South West Australia: Spotlight on Historic Deanmill

At the turn of the 20th century, much of South West Australia remained little more than unexplored frontier. Although a budding settlement had been established near the coast at Perth in 1829, and numerous communities to the south had added to the burgeoning Swan River Colony, many settlers found the isolation and harsh conditions of frontier life too challenging, eventually deciding to go back home.  While several industrious individuals had recognized the potential for fortunes to be made from the region’s sprawling hardwood forests, most who attempted it failed miserably.  It wasn’t until the late 1870s when Maurice Coleman Davies succeeded almost single-handedly in creating a market and efficient lumber industry for karri and jarrah hardwoods, subsequently erecting sawmills at Coodardup, Karridale, Boranup, and Jarrahdene.  Read more . . .

Popeye: Cartoon Icons of American TV

Created by American cartoonist Elzie Crisler Segar, Popeye (also Popeye the Sailor) first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929, billed as a Betty Boop cartoon.  (According to the official Popeye website, Popeye is 34 years old and was born in a typhoon off Santa Monica, California.)  In 1933, Fleischer Studios adapted the Thimble Theatre character and his cartoon buddies into a series of Popeye the Sailor animated shorts for Paramount Pictures shown in movie theaters.  These first Popeye shorts introduced the now-famous "I’m Popeye the Sailor Man,” song written by Sammy Lerner (loosely based on the "Pirate King" song in Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, The Pirates of Penzance, that would eventually become Popeye’s theme song).  Read more . . .

Erectile Dysfunction: Current Options and Answers

As most adults are aware, treatment for men unable to achieve a natural erection took a giant step forward when the first oral erectile dysfunction (ED) medication, Viagra, hit the market in 1998.  Easy to use, fast-acting, and predictable, Viagra–and now a whole host of similar drugs–has added an entirely new dimension to the sex lives of the many men who’d thought that sex would have to remain just a pleasant memory of younger days.  But as effective as Viagra is for countless men, it is not the answer for all men suffering erectile dysfunction--for a wide variety of reasons.  And it is for those reasons that science continues to explore other options; vastly improving less effective options from the past, while seeking new approaches that may be effective for every man in the future.  Read more . . .

Bugs Bunny: Cartoon Icons of American TV

The brainchild of cartoon director Tex Avery, Bugs Bunny is a world-famous cartoon character who starred in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated films produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions, which later became Warner Bros. Recognized by his trademark carrot, quick and often ironic whit, and his love for costumes, Bugs Bunny has been part of American pop culture for over 70 years, voted the "greatest cartoon character of all time" by TV Guide.  Starring in 167 film shorts during the Golden Age of American animation (as well as appearing in several non-animated films including Space Jam and Who Framed Roger Rabbit), Bugs evolved from a less developed character who first appeared in the 1938 Warner Brothers cartoon Porky’s Hare Hunt.   Read more . . .

The Practice and Method of Shrinking Heads

Thought to harness the spirit of an enemy and compel him to serve the desires of the “shrinker,” the practice of shrinking heads originally held a spiritual significance.  While head "hunting" is a practice documented in many areas of the world including ancient China, Mesoamerica, India, Japan, the Amazon, and various parts of Africa, the only known head shrinkers are a group of indigenous people from the northwestern region of the Amazon rainforest (Ecuador and Peru) collectively known as the Jivaroan peoples. Their most notorious tribe, the Shuar, live at the headwaters of the Marañón River.  Read more . . .

Has a Cure for the Common Cold Already Been Discovered?

Researchers at University of Wisconsin, University of Maryland, and the Craig Venter Institute, recently announced that they have decoded the elusive genetic blueprints of the common cold, essentially demystified the enigma behind how all the viral strains are related to one another, thus enabling them to hone in on the culprit: the rhinoviruses.  The findings of this study, published in the Feb. 12, 2011 issue of Science journal, explains the nature of the human rhinovirus.  But while this is certainly good news for the millions of men, women, and children who contract the opportunistic virus (twice a year on average for adults, and up to ten times a year for children), many wonder why is it that with all the scientific advances in recent decades, a cure for this commonly-contracted disease wasn't found long ago?  After all, any number of deadly bacteria-related diseases have been cured, why not the common cold virus?  Read more . . .

The Terracotta Army of China's First Emperor

The Terracotta Army is a collection of life-size terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang (sometimes, QinShihuang), the first Emperor of China.  Dated to 210 BCE, the mausoleum housing the Terracotta Army, construction of which began when Huang was thirteen years of age, was discovered in 1974 by local farmers who were digging a well about 1.5 miles east of Mount Li. The mausoleum itself is associated with an especially significant historic world event, the first unification of the Chinese territory by an absolute monarch in 221 BCE–formally establishing “China.”  Read more.

