In 2001, the cost to sequence a human genome was $100 million (or, by some estimates, $3 billion). Now it is less than $1,000.
The Sun is expected to leave the main sequence in about 6.5 billion years, becoming a red giant. I have it diarised.
Among Fidel Castro’s unsuccessful agricultural projects were plans for giant strawberries, giant pineapples and “super-cows” that wold produce record amounts of milk.
Pineapples are not native to the Hawaiian Islands and can be traced back to their origin in South America. The scientific name of a pineapple is Ananas comosus. This word comes from the Tupi words “nanas” (which means pine) and “comosus” (which means tufted). Tupi is the language used by the Tupi people, who are indigenous peoples of Brazil. In the Hawaiian language, a pineapple is called “hala kahiki”. This is because the Hawaiians thought the pineapple resembled the “Hala” fruit. “Kahiki” means foreign, hence pineapples became “foreign Hanas" in Hawaii.
Pineapples were historically very useful on long boat trips. Eating pineapple prevented scurvy, and pineapple juice mixed with sand is a great cleaning agent for boats.
Singin’…
Yes I like piña coladas
and getting caught in the rain
I’m not much into health food
I am into champagne
The Pina Colada Song was voted the world’s most likely song to trigger an earworm. Thanks. The actual title of the song is “Escape”, and it was originally record as an album track by British singer Rupert Holmes in 1979.
The Ford Escape is now in its third generation.
Gen1, 2000-2006, was a compact SUV somewhat similar to the Honda CR-V of those years.
Gen2, 2007-2012, was a slightly larger but still compact SUV that took styling cues from the Explorer, Edge and Expedition.
Gen3, 2012-now, saw a radical redesign that yielded a crossover as a rebadged Ford Kuga, designed in Europe, that looks more station wagon-like.
U2’s Bono and The Edge wrote the music and lyrics for the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, best known for having six members of the cast and crew injured during performances.
The title of Stevie Nicks’ song “Edge of Seventeen” came from a conversation she had with Tom Petty’s first wife, Jane, about the couple’s first meeting. Jane said they met “at the age of seventeen”, but her strong Southern accent made it sound like “edge of seventeen” to Nicks. Written by Nicks to express the grief resulting from the death of her uncle Jonathan and the murder of John Lennon during the same week of December 1980, the song features a distinctive, chugging 16th-note guitar riff, which was sampled by Destiny’s Child in their 2001 song “Bootylicious”, with Nicks making a cameo appearance in the music video playing a guitar.
The cittern, a string instrument resembling a banjo or small mandolin, was one of the most widely played string instruments, as popular during the Renaissance as the guitar is today. From the 16th until the 18th century the cittern was a common English barber shop instrument, kept in waiting areas for customers to entertain themselves and others with, and popular sheet music for the instrument was published. In Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours Lost, the term “cittern-head” is used as an insult.
In 1948, Pete Seeger wrote the first version of his now-classic How to Play the Five-String Banjo, a book that many banjo players credit with starting them off on the instrument. He went on to invent the Long Neck or Seeger banjo. This instrument is three frets longer than a typical banjo, is slightly longer than a bass guitar at 25 frets, and is tuned a minor third lower than the normal 5-string banjo. Hitherto strictly limited to the Appalachian region, the five-string banjo became known nationwide as the American folk instrument par excellence, largely thanks to Seeger’s championing of and improvements to it.
Banjos can have 4, 5, or 6 strings. Precursors to the banjo appeared in West Africa and used by slaves in the 17th century, long before it was in use in America. The earliest reference to the banjo in North America was in 1736.
John Turner was the 17th Prime Minister of Canada and the first British-born Prime Minister in almost a century.
Nm
Missed the edit window to comlete this post.
‘Century Circle’, at the west gate of Edwards Air Force Base, is called that because six jet fighters from the F-100 era ‘Century Series’ are parked in a circle just outside the gate.
As can be seen in this satellite map view, counter-clockwise from the west and in numerical order are: (Google Maps)
- North American F-100 Super Sabre
- McDonell F-101 Voodoo
- Convair F-102 Delta Dagger
- Lockheed F-104 Starfighter
- Republic F-105 Thunderchief
- Convair F-106 Delta Dart
Why no F-103? The Republic XF-103 was to be an interceptor capable of Mach 3, but despite a long concept phase it never got past the mockup stage. Here is an artist’s drawing of an XF-103.
Again, missed the edit window to complete the post.
‘Century Circle’, at the west gate of Edwards Air Force Base, is called that because six jet fighters from the F-100 era ‘Century Series’ are parked in a circle just outside the gate.
As can be seen in this satellite map view, counter-clockwise from the west and in numerical order are: (Google Maps)
- North American F-100 Super Sabre
- McDonell F-101 Voodoo
- Convair F-102 Delta Dagger
- Lockheed F-104 Starfighter
- Republic F-105 Thunderchief
- Convair F-106 Delta Dart
Why no F-103? The Republic XF-103 was to be an interceptor capable of Mach 3, but despite a long concept phase it never got past the mockup stage. Here is an artist’s drawing of an XF-103.
Other planes that can be seen inside the west gate, at the Air Force Flight Test Museum (satellite map view, Google Maps, include:
- Boeing B-52 Stratofortress
- Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird
- McDonell Douglass F-4 Phantom
- Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II (or affectionately called the Warthog)
- General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark
and more.
Then, at the north gate, on permanent display is another Boeing B-52 Stratofortress: Google Maps
James Earl Jones’s earliest film role was as a B-52 crewmember in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove.
Happy 64th Birthday to the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress! Its first flight was on April 15, 1952. Production ended in 1962, so that means the youngest B-52 is 54 years old. B-52s are expected to serve into the 2040s, for a service life of 90+ years.
B-52s were used to carry the North American X-15. The X-15 achieved the record for fastest manned powered aircraft, with a speed of Mach 6.72. Two B-52s, Air Force NB-52A, “The High and Mighty One” (serial 52-0003, AKA Balls Three), and NB-52B, “The Challenger” (serial 52-0008, AKA Balls 8) served as carrier planes for all X-15 flights.
Happy 400th death anniversary and probably happy 452nd birthday to William Shakespeare.
Though no birth records exist, church records indicate that a William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed he was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as William Shakespeare’s birthday. Definite records for the date of his death do exist.
In the opening scene of Jaws (1975), before the young girl Chrissie goes naked into the moonlit ocean only to become the first shark victim, she flirtingly jokes with a character named Tom Cassidy who tells her he is a student at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut.
Moe Drabowsky, who pitched for eight major league teams from 1956 to 1973, played his college baseball at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut. He was born in Poland, from where he and his Jewish mother fled in 1938, when he was three years old. He is one of four players to play for both Kansas City franchises, the A’s and the Royals…