The year is up!
‘People learn something every day, and a lot of times it's that what they learned the day before was wrong.’ Bill Vaughan
08 July 30: Bacteria
When two people kiss, they exchange between 10 million and one billion bacteria.
08 July 29: Emissions
Between the first Earth Day in 1970 and the new millennium, human-made emissions of greenhouse gases rose 70%.
08 July 27: Foundation
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie gave more than $8.5-million to their charitable foundation in 2006.
08 July 26: Levels
Studies show HIV-infected men are more likely to progress to AIDS if they are under high stress than those with lower levels of stress.
08 July 23: Payne
Alexander Payne is on the short list of American directors who have final cut rights for their films.
08 July 20: Cuts
During the worst years of the Depression (1933-1934) the overall jobless rate was 25% with another 25% taking wage cuts or working part-time. The gross national product fell by almost 50%.
08 July 19: Womb
Approximately two-thirds of people tip their head to the right when they kiss. Some scholars speculate this preference starts in the womb.
08 July 17: Balloon
The fastest time to create one balloon dog sculpture is 6.5 seconds by John Cassidy (USA) at the Balloon Saloon store in New York, USA on 28 March 2006.
08 July 14: Regime
Until 1997, contact between tourists and Cubans were de facto outlawed by the Communist regime.
08 July 12: Jeans
An original pair of Levi Strauss & Co (USA) 501 jeans aged over 115 years old was sold to an anonymous Japanese collector for $60,000 through eBay on June 15, 2005.
08 July 10: Eames
The Eames moulded plywood chair, designed by Charles and Ray Eames was named The Best Design of the 20th Century by Time magazine.
08 July 9: Burn
Longest Full-Body Burn (without Oxygen): Ted Batchelor, 2 min 38 sec, Nelson, Ohio, USA, July 17, 2004.
08 July 8: Sofa
Marek Turowski achieved a speed of 148 km/h (92 mph) while driving a motorized sofa at Leicestershire, UK on May 11, 2007.
08 July 7: Wireless
In 1908, U.S. Patent 887,357 for a wireless telephone was issued to Nathan B. Stubblefield of Murray, Kentucky.
08 July 6: Sunlight
‘A daily dose of sunlight may help the immune system guard against invading pathogens and sun-induced skin damage, according to a new study. The findings reveal how immune cells specialize to protect the skin and suggest that staying out of the sun could cause harm if carried too far.’
08 July 5: 720
By August 9, 2001, Elaine Davidson, of Edinburgh, Scotland, had a record-breaking total of 720 piercings.
08 July 3: Waist
Smallest Waist on a Living Person: Cathie Jung, 38.1 cm (15 in), Old Mystic, CT, as of 1999. Cathie Jung's waist is about the same size as a regular jar of mayonnaise. She's been wearing a corset every day for years, and now wears one 24 hours a day.
08 July 2: Instructions
Dolphins have been known to instruct each other as well as receive instructions and act accordingly.
08 July 1: Gallons
Estimated number of gallons of extra gasoline burned each year because Americans are overweight: 938,000,000
08 June 30: Anaesthesia
The 1 or 2% of people who are redheads may require as much as 20% more anaesthesia than blonds or brunettes.
08 June 28: Chain
On December 11, 2004, over 5 million people joined hands to form a human chain, 1,050km (652.4 miles) long from Teknaf to Tentulia, Bangladesh.
08 June 26: Hummer
On July 19, 2007, Paris Hilton attempted to demonstrate her environmental consciousness by telling Us Weekly magazine that she had ordered a Hummer Hybrid.
08 June 22: Eusocial
‘Some insects, such as ants and bees, live in eusocial groups, in which different members carry out specialized jobs to help maintain the colony.’
08 June 21: Ozone
‘A major component of smog, ozone is a by-product of chemical reactions involving nitrogen oxides and other pollutants. It oxidizes lung tissue, causing inflammation. This exacerbates asthma and leads to other respiratory problems.’
