July 21, 2010

Independence Day – Belgium

This day commemorates the day in 1931 when Belgium was granted independence from the Netherlands.

Belgium is an unusual country because it quite small―a little bit smaller than the state of Maryland―but it has two distinct languages and peoples. In the north, called Flanders, live Flemish people who speak Dutch (a Germanic language). In the south, called Wallonia, live Walloons, who speak French (a Latin language).

When we went to Belgium, we felt a bit confused. We flew into Brussels (the capital city), which is mostly French speaking,but which lies in the Dutch-speaking Flanders. We drove to a small town in the Dutch-speaking region and stayed with a French-speaking family. When we went to visit various towns and sights, there were quite likely to be two different names for our destinations―the Dutch version and the French version. An example of this is the charming, canal-crossed town of Brugge (Dutch, pronounced broo-gha) or Bruges (French and English, pronounced broozh). Another example is the large city of Antwerp, which is also called Antwerpen (Dutch) and Anvers (French).

This is Brugge.

We were told that “everyone” would speak English, but that wasn't the case at all. Still, enough people spoke English that we got by okay, including the English-speaking Egyptian man who made Italian food for us in Dutch-speaking Belgium!

Did you know...?

Not only is Belgium one of the founding members of the European Union (EU), the headquarters is there.

Belgium is the “B-E” part of Benelux, which is a term for its economic union with the NEtherlands and LUXembourg. These three countries are also called the Low Countries because the land is mostly at or even below sea level.

Celebrate Belgium

Eat thick (Belgian) waffles or even a waffle sandwich. Eat “French” (really Belgian) fries. Top it off with yummy Belgian chocolate. Here are some recipes.

Read an Agatha Christie murder mystery―but make sure it involves Hercule Poirot, Christie's most famous detective and Belgian charmer.

Take a peek at Belgian oil paintings from past greats.

July 20, 2010

Moon Day

On this day in 1969, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first humans to land on the moon. During the 21 hours that the two astronauts were on the moon, they planted a U.S. Flag on the lunar surface, spoke to President Richard Nixon through a telephone-radio connection, took the first real moon walks, and collected more than 47 pounds of lunar rocks.

And they did it all on TV! I was among the more than 600 million people watching―and for me it was THE highlight of TV in my childhood! (You Tube has copies of the first broadcast from another world.)

Armstrong, Aldrin and astronaut Michael Collins flew to the moon on the space flight called Apollo 11. Once there, Collins stayed with the command ship, Columbia, while Aldrin steered the landing craft, Eagle, to the lunar surface, landing in the so-called Sea of Tranquility. (There is no liquid water on the moon, so it isn't really a sea.) NASA personnel in Houston, Texas, stayed in touch with the astronauts through radio transmissions and cheered them on.

Some of the big moments included Neil Armstrong announcing, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed,” and, when he first stepped down onto the dusty moon, “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Did you know...?

• One of the first things Aldrin did on the moon was to take communion privately and quietly. His church in Webster, Texas, still has the chalice used in the Lunar Communion.

• The astronauts were supposed to sleep for five hours after landing on the moon, before they went outside. But like little kids too excited to sleep, they skipped the sleep period.

• Recordings of the original transmission of that first moonwalk were accidentally destroyed. Of course, there are lots of copies of the video in broadcast format, but NASA was happy when copies of the original footage were located in Australia, in one of the places that originally received the lunar broadcast.

• Some people have concocted a crazy conspiracy theory that humans have never really flown to and walked on the moon. They claim that all of the moon landings (there were five more after Apollo 11) were hoaxes! One of the moon-landing deniers was bugging Buzz Aldrin for several minutes―in his face, over and over again accusing him of being a liar and a thief, and even calling him a coward―when Aldrin finally, famously, punched him in the face. The moon-landing denier sued Aldrin for the attack, but the lawsuit was quickly thrown out of court. (If you want to watch this widely-viewed incident, here it is.) And here is a website that briefly shows why the the moon-landing deniers are wrong.

Learn more about the moon landing

This website was created by NASA to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of Apollo 11―now it's been 41 years since humans landed on the moon!

