Welcome to the Christmas season: Full of jolly and gentle times. Here are the short bits and pieces of information to sparkle your day.
Bits: Do you know which is the most common cultural activity in the USA? According to a Gallup poll, it is going to the library,…by a lot. On average Americans went to the library 10.5 times each year. After that, going to the movies stood at 5.3 times yearly, followed by sporting events, museums, a concert, a zoo, a national park, or a casino. We do not want to live in a world without libraries!
Pieces: About 12 Billion years ago, a monster galaxy existed at a time that the earth was only 1.8 Billion years old. Researchers found that the galaxy called XMM-2599 formed at a high rate of speed and then died. Scientists do not know why. Perhaps in the course of cosmic history, it will become the central member of one of the brightest and most massive clusters of galaxies in the local universe, suggests astronomy professor Michael Cooper of the University of California Irvine.
Bits: Marseille (often spelled Marseilles and pronounced with a silent final letter s) is France’s oldest and largest port city and the country’s most populous city after Paris. Mountains ringing the city have kept it fairly compact. Marseille has existed for 2,600 years and was founded by the Phoenicians. The city is the younger sister of Tyre and Carthage, successor to the empire of the Mediterranean. The city is home to a population of 850,000 with immigrants from Italy, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, and other countries..
Pieces: Do you like cheese? The British brought 50 Million pounds of colored cheddar to USA in 1863 and named it “American cheese.” During WWI James L. Kraft processed cheeses using a cheddar base. It was packed into soldiers’ rations.
Bits: The amount of moisture on Earth has not changed. The water the dinosaurs drank millions of years ago is the same water that falls as rain today. Water is “the broth of our origins, the pounding circulatory system of the world,” according to an account from the National Geographic’s Environment: Our Impact on the Earth. Human babies are three-quarters water. Two-thirds of our water is used to grow food. Women in developing countries walk an average of 3.7 miles to get water
Pieces: The Solar System was born 4,550 Million years ago when a star exploded at the end of its life. This supernova scattered matter into a cloud of dust and gas and as a result came together to form yet another star…our Sun! Various other chunks of material collided and coalesced and began to form the planets.
Bits: The Second-Century Greek doctor, Antyllus prescribed daily reading to his patients as he recommended it as a health-giving tonic and declaring that “verse is the best for one’s health.” This oral medicine benefits both reader and the one read to.
Pieces: Helicoprions, now extinct, swam the oceans 270 Million years ago. Scientists do not know exactly where the fishes menacing teeth were positioned or how the teeth were used.
Bits: G.K. Chesterton wrote that “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought. And gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”