08 June 20: Venography
venography: ‘injecting radioactive material into veins for medical examination’
08 June 19: Dyslexics
‘All dyslexics are not alike. According to new research, Chinese- and English-speaking people with the disorder have impairments in different regions of their brains. The findings shed light on the neurological basis of dyslexia and reveal fundamental differences in how brains process the two languages.’
08 June 18: Birdseed
People dish out 500,000 metric tons of birdseed each year in the United States and the United Kingdom.
08 June 17: Cereal
Mothers who eat at least one bowl of cereal per day are more likely to bear sons.
08 June 16: Choice
Researchers have found patterns of brain activity that predict people’s decisions up to 10 seconds before they’re aware they’ve made a choice.
08 June 15: Arsenic
Scientists warn that some rice products for infants contain worrisome levels of arsenic.
08 June 14: Mobile
Minimum number of South Africans who do their banking entirely by mobile phone: 500,000
08 June 10: Rococo
During the Rococo Period, men's clothing became so colourful that women began to feel threatened.
08 June 9: Splashy
152,000 votes were tallied in an online Greenpeace poll last fall to name a humpback whale in the South Pacific; 79 percent favoured the name Mr. Splashy Pants.
08 June 8: Blood
In an average healthy adult, the volume of blood is about one-eleventh of the body weight.
08 June 5: Memory
A team of neuroscientists reports results suggesting that the continuing activity of a particular enzyme is somehow necessary to maintain long-term memory, something that's not predicted by most current hypotheses on the mechanisms of memory.
08 June 2: Shaadi
Number of different skin tones that members of the South Asian matchmaking site Shaadi.com can register as having: 6
08 June 1: Academy
The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held Thursday, May 16, 1929, at the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood to honor outstanding film achievements of 1927 and 1928.
08 May 29: Bruxism
Bruxism - the grinding of teeth at night - affects anywhere from 15 to 96 percent of the adult population at some point in their lives.
08 May 28: Zappos
Zappos offers new call-centre employees US$1,000 on top of what they have earned after a few weeks of intensive training, if they want to quit. The theory is that the people who take the money ‘obviously don't have the sense of sense of commitment’ Zappos requires. About 10% of its trainees take the offer.
08 May 24: Victoria
Victoria Day, colloquially known as May Two-four, May Long, or May Run is a federal Canadian statutory holiday celebrated on the last Monday before or on 24 May, in honour of Queen Victoria's birthday.
08 May 22: Cathode
The origin of video games lies in early cathode ray tube-based missile defence systems in the late 1940s.
08 May 20: Gravity
Without the compressive force of gravity, your spinal column expands and you grow taller, usually by between 5 and 8cm.
08 May 16: Uniforms
Biologists found that those English soccer teams with red uniforms tend to win more often.
08 May 13: Eudaimonistic
On Happiness, two theories predominate:
‘The first says happiness comes when pleasure is at a maximum – the ‘hedonistic theory.’ The second holds that we are happy when we find meaning, even if it is through effort and frustration – the ‘eudaimonistic theory,’ from the Greek daimon, our true self.’
‘The first says happiness comes when pleasure is at a maximum – the ‘hedonistic theory.’ The second holds that we are happy when we find meaning, even if it is through effort and frustration – the ‘eudaimonistic theory,’ from the Greek daimon, our true self.’
08 May 12: Taboo
‘During the war, Chinese feminists continued their struggle on two fronts. In 1938, Mao Liying founded the Chinese Career Women's Club in Shanghai, which addressed both their society's gender assumptions and the Japanese occupation.
In Shanghai, where public baths were closed to women, members of the club held ‘bathing parties,’ during which they rented a hotel room, and in which they sang, danced and ate, as they took turns taking baths. Club members also bicycled around Shanghai in groups, breaking another cultural taboo.’
Source: ‘Shanghai in 1942’
In Shanghai, where public baths were closed to women, members of the club held ‘bathing parties,’ during which they rented a hotel room, and in which they sang, danced and ate, as they took turns taking baths. Club members also bicycled around Shanghai in groups, breaking another cultural taboo.’
