Random Stuff You May Not Know: Three

1- Largest Flying Bird Ever

Discovered decades ago and formally described in 1980, Argentavis magnificens is the largest bird known that was capable of flight. Its name means “magnificent Argentine bird”, or more literally “magnificent silver bird”, and it lived six thousand years ago during the Miocene period throughout Argentina.

With a 8.3 m (27 ft) wingspan, a length of up to 3.5 m (11 ft), a height on the ground of up to 2 m (6.6 ft) and weighing approximately 70 kilograms (150 pounds), this gigantic beast was nearly the size of a Cessna 152 aircraft. Though size wise, it ranks second after the extinct Elephant Bird (Aepyornis) of Madagascar, which was flightless. 

Even though the muscles of the Argentavis were well-developed, they still were not sufficient to generate enough lift for it to leave the ground. It is held, however, that it flew mainly by soaring; using mountain slopes and headwinds to take off, and only using flapping flight during short periods. Or so it is believed.

2- Conformité Européenne ≠ China Export

In recent years, we’ve got used to the fact that if a product bears the CE (Conformité Européenne) logo, it is safe. The reason for this assumption is the goods’ compliance with EU standards. Unfortunately, there exists a much similar mark which the majority of consumers, and even some sellers, mistakenly consider as the genuine CE of the European Union. This other logo, however, symbolizes something quite different.

The logo means that the product was manufactured in China, and it stands for “China Export”. Such uncanny similarity is not a mere coincidence; it actually expresses the aggressive approach of the Chinese in confusing consumers of the world.

The China Export logo is not registered, it does not confirm positive test results, and is placed by Chinese manufacturers arbitrarily. Note that the two letters in the original form a sideways number 8, while it's not the case in the replica. 

Now keep those eyes open. 


3-  Maspero

This is a Snapple fact that many, if not most, Egyptians don’t know: The Radio and TV Building in Cairo was named after the French Egyptologist Gaston Camille Charles Maspero (June 23, 1846 – June 30, 1916) in honour of his good deeds and contributions to research and preserve the ancient Egyptian monuments.

Maspero was the director general of excavations and antiquities for the Egyptian government and was responsible for locating a collective royal tomb of prime historic importance. He taught Egyptian language in Paris from 1869 until his appointment as professor at the Collège de France in 1874. In November 1880, he went to Egypt as head of an archaeological mission, which grew into the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology.

Apparently the Egyptian director Shadi Abdel Salam had recorded his presence in the feature film The Mummy.


4- Plastic Bridges for the Migration of Christmas Island Crabs

Every year around January on Christmas Island, over 120 million fearless young crabs make their way from spawning-grounds inland in a mass migration towards the sea — clogging up the island's roads on the way. As a result, thoughtful rangers close car lanes to avoid having any crushed crustaceans.

All those millions of red crabs don't seem to bother the island's 1,200 inhabitants too much. “It is difficult to see crabs in the houses,” one local resident told BBC Brasil. Still, rangers are doing their best to keep the little crabs on course as they make their way to the sea. They even built plastic bridges to help them overcome difficult obstacles and putting up little fences to help guide them along.

Faith in Humanity...Restored.


5- Self-Surgery by Leonid Rogozov

Leonid Rogozovgozov is a Russian general practitioner who took part in the sixth Soviet Antarctic Expedition in 1960–1961. He was the only doctor stationed at the Novolazarevskaya Station, and, while there, developed peritonitis; which meant he had to perform an appendectomy on himself, a famous case of self-surgery.

On the morning of 29 April 1961, Rogozov experienced general weakness, nausea, and moderate fever, and later pain in the lower right portion of the abdomen. All possible conservative treatment measures did not help. By 30 April, signs of localised peritonitis became apparent, and his condition worsened considerably by the evening. Mirny, the nearest Soviet research station, was more than 1,600 km (1,000 mi) from Novolazarevskaya. Antarctic research stations of other countries did not have an aircraft, and severe blizzard conditions prevented aircraft landing in any case. Rogozov had no option but to perform the operation on himself with the help of a driver and meteorologist, who were providing instruments and holding a mirror to observe areas not directly visible.

He was fine after several days, and the self-surgery captured the imagination of the Soviet public at the time. In 1961 he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour.

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Random Stuff You May Not Know: Two

After Random Stuff You May Not Know, I give you the sequel.

