Elevator operator

Before elevators became fully automated, in department stores, hotels, and office skyscrapers, there was always a human operator working an elevator.

Operators manually controlled heavy lever controls in order to level the elevator car precisely with each floor, opened and closed inner metal grates, and announced department names or floor numbers.

Switchboard operator

Even as automatic switching was in its infancy, operators working at large physical switchboards were still handling the majority of telephone calls during the 1950s. They connected calls locally, long-distance, or between households by plugging cords into jacks. The role has since been nearly completely eliminated by automation and digital telephone networks.

Milkman

Because home refrigerators were inefficient and most foods had short shelf lives back in the 1950s, milk, cream, and butter were delivered daily or twice-weekly in fresh glass bottles to your doorstep or milk box. Refrigerators in every kitchen and suburban supermarkets eventually replaced this occupation.

Ice Cutter

By the 1950s, harvesting natural ice had become rare, but there were still labourers cutting large blocks of ice from frozen lakes in winter. It was stored and eventually sold for people to keep food and drinks cool. Sales of electric refrigerators and freezers led to this job disappearing in the decades following.

Pinsetter

Before automatic pin-setters were standard in bowling alleys, people (usually teenagers) stood behind bowling lanes manually resetting pins after each ball and returning bowling balls to bowlers. Automation took away one of bowling’s most strenuous jobs.

Gas station attendant

Service station attendants pumped gas, wiped windshields, and checked tire pressure (and sometimes even oil) at every vehicle that pulled in during the 1950s. There are still some full-service gas stations around, but automatic pumps have replaced attendants for the most part.

Telegraph operator

Businesses, railroads, newspapers and government offices relied on skilled telegraph operators to transmit and receive Morse code messages. When telephones, fax machines, computers and the internet replaced the telegraph, the need for skilled workers vanished.

Linotype operator

Newspapers were previously printed on large Linotype machines that cast whole lines of metal type. Competent operators had to learn how to operate complex machines to prepare material for newspaper and book printing. Desktop publishing and computer typesetting have replaced the trade.

Movie projectionist

Projectionists were needed in movie theaters of the past to load, watch, and change giant reels of film while the movie played. Digital cinema systems today require very little human interaction, thus there are drastically fewer projectionists needed per theater.

Human computer

Before the widespread availability of electronic computers, it was common practice for businesses, research labs, and government agencies to employ individuals to do mathematical computations manually (or with mechanical calculating devices). These employees were referred to as computers. With the fast evolution of electronic computers in the second half of the 20th century, this job largely vanished.

Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.

1. Elevator operator
2. Computer (occupation)
3. Movie projectionist
4. Linotype machine
5. Telegraph operator
6. Gas station attendant
7. Pinsetter
8. Ice Cutting
9. Milk delivery
10. Switchboard operator

Their humps store fat, not water

Contrary to popular belief, camel humps aren’t actually reservoirs of water. They are composed of dense fat and weigh up to 80 pounds. This stored fat allows camels to convert their humps into nutritional, backup generators when food is hard to come by.

By storing their fat in a single place on their backs, camels can release body heat more quickly from the other parts of their bodies. This helps prevent overheating in extreme conditions.

They have a complex ocular defense system

As camels need to protect their eyes from severe desert sandstorms, they have a unique built-in ocular defense mechanism. They have not one, but two rows of extra-long eyelashes that lock together to prevent blowing debris from getting into the eye.

Underneath these eyelashes is a third eyelid that’s semi-transparent (called a nictitating membrane) that sweeps horizontally across the eye like a windshield wiper, wiping away dust and still permitting enough light in for the camel to see where it’s going.

Their blood cells expand up to 240% without bursting

A camel can lose more than 30% of their total body water weight when severely dehydrated. This kind of dehydration would kill humans through heart failure or stroke. After going without water for so long, camels can drink up to 30 gallons of water in less than 10 minutes once they locate water.

Their red blood cells are oval instead of round, allowing the cells to flow easily when their blood is thick from dehydration and expand up to 240% their normal size to store the large amounts of water without bursting.

They excrete almost zero water

Camels are masters of moisture retention. Their kidneys excrete urine that is twice as salty as seawater, and reduced in volume until it’s syrupy.