Source: ‘Shanghai in 1942’
08 May 11: Benz
The film version of Sex And The City has just about as many Mercedes-Benz cars as it has pairs of Manolo Blahniks.
08 May 10: IAT
The Implicit Association Test is based on the observation that we make connections much more quickly between pairs of ideas that are already related in our minds than we do between pairs of ideas that are unfamiliar to us. Try a computerized IAT at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/.
08 May 9: Lavender
Whiffing lavender oil during your next dental visit may blur the memory of your pain.
08 May 8: Pashmina
The test for a quality pashmina has been warmth, feel and the passing of the shawl through a wedding ring.
08 May 6: Facial
The Geisha is the latest facial to hit New York City. It is a $180 mask made with bird excrement. Article here.
08 May 5: Advertising
2 in 3 U.S. public schools accept advertising from corporations that sell junk food.
08 May 4: Anvil
Anvil has released thirteen studio albums, and has been cited as having influenced many notable heavy metal groups.
08 May 2: Intervention
The Snobby Coffee Intervention at Un-Snobby Coffee is a Washington McDonald's marketing campaign designed to ‘help a friend kick their snobbish habit.’
08 May 1: Heartache
Days of ‘heartache leave’ that employees of one Japanese cosmetics company are allowed to take each year: 3
08 April 29: ‘1’
Amount a businessman in the UAE paid this year for the nation's license-plate number ‘1’: $14,000,000
08 April 27: Southdale
The Southdale shopping centre in Minnesota is the world's first true shopping mall, making it a landmark as important to architectural history as the Louvre or New York's Woolworth Tower.
08 April 25: Inter@ctive
In 1998, Research in Motion (RIM) released the Inter@ctive Two-Way Pager. A year later, RIM introduced the BlackBerry to the world.
08 April 24: Kitchen
According to a 27-country survey for IKEA by IsoPublic, a polling firm, less than 20% of Chinese families eat in the kitchen compared with 64% of Canadian and over 50% of American ones.
08 April 23: Poiret
Paul Poiret, King of Fashion, liberated women from the ‘stifling, tight-waisted, hoop-skirted monstrosities’ of the 19th century. ‘Poiret effected a concomitant revolution in dressmaking, one that shifted the emphasis away from the skills of tailoring to ... the skills of draping.’
08 April 19: Scenting
A dog's extraordinary scenting ability can distinguish people with both early and late stage lung and breast cancer.
08 April 16: Concrete
In less than 12 years, a Mediterranean weed has adjusted its reproductive strategy to deal with the challenge of concrete.
08 April 13: DPs
Estimates for the number of displaced persons during World War II varies from 11 million to as many as 20 million.
08 April 12: Wine
The brain experiences expensive wine as being more pleasurable than cheap wine even if it recognizes that both wines taste the same.
08 April 11: Skylab
During the skylab missions of the 1970s it was discovered that chicken eggs cannot be fertilized in space.
08 April 9: Cognition
Scents of coffee and chocolate have a significant effect on enhancing cognition and clerical office work.
08 April 8: Aztecs
The ancient Aztecs believed we are born without a face and that we must win our faces bit by bit as we grow.
08 April 7: Signs
In both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, loss of olfactory sensitivity is thought to be among the earliest signs of the disease.
08 April 4: Factor
For heterosexual women, smell is the number one physical factor in sexual attraction, as well as the most important social factor, aside from pleasantness. Men also tune in to the important scent messages given off by a woman, but they tend to rely more on their eyes than their noses.
08 April 2: Olfactory
The 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Richard Axel (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, New York, NY) and Linda Buck (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA) for a series of studies that led to their groundbreaking discovery of the gene family responsible for odorant receptors and clarified how the olfactory system works.
08 April 1: Jubes
In the United States, Jujubes is the brand name of a particular type of candy, whereas in Canada the word is generic, and describes any of many similar confections.
08 March 31: PR
Edward L. Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, is widely recognized as the father of public relations.
