Learn One Thing A Day

 (image from http://uweanimation.blogspot.com ) "I was born not knowing and have had only little time to change that here and there." Richard Feynman (1918-1988), Letter to Armando Garcia J , December 11, 1985 ... and just to remind us how awesome Richard Feynman was,  here is a very interesting video from scishow !   ---> For other posts on this blog about Richard Feynman click here

Today thanks to Hank Green (video below) I learnt something interesting about blood transfusions. The first experiments were performed in the 17th century by William Harvey (1578-1657) and they were between animals, specifically dogs. The first documented transfusion  involving humans and animals (yes... animals!) were performed in France by  Jean Baptiste Devys (1643-1704).  On June 15, 1667,  he successfully transfused the blood of a sheep into a 15-years old boy, who, surprisingly , suvived! His survival was probably due to the small amount of blood tranfused. Richard Lower (1631-1691) in England also performed similar experiments between animals (especially sheep) and humans. The reason behind these experiments was the belief that blood was responsible for the personality  person. So getting a bit of blood from a gentle animal might quiet the tempestuous spirit of an agitated person and that the shy might be made outgoing by blood from more so...

Thanks to my dear friend Sylvia, today I leant the meaning of the word "paraprosdokian"! A Paraprosdokian (from Greek: " against expectation ") is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected, and generally humorous. Some are close to oxymoros, another figure of speech that combines contradictory terms. Here is a list of nice paraprosdokians provided by Sylvia! 1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it. 2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list. 3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak. 4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong. 5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public. 6. War does not determine who is right -- only who is left. 7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. 8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from m...