To pay, generally unwillingly, a certain amount of money. Watch the video
Month: May 2023
Sunflowers
The sunflower is a plant native to the New World and common throughout the US. Its stem can grow up to 10 ft (3 m) tall, and its flower head, commonly having yellow rays, can reach 1 ft (30 cm) in diameter. The sunflower was domesticated around 1000 BCE in the Americas, where the Incas venerated it as an image of their sun god, and it reached Europe in the 16th century. It is valued today for its oil-bearing seeds that can be made into bread. The sunflower is the state flower of what US state? Discuss
haversack
Penny Black Is Issued in the UK (1840)
Before the issuance of the Penny Black—the first adhesive stamp to indicate prepayment of postage—letters were commonly paid for by their recipients. Part of an effort to reform the antiquated British postal system, the stamp featured a profile of Queen Victoria. Because its dark background made cancellation marks hard to see and made reusing stamps quite easy, it was soon redesigned. To this day, all British stamps bear a profile of the reigning monarch and are the only stamps not to list what? Discuss
Vappu
Vappu is a national holiday and celebration of the coming of spring in Finland. This traditional festival is also Labor Day, and factories that are said to “never close” do close on May 1 (and Christmas Day). For students, the “anything goes” celebration begins at midnight on the eve of May Day, called Vapunaatto, when they wear white student caps and indulge in anything not indecent or criminal. There are balloons, streamers, horns, and masks everywhere, and few get much sleep. On May Day itself, the students lead processions through the streets of Helsinki, and then enjoy carnivals and concerts. Discuss
Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852)
Considered one of the founders of neuroscience, Ramón y Cajal was a Spanish histologist and Nobel laureate. He devised a method of staining nerve tissue that allowed him to study the structure of the nervous system and make many important discoveries. In 1906, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Camillo Golgi. Though he was a highly respected researcher in his adult years, he often got into trouble as a child and was imprisoned at the age of 11 for doing what? Discuss
Up to (one's) neck in alligators
business adage The full expression is some variation of: “When you are up to your neck in alligators, it’s easy to forget that the goal was to drain the swamp.” It is easy to be so overcome or preoccupied by various tangential worries, problems, or tasks that one loses sight of the ultimate goal or objective. Watch the video
The Toyota Prius
The award-winning Toyota Prius was the world’s first commercially mass-produced and marketed hybrid automobile. Toyota’s goal for the Prius was to reduce the amount of pollutants it produced and to increase its energy efficiency. To achieve this goal, the company reduced the engine’s gasoline consumption, added two electric motor/generators, reduced air resistance and road friction, and reduced the car’s weight. Supposedly, why did Toyota choose the name “Prius” for their hybrid car? Discuss