08 March 30: Insured
A U.S. study found that most free prescription-drug samples go to wealthy, insured patients, a different study found that black and Hispanic emergency-room patients are less likely than whites to receive narcotic pain medication, and a third study found that blacks receive poorer nursing-home care than whites.
08 March 28: Robot
Japanese scientists unveiled a robot that plays the violin, a robot that solves Rubik's Cubes, a robot that recognizes itself in a mirror, a robot snowplow that eats snow and excretes ice bricks, a robot exoskeleton that can be worn by elderly farmers, and a robot that walks at the command of a monkey on a treadmill in North Carolina.
08 March 27: Origami
More news from space: Japanese scientists and origami masters, headed by Shinji Suzuki, are aiming to launch a paper airplane from space to see if it can make it back to Earth.
08 March 26: Boomerang
In an unprecedented experiment, Japanese astronaut Takao Doi has thrown a boomerang in space and confirmed it flies back.
08 March 25: Di
Princess Diana's funeral was viewed by an estimated 2.5 billion people around the world.
08 March 21: SXSW
South by Southwest (SXSW, Inc.) has produced the internationally-recognized Music and Media Conference & Festival in Austin, TX since 1987.
08 March 18: Settlement
$1.7 billion: Estimated amount of the world's largest-ever divorce settlement, between financier Rupert Murdoch and his wife of 32 years, in 2000.
08 March 17: Bleaching
‘The linguistic community applies the term ‘semantic bleaching’ to refer to a word that through high frequency of usage has lost its original meaning or intent’ (e.g., ‘indie’).
08 March 16: PET
The first complete personal computer was the Commodore PET introduced in January 1977.
08 March 15: Caricatures
The front entrance of Toronto's Old City Hall is adorned with caricatures of late 19th century city councillors. Carver Arthur Tennison also included a stone carving of the building's architect, E.J. Lennox.
08 March 14: Laced
Four Danish prison guards have been treated for poisoning after eating a drug-laced cake baked by prisoners.
08 March 12: Peahens
A new 7-year study questions the notion that female peahens prefer a male peacock with a gorgeous train, reporting that females in a feral population of Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) showed no such preference.
08 March 11: Spit
Astronauts can’t spit after they brush their teeth, so they swallow the (edible) foam, spit and everything else.
08 March 10: Vikings
‘Vikings dressed with more finesse than we previously gave them credit for, a new study out of Sweden finds; vivid colours, flowing silk ribbons, and glittering bits of mirrors all contributed to their glamorous wardrobe. The men were particularly vain, while the women dressed quite provocatively.’
08 March 8: Bunny
Puck Bunny – ‘a female ice hockey fan, often one whose interest in the sport is primarily motivated by sexual attraction to the players.’
[Puck Bunny accessories are available on sites like this or this.]
[Puck Bunny accessories are available on sites like this or this.]
08 March 7: Gold
Lam Sai Wing, chairman of Hang Fung, has a 24-karat gold toilet in his Hong Kong jewellery shop.
08 March 6: Language
According to the Oxford dictionary, ‘eye language’ is ‘the process of communication by the expression of the eyes.’
08 March 5: Degree
Percentage of immigrants who arrived in Canada before 2001 with a university degree: 28; percentage of recent immigrants with a university degree: 51.
08 March 4: Kissing
‘A recent University at Albany, NY, study that looks at kissing showed men expect lip-locking to lead to sex about half the time; and women only about one-third of the time.’
08 March 3: Shui
‘A McDonald’s fast-food outlet near Los Angeles has been redesigned along the principles of feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of creating harmonious relationships, in part to reflect the population make-up of the Hacienda Heights community.’
08 March 2: Casanova
Legendary Italian lover Giacomo Casanova courted his romantic interests with a cup of chocolate instead of champagne.
08 March 1: Thermablade
A selection of professional hockey players from different NHL teams will soon be hitting the ice with new battery-powered, heated hockey skates designed to cut the ice with better speed, precision, and control. The Thermablade, a new product manufactured and sold out of Quebec, is made without a boot and is designed instead to be used to replace the blades of existing hockey skates. The invention of an Alberta native, Tory Weber’s idea that a warm blade would cut across ice better than a cold one has attracted a large number of investors, including Hockey Legend Wayne Gretzky and is expected to be officially accepted by the NHL after just two weeks of in-game testing.
