Weekend Open Thread

… dogs are banned in Antarctica? Once needed for sledge journeys to the South Pole, dogs were banned on the continent beginning in 1994. The Antarctic Treaty required the removal of all non-native animal species, and with dogs the main reason was the possibility that distemper would spread to the native seals.

… you and I are made up primarily of empty space? What I mean is, if you removed all of the empty space from the atoms that make up every human on Earth – all eight billion plus change – you would be able to fit the entire human population of the planet inside an apple. (I don’t know about you, but most of my empty space is inside my head.)

… a world record exists for the number of times a person has tried to set a world record? That record is held by Ashrita Furman (born 1954) of Brooklyn, New York. Furman holds about 200 world records and has tried to set about 500 more. (Some people have nothing else to do.)

… diamonds are really nearly worthless? Like anything else of value, scarcity is what determines what something is worth, and diamonds are anything but scarce. The entire retail diamond market is reportedly controlled by one company – DeBeers, of South Africa – and has been called a “giant, well-orchestrated, monopolistic scam” that is based on a public misconception that diamonds are scarce. There really are many, many more diamonds than people think, according to experts in the field. (Food for thought, that.)

… one person cut an entire nation off from the Internet? The nation of Armenia lost its entire access to the Internet in March of 2011 when Hayastan Shakarian (born 1936), who was scavenging for copper, accidentally sliced through the fiber optic cable connecting Armenia to Georgia in southwestern Europe. The accident had catastrophic consequences for Armenia, which got almost all of its Internet service from Georgia – its 3.2 million Internet-using citizens had to do other things during the five hours it took to repair the cable. Large portions of Georgia and Azerbaijan also lost Internet service when Shakarian’s scavenging caused the disruption. Shakarian was arrested by security personnel after the location of the break was pinpointed, but was released by authorities due to her age. In her own defense, Shakarian said she had never even heard of the Internet. (Oops.)

… a famous composer was the youngest student ever at the Julliard School of Music? Composer Marvin Hamlisch (1944-2012) became a student at Julliard when he was six years old. He was a child prodigy and, by the time he was five, was able to mimic the piano music he heard on the radio.

… a Polish doctor saved a town during World War II by faking out the Nazis? Dr. Eugene Lazowski (1913-2006) saved the inhabitants of the Polish city of Rozwadow by telling the German troops that wanted to invade that there was an outbreak of typhus in the town. The disease-wary Germans decided to advance around, rather than through, the city, and some 8,000 Poles – Jews and Gentiles alike – were saved from the forced-labor camps. (Smart move, Doc!)