use. The study focused on the oceans but the scientists said the findings may also apply to land creatures.

"Each species covers a certain range. The ranges overlap, but their (thermal) windows are not the same," Hans Poertner, of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, who was one of the authors, told Reuters. Knowledge of the differences could help predict the reactions to climate change, widely blamed on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

In the German Wadden Sea, larger eelpout fish, a long and thin species that grows up to about 500 grammes (1 lb), suffered more quickly than smaller specimens when summer temperatures rose above normal.

"In the Japan Sea, different thermal windows between sardines and anchovies ... caused a regime shift to anchovies in the late 1990s," they wrote. Source: ENN

Where does mold come from?

Patch of Tiny Plants

Mold is really a patch of tiny plants.  Tiny molds “seeds” called spores are carried away by currents of air.  When they land on a material they can use as food, the spores grow into new mold plants.

If you leave a piece of damp bread in the kitchen, in a few days it will be enclosed with a fuzzy bluish – or greenish-gray - patch of mold.  Mold comes from tiny specks in the air, called spores, the “seeds” of the mold.  It is really a tiny, simple plant which belongs to the fungi group.  If you look with a microscope, you will see a tangle of threadlike growth.  The thread serve much the same purpose as roots.

Small rods tapped with little dark knobs grow upward from the threads.  The knobs contain the spores.  When the spores are ripe they burst from the knobs and are carried away by air currents. 

When a spore lands on material that it can use as good, the spore grows into a new mold plant.  Mold cannot make their own food as green plants do.  They must live on food made by  other plants or animals. – Dick Rogers

What is the Parthenon?

The Parthenon is an Ancient Greek Temple that stands on the Acropolis in Athens. In the city of Athens, Greece, stands a small plateau called the Acropolis, or hilltop city. 

Long ago, the ancient Greeks built magnificent temples on top of the Acropolis to honor their gods and goddesses. 

Greek Temple

The most famous Acropolis temple is the Parthenon (pronounced PAHR the non).  It was built in honor of Athena Parthenon, a goddess who supposedly watched over Athens. 

Like other Greek temples of its time, the Parthenon was built of marble and then painted in brilliant colors.  

The walls were decorated with carvings of the people parading to honor Athena.  Inside the temple itself stood a 40-foot-tall ivory and gold statue of the goddess. 

Many parts of the Parthenon were destroyed by time and war.  The statue of Athena was lost long ago. 

Today, in Athens, you can see the ruins of this old marble temple, built more than 2,000 years ago. – Dick Rogers