Everything is Interesting
In gemology, chatoyancy [shuh-toi-an-see], or chatoyance, is an optical reflectance effect seen in certain gemstones. Coined from the French ‘œil de chat,’ meaning ‘cat’s eye,’ chatoyancy arises either from the fibrous structure of a material, as in tiger eye quartz, or from fibrous inclusions or cavities within the stone, as in cat’s eye chrysoberyl.
Prosopagnosia [prahs-oh-pag-noh-shuh] (sometimes known as face blindness) is a disorder of face perception where the ability to recognize faces is impaired, while the ability to recognize other objects may be relatively intact. Few successful therapies have so far been developed for affected people, although individuals often learn to use ‘piecemeal’ or ‘feature by feature’ recognition strategies. This may involve secondary clues such as clothing, hair color, body shape, and voice.
This list contains recording artists who reached the Top 40 of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 with just one single in the 1990s.
Scheherazade [shuh-her-uh-zahd] is a legendary Persian queen and the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights. Some of the best-known stories of The Nights, particularly ‘Aladdin’s Wonderful Lamp’, ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves’ and ‘The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor,’ while almost certainly genuine Middle-Eastern folk tales, were not part of The Nights in Arabic versions, but were interpolated into the collection by European translators.
A limnic eruption, also referred to as a lake overturn, is a rare type of natural disaster in which carbon dioxide (CO2) suddenly erupts from deep lake water, suffocating wildlife, livestock and humans. Such an eruption may also cause tsunamis in the lake as the rising CO2 displaces water. Scientists believe landslides, volcanic activity, or explosions can trigger such an eruption. Lakes in which such activity occurs may be known as limnically active lakes or exploding lakes. Limnic means of or pertaining to fresh water.
Battle records are vinyl records made up of brief samples from songs, film dialogue, sound effects, and drum loops for use by a DJ. The samples and drum loops are used for scratching and performances by turntablists. Battle records are often released by DJs banking on their celebrity or looking to capitalize on rare items in their collections. Creative, novel, or bizarre inclusions are especially prized. Often, the samples featured on these records do not have the blessing of the original copyright holders. Because of this, the use of pseudonyms and anonymous releases are common.
Polypropylene breast implants, also known as string implants, are a form of breast implant using polypropylene developed by Dr. Gerald W. Johnson. Due to a number of medical complications, the device has been banned in the European Union and United States. The polypropylene, which is yarn-like, causes irritation to the implant pocket which causes the production of serum which fills the implant pocket on a continual basis. This causes continuous expansion of the breast after surgery. Growth can only be alleviated by removal of serum by syringe.
Problems can also arise if the breasts enlarge at different rates. Continual breast growth eventually results in extreme, almost cartoonish breast sizes. String implants were only available for a very short time before being removed from the market by the FDA around 2001.
Cryptozoology [krip-toh-zoh-ol-uh-jee] refers to the pseudo-scientific investigation of animals which are considered to be legendary or otherwise nonexistent by mainstream biology.
This includes looking for living examples of animals which are extinct, such as dinosaurs; animals whose existence lacks physical support but which appear in myths, legends, or are reported, such as Bigfoot and Chupacabra; and wild animals dramatically outside of their normal geographic ranges, such as so-called phantom cats. The animals they study are often referred to as cryptids.
The Daily Omnivore 