Moreover, their intestinal tract squeezes every last particle of moisture from their food. As a result, camel dung is expelled completely dry, and Bedouin have traditionally used it right away for fires without having to dry it first.

Their nostrils can reabsorb their own breath

Inside a camel’s nostrils there are specialized, labyrinth-like scroll structures lined with hygroscopic mucous membranes.

During exhalation, moisture is absorbed out of warm exhaled air by these cool, dry membranes and stored inside the nose. Upon inhalation, the moisture is evaporated and drawn back into the lungs, thus conserving water which would otherwise be lost through breathing.

They can completely seal their nostrils

Unlike people, camels’ nostrils are muscular slits that they can voluntarily close completely.

When sandstorms are severe or when camels walk behind other animals in dusty caravans, they seal their nostrils shut in order to prevent fine sand and dust from entering their respiratory systems without interrupting their breathing patterns.

There are two main camel species

Not all camels are alike. Dromedary camels have one hump and are the camel most people think of when they imagine a Middle Eastern or North African desert.

Bactrian camels have two humps and are native to Central Asia’s cold deserts. Wild Bactrian camels are critically endangered and a different species than domesticated Bactrian camels. They are among the rarest large mammals on Earth.

Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.

1. Camel | Description, Humps, Food, Types, Adaptations
2. Camel

Savory Jell-O molds

Mid-century cooks made Savory Jell-O molds by including canned tuna, chopped hard-boiled eggs, shredded cabbage, or ground beef inside lime-flavored or lemon-flavored gelatins. After World War II, powdered gelatin had only recently become inexpensive and represented the exciting world of modern convenience foods.

Plus, it allowed families to turn leftover proteins and vegetables into a mold that looked impressive and stayed firm without refrigeration.

Vinegar pie

This pie from frontier days is made by whisking together cider vinegar, sugar, butter, flour, and eggs to form a sweet-and-tangy custard.

It was baked in homes across the American frontier and during times of financial struggle because while fresh citrus fruits such as lemons were rare, costly, or impossible to find, rural homesteaders still craved that citrus flavor. They found that the acidic punch of inexpensive cupboard vinegar could mimic it nicely in a dessert.

Syllabub

Syllabub was a favourite dessert during Tudor and Victorian times. Made by whisking together heavy cream and wine, cider, or sherry, lemon juice, and sugar until it became a fizzy, layered, drinkable cream, it was drunk everywhere at festivities and feasts.

Syllabub allowed upper-class families to present their fine imported booze, sugar, and fresh dairy together in an extravagant fashion.

Tomato soup cake

This moist spice cake gets its name from one simple can: condensed tomato soup. The condensed tomato soup gets mixed right into a batter with warm spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

Made famous by Campbell’s in the midst of the Great Depression, homemakers baked this cake because the acidity and natural moisture from canned tomato soup improved the texture of the cake without using costly, hard-to-find ingredients such as fresh eggs, milk, or additional butter.

Suet puddings

Suet puddings like Spotted Dick or the traditional steamed Christmas pudding were heavy puddings made by combining raw beef or mutton kidney fat (also known as suet), flour, breadcrumbs, dried fruit and spices, then steaming the batter for several hours.

Many traditional cooks used suet because animal fats were readily available after killing livestock and also had a high melting point. This made for a pudding that stayed moist and would last long, able to stay preserved during the cold winter months before refrigerators became common.

Mock apple pie

Mock Apple Pie was a pie made during the Great Depression era. Instead of using fruit, crushed Ritz crackers were soaked in a syrup made of sugar, water, lemon juice, and warm spices. Cooks made it because apples could be out of season, too costly, or even rationed during tough financial times. The crackers absorbed the syrup while baking and became soft, simulating apples cooked in sugar and spices economically.

Ambergris ice cream

Ambergris ice cream is a rich ice cream created by adding small quantities of ambergris (a waxy substance made in the intestines of sperm whales) to sweetened cream and custards of eggs. It was eaten by the rich and upper-class Europeans, as ambergris was one of the world’s costliest luxury ingredients.

Ambergris ice cream gave desserts a delicate, musky floral scent and aftertaste, the height of opulence.

