The Guinness World Records are online, with categories in the human body, science & technology, and the natural world. You can even learn how to break a world record and apply to appear on Guinness World Records Smashed, a new UK television show!
Showing posts with label yucky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yucky. Show all posts
Friday, April 10, 2009
Website of the Week: Guinness World Records
Do you ever wonder who has the world's longest fingernails (for the record, over 28 feet long!) or who can pop their eyeballs out of their sockets the furthest? Wonder no more!
The Guinness World Records are online, with categories in the human body, science & technology, and the natural world. You can even learn how to break a world record and apply to appear on Guinness World Records Smashed, a new UK television show!
Largest Sand Painting on the Planet
Photo credit: Secret Tenerife via a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License
The Guinness World Records are online, with categories in the human body, science & technology, and the natural world. You can even learn how to break a world record and apply to appear on Guinness World Records Smashed, a new UK television show!
Monday, December 1, 2008
Poo poo paper
Looking for a creative, eco-friendly gift for the holidays? Head on over to The Great Elephant Poo Poo Paper Company Limited™ and check out their online (oh, I can hardly type this!) Poo-tique™. They carry a range of items -- from journals to stationery -- made from this uniquely recycled product.
How is poo poo paper made? According to the company, elephant dung is collected from conservation parks and washed to remove the excrement. The remaining fibers (things like left-over grasses and bamboo) are boiled to sanitize them. This material is then mixed with other fibrous materials; the resulting mixture is placed onto trays and dries into paper. You can read the full story at Turning Poo to Paper, along with Elephant Facts and a Brief Elephant History.
The company claims that the product has no smell, which is the first thing my family wanted to verify as soon as I opened my package of paper. Interestingly enough, poo poo paper really doesn't smell. However, since the paper is quite lumpy and fibrous, the knowledge of where it comes from does creep into your mind as you look at it. I found myself examining some of the more unique fibers -- could that be a worm? a bug? So poo poo paper may not be for everyone. In fact, Itinerant cryptographer wouldn't come near it!
(Many thanks to LD for such a unique birthday present!)
How is poo poo paper made? According to the company, elephant dung is collected from conservation parks and washed to remove the excrement. The remaining fibers (things like left-over grasses and bamboo) are boiled to sanitize them. This material is then mixed with other fibrous materials; the resulting mixture is placed onto trays and dries into paper. You can read the full story at Turning Poo to Paper, along with Elephant Facts and a Brief Elephant History.
The company claims that the product has no smell, which is the first thing my family wanted to verify as soon as I opened my package of paper. Interestingly enough, poo poo paper really doesn't smell. However, since the paper is quite lumpy and fibrous, the knowledge of where it comes from does creep into your mind as you look at it. I found myself examining some of the more unique fibers -- could that be a worm? a bug? So poo poo paper may not be for everyone. In fact, Itinerant cryptographer wouldn't come near it!
(Many thanks to LD for such a unique birthday present!)
Monday, November 17, 2008
Fake snot & real mucus
Well, it's cold and flu season again where I live. I can't quite shake this congestion in my sinuses, which has got me thinking about mucus. When referring to the secretions of the nose, mucus is just a fancy word for snot.
According to the article What's a Booger? at KidsHealth, "your nose and sinuses make about a quart of snot every day." This viscous (slippery) fluid coats the inside of your nose and helps to trap dirt and other foreign items -- like pollen, cat fur, and dust -- before they can reach and irritate your lungs.
Snot is a morbidly fascinating topic. Just thinking about it makes me squirm in my chair. And then I found this page from Glencoe that describes how some bacteria like to eat our snot. Eew. I never thought of a bacterial infection in that way before.
And if your own snot just isn't enough, ThinkQuest has a recipe for making fake snot. You can even add your own dirt to create dried up "boogers". Dr. Anne Marie Helmenstine, of About.com's Chemistry section, also has a recipe on How To Make Fake Snot. She writes that this green goo is "...great for Halloween and other occasions requiring snot."
Believe it or not, scientists also make fake snot! A research team from University of Warwick and Leicester University found that adding artificial snot to electronic noses helped the devices to detect more odors. Electronic noses can be used for things like quality control in a food processing plant. After adding the fake snot, the artificial nose in this study could detect the difference between the smell of milk and the odor of banana, something it couldn't do before. You can read about it in Warwick's article, Artificial Snot Enhances Electronic Nose.
Other scientists prefer real, old-fashioned snot. Check out this recent article, entitled Thar she blows: Snot offers clues to whale health from Catherine Brahic of New Scientist. Apparently, it's hard to get a blood sample from whales, so researchers have settled for the next-best thing: flying toy helicopters through exhaled "whale snot" to collect samples when these large animals surface and blow. Studying the "whale snot" gives researchers clues as to the overall health of the animals.
Yuck. I think I'm going to go and wash my hands now!
According to the article What's a Booger? at KidsHealth, "your nose and sinuses make about a quart of snot every day." This viscous (slippery) fluid coats the inside of your nose and helps to trap dirt and other foreign items -- like pollen, cat fur, and dust -- before they can reach and irritate your lungs.
Snot is a morbidly fascinating topic. Just thinking about it makes me squirm in my chair. And then I found this page from Glencoe that describes how some bacteria like to eat our snot. Eew. I never thought of a bacterial infection in that way before.
And if your own snot just isn't enough, ThinkQuest has a recipe for making fake snot. You can even add your own dirt to create dried up "boogers". Dr. Anne Marie Helmenstine, of About.com's Chemistry section, also has a recipe on How To Make Fake Snot. She writes that this green goo is "...great for Halloween and other occasions requiring snot."
Believe it or not, scientists also make fake snot! A research team from University of Warwick and Leicester University found that adding artificial snot to electronic noses helped the devices to detect more odors. Electronic noses can be used for things like quality control in a food processing plant. After adding the fake snot, the artificial nose in this study could detect the difference between the smell of milk and the odor of banana, something it couldn't do before. You can read about it in Warwick's article, Artificial Snot Enhances Electronic Nose.
Other scientists prefer real, old-fashioned snot. Check out this recent article, entitled Thar she blows: Snot offers clues to whale health from Catherine Brahic of New Scientist. Apparently, it's hard to get a blood sample from whales, so researchers have settled for the next-best thing: flying toy helicopters through exhaled "whale snot" to collect samples when these large animals surface and blow. Studying the "whale snot" gives researchers clues as to the overall health of the animals.
Yuck. I think I'm going to go and wash my hands now!
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