Episode #1011
News Items
Interview with Kevin Folta
- https://hos.ifas.ufl.edu/people/on-campus-faculty/kevin-m-folta/
Question #1: Dumb Phrases
- On Friday’s live stream you began talking about phrases like ‘weigh anchor’ and such. It reminded me of a phrase that I think wins the award for the dumbest phrase. That is ‘You’ve got your work cut out for you’. I lived most my life thinking this phrase meant ‘you have an easy road ahead’. Which is what is should mean. Any project you do that involves cutting, weither that be carpentry, paper crafts, sewing, etc., at least a 1/4 to a 1/3 of the project is cutting the materials to the sizes and patterns you need. So if someone has prepaired the material by ‘cutting it out for you’. the project is suddenly that much easier and going to take less time. I was shocked to learn that it actually means the opposite, which shot that phrase to the dumbest phrase in the english language, as far as I’m concerned. Mike Hampton
Science or Fiction
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Item #1
Fiction
Kansas is not only the flattest state in the US, it is literally flatter than a pancake, with a flatness score of 0.9997.https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/flattest-states
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Item #2
Science
The coastline of Alaska is longer than the coastlines of all the other 49 states combined. https://www.graylinealaska.com/blog/49-things-you-didnt-know-about-alaska/
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Item #3
Science
The first telephone directory in the world was published in New Haven, CT in 1878. The names were not alphabetized and there were no phone numbers included. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_directory
Skeptical Quote of the Week.
‘There is only one thing worse than coming home from the lab to a sink full of dirty dishes, and that is not going to the lab at all.’ Chien-Shiung Wu (Experimental Physicist) – Her nicknames include the ‘First Lady of Physics’, the ‘Chinese Madame Curie’ and the ‘Queen of Nuclear Research’