21 March: Lawns

In the 21st century, today is, on average, the day people in the UK mow their lawns for the first time.

1. What is a lawn? It is generally defined as an area composed of grass species which is maintained to keep it weed free, Green, and of an acceptable length. The word is used to refer to such areas around houses, commercial buildings and parks. However, some grass areas meeting this description are not seen as lawns at all - turf, court, pitch, field or green are used to describe grass areas used for sport. If you define this type of space as a lawn, then the most expensive lawn in the world is the Centre Court at Wimbledon, which is composed of perennial ryegrass.
2. The word lawn comes from the Common Brittonic word landa, which means heath, barren land, or clearing.
3. The word was not used to mean a managed grass space until the 16th century. Back then, a lawn would be virtually indistinguishable from pasture fields.
4. In the 17th and 18th centuries, lawns became a status symbol for the aristocracy and gentry; it showed the landowner had enough land that he didn't need to use it all for producing food.
5. Most lawns are composed of grass. Grasses are technically called “graminoids” and are herbaceous plants with narrow leaves which grow from their base.
6. There are over 10,000 types of grass species in the world, and more than 20% of the vegetation cover of Earth is grassland. Scientists have found a species of seagrass in the Mediterranean Sea dating back 200,000 years, making it one of the oldest living organisms humans have ever discovered. The largest species of grass is giant Bamboo, which can grow up to 151 feet tall.
7. A typical lawn has about six grass plants per square inch. That’s 850 per square foot; a square foot can contain as many as 3,000 individual blades of grass.
8. The average lawn grows at a rate of about three inches per month.
9. About 65% of all water used in American households is used for watering lawns. Also, more chemical fertilizer and pesticides are used per acre of lawn than on an the same area of cultivated farmland.
10. The state of one's lawn has become symbolic in films of how good a person someone is - the less pristine the lawn the more corrupt and unpleasant the character is likely to be.

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20 March: World Frog Day

It's World Frog Day. Here are some things you might not know about frogs.

1. There are around 5,000 species of frog in the world. The largest is the Goliath frog which can grow to be over a foot long and weigh as much as a newborn baby, while the smallest is the gold frog, which is 1cm long.
2. Every species of frog has a unique call and some can be heard over a mile away.
3. Frogs have permeable skin and so they don't need to drink - they absorb Water through their skin instead. There is a type of frog in Indonesia that breathes entirely through its skin as well, and has no lungs.
4. A group of frogs is called an ‘army’.
5. Frogs have what is called a biphastic life - ie they start off as aquatic larvae (tadpoles) which turn into adult frogs. Some species of frog actually care for their young. Poison dart frogs protect their eggs and wee on them to keep them moist. Other frogs will deposit unfertilised eggs into the water for their tadpoles to eat if food becomes scarce. The Darwin's frog has probably the most unusual parenting strategy. The male swallows the tadpoles as they hatch and keeps them in his vocal sac for about 60 days until they turn into tiny frogs, and then he spits them out.
6. Frogs are known for their jumping ability. Some frogs can jump over 20 times their own body length; equivalent to a human jumping 30m. One frog, the African frog, does even better. It can jump 14 feet (4.2 meters) in a single bound. There are frogs that don't jump at all, like the waxy tree frog, which walks instead.
7. Many frogs hibernate, and while they do, their bones form rings, rather like a tree trunk does, so if you find a frog skeleton you can slice through the bones to find out how old the frog was when it died. There is one North American frog which freezes solid in winter. The wood frog's body shuts down completely and the water in its cells is replaced with glucose and urea to keep cells from collapsing. In the spring, it thaws out and hops off with no ill effects.
8. A frog completely sheds its skin about once a week - and then eats it.
9. A frog will eat anything it can fit into its mouth - insects, Spiders, worms, Slugs, larvae and even small fish. A frog catches its prey with a long sticky tongue which moves really fast so the prey doesn't know what hit it. A frog's tongue can snap back into its mouth in 15/100ths of a second. When a frog swallows its food, it uses its eyes. A frog's eyes retract into its head to help push food down its throat.
10. In Egypt the frog is the symbol of life and fertility, and in Egyptian mythology Heget is a frog-goddess who represents fertility.

