KNOWLEDGE TO GAIN

Did You Know? During WW2, Japan received Jewish refugees and rejected the resulting Nazi German protests. The Japanese government ensured Jewish safety in China, Japan and Manchuria. Japanese Army General Hideki Tojo received Jewish refugees in accordance with Japanese national policy and rejected German protest. Chiune Sugihara, Kiichiro Higuchi, and Fumimaro Konoe helped thousands of Jews escape the Holocaust from occupied Europe.

Did You Know? A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue. It is commonly known that giraffe is the tallest animal in the world, sometimes reaching a height in excess of 18 feet. Along with it's length neck, the giraffe has a very long tongue — more than a foot and a half long. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21 inch tongue! That is ample enough length to clean its ears out.

Did You Know? Loud music can make a person drink more in less time. Commercial venues are very aware of the effects that the environment -- in this case, music -- can have on in-store traffic flow, sales volumes, product choices, and consumer time spent in the immediate vicinity. A study of the effects of music levels on drinking in a bar setting has found that loud music leads to more drinking in less time. "Previous research had shown that fast music can cause fast drinking, and that music versus no music can cause a person to spend more time in a bar," said Nicolas Guéguen, a professor of behavioral sciences at the Université de Bretagne-Sud in France, and corresponding author for the study. "This is the first time that an experimental approach in a real context found the effects of loud music on alcohol consumption." Researchers discretely visited two bars for three Saturday evenings in a medium-size city located in the west of France. The study subjects, 40 mal

Did You Know? FIDO, Abraham Lincoln's dog, was also assassinated. Fido jumped up him with his dirty paws. In an intoxicated rage, the man knifed the dog. That's how Lincoln's dog Fido met his end. Assassinated like his master, said Johnny Roll, a member of Fido's adoptive family.

Did You Know? A father's diet before conception plays a crucial role in a child's health. Mothers get all the attention. But a study led by McGill researcher Sarah Kimmins suggests that the father's diet before conception may play an equally important role in the health of their offspring. It also raises concerns about the long-term effects of current Western diets and of food insecurity. The research focused on vitamin B9, also called folate, which is found in a range of green leafy vegetables, cereals, fruit and meats. It is well known that in order to prevent miscarriages and birth defects mothers need to get adequate amounts of folate in their diet. But the way that a father's diet can influence the health and development of their offspring has received almost no attention. Now research from the Kimmins group shows for the first time that the father's folate levels may be just as important to the development and health of their offspring as are those of the moth

Did You Know? The most abundant metal in the Earth's crust is aluminum. About eight percent of the Earth's crust is aluminum, making it the most abundant metal on this planet. However, it is always found combined with various other elements, never by itself in a pure state. Two of the most frequently encountered aluminum compounds are alum and aluminum oxide. Aluminum is soft and durable, a lightweight metal that can be easily shaped. Its color can be silvery or dull gray. It is not magnetic and is resistant to corrosion. It can dissolve in water under the right conditions, although this does not normally occur. Most of the world's aluminum comes from the processing of a rock called bauxite. This rock contains aluminum in one of its forms found in nature, combined with oxygen. Water is removed from the bauxite, leaving aluminum oxide, from which aluminum is refined. While most of the world's aluminum is produced in the United States, the ore is brought there from other

Did You Know? There is no Left Brain/Right Brain divide. It's a myth. They work together. The left-brain right-brain myth will probably never die, because it has become a powerful metaphor for different ways of thinking—logical, focused, and analytic versus broad-minded and creative. Take the example of Britain's Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks talking on BBC Radio 4 earlier this year. "What made Europe happen and made it so creative" he explained. As well as having metaphorical appeal, the seductive idea of the right brain and its untapped creative potential also has a long history of being targeted by self-help gurus peddling pseudo-psychology. Today the same idea is also picked up by the makers of self-improvement video games and apps. The latest version of the Faces iMake-Right Brain Creativity app for the Ipad, for example, boasts that it is "an extraordinary tool for developing right brain creative capabilities." There is more than a grain of truth to the l

Did You Know? In half of Asia and Africa and two-thirds of Europe, households pay a "TV license" every year. A television licence or broadcast receiving licence is a payment required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts, or the possession of a television set where some broadcasts are funded in full or in part by the licence fee paid. The fee is sometimes also required to own a radio or receive radio broadcasts. A TV licence is therefore effectively a hypothecated tax for the purpose of funding public broadcasting, thus allowing public broadcasters to transmit television programmes without, or with only supplemental, funding from radio and television advertisements. However, in some cases the balance between public funding and advertisements is the opposite – the Polish TVP broadcaster receives more funds from advertisements than from its TV tax.

Did You Know? All hurricanes form over the sea and can last up to 10 days. Hurricanes are the most violent storms on Earth. People call these storms by other names, such as typhoons or cyclones, depending on where they occur. The scientific term for all these storms is tropical cyclone. Only tropical cyclones that form over the Atlantic Ocean or eastern Pacific Ocean are called "hurricanes." Whatever they are called, tropical cyclones all form the same way. Tropical cyclones are like giant engines that use warm, moist air as fuel. That is why they form only over warm ocean waters near the equator. The warm, moist air over the ocean rises upward from near the surface. Because this air moves up and away from the surface, there is less air left near the surface. Another way to say the same thing is that the warm air rises, causing an area of lower air pressure below.

Did You Know? The deadliest animal in Africa is the hippopotamus. Ungainly as it is, the hippopotamus is the world's deadliest large land mammal, killing an estimated 500 people per year in Africa. Hippos are aggressive creatures, and they have very sharp teeth.