Electricity was first discovered about 2 500 years ago. The Greek scientist Thales of Miletus (c. 620 BCE – c. 546 BC) noticed that a piece of amber (the hard fossilized sap from trees) attracted straw or feathers when he rubbed it with a cloth. The word “electricity” comes from the Greek word for amber – “elektron”. Thales is also known as the father of philosophy.

The word “electric” was first used in 1600 by William Gilbert, a doctor to Queen Elizabeth I. He carried out experiments and discovered that materials such as diamond, glass and wax behaved in a similar way to amber.

Count Alessandro Volta invented the first battery in the 18th century. He called it a “voltaic pile.” It consisted of a pile of zinc and silver or copper discs separated by pads moistened with an acid solution. The unit for measuring a unit of electricity, a volt, is named after Count Volta.

During the 1860s, George Leclanche developed a battery which did not use dangerous acids, known as the dry-cell battery. The batteries we use in flash lights, portable radios, etc. are based on Leclanche’s design.

Every year thousands of people are electrocuted but few die of it directly. Instead, more people die in the almost 10 000 fires that are caused by overloaded receptacles. Don’t overload your plugs and limit the use of extension cords by using them only for temporary operations.

The muscle that lets your eye blink is the fastest muscle in your body. It allows you to blink 5 times a second. On average, you blink 15 000 times a day. That’s about 10 times per minute, or more than five million times a year. Women blink more than men.

Jean-Dominique Bauby, a French journalist suffering from “locked-in” syndrome, wrote the book “The Driving Bell and the Butterfly” by blinking his left eyelid – the only part of his body that could move.

Animals blink too, of course. Some bird species, usually flightless birds, have only a lower eyelid, whereas pigeons use upper and lower lids to blink. Fish and insects do not have eyelids – their eyes are protected by a hardened lens.

To care for your eyes, eat carrots. They really do make you see better. Vitamin A is known to prevent “night blindness,” and carrots are loaded with Vitamin A. Deficiency of Vitamin A actually is a significant world problem, comparable to that of protein deficiency and second only to caloric deficiency.

Carrots also contain fiber, potassium, vitamin C, and beta-carotene, which may reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. Carrots have zero fat content. One carrot provides more than 200% of recommended daily intake of Vitamin A.

Carrots were first cultivated in 500 BC in the Mediterranean regions. The first carrots were purple, white, and yellow. They were introduced in Europe in the 1600s. Orange carrots – the ones we know today – were first grown in Japan in the 17th century, and later made popular by the Dutch.

Mel Blanc, who played the voice of Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots.

The characters in the movies Psycho and Silence of the Lambs are based on a real person, Ed Gein. He died on July 26, 1984 of respiratory failure in the Mendota Mental Health Institute, Wisconsin. His victims were not so lucky. Ed was a grave robber who had developed a taste for slicing up people. He murdered his victims, cut them up, and then used their bones to make furniture. When caught in 1957, his room featured lampshades and chair seats made of human skin.

Ed Gein in 1957

It was always agreed that a galloping horse kept at least one hoof on the ground. But in 1872, Californian governor and railroad tycoon Leland Stanford, who was a race horse owner, took a bet for $25,000 (the equivalent of $500,000 today) that all four hooves sometimes leave the ground. He hired English photographer Eadweard Muybridge to capture the movement of horses to prove his point.

But Standford to wait 5 years for the results. Muybridge, an eccentric persona, was hiding in South America after being blamed for the death of his wife’s lover. On his return to the US in 1877, Muybridge set up 12 cameras at the Sacramento racetrack to photograph a galloping horse. He stuck the images on a rotating disc and shone a light through them. Not only did it prove that a galloping horse sometimes has all fours off the ground, but the photographic technique became the basis for the movie camera.

Eadweard Muybridge’s galloping horse 1877

Also see: First projection of an image on a screen