Category Archives: Interesting Facts

Fun and interesting facts

We Eat Beetles On A Daily Basis

By Ryan | Published: June 8, 2011

Yesterday we learned that pigments, the chemical compounds that add colour to everything, have to be sourced from somewhere. Some of those sources will gross you out. You, ma’am, have bugs on your face right now. Carmine red is a popular pigment for it vibrant red colour. The source of carmine is the Dactylopius coccus, [...]

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How Pigments Determine Colour

By Ryan | Published: June 7, 2011

Artists and painters have it good. They can fulfill their imagination with all the colours they could ever want. But it wasn’t always so. Ancient cave paintings were pretty well limited to dark browns and reds, making use of rusted iron or earth. Bright blue and purple have become associated with royalty because, up until [...]

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Making Cheddar Cheese Turn Yellow

By Ryan | Published: June 3, 2011

Cheese is made from milk. Milk is white. So why is your cheddar cheese yellow? It does not get that way from the natural process of making cheese. The colour comes from adding annatto. This comes from the fruit of the Anachio tree found in tropical South America. In that area it may be commonly [...]

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I Eat My Peasen With Honey

By Ryan | Published: May 17, 2011

I’m always interested in how words evolve over time. Nowadays we have the dictionary to settle all disputes about what’s proper or not, but the whole idea of the printed word is relatively new. As languages were created and shared through speaking, much like the telephone game, when the word was finally written down at [...]

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How Raspberry Flavour Became Blue

By Ryan | Published: May 13, 2011

Why are there so many candies and treats that are “blue raspberry” flavour? There is no such thing as a blue raspberry in the natural world. Most all raspberries are red, though the Rubus leucodermis, sometimes called a “blue raspberry” does turn from dark red to purple as it ripens. The flavour is purely an [...]

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One Lightbulb, Two Switches, Three Ways

By Ryan | Published: May 12, 2011

I assume we all have a basic understanding of an electric circuit. You run two wires between each end of a battery, and each terminal of a lightbulb socket, and let there be light. You can add a switch in the middle of one of the wires to break the flow of electricity and now [...]

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105 Ways To Eat A Peanut

By Ryan | Published: May 11, 2011

In 1916, the American south was in the midst of the boll weevil crisis. The small beetle came from Mexico and was “just a-lookin’ for a home”. It was wreaking havoc on the cotton crops, which was the primary industry in much of the southern US at the time. That year, George Washington Carver was [...]

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