~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
February 28, 2013

★~ Today’s Quote: Rabbit Rabbit! It is February 28th, and you know what that means… It’s time to prepare for the first of the  new month and all that can be yours by simple saying  ”rabbit, rabbit!” The first words out of your mouth, on the first day of  March, must be “rabbit, rabbit”.

★~ Tooth Fairy Day: 

Ok, I was going to share the mystical legends, stories, and traditions about the loss of baby teeth (and you can read some of them by clicking Tooth Fairy); however, as I was researching Tooth Fairy Day, I felt duty bound to pass on some important information that came to my attention. If you are not a parent, please share this valuable information with friends who have children or grandchildren of tooth-losing age.

It seems that in 2012 children found an average $3 per tooth under their pillows, up 15 percent from 2011. Child psychologists are worried about tooth inflation and warn parents that the tooth fairy is not to be taken lightly. Some believe that paying too much for a tooth can distort a child’s perception of money and lead to moral decay, while others worry that children will feel the tooth fairy doesn’t like them if they are compensated less per tooth than their friends, leading to low self-esteem.

Teachers say that tooth inflation is common in elementary schools because nobody wants to be the parent whose child is the talk at recess due to a frugal tooth fairy. Fortunately, Visa came forward with a solution and created an app (i-Phone and i-Pad) to help parents calculate the going rate for teeth. The app determines the average payoff a child can expect per tooth based on a parent’s gender, education, location, age, and income.So far the app has been met with mixed reviews. Some parents feel that the app is helpful, while psychologists worry that it may encourage parents to try to outdo one another and lead to a biting psychological bidding game.

In the interest of research, and because the app is free, I downloaded it and discovered that Cole had been grossly overpaid for his teeth. I am not sure yet what harm this has done to my child, but please pass this information on so that no other child or parent will face this kind of angst (this information was found in Money Magazine and in USA Today — not The Onion.)

 

★~ Public Sleeping Day:

Train, bus, and desk: three of the best places to fall asleep publicly today. Swimming pool, staff meeting, and construction site: three places where it’s probably best not to celebrate this holiday.

A bit of sleeping trivia:

Babies can cause their parents to lose between 400 and 750 hours of sleep during their first year alone.

In his 2010 autobiography. Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards boasted that he once managed to go nine days without sleep.

Randy Gardner holds the scientifically documented record for the longest stint of sleeplessness. He managed to stay awake for 264 hours (around 11 days) in 1964.

Guinness World Records claims that the real record stands at 449 hours (which works out to 18 days, 17 hours). It was set in 1977 in England by a woman named Maureen Weston, who supposedly managed to stay awake that long during a “rocking chair marathon.”

★~ U.S. Spay-Neuter Day:

The Humane Society promotes Spay Day to highlight the importance of spaying and neutering pets. Spaying and neutering pets helps keep the animal population down and prevents homeless animals from entering animal shelters.

★~ National Chili Day: 

Whether you prefer it Texas-style, Mexican-style, or vegetarian, chili served with a side of cornbread is a fabulous comfort food for the winter season.

Despite popular belief, chili does not come from Mexico. The recipe has certainly been influenced by Mexican culture, but it also incorporates elements from Native American and Spanish culinary traditions. Many historians believe chili originated in Texas where all three of these cultures intersected.

According to legend, Spanish priests called the first chili “the soup of the Devil” because they believed that chili peppers were an aphrodisiac. To celebrate National Chili Day, indulge in a delicious bowl of this historical spicy stew!

★~ Chocolate Soufflé Day: 

Soufflé means “puffed up” and is the name of a light dish with a stiff shape, thanks to the air in the dish’s eggs. According to the Horizon Cookbook and Illustrated History of Eating and Drinking Through the Ages (Food Timeline), “Patrons of La Grande Taverne de Londres, which opened in Paris in the 1780s, were perhaps the first to enjoy this dessert soufflé.” Easy and soufflé are two words not frequently found together, but here you go: a recipe for a “so-easy chocolate soufflé.”

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1893 – It was a grand day  Old at the home of Edward G. Acheson of Monongahela, PA, as he gathered friends and family around to proudly show off his patent for Carborundum, an abrasive or refractory of silicon carbide, fused alumina and other materials.

♥~ 1940 – The first televised basketball game was shown — over W2XBS in New York City — from Madison Square Garden. The game featured Fordham University and the University of Pittsburgh. Pitt won, 50-37.

♥~ 1953 – Scientists James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA, the molecule that contains the human genes, at Cambridge University.

♥~ 1983 – The concluding episode of the long-running television series “M*A*S*H” drew what was then the largest TV audience in U.S. history.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1924 – Chris Kraft NASA flight director for all Mercury and many Gemini missions; NASA spokesman: voice of Mission Control during Mercury and Gemini space missions

♥~ 1931 – Gavin MacLeod actor: The Love Boat, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, McHale’s Navy, Operation Petticoat

♥~ 1940 – Mario Andretti, race car driver: Italian-American race car driver named U.S. Driver of the year in three separate decades. Before fame, He spent time in a refugee camp after World War II before coming to America.

♥~ 1948 – Bernadette Peters (Lazzara) actress: The Jerk, Annie, All’s Fair, George M, Dames at Sea, Pennies from Heaven; singer: Gee Whiz

♥~ 1979- Ivo Karlovic tennis player: At 6 feet 10 inches, the tallest professional tennis player and has served at record speeds

★~ Did You Know: 

♥~ Who discovered DNA ( Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid)…..The most common answer would be James Watson and Francis Crick, and they did discover the double-helix structure of DNA. However, Friedrich Miescher a Swiss physician and biologist isolated various phosphate-rich chemicals, which he called nuclein (now nucleic acids), from the nuclei of white blood cells in 1869 at Felix Hoppe-Seyler’s laboratory at the University of Tübingen, Germany, paving the way for the identification of DNA as the carrier of inheritance.

♥~ If you uncoiled all of the DNA you have in all your cells, it would go 10 billion miles–A round trip from Earth to Pluto

♥~ The Paris Japonica, a flowering plant native to japan genome has almost 150 billion base pairs– 50 times more than ours

♥~ 99.9% of our DNA sequences is the same as other humans

♥~ It would take a person typing 60 words per minute, 8 hours a day, around 50 years to type the human genome

♥~ Siblings share 50% of their genes, as do a parent and child

♥~ Humans and Chimps share anywhere between 94-99% of their DNA. According to recent research, humans have at least 1-4% Neanderthal DNA. This means at some point, Homosapiens and Neanderthals mingled and mated.

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Don’t forget– Rabbit Rabbit! Click Rabbit Rabbit for more background on the importance of end of the month words. Hope everyone has a tantalizing Thursday.

 Odd Loves Company!