The USS Alaska that served during WWII was the lead ship in the new Alaska class of heavy cruisers. She was commissioned from 1944 to 1947. She saw action in the last days of WWII.
In 1969, the recently invented microwave oven enabled Hungarian physicist and molecular gastronomist Nicholas Kurti to produce a reverse Baked Alaska (also called a “Frozen Florida”)—a frozen shell of meringue filled with hot liquor
The Rideau Canal in Ottawa, frozen over every year by the Ottawa winter, is dubbed “the world’s longest skating rink.” Vendors in huts on the Canal sell treats like hot chocolate, maple sugar floss (a/k/a “barbe de papa”), and deep-fried beaver tails.
Two popular dishes in Newfoundland that no longer exist are cod-au-gratin and flipper pie. It is now illegal to catch a codfish from Newfoundland’s fished-out waters, and the banning of the seal hunt has eliminated the source of the tasty flippers which were left attached to the pelts when harvested.
A codpiece (from Middle English: cod, meaning “scrotum”) is a covering flap or pouch that attaches to the front of the crotch of men’s trousers and usually accentuates the genital area. It was held closed by string ties, buttons, or other methods. It was an important item of European clothing in the 15th and 16th centuries.
In the 14th century, men’s hose were two separate legs worn over linen drawers, leaving a man’s genitals covered only by a layer of linen. As the century wore on and men’s hemlines rose, the hose became longer and joined at the centre back but remained open at the centre front. The shortening of the cote or doublet resulted in under-disguised genitals, so the codpiece began life as a triangular piece of fabric covering the gap.
The scrotum has smooth muscle in it, to regulate the temperature of the testicles by moving them closer to or further from the abdomen, depending on ambient temperature.
The tongue is an example of a muscular hydrostat, which consists mainly of muscles with no skeletal support. It performs its hydraulic movement without fluid in a separate compartment, as in a hydrostatic skeleton. Its function depends on the physical incompressibility of water.
Cool facts.
In play:
The muscle fibers in a muscular hydrostat (example: the tongue) are oriented in three different directions: parallel to the long axis, perpendicular to the long axis, and wrapped obliquely around the long axis.
The most important biomechanical feature of a muscular hydrostat is its constant volume.
ETA: Happy Thanksgiving to all. If we enjoy a Thanksgiving meal today, we might think on how our tongues can move in so many ways.
Or not.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and all my fellow American Dopers, as well!
Wow. Never heard of that. Are they really from beavers, or are they just called that? What do they taste like?
In play:
The most important Presidents of the United States, in most historical surveys, have been those who have fought and won wars or who led the country through particularly challenging crises.
World War II had approximately 3X - 4X more casualties than World War I did, 60M - 80M as compared to 20M.
Elendil, guess I’m dumb, but I don’t see how you got from one to the other. Please educate me.
In play: Grover Cleveland is the only man to date to serve as President of the United States twice but not in succession. Cleveland served from 1884-1888, lost in the electoral college toe Benjamin Harrison in 1888 (he won the popular vote), and was then elected to hsi second term in 1892.
“most important”
In Play: Canada has had four Prime Ministers who have served separated terms:
• Macdonald (1867 to 1873; 1878 to 1891);
• Meighen (1920 to 1921; 1926);
• Mackenzie King (1921 to 1926; 1926 to 1930; 1935 to 1948);
• Pierre Trudeau (1968 to 1979; 1980 to 1984).
Wow. Never heard of that. Are they really from beavers, or are they just called that? What do they taste like?
[/QUOTE]
Off-Game:
No, that’s just what we call them. See wiki article: fried dough.
Four U.S. Presidents have been elected to office after receiving only a minority of the popular vote: John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and George W. Bush in 2000. Three of the four were either the son or grandson of a former President – indeed, they were the only three direct descendants to ever reach the Presidency.
On preview: I guess “four” is the link here, heh. (Happy T-day everyone!)
Rutherford B. Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio, and Benjamin Harrison’s house in Indianapolis is on North Delaware Street.
Earnest Rutherford discovered the atomic structure by firing streams of alpha particles at thin gold foil. If the “plum pudding” theory of atomic structure were correct, almost all of the alpha particles would pass through the foil. Instead, while most of the particles passed through, there was considerable scattering of a small number of the alpha particles.
Rutherford realised that this pattern meant that most of the atom was empty space, with most if its mass collected in a central nucleus. The alpha particles which hit the empty space passed through, but the much fewer number which hit the nucleus scattered.
Rutherford much later described the experiment’s results: “It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15 inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.”
Author Ernest Hemingway died at age 61 by suicide. His father also committed suicide. His sister Ursula and his brother Leicester also committed suicide.
Song from MASH (Suicide Is Painless)” is a song written by Johnny Mandel (music) and Mike Altman (lyrics), which was the theme song for both the movie and TV series MASH. Mike Altman is the son of the original film’s director, Robert Altman, and was 14 years old when he wrote the song’s lyrics. During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the 1980s, Robert Altman said that his son had earned more than a million US dollars for having co-written the song while he only made US$70,000 for having directed the movie.
Dee Dee Sharp, nee Dione Larue, was one of a bevy of Philadelphia singers who hit it big in the early rock era. Her “Mashed Potatoes” went gold in 1962, her first hit on her own after singing backup to Chubby Checker.
The Philadelphia Flyers were nicknamed the “Broad Street Bullies” in the mid-seventies, because of their extremely physical style of play. It won them two back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975, the first Stanley Cups won by an expansion team. Philly has not won the Cup since.