Blue
While blue is one of the most popular colors, it is one of the least appetizing. Food researchers say that when humans searched for food, they learned to avoid toxic or spoiled objects, which were often blue, black or purple. When food dyed blue is served to study subjects, they lose appetite.
Carbon Emission
When countries assess their annual carbon emissions, they count up their cars and power stations, but bush fires are not included – presumably because they are deemed to be events beyond human control. In Australia,
Victoria alone sees several hundred thousand hectares burn each year; in both 2004 and more recently, the figure has been over one million hectares.
Tesla and Edison
Tesla’s theoretical work formed the basis of modern alternating current electric power systems. Thomas Edison promised him almost one million dollars in today’s money to undertake motor and generator improvement.
However, when Tesla, the ethical Serb, asked about the money, Edison’s reportedly reply was “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor.” The pair became arch-rivals.
Productive Capacity
The core of the problem was the immense disparity between the country’s productive capacity and the ability of people to consume. Great innovations in productive techniques during and after the war raised the output of
industry beyond the purchasing capacity of U.S. farmers and wage earners.
Father
Every morning, no matter how late he had been up, my father rose at five-thirty, went to his study, wrote for a couple of hours, made us all breakfast, read the paper with my mother, and then went back to work for the rest
of the morning. Many years passed before I realized that he did this for a living.
Himalayas
Although it hails from a remote region of the western Himalayas. This plant now looks entirely at home on the banks of English rivers, and colonized river banks and damp woodlands. In the Himalayas the plant is held in
check by various pests, but take these away and it grows and reproduces unhindered. Now it is spreading across Europe, New Zealand, Canada and the US.
Pluto
Pluto lost its official status when the International Astronomical Union downsized the solar system from nine to eight planets. Although there had been passionate debate at the General Assembly Meeting in Prague about
the definition of a planet, and whether Pluto met the specifications, the audience greeted the decision to exclude it with applause.
Fiscal Year
At the beginning of each fiscal year funds are allocated to each State account in accordance with the University’s financial plan. Funds are allocated to each account by object of expenditure. Account managers are
responsible for ensuring that adequate funds are available in the appropriate object before initiating transactions to use the funds.
Lincoln
Lincoln’s apparently radical change of mind about his war powers to emancipate slaves was caused by the escalating scope of the war, which convinced him that any measure to weaken the Confederacy and strengthen the Union war effort was justifiable as a military necessity.
Shakespeare
A young man from a small provincial town, a man without independent wealth, without powerful family connections and without a university education, moves to London in the fifteen eighties, and becomes a
remarkable playwright of all time. How is an achievement of magnitude made? How does Shakespeare become Shakespeare?
Akimbo
Akimbo, this must be one of the odder-looking words in the language and puzzles us in part because it doesn’t seem to have any relatives. What’s more, it is now virtually a fossil word, until recently almost invariably found in arms akimbo, a posture in which a person stands with hands on hips and elbows sharply bent outward, one signaling impatience or hostility.