Full story and pictures here.
Full story and pictures here.
08 February 28: Candies
In 2007, ‘sales of Halloween themed candies led the way with a 4.8% increase in chocolate Halloween themed candies and an 8.7% increase in non-chocolate themed candies. This trend, which started in 2005, shows retailers focused on packaging decorated with Halloween themes such as witches and goblins...’
08 February 27: Savage
In 1991, Dan Savage was living in Madison, Wisconsin, working as a manager at a local video store that specialized in independent film titles. There he befriended Tim Keck, co-founder of The Onion, who announced he was moving to Seattle to help start an alternative weekly newspaper, The Stranger. Savage ‘made the offhand comment that forever altered [his] life: ‘Make sure your paper has an advice column—everybody claims to hate 'em, but everybody seems to read 'em.’
08 February 26: Spice
As of February 2000, the Spice Girls had certified sales of 35 million albums and 18.2 million singles.
08 February 25: Blood
‘Polish taxmen are offering Poles the chance to pay their tax bills in blood ... Every donation to the local blood banks will allow Poles to write $60 off their tax bill.’
08 February 24: Marlies
The Toronto Marlies are a junior league feeder team for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Today they set a new attendance record of 8120.
08 February 23: Prime
Weekdays from noon to 2pm is the most popular time for people to watch TV shows online.
08 February 22: Queen
Since its original survey in 1793, Queen Street in Toronto has had many names. For its first sixty years, many sections were referred to as Lot Street, but in 1851 it was renamed for Queen Victoria.
08 February 21: Obama
The average speaking speed for politicians making presentations is 120-125 words a minute. This compares with 170-180 words a minute in regular conversation. Barack Obama speaks as few as 110 words a minute.
08 February 20: Libido
Feed your libido. ‘Pistachio nuts are really good because they contain an amino acid called arginine, and that's to help both genders to increase their genital circulation to help with sexual functioning.’
08 February 19: Goby
‘Subordinate goby fish stay slim so they won't be a threat to their superiors. That way, the underlings won't get evicted.’
08 February 18: Pool
For accurate shots in pool, find out which eye is your dominant eye. If your dominant eye is not over the stick, you’ll aim off-centre. More tips here.
08 February 17: Butter
The word butter comes from bou-tyron, which seems to mean ‘cowcheese’ in Greek.
08 February 16: Bigspy
Bigspy on Digg Labs displays upcoming stories on your computer screen as people digg them (bigger stories have more diggs).
08 February 15: -san
In Japanese, -san is a title of respect added to a name. It can be used with both male and female names, and with either surnames or given names. It can also be attached to the name of occupations and titles.
08 February 14: Formation
‘The mission of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation.’
08 February 12: Snot
Your nose and sinuses make about a quart of snot every day. Boogers are a sign that your nose is working the way it should!
08 February 11: EA
‘Electronic Arts (EA) received 93 out of 100 on the 2004 Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, which measures how equitably employers treat their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) employees, consumers and investors.’
08 February 10: NoHo
‘Greenwich Village is an area from 14th Street to Houston Street in Manhattan. In the early decades of the 20th century the word got around that The Village was the place to live ‘the free life’ as it was then called. It is now home to Washington Square Park and NYU. NoHo is a newly designated historic district famous for its up-and-coming fashion designers and artists.’
08 February 9: Method
Method Home Cleaning Products are biodegradable, toxicity-free, not tested on animals – and in bottles designed by Karim Rashid.
08 February 8: Massage
Two of the greatest physiological changes produced by massage therapy are an increase in blood circulation and an increase in lymphatic fluid circulation.
08 February 7: Pentagon
‘More than 20 public information specialists are assigned as liaisons with the film and television industry. They review scripts and proposals, advise producers on military procedures, and decide how much assistance, if any, a film or TV show portraying the military should receive.’