Candied watermelon rind

Candied Watermelon Rind used to be a popular recipe made by cutting off the green skin from a watermelon, dicing the thick white part of the rind, and boiling it for hours in heavy sugar syrup flavored with ginger, lemon, and cloves.

Families made it at home because waste was not tolerated, and making tasty treats from watermelon refuse that would otherwise be thrown away was an economical means of extending the budget.

Flummery

Flummery was originally a British and American pudding consisting of oatmeal soaked overnight in water until it began to ferment slightly, then boiled down after straining until it formed a thick gelatinous starch pudding. This would then be flavored with rosewater, sugar, or wine.

Oats were cheap and natural starches in them allowed home cooks to produce a firmly set jellied dessert without using costly gelatin or Isinglass.

Baked alaska

Created in the 1800s, this dessert features ice cream and cake topped with meringue and quickly baked at a high temperature. The meringue keeps the ice cream frozen while the outside toasts evenly. Baked Alaska is still impressive, but few people make it at home these days.

Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.

1. Ambergris – Whale excrement once flavored ice cream
2. Baked alsaka
3. Flummery
4. History of Mock Apple Pie
5. Suet pudding
6. Tomato soup cake
7. Syllabub
8. Old-fashioned Vinegar pie
9. Jello salad

Blue whales can drop their heart rate to two beats a minute

Blue whales can dramatically slow their heart rate while diving deep into the ocean in search of food. The whale’s heart can weigh 400 pounds, and when it dives, its heart can beat as few as 2 to 8 times per minute.

Slowing their heart rate allows more blood to flow to the brain and muscles while conserving oxygen.

Sperm whale clicks are the loudest biological sounds on Earth

The clicks of sperm whales are measured at over 230 decibels in volume underwater, making them the loudest animal sound produced on the planet. These clicks are produced when sperm whales force air through nasal passages in their head, which works like sonar. The energy released by sperm whale clicks is powerful enough to cause human tissue to vibrate.

Humpback whale songs evolve and spread across entire oceans

Male humpback whales in any given ocean area all sing identical, complex vocalizations during breeding seasons. These songs can last up to 20 minutes before they repeat themselves.

Scientists have found that these songs change gradually over time as small mutations or new styles become popular within a region. When a new song develops, it seems to spread like wildfire to adjacent populations of whales throughout entire oceanic basins.

Bowhead whales can live for over two centuries

Bowhead whales hold the record for mammalian lifespan. They can live past 200 years with relative ease. Scientists were able to determine their impressive age by finding old stone and ivory harpoon tips lodged deep inside their blubber from when they were attacked by humans over a century ago.

Bowheads survive in frigid Arctic climates and can live so long due in part to mutations which give them extraordinary DNA repair capabilities. They also appear to be very resistant to age-related diseases.

A blue whale’s tongue weighs as much as an elephant

An adult blue whale’s tongue is huge and weighs about 2.7 metric tons (3.0 US tons). An adult Asian elephant weighs about the same. When engulfing large volumes of krill-rich seawater, the tongue flattens, expanding the mouth into a cavernous pouch roughly equal to its body weight in volume before pressing the water out through its baleen plates.

Orcas hunt great white sharks just for their livers

Some pods of orcas hunt great white sharks. They engage in tactical maneuvers to ambush sharks and knock them into an upside-down position. This temporarily paralyzes the shark, in a phenomenon known as tonic immobility.

Once the shark is helpless, the orcas mutilate the shark by ripping open its chest cavity and consume its fatty liver, which contains significant deposits of squalene. Orcas often leave the rest of the shark carcass untouched.

Humpback whales blow bubble nets to trap their prey

Humpback whales display sophisticated cooperative behaviour on a regular basis during a feeding strategy known as “bubble-net feeding”. One or more whales swim below a school of fish or krill, then swim upward in a shrinking spiral while blowing bubbles from their blowholes.

Panicked prey do not dare pass through the cylinder of bubbles, trapping themselves in a tight ball at the surface where the whales can then leap out of the water with their mouths open and gulp them down.

Gray whales swim the distance to the Moon and back

Gray whales have one of the longest annual migrations of any mammal. Their roundtrip journeys can cover 12,000 miles from their cool summer feeding grounds in the Arctic to their warm winter breeding lagoons in Mexico.