The Flintstones: Cartoon Icons of American TV

The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American TV series that ran from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on the ABC network.  Produced by the team of Hanna-Barbera, The Flintstones follows the lives and adventures of two working-class Stone-Age families, the Flintstones and the Rubbles.  Though telecast in black-and-white during its first two seasons, it was filmed in color from the start.  A clever juxtaposition of modern everyday concerns in a Stone Age setting, The Flintstones takes place in the "modern" metropolis of Bedrock.  (In some of the earlier episodes, it was referred to as "Rockville.”)  In this fantastic vision of the ancient past, dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, and other long-extinct animals co-exist with barefoot cavemen who drive cars.  Read more. . .

Cartoon Icons of American TV: Beany and Cecil

Beany and Cecil is an animated cartoon series created by director Bob Clampett who initially worked for Warner Brothers.  Credited with other TV classics such as The Daffy Doc, Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, Corny Concerto, and Porky in Wackyland, Clampett had always been interested in puppetry, so on February 28, 1949, two years after leaving Warner Brothers, his “Time For Beany” television puppet show first appeared in Matty’s Funday Funnies.  Originating from Paramount’s KTLA-TV studios in Hollywood, CA, the characters introduced on the first telecast included Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent, Captain Horatio K. Huffenpuff (commander of the good ship "Leakin’ Lena"), Huffenpuff’s nephew Beany Boy, and the dastardly, Dishonest John.  Read more . . .

Cartoon Icons of American TV: Heckle and Jeckle

Heckle and Jeckle are popular cartoon characters created by artist Paul Terry, and released by his own studio, Terrytoons, for 20th Century Fox.  Their names were inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novella, the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  Combining the wit of Bugs Bunny and a mischievous streak reminiscent of Woody Woodpecker, Heckle and Jeckle are a pair of identical magpies who calmly outwit their numerous foes in each adventure.  (Many viewers mistakenly think they are crows.)  In many episodes, however–“Moose On the Loose,” “Free Enterprise,” “The Power of Thought,” and “Hula Hula Land," their foes inevitably come out on top.   One magpie–Jeckle–speaks with a distinguished British accent, while Heckle, a Brooklyn, New York dialect. Heckle frequently refers to Jeckle simply as ‘chum’ or ‘pal,’ while Jeckle refers to Heckle as ‘old chap,’ ‘old boy,’ and ‘old featherhead’– indicating the close friendship between them.  Read more . . .

The History of Gambling: Tools and Games

Just as gambling evolved from divinatory practices of early societies, so too did the tools of gambling evolve from ritualized objects–stones, sticks, nuts, shells, and bones.  Small bones, particularly knucklebones (astragali) became the direct predecessors of modern dice.  Astragali have irregular, non-symmetrical shapes, with four large sides and two more-or-less rounded ends.  When thrown, an astragalus will land on one of its four big sides, delivering a seemingly random outcome of the throw.  Over time, the sides of an astragalus were given value and markings; the lowest value “1” assigned to the largest side of a concave shape because of a higher chance that the bone will rest on it, the highest value “6” given the smallest side of a convex shape for its greater odds–thus "Roll ‘em bones!"  Read more . . .

The History of Gambling: Ritual Beginnings

The roots of gambling can be traced back thousands of years to religious ceremonies conducted by many pre-historic societies.  Wide-spread cultural evidence indicates that early man created many rituals specifically to foretell the future or explain what was beyond mortal comprehension.  Initially involving the casting of lots–throwing a random handful of small objects such as pebbles, sticks, bones, shells, or nuts–the end results were then counted to ascertain an “odd” or “even” number; even generally equated with a positive outcome, odd a negative one.  Over time this process became more complex, also including the interpretation of the patterns various natural objects made as they appeared in the environment.  Read more . . .

Did Ancient Egyptians Have Technology Far Beyond What We Have Today? A Look at the Schist Disk

Since first encountered by westerners, the pyramids of Egypt seemed to many to be far beyond the technological and engineering capabilities of such a “primitive” and “less advanced” culture.  In recent years, this belief has led to a growing number who support the assumption that the ancient Egyptians must have been provided advanced technological knowledge via aliens from beyond our solar system.  While this assertion lacks any credibility with the modern scientific community, there can be no denying that the ancient Egyptians did succeed in technological accomplishments that should have been beyond their abilities–according to our modern worldview.  Although  modern theorists have offered several engineering scenarios to explain how the Egyptians may have accomplished such incredible feats as the construction of the pyramids and the Great Sphinx, other extraordinary accomplishments remain within the realm of, “How could they possibly have conceived and accomplished that?”  Case in point, the so-called “Schist Disk.”  Read more . . .