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🔗 Internet culture 🔗 Environment 🔗 Skepticism 🔗 Chemicals 🔗 Sociology

The dihydrogen monoxide parody involves calling water by an unfamiliar chemical name, most often "dihydrogen monoxide" (DHMO), and listing some of water's well-known effects in a particularly alarming manner, such as accelerating corrosion and causing suffocation. The parody often calls for dihydrogen monoxide to be banned, regulated, or labeled as dangerous. It demonstrates how a lack of scientific literacy and an exaggerated analysis can lead to misplaced fears.

The parody has been used with other chemical names, including "dihydrogen oxide", "hydroxyl acid", and "hydroxylic acid".

🔗 History 🔗 Biology 🔗 Politics 🔗 Anthropology 🔗 Sociology 🔗 Conservatism 🔗 Folklore

Invented traditions are cultural practices that are presented or perceived as traditional, arising from the people starting in the distant past, but which in fact are relatively recent and often even consciously invented by identifiable historical actors. The concept was highlighted in the 1983 book The Invention of Tradition, edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger. Hobsbawm's introduction argues that many "traditions" which "appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented." This "invention" is distinguished from "starting" or "initiating" a tradition that does not then claim to be old. The phenomenon is particularly clear in the modern development of the nation and of nationalism, creating a national identity promoting national unity, and legitimising certain institutions or cultural practices.

🔗 Europe 🔗 Ethnic groups

The Yenish (German: Jenische; French: Yéniche) are an itinerant group in Western Europe who live mostly in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, and parts of France, roughly centred on the Rhineland. A number of theories for the group's origins have been proposed, including that the Yenish descended from members of the marginalized and vagrant poor classes of society of the early modern period, before emerging as a distinct group by the early 19th century. Most of the Yenish became sedentary in the course of the mid-19th to 20th centuries.

🔗 Apple Inc. 🔗 Computing 🔗 Microsoft Windows 🔗 Microsoft Windows/Computing 🔗 Computing/Software 🔗 Software 🔗 Software/Computing 🔗 Microsoft 🔗 Microsoft/Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Works is a discontinued productivity software suite developed by Microsoft and sold from 1987 to 2009. Its core functionality included a word processor, a spreadsheet and a database management system. Later versions had a calendar application and a dictionary while older releases included a terminal emulator. Works was available as a standalone program, and as part of a namesake home productivity suite. Because of its low cost ($40 retail, or as low as $2 OEM), companies frequently pre-installed Works on their low-cost machines. Works was smaller, less expensive, and had fewer features than Microsoft Office and other major office suites available at the time.

Mainstream support for the final standalone and suite release ended on October 9, 2012 and January 8, 2013, respectively.

🔗 Death 🔗 Iran 🔗 Archaeology

The Hasanlu Lovers are a pair of human remains found at the Teppe Hasanlu archaeological site, located in the Naqadeh in the West Azerbaijan Province of Iran. Around 800 BCE, the city of Hasanlu, located in north-western Iran, was destroyed by an unknown invader. Inhabitants were slain and left where they fell. In 1973, the lovers were discovered by a team of archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania led by Robert H. Dyson.

The two human skeletons were found together in a bin during excavations, seemingly embracing at the time of death, with no other objects except a stone slab under the head of one skeleton. They died together around 800 BCE, during the last destruction of the Hasanlu. Approximately 246 skeletons were found at the site altogether. How the lovers died and ended up in the bin is still under speculation but both skeletons lack evidence of injury near the time of death and possibly died of asphyxiation. They were exhibited at the Penn Museum from 1974 until the mid-1980s.

The right skeleton, referred to as HAS 73-5-799 (SK 335), is lying on its back and the left skeleton, referred to as HAS 73-5-800 (SK 336), is lying on its left side facing SK 335. When excavated, the skeletons were tested to determine various characteristics. Dental evidence suggest SK 335 was a young adult, possibly 19–22 years of age. Researchers identified the skeleton as male largely based on the pelvis. The skeleton had no apparent evidence of disease or healed lifetime injuries. Skeleton SK 336 appeared to have been healthy in life; the skeleton had no apparent evidence of healed lifetimes injuries, and was estimated to have been aged to about 30–35 years. Sex determination of the left skeleton was less definitive. Evidence suggests SK 336 was also male after being originally identified as female. The skeletons have been a subject of debate since they were first excavated.