In a normal 70- to 80-year lifespan, a gray whale will travel about 800,000 miles on its annual migrations, a distance similar to traveling to the Moon and back.

Sperm whales sleep vertically in the ocean

Sperm whales do not sleep lying down like land mammals. Instead, they drift vertically near the surface of the ocean, in a state of semi-consciousness called drift sleep, completely still and unresponsive, without moving to sleep.

Sleep periods typically only last 10–15 minutes. During these periods, the whales neither breathe nor move.

Whales are natural climate engineers

Whales have an important effect on ocean ecosystems worldwide through a process called “whale pump”. Since whales dive deep to feed and return to the surface to breathe and defecate, their feces deposit large amounts of iron, nitrogen, and phosphorus-enriched material into the sunlit upper ocean layers.

Whale feces fertilize phytoplankton, microscopic marine plants that take up huge quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and generate over 50% of the world’s oxygen.

Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.

1. Blue whales: Heartbeat reduces to 2 beats per minute when feeding
2. Loudest animal sound
3. Humpback Whales Pass Their Songs Across Oceans
4. A blue whale’s tongue weighs the same as an elephant
5. How humpback whales use bubbles as a tool
6. Which whale undertakes the longest migration?
7. Behavior Sleeping – Sperm Whales
8. Sciencespeak: Whale Pump
9. Biological Information for the Whale

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Sea otter

Scientists counted the hair on sea otters and found that they can have up to 140,000 hairs in a single square centimeter. That’s denser than any other mammal we’ve ever studied. In fact, a sea otter’s underhairs are so fine at 7.6 to 11.9 microns across that water can’t touch their skin.  One micron is around 0.00003937 inches, so those hairs are rather small.

Platypus

Yes, a platypus looks odd, but its coat is rather impressive. Each square millimeter carries 600 to 900 hairs & traps a layer of air that keeps it warm while it dives. That’s roughly 60,000 to 90,000 hairs per square centimeter. It’s quite important, as they need to stay underwater for long periods without losing body heat.

Vicuña

You probably haven’t heard of the vicuña. It’s a wild relative of the llama & it has fibers so fine they average only 12 to 13 microns wide. Interestingly, research has shown that these animals have incredible uniformity across herds in Peru & Chile, with each staple of fleece being about 31 mm long. This gives their fiber its smooth, almost silk-like look.

Musk ox

Beneath a musk ox’s shaggy coat, they have something called a qiviut, which is an underwool that insulates the animal against Arctic winters. Qiviut fibers are only 17.5–18.2 microns thick on average & researchers discovered that females usually have slightly finer samples than males. That’s quite different from their coarse guard hairs, which can be ten times as thick.

Angora rabbit

Breeders & textile researchers measured the fibers of the Angora rabbit and found that it’s usually between 12.4 and 14.1 microns. So what’s the secret to their softness? Well, the size is just as important as the structure because the down fibers have little to no medulla, which is the central core in hair. This makes the fur flexible & springy.

Cashmere goat

Cashmere goats produce an undercoat that’s between 15.6 and 19.5 microns in diameter. However, some breeds, especially in Inner Mongolia, can go as low as 13.8 microns. The sex & age can affect the hair’s diameter, and so can the climate. But the cashmere itself is hidden under a rougher outer coat. These animals shed it naturally each spring.

Common eider

In northern communities, eider ducks are famous for their down because it behaves differently from goose or duck down. Each barbule has tiny prongs that hook together & form clusters that cling without stitching. In fact, these clusters spring back into shape and insulate the eider evenly, so it’s no surprise it’s known as one of nature’s strongest soft materials.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. An Analysis of California Sea Otter (ENHYDRA LUTRIS) Pelage and Integument
2. The sensory world of the platypus
3. Fibre characteristics of vicuña (Vicugna vicugna mensalis)
4. Fiber characteristics of qiviut and guard hair from wild muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus)
5. Characteristics of Angora rabbit fiber using optical fiber diameter analyzer 
6. Effect of sex and rearing system on the quality and mineral content of fiber from raeini cashmere goats
7. Contributions of feather microstructure to eider down insulation properties

A 476,000-year-old wooden structure used interlocking logs

Archeologists once discovered two ancient logs notched together at Kalambo Falls in Zambia. What made these logs so interesting is that they worked like a simple joint. They’d been there for approximately 476,000 years.

