Sheets and bugs and choking priests
Hello my Cockney sparra,
Is there any chore worse than changing the beds? Doubt it. And sheet-folding is the worst part, I’m sure you’ll agree.
So this week, as well as giving you some sexy info about insects, daylight saving, pasta and ‘text claw’, here’s a handy guide to make folding that washing a little easier…
Let’s dabble…
Insects and daylight saving!
Feeling the effects of the clocks going back? Blame this dude. Yep, George Hudson, an entomologist – student of insects – proposed it way back in 1895 so he’d have more time to go…bug-hunting. Now there was a guy who didn’t need to fold his own bedding.
Nightmare cures!
I’ve shared plenty of things to give you nightmares, so it only seems fair I should provide some sort of antidote. Sleep researchers discovered that playing piano chord C69 while regular nightmare-havers were sleeping reduced the number bad dreams and increased their happy dreams. Oh Chord C69, where were you in the Post-Jaws 2 years??
Dancing like a bee!
Last week it was befriending crows, this week I’m helping you to dance like a honeybee. I’m like Doctor Doolittle over here. Well actually, the dancing, as you may know, is a form of language for bees, allowing them to communicate “remarkably accurate” information to their buddies. According to this piece, the pattern their movement creates “encodes the direction to the food source relative to the sun’s position in the sky”, while the length of the dance is related to the distance the bees must travel.
Pasta origin stories!
Oh, Mental Floss. You get me. I love talking and thinking about pasta, even when the shapes are linked to funerals (macaroni), inspired by Venus’ navel (tortellini) or named after a choking priest (strozzapreti).
Future humans!
Spend too much time on your phone? This might cure you. A US tech company has created a 3D model of a human of the future (called Mindy, if you’re interested). Thanks to years of us texting like mofos and working at desks, poor Mindy ain’t much of a looker, with a curved ‘tech neck’, ‘text claw’ of the hands, and a second pair of eyelids. And you thought you only had your thigh gap to worry about.
The question on everybody’s lips…
What’s the best way to cook scrambled eggs?
I KNEW IT.
Word of the week
Domspatzen [German]: Choir (literally, “cathedral sparrows”)
And finally…
See you next Friday!