The sea with no shores

By Ryan | Published: August 18, 2010

How can a sea have no shores? No beaches, no coastline, and not touching any land whatsoever. It can, when that sea is in the middle of an ocean.

The Sargasso Sea floats in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, north of the equator. The water there is the clearest in all the ocean, and the edge of this secret sea can in fact be seen from the air with a noted change in water colour to a deep blue.

The sea is created by a calmness. This expanse of water is free of ocean currents, and generally doesn’t get much wind or storms. It was named the Sargasso Sea by Portuguese sailors in the 15th century who were amazed by the massive collection of seaweed (of the Sargassum variety) that floats in the calm. It is pushed and corralled by the strong ocean currents that surround the area. (those circular currents are called a gyre, created by the Coriolis Effect)

Before modern ships, the Sargasso Sea could be hazardous to sailors. The calm ocean and weak winds could leave ships stranded on the open ocean, unable to move. This part of the world has been named the horse latitudes (between 30 and 35 degrees latitude, both north and south) after an odd sailing tradition that involved parading around the deck with a straw horse and tossing it overboard. Dumping the “dead horse” was to signify working off their debts at about that point in the journey.

Sadly, in modern times the same currents that collect the seaweed have also gathered a fair amount of pollution. There are large puddles of oil and plastic trash in the Sargasso Sea. Just the same as the more famous “plastic island” in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

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Year At The Museum

By Ryan | Published: July 13, 2010

This day, July 13th, marks the occasion of being one year since my Learn Something New Every Day blog was launched. It would be a more joyous event except for the fact that I’ve been delinquent on the “every day” part.

After a slow decline, this past month the blog has been silent. You see, unfortunately, I’ve misplaced my muse.

The Muses, from Greek, and later Roman, mythology, were gods. The original Muses were three sisters born to Gaia (“mother earth”). In later stories they were daughters of Zeus. Either way, their roles were the same; to inspire art.

In the time of ancient Greece, the inspiration went deeper. In fact, the Muses were the holders of all wisdom. At the time when all knowledge was passed around by reciting poems, the original poets didn’t claim to write them so much as to act as the voice of the Muses.

The first museums were temples built to worship the Muses. You can imagine the progression to the modern museum which remains a shrine to wisdom and art.

The word music, as well, is named for the Muses with their rhyming and rhythmic way of speaking in the ancient lyrical poetry.

In later years the Muses grew to nine, and each was assigned a specific genre to preside over. Clio was often depicted holding a scroll as she kept watch over the historians. Terpsichore played the lyre (a small harp) as she inspired dance.

Now, seeing as how we no longer believe in giant, all-powerful people who live in the sky and… er… well… since we don’t believe in the Greek mythology anymore, the specific Muse (with a capital M) has become the generic muse. It’s a title gifted to any person who inspires another’s creative work.

Until I figure out the mystery of my muse, I’m afraid this blog will remain sporadic.

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Who put the polka in the polka dot?

By Ryan | Published: June 7, 2010

Here we are again, and it’s time for me to throw down another mind-blowing, universe-alternating fact. Polka music is not German. Not even Bavarian. It originates from the Kingdom of Bohemia. So much for stereotypes.

Bohemia is the original name for what is now the Czech Republic. The lively dance music originated there around 1850. For the time it was a pretty serious dance craze that swept across the globe. The polka influenced musical cultures from Poland to Peru and gave birth to many new hybrid genres still alive today.

Now let’s get to the primary matter of the polka dot, which is a design pattern usually seen as large solid coloured circles on a white background. How did this rather plain circle become assiciated with the polka? Well, it seems to be purely a marketing ploy.

As the polka craze was conquering the hearts and toes of the people, many merchants were jumping on board selling “polka hats” and “polka curtain ties”. The new fabric design got dubbed
“polka dots” and the name has stuck for no good reason at all.

The word polka seems to come from the Czech word půlka, meaning “little half”. That accurately describes the baby steps that are the signature of the polka dance.