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19 March: Let's Laugh Day

Today is Let’s Laugh Day. Here are a few things you might not know about laughter.

1. Scientists believe laughter in human beings pre-dates speech by millions of years.
2. Humans aren't the only creatures which laugh. Scientists have found that Rats laugh if you tickle their necks; and primates make noises which have been interpreted as laughter. KoKo the gorilla, who was famous for communicating in sign language, used to make a "ho ho" sound when someone she liked came to visit. If you hear a parrot laugh, though, keep your distance - in parrots it's a sign of aggression.
3. Adults laugh about 15 - 30 times per day, with women laughing slightly more often than men. Babies, however, laugh 300 times a day.
4. Some laughter related words - there's a word for the study of laughter and the effects it has on the body - Gelotology, from gelos, the Greek word for laughter.
5. The word 'agelastic' means 'without laughter'. There are actually some well known figures in history who are said to have rarely, if ever laughed. Isaac Newton is said to have laughed only once in his life, when someone asked him what was the point of studying Euclid. Stalin, Jonathan Swift, and W.E. Gladstone were allegedly equally humourless. Spinoza, a 17th-century Dutch rationalist and lens grinder, is said only to have laughed when watching Spiders fight to the death.
6. Studies of laughter have found that only about 105 of laughs are prompted by jokes. Most people laugh at banal comments made by other people, and a person watching a funny film with other people is 30 times more likely to laugh than someone watching the same film alone. This shows laughter has a function in human social bonding. Also, People laugh more (by almost 50%) when they’re doing the talking than when someone else is talking; and most often at the end of a sentence. People are also more likely to laugh at a comedian they are familiar with than one they've never seen before.
7. Why can't you make yourself laugh by tickling yourself? Because your brain knows exactly what your fingers are going to do, so there's no surprise.
8. Is there a universally funny joke which would make literally everyone laugh? In a word, no, although it has been theorised that the ideal length for a joke is 103 words. What is pretty much guaranteed to make everyone laugh is showing them a film of someone else trying desperately not to laugh when it would be most inappropriate to do so, such as when reading the news. Would it have worked on Stalin, Spinoza or Isaac Newton? We'll never know.
9. The saying goes that laughter is the best medicine. It has been shown to reduce production of the stress hormone cortisol, lower blood sugar, promote blood flow and boost the immune system. 10 to 15 minutes of laughing a day can burn up to 40 calories. There's even laughter yoga, in which people do laughing exercises.
10. That said, it can be bad for you, too. Laughing too much has been known to trigger asthma attacks and even heart attacks. Tickling has even been used as a form of torture. There are instances where laughter has literally killed people. Anthony Trollope is said to have died laughing; Cleopatra said her retainer died from laughter after witnessing her husband's death, while Zeuxis, a 5th-century BC Greek painter, is said to have died laughing at one of his own pictures of the goddess Aphrodite – after the old woman who commissioned it insisted on modelling for it. A more modern day example was a man in King's Lynn who died after laughing solidly for 25 minutes while watching an episode of The Goodies. His widow didn't blame the Goodies for his death - she actually wrote and thanked them for making her late husband's last minutes so pleasant.

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More details about my books. Follow this link if you like Superheroes, Psychics and/or quirky short stories. 

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18 March: Casey Jones Day

Casey Jones is an American folk hero and probably the most famous train driver ever. Here are ten things you might not know about him:

