Wednesday, October 22nd — Food Allergies

Today I Learned…

…that strawberries are not a common food allergy, despite what the customer at my store said.

The eight most common food allergies in the United States are:

• Dairy
• Eggs
• Peanuts
• Tree Nuts
• Seafood
• Shellfish
• Soy
• Wheat

You’ll notice that strawberries are /not/ on this list.

Saturday, October 11th — Nauseous vs. Nauseated

Today I Learned…

…that I’ve been using some words incorrectly, and you probably have been too.

The difference between “nauseous” and “nauseated” is simply put as this: someone who is “nauseous” is one who makes people around em “nauseated.”  Someone who is “nauseated” is sick to their stomach.

Thanks to Kevin at work for that one.

Wednesday, September 24th — Sushi

Today I Learned…

…that the term “sushi” refers specifically to the vinegared rice used in a “sushi roll,” /not/ raw fish.  Sushi, therefore, is vinegared rice served with an ingredient which may or may not be fish.  The rice itself is known as shari, and raw fish served by itself is sashimi (or a bowling ball having a dream…).

I still don’t like it, though.

For more food fun facts (including this one), check out http://www.pgacon.com/KitchenMyths.htm.  Also, points to whoever gets the bowling ball reference.

Tuesday, September 9th — The LHC

(ok, first a bit of a caveat.  This was posted at 2:02am EDT/9:02am Swiss Time (GMT+2) on Wednesday September 10th.

Today I Learned…

…that turning on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN did not destroy the universe, as some morons were “predicting.”

Go on and find that Higgs Boson, guys!

Friday, July 11th — Swords

Today I Learned…

…something interesting about swords.  I was reading a list of fantasy novel cliches (basically a test to determine whether you were ripping off either J.R.R. Tolkien or his good friend C.S. Lewis), when I came across the following tidbit.  One of the questions was something along the lines of “do you at any point reference the fact that swords can weigh over 40 pounds?”  It then linked to this site, from the Association of Renaissance Martial Arts.

As ARMA puts it on the above-linked site, “Everywhere from television and movies to video games, historical European swords have been depicted as being cumbersome and displayed with wide, exaggerated movements. On a recent national television appearance on The History Channel, one respected academic and expert on medieval military technology even declared with conviction how 14^th century swords were “heavy” sometimes weighing as much as “40 pounds” (!).”

However, the best evidence maintains that not only did swords of that era not weigh 40 pounds, they never even got as heavy as 10 or even 15 pounds.  The Wallace Collection Museum in London, according to ARMA, lists a great number of swords, with only a handful weighing in at over 3 pounds.  Even the heavier swords never really got above 4.5 pounds, which would have been a very reasonable weight for someone who had been trained to use a sword since early adolescence or earlier.