Mojave Nugget

The Mojave Nugget is the largest known gold nugget ever found in California by prospector Ty Paulsen in 1977 using a metal detector. The nugget, which weighs 156 troy ounces (4.9 kg)  contains 132 pieces of gold and has a total weight of more than 1,660 troy ounces (52 kg).

Haiti's tent cities

IN THE past year the population of Haiti's tent cities has fallen from over 1m to less than 600,000. Sadly, that reflects official inaction rather than accomplishment. Most of the encampments' residents, who moved in after the January 2010 earthquake, have left because health clinics and water distribution ran out, because landowners and mayors illegally evicted them, or because they gave up hope that aid might reach them. Today, the “people who could get out of the tents [have] already got out of the tents,” says Patrick Rouzier, housing adviser to the new president, Michel Martelly. Those who remain are “the most vulnerable, the hard cases, the lost”, says Leonard Doyle, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration.

jpr: Donate to food for the poor 
https://secure3.convio.net/ffp/site/Donation2?df_id=16320&16320.donation=form1&JServSessionIdr004=2e8e4ziif1.app334a

bee in a flower

Bees get a positive electric charge on their bodies from their flights. Flowers have been found to store  negative electric charges. The resultant electric field from flower to nearby bee signals the honest presence of nectar and honey. Researchers have placed electrodes in flowers and recorded a bee's landing. The resulting flower's field change persists for some time signaling to other bees of a previous visit.

World’s most expensive dessert

Frozen Haute Chocolate is sold at a staggering $25,000 per order. The dessert is made from a blend of 28 finest cocoas from all around the world and is served in a goblet lined with edible gold. Additionally, Frozen Haute Chocolate is topped with whipped cream, more gold and a side of La Madeline au Truffle from Knipschildt Chocolatier, which sells for $2,600 per pound. An 18K gold bracelet with a carat’s worth of diamonds that rests at the base of the goblet and a gold spoon set with white and chocolate-colored diamonds are also given to its consumer as souvenirs.

Why states want marijuana legalized

State sales tax plus special marijuana tax can add as much as 15%

O

for sale

Owner says it will yet play....after some work

fly swatting

The flight range of house flies is ~ 7 km with a life expectancy of 1-2 weeks.

ole reliable

jpr: these days when i walk my dog in the fields I carry one of the above to swat (gently) flies off "my boy's" back!

Cracker stackers

guys are working 10/10s to get it done 

alligators in the NYC sewers?

On October 12th 2008 a 8 ft Alligator that had been reported for months was finally caught and removed from the New York Sewer System near Central Park. The Alligator was put down and the contents of its stomach revealed rat remains and the remains of a dog. So the Alligator was living well down there in the New York Sewer System. Over the years people have claimed to see Alligators in the New York Sewer System and the Alligator in the photo above had crawled into a part of the New York Sewer System where it could come out into a small pond. Many people for several months had reported the Alligator but the reports were ignored until the Alligator snatched a dog as people watched. This time there was a investigation of the report and the 8 foot Alligator was caught as you can see in the above photo so this is truly one urban myth busted as true. 

Pizza Facts

Americans eat approximately 100 acres of pizza each day, or 350 slices per second.

Pizza is a $30 billion per year industry.

There are approximately 61,269 pizzerias in the United States.

Each man, woman and child in America eats an average of 46 slices (23 pounds) of pizza a year.

Approximately 3 billion pizzas are sold in the U.S. each year.

93% of Americans eat AT LEAST one pizza per month. 

According to a recent Gallup Poll, kids between the ages of 3 to 11 prefer pizza over all other food groups for lunch and dinner.

jpr: Zen me a piece!

 

way to stop cheating on tests

  jpr: I use open book and notes plus internet access. My exams usually offer the student a choice in which questions to answer...say any 11 out of  17.  There is always a bit of  cheating.

horses in winter

WINTER HORSE

The white horse with,
its feathery mane,
eyes of black night,
gallops on the soft snow,
which is the tapestry,
covering the treasure chest,
of hidden, unseen miracles.

the angel without wings,
from heaven, The pacifist,
in a lonely battlefield,
rides its chariot,
in all the directions,
searching for nothing,
aiming for nothing.

the snowman in the solliloquy,
seldom wonders how many,
horses, pads its foot,
on the delicate snow,
without leaving a trace........................ 

nithya raghavan

Which U S President Had the Most Children?