1. His real name was Luther Jones - the nickname "Casey" came from the town his family lived in - Cacey, Kentucky.
2. Like many small boys, Casey Jones dreamed of becoming a train driver, or an engineer as the profession was known in those days. He started his career at 15, as a telegrapher for the Mobile and Ohio railroad.
3. His first experience as a passenger driver was at the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago, Illinois, in 1893. There was to be a shuttle train for visitors to the fair, and Casey volunteered. He spent the summer there, and when it was over, he asked for the job of driving a brand new type of engine, No. 638, back to Tennessee for a service. It was the first cross country trip for the engine. He continued to drive it in service until 1900 when he transferred to Memphis.
4. There, he started driving Engine No. 382, known affectionately as "Ole 382.", or "Cannonball", the one most associated with him.
5. Five years before his fatal accident, Casey Jones made a heroic rescue of a child on the railway line. A fellow engineer was driving the train while Casey was walking out on the running board, oiling valves. He was bout to return to the cab when he noticed a bunch of children playing chicken on the line. Most of them got well out of the way but one little girl froze in terror at the sight of the oncoming train. He yelled at his colleague to throw the train in reverse and to the girl to get off the line - but she didn't move. Casey climbed onto the cowcatcher at the front of the train, reached out and pulled her, unharmed, off the track.
6. One of the things Casey Jones was known for was his punctuality, and the fact his trains always ran on time. He was so punctual, it was said that people set their watches by him. He would push his engine to its limits in order to keep to schedule. This meant taking risks and breaking rules. While Casey was popular with his colleagues, management didn't always share their enthusiasm. Jones was issued nine citations for rules infractions in his career, and spent a total of 145 days suspended. However, penalties for running late were as bad, if not worse.
7. Another thing he was famous for was his distinctive train whistle. The sound of it was variously described as "a sort of whippoorwill call," or "like the war cry of a Viking."
8. So what was he like as a person? Accounts say he was a devoted family man, a teetotaler and an avid baseball fan, both watching and playing whenever his schedule allowed. He was married to Mary Joanna ("Janie") Brady, who he met while staying at her father's boarding house. A few days before their wedding, he was baptised as a Catholic to please her. They had three children.
9. On April 30, 1900, Jones volunteered to work a double shift to cover for a fellow engineer who was ill. The train was an hour and a half late, so Jones was running the engine at almost 100 miles an hour in order to make up the time. Ahead of him, a train had broken down, just beyond a bend in the line. Jones grabbed the brake with one hand and the whistle in the other, to warn those who were working on the train in front. He yelled at his fireman to jump from the cab and save himself. He was the only person killed in the collision. According to popular legend, when his body was pulled from the wreckage, his hands still clutched the whistle cord and brake.
10. A song, The Ballad of Casey Jones, and a TV series loosely based on him and starring Alan Hale, Jr. in the title role, cemented Casey Jones's position as a folk hero.

I Write Fiction, Too!

More details about my books. Follow this link if you like Superheroes, Psychics and/or quirky short stories. 

I've listed the themes each novel touches on here for easy reference.

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March 17: The Eden Project

The Eden project in Cornwall opened on this date in 2001. Here are some things you might not know about it.

1. Where is it? 2 km (1.2 mi) from the town of St Blazey and 5 km (3 mi) from the larger town of St Austell, in Cornwall, UK. The Eden Project is the third most popular charging tourist attraction in the UK with 1,000,363 visitors in 2016.
2. What is it? Two giant biomes, or greenhouses, which recreate tropical and Mediterranean conditions so that plants endemic to those areas can grow. The Humid Tropics Biome contains plants such as Banana plants, Coffee, rubber and giant Bamboo, and the Mediterranean Biome has olives and grape vines. A third biome is planned featuring the Dry Tropics.
3. The mission of the Eden Project is "To promote the understanding and responsible management of the vital relationship between plants, people and resources, leading towards a sustainable future for all."
4. The project is located in what used to be a clay pit which was in use for over 160 years. It ran out of clay in the mid 1990s. Before the Eden Project was built there, it was the filming location for the planet surface of Magrathea in the 1981 TV series of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
5. The project was conceived by Tim Smit of Lost Gardens of Heligan fame. It was designed by architect Nicholas Grimshaw and engineering firm Anthony Hunt and Associates, and the building was managed by McAlpine Joint Venture. It took two and a half years to build.
6. The biomes are made of plastic, ETFE material, rather than glass. Glass was avoided because of the potential dangers and its weight (the plastic the biomes are made of is 1% the weight of glass - in fact, the two biomes weigh only slightly more than the air inside them). The material is stain resistant - most dirt simply washes off in the rain. It can get punctures, but these are easily fixed with ETFE tape.
7. The Humid Tropics Biome is the largest conservatory in the world. Its height is equivalent to 11 double decker Buses and as long as 24 buses. If you prefer more conventional measurements, that's 55m (180 ft) high, 100m (328 ft) wide, and 200m (656 ft) long. The biomes consist of hundreds of hexagonal and pentagonal, inflated, plastic cells supported by steel frames. The 46,000 poles used to create the structure, if laid end to end, would stretch from St Austell to London.
8. As well as the two biomes, there is also an education facility called The Core. It opened in 2005 and is designed using the principles of phyllotaxis, the mathematical basis for nearly all plant growth. It houses art installations including one permanent one called Seed, by Peter Randall-Page, a giant egg shaped sculpture based upon the geometric and mathematical principles that underlie plant growth. In the grounds are more thought provoking sculptures. There's a giant bee, a statue of Eve, made from soil, and WEEE Man, a giant statue made from old electric appliances, representing the amount of electric appliances one person gets through in their life.
9. The Toilets at the Eden Project won the Best Loo in Britain award in 2003.
10. If you're too far away to visit in person, since 2009 it has been possible to use Google Street View to make a virtual visit.