Clearly, whoever made them knew what they were doing with wood and may have used them to create a platform or walkway of sorts.

Homo erectus engraved a zigzag on a freshwater shell

Not every human wrote on cave walls. In fact, long before we wrote on caves, someone picked up a huge shell in Java & scratched a zigzag pattern onto it. Who did it?

Apparently, it was Homo erecuts, an early human species that lived half a million years ago. You can see the markings under a microscope. They’re that sharp.

DNA from lice points to clothing beginning roughly 170,000 years ago

Body lice can’t live without clothes. That’s good news for scientists because they can work out where they split from head lice to see when we started wearing clothes.

We supposedly began covering ourselves up around 170,000 years ago. People likely wore hides or woven fibers as protection in those days.

Early humans butchered a giant ground sloth the size of a car

Early humans had to deal with a lot of dangerous animals. One of those was a ground sloth species called Mylodon.

In southern Chile, archeologists found evidence that humans took down the animal 17,000 years ago. They carved it with stone blades & the animal’s bones still show clean slices. Our ancestors simply stripped the meat away.

Early humans had lead exposure long before industrialisation

Bizarrely, pollution existed even in the time of early humans. Fossil teeth records prove that ancient hominins (early humans) had lead traces in their bodies over a million years ago. Where did it come from?

It’s likely just contaminated soil or volcanic ash, maybe from water. Either way, their natural world wasn’t as clean as you might believe.

Neanderthals stored seashells full of pigment

Discoveries near the coast of Italy showed that Neanderthals had some interesting collections. They used to gather seashells & turn them into small containers. Why?

So they could store red & yellow pigment, possibly to paint their skin or for tools. Some of them even reused the shells multiple times.

Ancient humans used eagle talons as jewelry 130,000 years ago

Neanderthals also collected eagle talons. Archeologists discovered a handful of eagle claws in a Croatian cave that have tiny cut marks where early humans shaped & strung them together. They’re approximately 130,000 years old.

The fact that their edges are smoothed proves that early humans wore them instead of using the talons only as trophies.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Evidence for the earliest structural use of wood at least 476,000 years ago
2. Homo erectus at Trinil on Java used shells for tool production and engraving
3. Origin of Clothing Lice Indicates Early Clothing Use by Anatomically Modern Humans in Africa
4. Our Human Ancestors Were Exposed to Lead, and New Research Suggests It May Have Shaped Human Evolution
5. Neanderthals combed beaches and went diving for shells to use as tools, study says
6. Neanderthals wore eagle talons as jewellery
7. Early humans dined on giant sloths and other Ice Age giants, archaeologists find

The sticky base layer inside many washers

Every washer has a bit of grime that never really leaves. The grime eventually becomes a film that’s slimy & sticky, which is perfect for bacteria to take hold. It forms on plastic parts and hoses, as well as rubber seals, becoming a glue trap for microbes.

They thrive off leftover detergent and fabric softener. Worst of all, the microbes will continue surviving after each rinse.

Where microbes tend to hide in a machine

Pull open your detergent drawer and look inside. You may notice some grayish gunk around the edge. It’s where most microbes live because it’s moist, and they also enjoy staying in the drawer & door seal.

These areas stay damp between cycles, while any leftover water gives the germs a place to multiply. 

A washer linked to infant colonization

A study in Germany once researched the dangers of washing machines. They found that several newborns were carrying a rare & drug-resistant strain of bacteria called Klebsiella oxytoca.

The washing machine that cleaned the babies’ clothes was spreading these germs because the bacteria had settled inside the washer’s rubber seal. They spread to every load that went through it. So much for a washing machine “cleaning” your clothes. 

Cold and “eco” cycles

Quite a few people use low temperatures or eco settings to save energy. Unfortunately, there’s a catch. Cold water doesn’t kill bacteria, and a 104 °F (40 °C) wash will only remove dirt & smell, not the bacteria lingering on your clothes.

Higher heat cycles of over 140 °F (60 °C) are much better for destroying bacterial colonies. 

Viruses in laundry

Viruses work differently from bacteria. Some of them may break down quickly in detergent, while others are able to hold onto your clothes unless the temperature is too high.