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Name That Cloud

By Ryan | Published: May 20, 2010

It’s finally gotten to the point where I can lay out on the grass and stare at the sky without the risk of being covered in snow. Let’s celebrate with the game show craze that’s not exactly sweeping the nation… Name That Cloud! You’ve probably heard the cloud names before, but if you’re like me, you couldn’t accurately match them up with the real thing. (unless you’re thinking of names like “puffy” and “dark”)

Clouds are classified based on their height and structure.

Clouds below 2000 meters are called stratus.The word comes from Latin for “spread out”. The two types of cloud in this category are nimbostratus and stratocumulus. To my untrained eye, there’s not a big difference between the two, but the stratocumulus should be more lumpy and uneven. Both tend to result in those dreary grey days where it’s trying to rain but not particularly succeeding. Sometimes stratus clouds get low enough to touch… what we call fog.

Above 6000 meters are the cirrus clouds. Cirrus in Latin translates to “curl of hair”. These are the wispy clouds that are just thin lines across an otherwise blue sky. Cirrostratus (high-level, spread out) clouds are nearly invisible, as they are a sparse collection of ice crystals that stretch across wide areas. They sometimes hint at their existence by creating a halo effect around the sun or moon.

Between those two levels, clouds get dubbed “alto”. Either altrostratus or altocumulus. Altostratus (remember “spread out”) is what we call overcast. It’s a light grey covers that dulls the sun, but rarely makes for any rain. Filmmakers love this! Altocumulus clouds show up like ripples across the sky, not unlike the sandy bottom of a lake, and may foretell a coming thunderstorm.

Cumulus clouds, named from Latin for “pile up” (like accumulate), are the stereotypical fluffy cotton-ball clouds. They come and go with a lifespan of 5 to 40 minutes. Everybody loves cumulus clouds. But you do have to watch out for the evil Dr. Jekyll version called cumulonimbus. These are the gigantic, huge, towering clouds that bring powerful storms.

This all should make perfect sense… if you can speak Latin. For the rest of us, here’s the quick memonic guide to souding really smart about clouds.

Spread-out… straddling the sky… Stratus

Fluffy… piled-up… accumulated… Cumulus

Wispy… seriously thin… Cirrus (okay, that one’s a stretch, I admit)

And for those of you who can’t get enough cloud facts, many months ago I wrote a article to calculate how much a cloud weighs. (hint: it’s seriously heavy!)

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How Clowns Use Eggs to Trademark Their Face

By Ryan | Published: May 19, 2010

For the next couple days I’m going to be hanging out with a few hundred people with strange fashion sense at a clown convention. So many clowns, but I shouldn’t have any trouble telling them all apart. You see, to copy another clown’s look is about the worst thing you could do in the funny business.

One form of protection a clown can use is to save their face on an egg. Yes, I just said what I said. There is an “egg registry” for clowns. Around 1946 a member of the International Circus Clowns Club in England started painting his fellow members onto chicken eggs. Each calcified work of art sought to perfectly copy each clown’s look including make-up, wigs, and hats.

It grew to contain thousands of eggs, and became a bit of an official way to lay claim to one’s unique appearance. There is at least one documented court case where the egg was involved to prove intellectual property of a pilfered make-up design. Don’t mess with a clown and his egg!

There is also a separate egg registry started in the U.S. that has grown in the last 25 years to over 700 faces. To see the miniature works of art, I direct you to this photo gallery.

P.S. In case you’re curious… I’m not a clown myself. At least not in the sense of putting on make-up. I’m attending the convention to teach a workshop on improvisational theatre.

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Why are there Ancient Grains on my fresh bread?

By Ryan | Published: May 18, 2010

I just bought a loaf of bread featuring “ancient grains”. (I know… born to be wild!) After carefully checking to make sure the best before date was in this century, I got to wondering just what’s up with these so-called ancient grains.