I Write Fiction, Too!

More details about my books. Follow this link if you like Superheroes, Psychics and/or quirky short stories. 

I've listed the themes each novel touches on here for easy reference.

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16th March: Caroline Herschel

Born in 1750, Caroline Herschel was the German-born astronomer, sister of astronomer Sir William Herschel.

1. Caroline Herschel was the first woman to be paid for her work in astronomy, and the first woman in England to have an official government position, when George III started paying her an annual salary of £50 (£5,800 in today's money) for her work as assistant to her brother, William. She was also the first woman to be awarded a Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society and to be named an Honorary Member of the Royal Astronomical Society.
2. Her full name was Caroline Lucretia Herschel, and she was born in Hanover, Germany, the eighth child of Isaac Herschel, an oboist, and his wife, Anna.
3. Anna believed girls weren't good for much besides household chores. Only one of Caroline's three sisters survived, the eldest, Sophia, who was married by the time Caroline was five. Hence most of the household chores fell to Caroline. At 10, she contracted typhus, which stunted her growth (as an adult, she was only four feet three inches tall) and damaged the vision in her left eye. It was assumed then that she'd never marry and the only career open to her was that of a household servant. Anna didn't even allow Caroline to be educated enough to become a governess. She was actively forbidden from learning anything that might result in her financial independence. Her father, however, disagreed, and when Anna was away, would let Caroline sit in with her brothers' lessons.
4. When her father died, two of her brothers, William and Alexander, were living in Bath, England. William was a musician at the time, performing in churches and the brothers thought Caroline would be able to sing at his performances. Her mother wasn't keen on Caroline being anything but a domestic servant, but William persuaded her, possibly by pointing out he needed someone to run his household as well. Caroline eventually left Hanover on 16 August 1772.
5. On arrival in Bath, she took singing lessons and learned to play the harpsichord. She performed with her brother at small gatherings, and even wrote some songs of her own. Only one was ever published, despite interest from London publishers. It was called The Echo. Her career as a singer and musician was limited, however, since she refused to sing for any conductor other than William. So when he lost interest in Music in favour of astronomy, her musical career ended.
6. Caroline was a reluctant astronomer at first. As always, she supported William in everything he did, and when he needed someone to polish the mirrors of his Telescopes, record and organise his observations and bring him food while he worked, Caroline would do it. At first, she grumbled in her diary that she was little more than a trained puppy dog, doing as she was told, but she came to enjoy the work, and was good at it. She learned to copy astronomical catalogues and other publications that William had borrowed, and as time went on, would re-organise them to make it easier for her to find William's reference points.
7. From 1783, Caroline started making discoveries of her own. Her first discovery was a nebula. This sparked William's interest in looking for nebulae. Later on, Caroline would discover eight comets. She wasn't, however, the first woman to discover a comet. That was Maria Kirch, in the early 1700s - but the discovery was attributed to her husband at the time.
8. Caroline and William were close, so when he married a rich widow, Mary Pitt in 1788, her life changed for the worse. She was no longer his housekeeper, and she had to move out of his house and just go there daily to work. She didn't even have the keys to the observatory any more. People assume she was bitter and jealous of Mary. Perhaps she was - we'll never know, because Caroline destroyed the journals she wrote at that time. We do know that in later years she and Mary exchanged affectionate letters, and Caroline became close to her nephew, John. Perhaps this later friendship was the reason she destroyed the journals, ashamed, perhaps, of the negative things she'd written back then. Just a theory. In any case, Caroline continued to work on astronomical projects on her own and made many discoveries - so William's marriage may actually have helped her achieve the independence she had craved all her life.
9. When William died in 1822, Caroline moved back to Hanover. The bigger city wasn't conducive to astronomy though - too many tall buildings. By 1824, she'd given up on observing the night sky, making the last entry in her observing book on January of that year. She remained physically and socially active for years afterwards. While bemoaning the fact she could no longer make any new discoveries, she wrote her memoirs, continued her cataloguing work, and did all she could to help her nephew, John. She lived to the age of 97.
10. She is buried in Hanover next to her parents and with a lock of William's hair. Her tombstone inscription reads, "The eyes of her who is glorified here below turned to the starry heavens." The Asteroid 281 Lucretia, discovered in 1888, was named after Caroline's middle name, and the crater C. Herschel on the Moon is named after her.