1- The Aldabra Atoll

Aldabra is the world's second largest coral atoll after Kiritimati Atoll — also known as Christmas Atoll. It is located in the Aldabra Group of islands in the Indian Ocean, which form the Outer Islands of Seychelles. Uninhabited and remotely isolated, Aldabra is virtually untouched by humans.

It has distinctive island fauna including the Aldabra Giant Tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea) with two thirds of their world population. The atoll is also the largest raised coral reef in the world with an elevation of 26 feet (7.9 m). Apart from the tortoises, there is a habitat for the biggest crab, the coconut crab; as well as a habitat for the Indian Ocean’s Aldabra Rail (Dryolimnas cuvieri), also known as The white-throated rail or Cuvier's rail — the only surviving flightless bird species of its kind in the world. 

Sir David Attenborough has called the south western atoll of Aldabra “One of the wonders of the world”. It is also dubbed “The Crown Jewels of the Indian Ocean”.

This magical place was visited by Portuguese navigators in 1511. However, the islands were already known to the Arabs, from whom they get their name — originally Al-Hadra or Al-Khadra, meaning the green. In the middle of the 18th century, they became dependencies of the French colony of Réunion, from where expeditions were made for the capture of the giant tortoises.

Fortunately, Aldabra has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site since 1982. BirdLife International has equally declared it as an endemic bird area in 2001 on account of its large seabird colonies.

More wonders from Mother Nature can be found in the photo-article exposé The World’s Rare and Natural Phenomena. 


2- Flies

During my many trips to Sinai over the years, I had to drive through the empty desert for 4.5 hours (440 kms/274 mi) to reach that dream destination. Depending on the weather, almost every time I stop to answer nature’s call I find a fly or two just appearing around me out of nowhere. This was bedazzling because if we think of the odds with the time/space factor, it shows that flies are almost everywhere all the time.

So one day recently I remembered the memory and decided to Google the number of flies in the world. And they are 17 quadrillion (17,000,000,000,000,000 or 17 thousand million million) of them. That means for each one of us humans there are 2328767 flies. Insane, huh.

3- Male/Female Buttons

Have you ever wondered the reason behind this peculiar difference?

Well, when buttons were invented they were quite expensive and worn primarily by the rich. Since most people are right-handed, it is easier to push buttons on the right through holes on the left. Because wealthy women were dressed by maids and servants, dressmakers put the buttons on the maid’s right side! And that’s where women’s buttons have remained ever since. Ta-Da.
 


 4- Checagou

The name “Chicago” is derived from a Canadian French rendering of the Native American word Shikaakwa, translated as “wild onion” or “wild garlic”. Its origin is the indigenous Miami-Illinois language, the Algonquian language; either Fox /sheka:ko:heki/ “place of the wild onion”, or Ojibwa shika:konk “at the skunk place” — sometimes rendered “place of the bad smell”. The Ojibwa “skunk” word is distantly related to the New England Algonquian word that yielded Modern English skunk, the noun. 

 

On that same note, “Chicagoan” is from 1847 and “Chicagoian” from 1859. 

While the town of Chicago was founded in 1833, the first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as “Checagou” was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir written about the time. Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called “Chicagoua”, grew abundantly in the area.

During the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, who had taken the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples. The 1780s saw the arrival of the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who was of African and European (French) descent. 

 

In 1795, following the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the United States for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in the War of 1812, Battle of Fort Dearborn and later rebuilt. The Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the U.S in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were eventually forcibly removed from their land following the Treaty of Chicago in 1833.

And now you know.

5- Piggy Bank

During the 15th century in Europe, dishes and cookware [plates, bottles, vessels] were made of a dense orange clay called “Pygg”. When people saved coins in jars made of this clay, the jars became known as “Pygg Banks”. Later in the 18th century an English potter misunderstood the word, hence made a container resembling a pig. And it caught on. That is one theory. 



According to another theory of origin, Etymologist Michael Quinion links piggy banks to Germany; because ancient ones have been found there — including one from the 13th century. 



An additional theory states that piggy banks may have originated in China during the Qing dynasty; since pigs were a symbol of wealth and abundance in Chinese culture, people crafted pig-shaped vessels to store their coins. 



One more theory takes the origin of piggy banks to Indonesia, due to 14th century vessels being found there. 



What makes early piggy banks hard to study is the fact that they are rarely ever found. The reason lies in their very concept: They must be shattered in order to retrieve the coins they contain. Despite the above theories, no one knows where the first piggy bank came from or who was its creator. 
 

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Random Stuff You May Not Know: Eight

Random Stuff You May Not Know: Nine

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Random Stuff You May Not Know: Eleven

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