So I get out of work early tomorrow, so I HOPE that means that I’ll have more time for FUN FACT FRIDAY
Ancient Greek explorers! A dead Spaniard who won a battle (while he was dead!)! American Emperor! Death by turtle! Enochian! Guy fighting ISIS with a scimitar! Mysterious rocks in European capitals!
It’s Fun Fact Friday, no one’s requested a Fun Fact, but here ya go anyway. It’s possible that a lot of you guys know this, but, anyhow!
You will often see this symbol, the caduceus, as an icon for medicine and doctors:
Yeah, that’s wrong.
Okay, so this is the staff of Hermes/Mercury, the Greco-Roman god of travelers, merchants, and commerce. And to be fair, this is a symbol occasionally for doctors for quite some time, and Hermes is sometimes said to be the god of writing, so the idea that he’s associated with the educated (like, say, doctors) is not out of left field. And pharmaceuticals, which one could argue is related to alchemy, which was once popularly believed to have been taught by Hermes Trismegistus, a figure made of combined Hermes and Thoth.
Thankfully we do often see the correct symbol, which is something close: the Rod of Asclepius:
This is the staff of Asclepius, the son of Apollo and the Greek god of medicine. He was said to have been a mortal who was so skilled in medicine, he brought someone back from the dead–for which Zeus killed him, because we can’t have people coming back from the dead all the time. He was deified (maybe because Apollo got big mad and started killing stuff again), presumably under the condition that he not bring people back from the dead anymore. His temple was a healing center, and in fact the famous Hippocrates (of Hippocratic Oath fame) was trained at one of these temples.
There is an island off the coast of Australia named “The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands.” This island was named and claimed as a protest by a group of LGBTQ+ Activists in 2004 until it was disbanded in 2017.
[ID: two comic panels, the first of a person laying on a therapy couch, and the second of them sitting up and looking over their shoulder saying, “oh shit, for real?” end ID]
it gets even cooler, because the algae didnt stop working at 6 months, thats just when they detatched the microprocessor - it was still producing currents after that!!! the article below is an update saying that it has been running for a year now, and it might run indefinitely: “Our photosynthetic device doesn’t run down the way a battery does because it’s continually using light as the energy source.”
Beep Beep, reminder that paprika is sourced from a vegetable that has undergone massive flavor shifts in the past century, due to the development of a sweeter strain that is now interbred with most bell peppers used for paprika, and the reason John is overwhelmed by the flavor of that dish because paprika was way spicier a century ago.
From friends on discord who were looking up evidence, this from @atagotiak:
Central European paprika was hot until the 1920s, when a Szeged breeder found one plant that produced sweet fruit. This was grafted onto other plants. Nowadays, paprika can range from mild to hot, and flavors also vary from country to country, but almost all the plants grown produce the sweet variety.
*sees that Hungarian paprika is 4X as hot as a jalapeño* Yeah I respect being weak to that. *forgot to plan a vegetable for dinner so ends up eating straight jalapeños* …Or do I….
(Also! “Paprika” is actually the name for bell peppers themselves, spicy and not, in a lot of countries, rather than the name of a spice. That said, the novel appears to be referring to the spice.)