You’re best off washing your clothes with a good cleaning agent & at a high temperature. A quick wash? That’s just asking for trouble.

Fungi aren’t rare in washers

You might notice a musty smell whenever you open the washing machine door. It’s usually mold. Fungi like Aspergillus & Cladosporium love damp and dark places. Your washer gives them exactly that.

Fungi are able to grow in the rubber gasket or behind the drawer, since it never quite dries out over there. You’ll need a full cleaning cycle or bleach to rinse them out.

Not all machines are the same inside

Yes, front-load washers are efficient. But the problem is that they tend to trap more moisture because they have airtight doors, leaving behind more dampness & a better chance that germs can grow.

Top-loaders dry out faster between washes. You’ll have to decide which one matters more to you, efficiency or cleanliness.

What we know from controlled fabrics and time-on-textile tests

The fabric you use can also make a difference. Microbes can live for days, sometimes even weeks, on damp cotton & polyester, while others tend to die off on dry fabric.

Leaving wet laundry in a pile is a huge mistake. Essentially, you’re giving them exactly what they need to multiply and cause you more problems.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Microbial Colonization, Biofilm Formation, and Malodour of Washing Machine Surfaces and Fabrics and the Evolution of Detergents in Response to Consumer Demands and Environmental Concerns
2. Metabarcoding Analysis of Microorganisms Inside Household Washing Machines in Shanghai, China
3. The Washing Machine as a Reservoir for Transmission of Extended-Spectrum-Beta-Lactamase (CTX-M-15)-Producing Klebsiella oxytoca ST201 to Newborns
4. The effect of low-temperature laundering and detergents on the survival of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus on textiles used in healthcare uniforms
5. Virucidal Efficacy of Laundering
6. Evaluation of building washing machines as an extreme environment for potentially pathogenic fungi
7. Microbial cross contamination in household laundering and microbial ecology of household washing machines

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Caffeine is in nectar

Caffeine isn’t just inside the coffee beans. Their flowers have it in the nectar, and that actually affects bees, as during experiments, bees that drank caffeinated nectar remembered floral scents about three times better than the control group. But the levels were low enough that the bees didn’t seem to find it bitter.

Paper filters change what’s in the cup

Switching between a French press & a drip machine actually changes more than flavor. Paper filters trap oily compounds called diterpenes, which stick to the fibers instead of going into your mug. However, unfiltered brews let them through. This is likely why they’ve been linked to higher LDL cholesterol in studies.

Coffee hydrates almost like water

People love to say that coffee dries you out, yet that’s not actually true in any meaningful way. Your body mostly treats it like water when you drink a few cups, although it can make you run to the bathroom a bit sooner. But it usually still counts toward daily hydration. Coffee drinkers handle it just fine.

Microbes shape flavor during processing

Tiny organisms work on the beans long before you ever even start roasting. As the sticky fruit breaks down, yeasts & bacteria move in and start transforming sugars & acids, which changes how the beans will taste later. Sometimes, it gives them fruity notes, sometimes, it’s something funkier. It all depends on who’s hanging around.

Some coffee species are naturally caffeine-free

Interestingly, a few coffee plants out there never bothered making caffeine, and one example is Coffea charrieriana. However, this isn’t the result of humans, as the plant simply evolved that way. But these plants are quite rare & mostly live in collections or the wild.

A tiny beetle beats caffeine using gut bacteria

Coffee plants developed caffeine partly as a defense. But one insect didn’t find that out. The coffee berry borer drills straight into the bean and can survive the caffeine, thanks to the microbes living in its gut. Those microbes break the compound down to give the beetle free access to the seed.

Coffee once traveled the world inside stolen seedlings

European powers once treated coffee plants like state secrets, and they controlled who could grow them. Moving a seedling overseas was a huge deal. But a French naval officer managed to sneak a live plant from Yemen to the Caribbean in the 1700s, apparently by using his own water supply to keep it alive through storms. That one plant changed coffee globally forever.

The world’s oldest known coffee plant is still alive

There’s a coffee tree in the Mankira forest in Ethiopia that’s known as the “mother coffee tree.” In fact, it’s believed to have been the very first coffee bean tree. To this day, it still flowers, and growers use its cuttings to keep its line going. There aren’t many plants with that kind of track record.