The president with the most children was President John Tyler, who served from 1841 to 1845. He had 15 children between the years 1815 and 1860. He had them with two different wives. Eight were with his first wife, Lettia Tyler, and the other seven were with his second wife, Julia Gardiner

julia on left, lettia on right

Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier

He is considered to be the "Father of Modern Chemistry".  Antoine met the guillotine during the French revolution.

The Mrs was spared execution but died quite young.

Math seems to be behind EVERYTHING in the Universe!

the hierarchy of science as I understand it (all you four-eyed geeky nerdo einsteins can correct me where I err)
11 David Blaine
10. Alchemy
9. Astrology
8. Humanities
7 Biology -
6. Chemistry
5 Engineering
4 Physics
3 Cosmology
2 Math
1 Wizardry
0 Wayne Newton

It seems that Plants are able to do Math. Read this junk:

Scientists at Britain's John Innes Centre said plants adjust their rate of starch consumption to prevent starvation during the night when they are unable to feed themselves with energy from the sun.
They can even compensate for an unexpected early night.
"This is the first concrete example in a fundamental biological process of such a sophisticated arithmetic calculation," mathematical modeler Martin Howard of John Innes Centre (JIC) said.
During the night, mechanisms inside the leaf measure the size of the starch store and estimate the length of time until dawn. Information about time comes from an internal clock, similar to the human body clock.

So my conclusion is that Mr Potato Head IS smarter than me.

Rain Barrel Facts

A shed that is 10’ x 10’, could collect 60 gallons from one 1 inch of rain.

Water usage increases in the summer by 30%. By reducing the demand from established water supplies during dry summer months, rain barrels help the environment. A rain barrel can save approximately 1,300 gallons of water during peak summer months.

 Rain barrels reduce water pollution by preventing storm water run off with waste.

Cost per barrel [ 0 , $250]

those yellow lights

Yellow traffic control light's times are being reduced by fractions of a second in many communities , research indicates a half-second reduction in the interval can double the number of RLC (red light cameras) citations.  Safety concerns out way the increase in revenues and  more than a dozen states have outlawed red light cameras. Yeah for us!

The above Traffic Light tree was created by French sculptor Pierre Vivant in one of London's financial districts.

The World's Oldest Currency; another usless factoid.

The British currency ‘the pound’ has been in continuous use since first introduced in the 8th century, making it the oldest currency in the world.  Modeled on an older system introduced by the Romans,  its name derives from the Latin word Libra for weight or balance, via the construction Libra Pondo, meaning a pound weight. While the word ‘libra’ has  long since been discarded, it makes its presence felt in both the £ symbol, an ornate L, and the abbreviational system for the unit of mass, lb.  Its value originally equated to the price of a pound of silver.  A pound was originally divided into 20 shillings and 240 silver pennies, but now is based on the decimal system.

Oldest Cold Case Ever Solved

Holding the current record for the longest cold case that was solved is the murder of seven-year-old Maria Ridulph in 1957. The young girl vanished from her Sycamore, Illinois home one winter without a trace, and her decomposing body was found the next year. A suspect was identified – a young man named John Tessier – but he had an ironclad alibi: he was on a train at the time, and he had witnesses to back him up. The cops let him go and the gruesome murder was never solved. However, science has a way of punishing the guilty, and when Ridulph’s corpse was exhumed in 2011 for additional DNA testing, it pointed the finger at Tessier again. His train alibi was also disproved when a girlfriend found his ticket unpunched. Now going by the name Jack McCullough, he was arrested in Seattle and charged with the crime in September of 2012. After 55 years, he was sentenced to two life terms.

longest escape from prison

The longest recorded escape by a recaptured prisoner was that of Leonard T. Fristoe, 77, who escaped from the Nevada State Prison, Carson City, Nevada, USA on December 15, 1923. Leonard was turned in by his son on November 15, 1969 at Compton, California. By then Leonard had nearly 46 years of freedom under the name of Claude R. Willis. His crime was killing two sheriff's deputies in 1920.