08 February 6: Philanthropy
‘In a recent year, American corporations and their foundations gave more than $12 billion to a variety of causes. Although there is a common perception that corporate philanthropy provides the lion's share of donations, the actual percentage is very small. Of the $241 billion given in 2002, only 5.1 percent was from corporations. The largest amount of money given, 76.3 percent, was given by individuals.’
08 February 5: MS
‘In multiple sclerosis, the body mistakenly directs antibodies and white blood cells against proteins in the myelin sheath, a fatty substance that insulates nerve fibers in your brain and spinal cord. This results in inflammation and injury to the sheath and ultimately to the nerves that it surrounds. The result may be multiple areas of scarring (sclerosis). Eventually, this damage can slow or block the nerve signals that control muscle coordination, strength, sensation and vision.’
08 February 4: History
Sunday's Superbowl was the most-watched ever, with 97.5 million viewers in the United States, a total that is second only to the M-A-S-H finale audience. The final M-A-S-H episode, which drew 106 million viewers in 1983, is the only other show in American broadcast history watched by more people.
08 February 3: Consumption
Superbowl Sunday is the second-largest U.S. food consumption day, following Thanksgiving.
08 February 2: Bar-Lev
‘Amir Bar-Lev grew up in Berkeley and graduated from Brown University. In 2001 he made his directorial debut with Fighter, which followed two Holocaust survivors on their emotional return to a Czech labor camp. The film was named one of the top documentaries of the year by several leading publications. Bar-Lev’s second feature documentary – My Kid Could Paint That – focuses on the meteoric rise, fall and re-emergence of Marla Olmstead, a four-year-old abstract painter from Binghamton, New York.’
08 February 1: Coverage
‘With television news offering only minimal coverage of conflicts around the world, viewers increasingly turn to the intrepid documentarian to fill the gap.’
08 January 31: New Museum
New York's New Museum of Contemporary Art was conceived by architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of the Japanese firm Sanaa as a series of mismatched galleries precariously stacked one atop the other.
08 January 30: Credit
New York offers a refundable tax credit equal to 15% of production costs for feature films, television pilots and TV movies/miniseries ... For location and other costs to be eligible, either 1) at least 75% of the location shooting days must be in New York, or 2) production spends at least $3 million on facility-related costs.
08 January 29: Green
Green-links.org is an online resource for the environmental community of New York.
08 January 28: Equation
‘The writers’ strike is not a factor in the film financing equation – yet. ‘The strike is having no effect on film slates,’ says one fund manager. ‘This is a TV production strike, not a motion picture strike, unless it goes another few months.’’
08 January 27: Grace
Sundance 2007 is where Weinstein Co. fought for the right to pay $4 million for worldwide rights to Grace is Gone, which went on to earn just $37,000 in its domestic release.
08 January 26: Backlash
At Sundance 2008, ‘[t]op celebs, it seems, have a case of swag backlash. They're being more circumspect this year, eschewing obvious gift suite appearances and the attendant phalanx of photogs.’
08 January 25: Renfro
On January 15, Brad Renfro - the young actor who first gained fame at age 12 in 1994's The Client - was found dead at his LA home (at press time, autopsy pending, the coroner's office said the cause may have been an accidental overdose of alcohol and Xanax).
08 January 24: Oprah
Oprah is launching the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) in conjunction with Discovery Communications.
08 January 22: Page
Ellen Page, star of Juno, is set to headline Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, Whip It.
08 January 21: Distinction
‘There are more than 100 bars and restaurants in Park City, many of them or or near Main Street. In fact, Park City has more bars per capita than any city in Utah, a distinction it has held since the silver-boom days.’
08 January 20: Slamdance
‘Once known as the rebellious younger sibling of the Sundance Film Festival, Slamdance has become a respected event in its own right, having found theatrical distribution for over 50 films in its 13-year span while helping launch some of the most successful careers in Hollywood.’
08 January 19: Gangsters
‘A discussion of men's fashion during the 1930s would be incomplete without recognizing the gangster influence. Gangsters, while despised as thieves, paradoxically projected an image of businessmen because of the suits they wore.’
