While Thomas Crapper was indeed a 19th century plumber in England, he did not invent the modern flushing toilet. That honor goes to Sir John Harrington who came up with a prototype for Queen Elizabeth I’s palace in the 16th century. Also more than 60 years before Crapper was even born, Alexander Cummings received the first patent for a flushing toilet in 1775.

Thomas Crapper was an interesting man though. He became an apprentice plumber in his teens and owned his own plumbing business by 25. He did come up with several patents for improving plumbing, some of which were for flushing. So was it merely an ironic coincidence that a man by the name of Crapper did a lot of work on toilets? Yeah, probably so.

Now is it possible that the term “crapper” being synonomous for toilet originated because this guy was a well-to-do plumber? You might think so, but it’s not likely. Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary says the term dates back to 1846, well before Thomas became the master plumber that we all know and love him for.

Sources: toiletmuseum.com, urbanlegends.about.com/od/factoid1/p/thomas_crapper.htm
Image source: nodrips.blogspot.com/2011/01/toilets-in-age-of-thomas-crapper.html

The general answer is no, as there are no permanent residents of Antarctica. Several contries however, do maintain permanent research stations with scientists and support personnel that number up to 5,000 in the summer and about 1,000 in the winter. Most researchers do not stay through the winter but those that do are typically there on one-year assignments.

The United States has two primary bases there: Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and McMurdo Station.

An interesting aside: the South Pole has no solar time so a station there could theoretically be in any of the world’s 24 time zones. They use New Zealand time (UTC +12) since all flights to the continent come from Christchurch.

Image source: http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/antarctica/antarctica.jpg

The pedicar was a pedal-powered, all-weather one passenger vehicle introduced in 1973 as a response to the energy crisis of the mid-1970s. According to the Handy Science Answer Book, it had straight-line pedal action, disc brakes, five forward speeds, neutral AND reverse. It’s 1973 cost was about $550 (US) which was fairly expensive as you could have bought a new Volkswagen beetle for at the time for about $1,300, and a used one for less than the cost of the pedicar.

The pedicar was conceived to be an alternative to the automobile. Claims of its speed were between 8 and 15 mph (13-15 k/h). It never quite took off in popularity and ended up mainly being used as a novelty conveyance around parks, resorts, country clubs and some college campuses.

It’s too bad this car didn’t become more popular as I would have enjoyed pedaling this thing to work every day at about 8 mph. Yeah, right.

Image source: http://www.robertlpeters.com/

Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), an American scientist, author, inventor and environmentalist is credited with coining the term “Spaceship Earth.” He used it to represent the need for our technology to be self-contained. Think of the earth as a spaceship… it has to produce it’s own fuel, food, and usable resources, as well as take care of its own waste products. Basically, the earth has to be as self-contained as a spaceship.

One quote attributed to Fuller: “We have not been seeing our Spaceship Earth as an integrally designed machine which to be persistently successful must be comprehended and serviced in total.” [Source: Ashworth, William. The Encyclopedia of Environmental Studies]

On another note, Fuller is perhaps most remembered for his architecture work which included design of the geodesic dome.

Image source: http://supercentenarianstudy.blogspot.com/

According to Wikipedia, there are less than 100 verified centenarians (persons living past the age of 100). And of centenarians, about 1 in 1,000 will live to be a super-centenarian (one who is living into their 12th decade.) Even rarer, is one who lives past the age of 115, which current estimates predict only 1 in 50,000 centenarians will reach.

An interesting study is observing the trend life expectancies have been changing over the past century. The following graph is the average life expectancy in the United States for each decade since 1900.

Note, statistics weren’t as accurately kept for the first part of the century but the overall trend is probably fairly accurate. Source of these data: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. The report can be downloaded here.

Source: hikingtripreports.com, 2008

In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand was the first person to make it to the top of Mt. Everest. He was immediately by Tenzing Norgay of Nepal. The two were part of an eleven man expedition led by Colonel John Hunt. Of the eleven men in their party, only four were able to attempt the final trek to the summit.

Colonel Hunt picked Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans for their party’s first attempt. They got within 100 meters of the summit, but couldn’t make it all the way to the top. Hillary and Norgay reached the summit on May 29, 1953 at 11:30 a.m. Even though Hillary placed his foot first on the summit, it really was a joint accomplishment. Because of the extremely thin air and their low oxygen supply, they were only able to remain on the summit for about 15 minutes.

The first man to start a climb of Mount Everest was actually George Mallory. He made it over 22,000 feet before realizing he was not equipped for the rest of the journey. He did discover a route up the northeast ridge that would be used by later climbers.

It was over twenty years after Colonel Hunt’s team’s climb before a successful ascent was made without extra oxygen. Peter Habeler and Reinhold Messner did so on May 8, 1978. Two years later, Messner was the first man to make the climb alone. He successfully reached the summit on August 20, 1980.

Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008 1oz Silver Proof Coin, from the Perth Mint, Australia

Some books about and by Sir Edmund Hillary available at Amazon.com.

The mitochondrian was first identified at the end of the 19th century by a German pathologist and histologist (tissue researcher) named Richard Altmann. It was given the name “mitochondria” by Karl Benda, a German physician. (1857-1933). [source: wikipedia] Altmann is known for his work involving cell theory and structure. In his study of animal cells, he investigated small granules in the protoplasm of the cell. He called these particles- bioblasts, which he postulated were elementary organisms that had metabolic and genetic autonomy. Today Altmann’s bioblasts are known as mitochondria.

So what are mitochondria?

Mitochondria are the powerhouses of the modern cell, providing some 90% of the energy needed for survival. In 1963, scientists discovered mitochondria had their own DNA, arranged in circles, containing the blueprints for 37 of the molecules mitochondria need to create to generate energy.

The single-cell embryo that results from the merger of the egg and sperm has a solitary nucleus with a matching set of chromosomes with about 100,000 genes from the sperm and 100,000 from the egg. These are coded in about three billion base pairs along the strands of DNA.

The fertilized egg, and all of its descendant cells, divide their chromosomes into two mirror images and then split into new cells with each cell obtaining a full set of genes.

By comparison, the DNA of mitochondria has only 16,569 base pairs and these are all inherited from the cytoplasm of the egg. The male makes no contribution to this complement.

Making Fuel for the whole body

Each mitochondrion has a convoluted inner membrane, like a giant nucleus, within its smooth outer membrane. It generates energy by relaying electrons along a series of proteins embedded in the inner membrane. This series is called the respiratory chain. The electrons interact with oxygen and protons to form water and energy.

Mitochondria direct the energy released from the oxidation of hydrogen to pump protons across the inner membrane. This creates a charge and chemical differential that facilitates the synthesis of ATP Synthase which in turn facilitates the creation of ATP (adenosine triphosphate). ATP is liberated into the cell cytoplasm and distributed throughout the body as fuel for all cellular activities.

The process depends upon a steady supply of oxygen and hydrogen (H+) as well as electrons supplied from food. Should any of these be in short supply, the cells rapidly run out of fuel and die. Should mutations inhibit the process of ATP production, the cells begin to weaken.

Source: Wikipedia and This Magic Sea.

The Bubonic plague is a disease of the lymphatic system caused from the bite of an infected flea. The fleas are often found on rodents and seek live hosts (such as humans) when their rodent hosts die. Once established, bacteria rapidly spread to the lymph nodes and multiply. Yersinia pestis can resist phagocytosis and even reproduce inside phagocytes and kill them. As the disease progresses, the lymph nodes can hemorrhage and become necrotic. Bubonic plague can progress to lethal septicemic plague in some cases. Bubonic Plague kills about 50% of infected patients within one week.

What most people reading this were probably searching for is actually the Black Death, a specific incident of a Bubonic Plague epidemic that happened in Europe in the 1340s. At the time of the breakout, the world’s population is estimated to have been about 450 million. The Black Death killed about 75 million, or roughly one sixth of the population on Earth. Compare those figures to today’s population and that would be the equivalent of over 1 Billion people dying from the breakout.

The name “Black Death” comes from the fact that the disease causes symptoms like spots on the skin that are red at first and then turn black. Other symptoms include heavy breathing, continuous blood vomiting, aching limbs and terrible pain. The pain is usually caused by the actual decaying, or decomposing of the skin while the infected person is still alive.

By taking the inverse of Hubble’s Constant (dividing the distance of the galaxy by its speed) we get an estimate of the age of the Universe. Of course, the distance of any galaxy and the speed at which it is moving are fairly difficult measurements to make and the uncertainty in these estimates lead to the uncertainty in the age of the Universe question.

Source and more detailed information: Wikipedia’s Age of the Universe entry.

In short, a liquid’s boiling temperature is dependent on its composition and the atmospheric pressure on the boundary between the liquid and the air above it. For water, the boiling point at sea level is 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit). The atmospheric pressure is roughly 29 mmHg at sea level, but this number is dependent on altitude and is lower the higher you get from sea level.

Boiling is the process in which the molecules in a liquid have enough energy to overcome the opposing pressure of the atmosphere. When these liquid molecules start turning into gas molecules, we say the liquid is boiling. If you lower the opposing pressure, there will be less resistance to the water molecules turning into gas molecules and entering the air, and the liquid will boil at a lower temperature.

It follows that water would boil quicker on a day with lower atmospheric pressure than on a day with a higher pressure. This is true although the difference in barometric pressure on any given day at the same altitude isn’t as great as a change from differing altitudes.