I Write Fiction, Too!

More details about my books. Follow this link if you like Superheroes, Psychics and/or quirky short stories. 

I've listed the themes each novel touches on here for easy reference.

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15 March: Maine Admission Day

On this date in 1820 Maine was admitted as the 23rd US State. Here are ten facts you might not know about Maine.

1. It's the US state which is farthest east, which means it has the most eastern US city, the appropriately named Eastport; the most easterly state capital (Augusta) and the most easterly point in the USA (West Quoddy Head). Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the East Coast, is 1530 feet high. From October through March, it's the first place to experience the sunrise in the United States. Maine is also the US state which is closest to Africa.
2. If you measure all the contours of Maine's coastline, the coastline is about 3500 miles long. If you include the 3,000 islands off the coast, the coastline is 5500 miles. It's said Maine has so many deep harbours that it could accommodate all the navies in the world. Some of the islands are for sale. There is one, called Hawaii, that was snapped up by the makers of the game Cards Against Humanity. Mount Desert Island encompasses Acadia National Park, one of the most visited in the country. Machias Seal Island is claimed by both the US and Canada, so anyone born there can claim citizenship of both nations.
3. Maine is the only state in the United States whose name has one syllable.
4. Maine is the only state which shares its border with only one other state (New Hampshire).
5. Maine produces 90% of the country's Lobsters, 99% of its Blueberries, and 90% of its Toothpicks. Until 2003, Strong, Maine, was known as the “Toothpick Capital of the World.” There's even a cannery in Wilton which imports and cans nothing but Dandelion greens.
6. It gets cold in winter. So cold that a 15 year old from Maine, Chester Greenwood, invented earmuffs in the 1870s. His home town, Farmington, still celebrates him every year with an earmuff themed parade on Chester Greenwood Day. Maine also came up with the snowplough and an early type of snowmobile. The official state cat is the Maine Coon Cat, which has thick, layered fur, perfectly adapted to get through the winters there. It's also the largest breed of domestic cat.
7. Other state symbols are: bird: the chickadee; flower: white pine cone and tassel; insect: Honey Bee; animal: moose; fish: Landlocked Salmon; Herb Wintergreen; Tree Eastern white pine; Berry Wild blueberry; Gemstone Tourmaline. Maine’s motto is “Dirigo,” meaning “I direct.”
8. Famous people from Maine include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, EB White (author of Charlotte's Web) and Stephen King. You may not have heard of Sir William Phip - his claim to fame is being the first British knight to be born in America. He was knighted by King James II of England for finding sunken treasure in the Bahamas.
9. Augusta is the capital. Although we don't know how the state got its name (possibly from sailors referring to it as the mainland, or from a French place with the same name), we do know that Augusta is named after the daughter of Revolutionary War hero Henry Dearborn. Portland is the largest city. Portland has survived four major fires which has resulted in its flag featuring a phoenix and the motto Resurgam – Latin for I will rise again.
10. Things that could get you in trouble with the law in Maine include biting your landlord, leaving Christmas decorations up after January 14, stepping off a plane while it's in flight, or walking down the street playing a Violin or with your Shoelaces undone. You are legally required to take a shotgun to church in case of an Indian attack.

I Write Fiction, Too!

More details about my books. Follow this link if you like Superheroes, Psychics and/or quirky short stories. 

I've listed the themes each novel touches on here for easy reference.

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