If you would rather read a more personal account, this website was created by a man who turned 13 on the day humans first walked on the moon.

Take a quiz on the moon at the National Geographic website.

July 19, 2010

Arts and Artists Day

On this day in 1834, Edgar Degas was born in Paris, France. He grew up to be one of the most beloved impressionistic painters of all times.






On this day in 1883, Max Fleischer was born in Krakow, Poland, in what was then part of the Austrian/Hungarian empire. He grew up to be a famous animator in America.



On this day in 1943, Han Sai Por was born in Singapore. She grew up to become a respected sculptor.



There are undoubtedly many more artists born on this particular date—and every day of the year!—representing many other art forms, including literature, music, performing arts, arts that were once known as “decorative arts” or “crafts,” architecture, and so forth. The human need to express ourselves through creating beautiful or meaningful or emotion-provoking works is very widespread and runs very deep.

Edgar Degas is particularly known for his paintings of dancers. Like other impressionists, he used little dabs of color and visible brush strokes to create paintings with feeling and movement, rather than attempting to create entirely realistic paintings.

Max Fleischer was not only an animator but also a filmmaker. He achieved his greatest success by bringing to the “silver screen” such characters as Betty Boop, Popeye, and Superman.

Han Sai Por is best known for her stone sculptures with organic forms. She carves stone such as marble, granite, and sandstone, but she also carves wooden sculptures.

Create art!

When we say “make art,” most people think of drawing or painting, but there are many, many art forms.

Experiment with stuff you have never tried before—drawing with pastels, for example, spatter painting, sculpting polymer clay, embroidery, scratchboard art, animation, computer graphics, and so on.

July 18, 2010

Extreme Vehicle Day

On this day in 1986, videotapes were released from the deep-sea Alvin vehicle—showing the wreck of the Titanic!

AND

On this day in 1990, the airlock hatch on the Soviet space station Mir was damaged during a spacewalk and could not be closed. Their supply of oxygen running out, cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyov and Aleksandr Balandin had to use the middle compartment of the space station module as an airlock. A week later, they managed to finally close the hatch and repressurize the middle compartment.

Do you know what an airlock does? It is an airtight room with two doors—one to the interior of the spaceship, which has air, and one to the airless vacuum outside of the spaceship. Astronauts go into the airlock while it has air, put on their pressurized suits with oxygen tanks, and then use the controls that pump the air out of the room. Once the airlock is a vacuum (airless), the outer door is opened to space.

Check out the Titanic and deep-sea vehicles:

• See how deep the Titanic wreck is!
  

• NOVA Online offers info on deep-sea vehicles.

• Here is a YouTube video on the sunken Titanic.

Check out a spaceship's airlock:

• This You Tube video shows an astronaut getting ready to use an airlock on the U.S. Space Shuttle.

• This Bing video shows an astronaut coming out of the airlock.

July 17, 2010

Happy Birthday, Disneyland!

Born on this day in 1955 (by being dedicated with a televised press preview), Disneyland is 55 years old today. The park is located in Anaheim, California.

Walt Disney designed and supervised the building of Disneyland. Today the Walt Disney Company has lots more theme parks (including California Adventure, next to Disneyland; Magic Kingdom and Epcott Center, at Disney World in Florida; and Disneylands in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Paris). But the original Disneyland is the only one designed and supervised by Walt Disney himself.


Disneyland has the most cumulative attendance (total attendance from all years) of any theme park in the world, with close to 600 million guests so far since 1955. Last year Disneyland was the second most visited theme park in 2009, with more than 15 million visitors.

But this major success story was not without its birth pains:

Apparently July 17, 1955, was not as smooth a dedication day as could have been hoped. An affair for invited celebrities and press only, including TV host Art Linkletter and then-actor Ronald Reagan, there were more visitors with counterfeit tickets than with real tickets (11,000 people were expected, and 28,154 people came)! It was hot (101 degrees Fahrenheit), and the fresh asphalt got gooey. There was a plumbers' strike that meant that the drinking fountains didn't work, a gas leak closed part of the park for part of the day, and some vendors ran out of food.