08 January 17: Feist
After 2004's breakthrough Let It Die, Feist's follow-up album, The Reminder, launched her into the mainstream (before Apple picked her single ‘1234’ to accompany a new iPod commercial).
08 January 16: Vibrator
‘In 1906, a housewife could send away for her very own electric vibrator, as advertised in the pages of Women's Home Companion.’
08 January 15: Pusan
‘This October, Pusan International Film Festival screened 275 films in its official program, 193 of which were world, international, or Asia premieres...’
08 January 14: Sundance
‘Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization based in Park City, Utah, and founded by actor/director/producer Robert Redford in 1981. Emerging and aspiring filmmakers, directors, producers, film composers, screenwriters, playwrights, and theatre artists from around the world attend highly competitive artistic development programs run by the Institute, to assist them in developing their craft.’
08 January 13: Fumes
Consumers, not just factory workers, may be in danger from fumes from the buttery flavouring in microwave popcorn, according to a warning letter to U.S. federal regulators from a doctor at Denver's National Jewish Medical and Research Center, a leading lung research hospital.
08 January 12: Porcelain
Porcelain tile is a unique type of ceramic tile fired at extreme temperatures, making it much stronger than ordinary ceramic tile and even harder than granite.
08 January 11: Injurious
Porn was first seriously restricted in Japan in the Meiji Era, when materials deemed ‘injurious to public morals’ were banned. After Japan’s defeat in WWII, American authorities changed many of Japan’s laws to guarantee freedom of speech and expression – but the pre-existing law regarding porn remains in effect to this day.
08 January 10: Chai
‘The word for ‘life’ in Hebrew is ‘chai.’ The two Hebrew letters that make up the word ‘chai’ are chet and yud. In Gematria (the numerical value of Hebrew letters), chet is equivalent to 8 and yud is equivalent to 10. So ‘chai’, chet and yud together, equals 18. Giving money in multiples of $18 is symbolic of giving ‘chai’ or life. Many people give money in multiples of $18 as presents to someone celebrating a birth, a bar or bat mitzvah or a wedding.’
08 January 9: Culturepreneurs
Culturepreneurs: ‘a new generation of twentysomething, business-minded culture obsessives who generate income from arty pursuits that have previously been notoriously poor sources of revenue – such as fanzines, street theatre, DVDs, and indie clothing lines.’
08 January 8: Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto called her time at Harvard the ‘four of the happiest years of my life’ and said it formed ‘the very basis of [her] belief in democracy.’
08 January 7: Phobics
The National Phobics Society estimates at least four million Britons are affected by toilet phobia. People experience extreme anxiety, deny themselves fluids, and – in worst case scenarios – become housebound as result of their inability to relieve themselves in public restrooms.
08 January 6: Permission
Tim Rice-Oxley gave Coldplay permission to use the name ‘Coldplay,’ which he had rejected for his own band as he thought it was ‘too depressing.’
08 January 5: Homey
‘Much of the language shaped by rappers was popular ‘back in the day,’ in the 1980's, 70's and 60's, and probably goes back much farther. Words like ‘fly’ and ‘homey’ are more old-school than most people think; they date at least to the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt . . . they had pretty much the same meanings they have today (‘cool’ and ‘from the neighborhood’).’
‘Shorties and Scholars Agree, the Word Is Rap’ (New York Times)
‘Shorties and Scholars Agree, the Word Is Rap’ (New York Times)
08 January 4: Weather
The Weather Channel reaches more than 95 million American households. With 32 million unique visits a day, it has more hits than Facebook or MySpace.
08 January 3: Satellite
1.5 million Canadians work out of their homes or satellite business centres at least a few days a week.
08 January 2: Gladwell
Writer Malcolm Gladwell has called the British magazine Car ‘the finest magazine in the English language.’
08 January 1: Koch
Edward I. Koch, the 105th mayor of New York whose slogan was How'm I doing?, kept the following maxim on his desk at City Hall: ‘If you say it can't be done, you are right, you can't do it.’
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