There’s a fungus that glows on coffee waste

Spent coffee grounds are good for compost, yes, but also for certain fungi. One of these is Panellus stipticus, which can grow on that material under the right moisture conditions, and when they do, it literally glows in the dark. Some labs actually use coffee waste for this because it’s cheap & easy to work with.

Used grounds carry enough oil for real biodiesel

That’s not all for old coffee grounds. They hold a surprising amount of oil, and you can extract that oil & turn it into biodiesel, which researchers have already tested on a larger scale using café waste. While the yields won’t power entire cities, they’re high enough that some places have looked at it as a local fuel option.

Coffee seeds can germinate after decades of dormancy

As long as you store them carefully, coffee seeds can stay alive far longer than most people expect. There have been documented germinations from seeds more than 30 years old that were kept in conservation vaults. Of course, they don’t always grow as quickly as fresh seeds.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Caffeine in floral nectar enhances a pollinator’s memory of reward
2. The impact of caffeine on mood, cognitive function, performance and hydration: a review of benefits and risks
3. No Evidence of Dehydration with Moderate Daily Coffee Intake: A Counterbalanced Cross-Over Study in a Free-Living Population
4. Influence of Various Factors on Caffeine Content in Coffee Brews
5. A new caffeine-free coffee from Cameroon 
6. Gut microbiota mediate caffeine detoxification in the primary insect pest of coffee
7. The genome and population genomics of allopolyploid Coffea arabica reveal the diversification history of modern coffee cultivars
8. The oldest coffee in the world?
9. The effect of storage conditions on coffee seed and seedling quality
10. Optimization of coffee oil extraction from spent coffee grounds using four solvents and prototype-scale extraction using circulation process
11. Fungal Bioluminescence: Past, Present, and Future

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Naming the route and the 1926 numbering compromise

The name “Route 66” came from a quick decision in a Springfield office. Originally, planners thought about using “Route 60,” but that number had some political issues between states. They wanted something easy to say & remember. And 66 stuck. After a few telegrams, the number became official & a highway legend began.

New Deal crews paved it end-to-end by 1938

In the early ’30s, a lot of the road was still rough dirt, although that changed when New Deal work programs kicked in. Thousands of men with shovels & steamrollers spent years surfacing the route, and section by section, they laid down proper pavement. By 1938, you could drive from Chicago to L.A. without hitting gravel once.

Wartime rebuilding at Hooker Cut moved massive traffic

Hooker Cut in Missouri looked like any ordinary stretch of road. However, during World War II, it became a traffic choke point because Fort Leonard Wood had become a lot more crowded. Workers had to widen & blast through rock to keep trucks and military convoys moving, so that by 1945, it was a four-lane cut.

Dust Bowl migrants used Route 66 into California

Families getting out of the Dust Bowl saw Route 66 as an escape route. Farmers from Oklahoma & Texas loaded up whatever cars they had and drove west through Needles, California, to find work in the fields. Historians estimate hundreds of thousands made that trip. They clogged numerous parts of the highway with loaded jalopies and hopes for a better life.

Motels along 66 matured into a national industry

Route 66 also helped to popularize those neon motel signs we associate with road trips, beginning with the travelers who stayed in scattered cabin camps. Over time, those grew into rows of motor courts with parking out front & standardized rooms. Motels became more than a mere pit stop by the 1960s. They were now an iconic part of the American highway experience.

Interstates replaced the corridor and the number vanished

Sadly, interstate highways started making their way across the same land as Route 66. This began in the late ’50s. Each new stretch, like I-40 or I-55, pulled traffic off 66, and as more segments opened, officials decided the old route number was redundant. It disappeared from the federal highway log altogether in 1985 & the towns on the route were forgotten.

What remains

Driving through parts of Texas or New Mexico, you’ll still be able to see cracked bits of the old 66 running parallel to the interstate. Some of these became frontage roads. As for others, nature took over, although preservation groups have worked to keep sections marked as “Historic Route 66.” In 1999, Congress set aside funds to restore some of 66’s landmarks. 