The park got quite a bit of bad press. Disney and others later referred to the day as “Black Sunday.”

Still, the opening of the park to the public was scheduled for the very next day, and crowds began to line up at 2 a.m. for tickets. Around 50,000 people attended on Monday, July 18, 1955.

I can't quite imagine how much fun those people had, with 50,000 people trying to ride the 20 original attractions!
For sure, there can be problems and discomforts with a visit to D-Land, but I have been there bunches of times, and for my family it has been, as billed, one of the Happiest Places on Earth!

Do the Theme Park Thing

• Design an amusement park around a theme. How about a Percy Jackson and the Olympians Park? Or a park called Planets of the Universe?

• Go to an amusement park. The water parks near me sound tempting right about now!

• Play a computer game in which you build a virtual theme park. (Sim Theme Park or Roller Coaster Tycoon are two possibilities.)

Do the Disney Thing with a Disney movie marathon.

July 16, 2010

Happy Birthday, Joseph Goldberger

Born on this day in 1874, in Hungary, Goldberger came over to the U.S. with his parents in 1883. He became a doctor and studied diseases (which means he was an epidemiologist), and he was nominated for the Nobel Prize five times for his work on the disease called pellagra.

When Goldberger was asked to study pellagra, most doctors thought it was an infectious disease that spread from person to person. However, Goldberger thought it was related to diet. He did some careful restricted-diet experiments with volunteers—studies that spanned several years—and Goldberger was able to show that people who had diets of mostly corn and corn products were at a greatly increased risk to get the disease.

By 1928 Goldberger was able to determine that it was a Vitamin B (niacin) deficiency that caused pellagra.

Unfortunately, Goldberger died the next year of cancer.


Foods high in niacin include eggs, meat, avocados, tomatoes, leafy vegetables, broccoli, carrots, nuts, legumes, and mushrooms (plus many more!).










Quick Quiz

Which of these diseases is caused by a vitamin deficiency (but of another vitamin, other than B)?

1.rickets
2.pneumonia
3.flu
4.scurvy

ANSWERS: (1) Rickets is Vitamin D deficiency. (4) Scurvy is Vitamin C deficiency.

Find Out More

• Here is a website with info about vitamins and what they do in our bodies. There are lots of other health topics to click on, too!

• This website has some pretty high-level info about our digestive process and “biomolecules,” including a virtual journey down Fred's throat...and beyond...

• A simple, fun approach is this You Tube video!

July 15, 2010

Happy Birthday, Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Born on this day in 1943, in Great Britain (Northern Ireland), Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered the first pulsars in 1967.

Pulsars are very, very dense stars that, as they rotate, sweep beams of light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation outward. (This is rather like the beam of a lighthouse or search light.) Whenever a beam is pointing to Earth, we can detect it—and so these stars seem to pulse (or pulsate) in the sky. That is why we call them pulsars.


The rotation period (and thus the “pulse”) is usually very rapid—just a few milliseconds to eight seconds. Remember, the earth rotates in 24 hours, and the sun rotates in 25 days—so a rotation period of under a second is fast!

Jocelyn Bell Burnell made her discovery while she was a postgraduate student working with others under her thesis supervisor, Antony Hewish. The paper the team put out about their pulsar observations listed five names, with Hewish's name first. In 1974 Hewish received a Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery—but Bell Burnell wasn't included as a co-recipient, a move that caused criticism and controversy.

However, Bell Burnell has received many honors and has had a very good career in physics. She is currently the president of the Institute of Physics and has received the highest honor bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II – with the title “Dame” in front of her name as well as “Doctor”: Dr. Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell is also Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

Did you know...?

Bell Burnell and her professor first called their discovery LGMs. That stood for “Little Green Men”!

Some scientists wondered (or teased?) that the regular pulses of electromagnetic radiation must be a message from intelligent aliens. However, after discovering more than a thousand similar pulsars, we are now almost positive that they are quickly-rotating neutron stars.

Are you puzzled about pulsars? Or are you a puzzle fan?

Either way, this NASA publication may be helpful and enjoyable for you to print out and use.

Such splendor!

The universe is so amazingly beautiful, including these photos ...