Fortunately, these grains are just as fresh as any standard wheat would be. The ancient part refers to their pedigree. These grains come from plants which have been un-touched by genetic engineering. I’m not just talking about the high-tech science lab GE stuff. That also refers to the thousands of years worth of selective breeding that the world’s agriculture is built on. These ancient grains are pure and natural as can be.

Ancient grains are making a comeback. One big reason is that they are full of flavour, and healthier too. The domesticated wheat has been tweaked and tuned every year to produce bigger yields, resist disease, and improve on other factors affecting the economics of farming. Along the way, the actual quality (flavour and nutrition) of the crop has suffered. Kamut, for example, is a type of wheat that researchers figure is close to the crop grown in Egypt over 4000 years ago and it packs a healthy punch.

Most interesting is that kamut has shown no ill-affects for people who are severely allergic to wheat. Ancient grains are proving to work nicely with gluten-free diets. They also say that the need to avoid gluten is our body’s natural reaction to the monotony of always eating one-kind-of-wheat and one-kind-of-corn. Adding ancient grains into the mix should keep your stomach happier.

It turns out, I’ve already written about an “ancient grain” without even knowing it when I covered the nutritional aspects of the chia plant. Yes, that’s chia as in Ch-ch-ch-chia pets!

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The Suspiciously Sweet Justice of Aspartame

By Ryan | Published: May 17, 2010

Aspartame! The mere mention of it sends shivers through the spines of proactive label-readers. It is an artificial sweetener that was accidentally discovered to be 180 times sweeter than sugar with no calories. Featured prominently in “NutraSweet” and diet soda drinks, where you will find the words “CONTAINS ASPARTAME” emblazoned on the front label as required by law. But I’m not talking about the health concerns here today.

Rather, I came across a curious history of the legal side of aspartame, and how it came to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to be allowed in food products. In 1970 there were two artificial sweeteners on the market, and they both got banned due to linked health problems. This was just when the GD Searle company was trying to launch its new discovery. Early tests on animals went terribly. Monkeys died. Baby mice got holes in their brains. The company spent millions of dollars on studies until they felt they had enough safety evidence. The FDA wasn’t impressed.

The research was so bad, inaccurate, and apparently manipulated that the FDA asked the US Attorney to start a criminal investigation against the company. That had never happened before. Bad news for the GD Searle company. They bring in reinforcements. They hire Donald Rumsfeld as CEO. Even then he was a heavy-hitter in Washington, having served as Secretary of Defence for former President Gerald Ford. (and of course, he infamously came back to the post for George W. Bush)

As the federal grand jury is investigating GD Searle for criminal intent, the lead attorney on the case jumps ship. He is hired on to the other side working for GD Searle. Call me crazy, but that seems… umm… slightly suspicious. It causes such a mess that the case drops off the map entirely due to the statute of limitations. (they took too long to investigate)

Now 1980, the FDA’s Public Board of Inquiry decides aspartame should not be approved as being a safe food additive. Another serious blow to the fate of the GD Searle company, but the political winds were changing.

Ronald Reagan becomes President of the United States. It just so happens, Reagan has Donald Rumsfeld on his team of advisors, and in the transition, a new FDA Commissioner is hand-picked for the job. One of his first official acts, within months of the switch, was to overrule the previous findings and approve aspartame for use in dry foods. NutraSweet hits the shelves. Ummm… slightly suspicious?

A couple years later, aspartame gets the FDA green light for liquid use, despite safety concerns from the National Soft Drik Association. They say that aspartame can decompose above 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29 C) into the toxins DKP and formaldehyde.

In 1983 this “proactive” FDA commissioner resigns under a pile of controversy, and yet another “umm… suspicious” move, gets hired on as a scientific consultant for the public relations firm of the GD Searle company.

CEO Rumsfeld wins awards for the succesful turnaround of the GD Searle company, which is later bought by Monsanto, the agriculture giant and producer of RoundUp herbicide and genetically-modified seed, which is the subject of some scary conspiracy stories that would curl aspartames’s toes!

And we all live happily ever after… with aspartame!

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