3rd January: Drinking Straw Day

Today is Drinking Straw Day because it was on this date in 1888 that the Paper drinking straw was patented. It's also a topical subject right now because the single use plastic ones are clogging up the planet and there have been calls to ban them altogether. Here are ten facts about drinking straws.

1. The earliest known drinking straw was found in a Sumerian tomb, dating back to 2000-3000 BC, in what is now Iraq. It was made from Gold inlaid with lapis lazuli. There was a seal in the same tomb with a picture of people drinking (in all probability Beer) with straws.
2. The first modern straws were made from rye grass. Good from the point of view of being biodegradable, but it tended to turn to mush in people's drinks and make them taste of rye grass.
3. It was this which prompted an inventor called Marvin Stone from Ohio to invent the paper straw in the 1880s. He was drinking a Mint julep in Washington DC one summer day and didn't like the fact the straw made his drink taste like grass. He wound a piece of paper around a Pencil and used the paper as a straw instead. Initially the straws were all hand wound, but in 1906 his Stone Straw Company invented a machine to wind the straws.
4. The idea was adapted for use in other industries, too, using other materials but the same idea, a spiral-wound tube. You can find them in electric motors, electronic devices, textiles, cars, fuses, batteries, transformers, Fireworks and packaging.
5. Early straws were most likely invented so that drinkers could avoid the solid by-products of fermentation which sink to the bottom. Today, they are generally used by children (although straws are often provided with alcoholic drinks such as cocktails) and it has been claimed that drinking straws help prevent tooth decay because using one means sugary drinks are less likely to come into contact with the teeth.
6. Is it true that drinking alcoholic drinks through a straw makes you more drunk than drinking them without one? In theory, yes, because a straw works by creating a vacuum as you suck the air out, causing a change in air pressure which makes the liquid rise. The boiling point of alcohol decreases in a vacuum and so you'd be inhaling alcohol vapour which would get into the bloodstream more quickly - however, the amount of alcohol vapour you'd actually get in a straw would not be enough to make any difference. What is more likely to make a difference is that it can be easier to drink though a straw, especially if the drink has ice in it, which means you drink more, and that's what makes you drunk.
7. There are a number of Guinness World Records relating to drinking straws. The record for the longest straw used to drink Coca Cola is held by Mel Sampson who drank Coca-Cola from a straw that was 75.82 meters long. Another record is how many straws a person can hold in their mouth, either using their hands to hold them, or not. The no-hands record is is 459, achieved by Manoj Kumar Maharana (India), in Odisha, India, on 28 August 2017. The with hands record is held by Guinness Rishi, also from India, who managed 496 on 17 March 2011. According to one website, he'd had all his teeth removed so he could stuff more straws into his gob. If that's true, that's true dedication!
8. Variations on a theme of drinking straws include the bendy straw, invented in 1937 by Joseph Friedman after his young daughter had difficulty drinking through a straight straw in her milkshake. There's also the "crazy straw" which has any number of twists and turns and is popular with children. For fussy children who don't like to drink their Milk, there are straws with flavouring in them, and straws which change colour if hot or cold liquid passes through them.
9. Marvin Stone decided the ideal straw was 8 1/2-inches long with a diameter just wide enough to prevent things like Lemon seeds from getting stuck in the tube. McDonalds claims that their wider than average straws make drinks taste better.
10. Talking of McDonald's, it's estimated that McDonald's alone uses at least 60 million plastic straws a day, while the USA in general gets through 500 million a day. That's enough every year to wrap the circumference of the Earth 2.5 times or to fill Yankee Stadium over 9 times. The bad news is that they don't degrade and so they're there forever. People use them once and throw them away because they're difficult to clean. The Ocean Conservancy found plastic straws are in the top 10 most picked up items on the beach on their annual clean up days. Paper straws are making a comeback although most are still plastic. What can we do about it? In Uganda, they've come up with a way to recycle plastic straws and make them into mats and bags. They have uses in arts and crafts - they can be made into mosaics and used to support flower arrangements. One website suggested threading thin jewellery chains through a straw and closing the clasp to stop them getting tangled.

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Secrets and Skies

Jack Ward, President of Innovia, owes his life twice over to the enigmatic superhero, dubbed Power Blaster by the press. No-one knows who Power Blaster is or where he comes from - and he wants it to stay that way.

Scientist Desi Troyes has developed a nuclear bomb to counter the ever present threat of an asteroid hitting the planet. When Ward signs the order giving the go ahead for a nuclear test on the remote Bird Island, he has no inkling of Troyes' real agenda, and that he has signed the death warrants of millions of people.

Although the island should have been evacuated, there are people still there: some from the distant continent of Classica; protesters opposed to the bomb test; and Innovians who will not, or cannot, use their communication devices.

Power Blaster knows he must stop the bomb from hitting the island. He also knows it may be the last thing he ever does.

Meanwhile in Innovia, Ward and his staff gather to watch the broadcast of the test. Nobody, not even Troyes himself, has any idea what is about to happen.

Part One of The Raiders Trilogy.

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