🔗 Physics 🔗 Weather 🔗 Weather/Meteorological instruments and data

The wet-bulb temperature (WBT) is the temperature read by a thermometer covered in water-soaked cloth (a wet-bulb thermometer) over which air is passed. At 100% relative humidity, the wet-bulb temperature is equal to the air temperature (dry-bulb temperature); at lower humidity the wet-bulb temperature is lower than dry-bulb temperature because of evaporative cooling.

The wet-bulb temperature is defined as the temperature of a parcel of air cooled to saturation (100% relative humidity) by the evaporation of water into it, with the latent heat supplied by the parcel. A wet-bulb thermometer indicates a temperature close to the true (thermodynamic) wet-bulb temperature. The wet-bulb temperature is the lowest temperature that can be reached under current ambient conditions by the evaporation of water only.

Even heat-adapted people cannot carry out normal outdoor activities past a wet-bulb temperature of 32 °C (90 °F), equivalent to a heat index of 55 °C (130 °F). The theoretical limit to human survival for more than a few hours in the shade, even with unlimited water, is a wet-bulb temperature of 35 °C (95 °F) – theoretically equivalent to a heat index of 70 °C (160 °F), though the heat index does not go that high.

🔗 Canada 🔗 Packaging

A milk bag is a plastic bag that contains milk. Usually one of the corners is cut off to allow for pouring, and the bag is stored in a pitcher or jug.

A typical milk bag contains approximately 1 L (1.8 imp pt) of milk in South America, Iran, Israel, and continental European countries, while in Canada they contain 1+1⁄3 litres (2.3 imp pt), and in India, 0.5 L (0.9 imp pt).

In the Baltic rim countries, e.g., Estonia, and some Eastern European countries, the similar bags may also be seen used for packaging yogurt or kefir.

🔗 History 🔗 Germany 🔗 Politics 🔗 Austria 🔗 European history 🔗 Animal rights 🔗 Former countries

There was widespread support for animal welfare in Nazi Germany (German: Tierschutz im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland) among the country's leadership. Adolf Hitler and his top officials took a variety of measures to ensure animals were protected.

Several Nazis were environmentalists, and species protection and animal welfare were significant issues in the Nazi regime. Heinrich Himmler made an effort to ban the hunting of animals. Hermann Göring was a professed animal lover and conservationist, who, on instructions from Hitler, committed Germans who violated Nazi animal welfare laws to concentration camps. In his private diaries, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels described Hitler as a vegetarian whose hatred of the Jewish religion in large part stemmed from the ethical distinction this faith drew between the value of humans and the value of other animals; Goebbels also mentions that Hitler planned to ban slaughterhouses in the German Reich following the conclusion of World War II. Nevertheless, animal testing was common in Nazi Germany.

The current animal welfare laws in Germany were initially introduced by the Nazis.

🔗 Internet culture

I Can Eat Glass was a linguistic project documented on the early Web by then-Harvard student Ethan Mollick. The objective was to provide speakers with translations of the phrase "I can eat glass, it does not hurt me" from a wide variety of languages; the phrase was chosen because of its unorthodox nature. Mollick's original page disappeared in or about June 2004.

As Mollick explained, visitors to a foreign country have "an irresistible urge" to say something in that language, and whatever they say usually marks them as tourists immediately. Saying "I can eat glass, it does not hurt me", however, ensures that the speaker "will be viewed as an insane native, and treated with dignity and respect".

The project grew to considerable size since web surfers were invited to submit translations. The phrase was translated into over 150 languages, including some that are fictional or invented, as well as into code from various computer languages. It became an Internet meme.

The East German balloon escape occurred on 16 September 1979, when eight people in two families escaped the Eastern Bloc country of East Germany by crossing the border to the Western Bloc's West Germany in a homemade hot air balloon at around 2:00 a.m. The escape plot was carried out over one and a half years, including a previously unsuccessful attempt, three different balloons, and various modifications. One failed crossing alerted the government to the plot, but the police were not able to identify the suspects before their flight to the West.