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. From Names to Numbers: The Origins of the U.S. Numbered Highway System
2. Route 66: 1926 – 1945
3. Hooker Cut on Route 66
4. The Motel in America
5. Historic Resources Survey Route 66 through Texas 
6. Route 66 in Texas: Updated Historic Resources Survey

But why? Why did medieval Europeans wear pointy shoes? Here are the facts.

What exactly were these pointy shoes?

Medieval people had a few names for pointy shoes, including poulaines and Crakows. They used both terms to talk about a slim, low-cut leather shoe that had a stretched tip. The shoe’s front extended to look a bit like a beak.

The shoes had quite a simple structure. They had a flat sole & upper cut close to the foot, along with a long extension. Some shoes included a small lace on the side.

The shoes were made of soft leather, usually from a cow or calf, and they were so thin that they kept their shape when archeologists pulled them out.

Where and when did people wear them?

Medieval Europeans weren’t the first people to wear pointed shoes. However, it was the elongated style that really took off in Europe during the mid-1300s.

The style spread all over Europe, including France, Poland, the Low Countries (like the Netherlands), Germany & England.

The shoes remained popular throughout the 15th century. You can still see surviving shoes in late-medieval riverside dumps in England, and they were a big part of clothing laws & illustrations until the end of the century.

How were pointy shoes made?

The majority of poulaines were stitched inside-out & flipped after sewing. They were known as “turnshoes.” Shoemakers left the seam inside so the shoes looked smooth on the outside, while the soles were far thinner than the ones we have today.

The extended toes did cause some problems. Shoemakers had to reinforce them with moss or horsehair to make sure that they kept their shape, although that didn’t always work. Some pairs were slightly more flexible than others.

Who actually wore them?

You might assume that such shoes were only for the nobles. But you’d be wrong. Archeologists discovered a whole range of sizes for both genders & all age groups. They were meant for city populations as much as they were meant for court circles.

However, there was a slight distinction between the pairs.

The longest & flashiest versions were for nobles, while women usually got the shorter, pointier choices. Yet other people wore moderately pointed ones alongside more practical footwear. They were shoes that were, quite literally, for people from all walks of life (pun intended).

Laws, sermons, and complaints

But not everyone liked these shoes. In fact, a few medieval rulers were completely against them, and Charles V actually banned shoes that stretched out too far in Paris.

Edward IV of England also set limits. He stopped people below a certain rank from being able to wear pointed shoes that were longer than a few inches, with later acts targeting shoemakers themselves.

Why did they dislike the shoes?

Simply because they wanted people’s clothes to match their position. Everyone wearing stretched-out toes made it harder for rulers to keep track of who was who. Other rulers thought that making pointed shoes took too much time & energy. They believed the money could be better spent elsewhere, so they banned them.

Why did people wear them?

But the commoners wearing poulaines weren’t thinking about city budgets or clothing politics. A lot of them just liked the style. They wanted to keep up with the new fashion, and shoes were one of the easiest ways to stay trendy. You could simply change your shoes without changing your entire wardrobe.

At first, the shoes were only for the rich. Wearing a pointed shoe was quite impractical for work, so only those who didn’t need to work (AKA the rich) would wear them. The shoes were essentially a status symbol.

However, this changed. Regular people liked the shoes because they went well with the newly popular styles of the time, like fitted hose & shorter tunics. A lot of modest families liked poulaines because they were so cheap to make. You didn’t need any rare dyes or fine fabric to create something that felt modern.

How the style faded out

The shoes began to lose popularity by the late 1400s. Records show that people’s shoes began to widen again, and a style called the “duckbill” or “bear paw” became more common. These shoes were broader & more blunt-toed than poulaines.

Of course, the shoes didn’t immediately fall out of fashion & later centuries did experiment with the use of pointed shoes. But none of these quite matched the stretched and stuffed leather beaks of the 14th to 15th centuries.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Fashion for pointy shoes unleashed a wave of bunions in medieval England
2. The Prescot Street Poulaines
3. Poulaine Fashion History
4. Stepping Through Time: Archaeological Footwear from Prehistoric Times Until 1800
5. Getting To The Point Of Medieval Shoes
6. Footwear: Shoe, Boot, Slipper, Patten
7. Medieval Shoe Fashion May Have Left Marks on Wearers’ Feet