Tidbits of Grand Forks - October 20, 2022

The word “yolk” derives from an Old English word for “yellow”. Therefore, there’s the “egg white” and the “egg yellow.” Come along with Tidbits as we eat eggs!

EGG FACTS

• Both the egg white and egg yolk contain 3 grams of protein each. While a single yolk contains 3 grams of protein and has 60 calo ries, a single egg white provides 3 grams of protein with just 15 calories.

• Eggshells are porous, allowing air to move through them. As eggs age, they take in air and develop an air pocket. In general, you can test an egg’s freshness by placing it in a cup of water. If the egg floats, it indicates the egg is old and has a large air pocket. If it sinks, it’s a much fresher egg.

• Eggs come with a “sell by” date, but not an expiration date. A dozen eggs in the fridge will generally last three to five weeks past the “sell by” date.

• To tell the difference between a raw egg and a hard-boiled egg, spin it. Hard boilded eggs spin easily because they are solid, while raw eggs wobble because they are liquid.

• Before hard-boiling eggs, pierce the rounded end with a needle. The shells will not crack and peeling will be easier.

What percent of eggs produced in the U.S. are used directly by consumers rather than in food factories?

What country produces the most eggs?

What American corporation buys the most eggs? Which state produces the most eggs?

How many states border the Great Lakes?

What was Buzz Lightyear’s original name in the animated movie “Toy Story”?

What was the name of the family dog on “The Brady Bunch”?

Which state divided into two as a result of the U.S. Civil War?

Who had a hit song with “Afternoon Delight?

•

The world’s largest omelet weighed 14,225 lb and was made in Portugal in 2012. It took 55 peo ple six hours to make this omelet, using 145,000 eggs, 880 lbs of oil and 220 lbs of butter. All eggs used were free range and donated by the largest egg producer in the country.

• The Guinness World Record for making ordinary omelets is held by Howard Helmer, a chef in New York City, who made 427 omelets in 30 minutes in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1990. He also holds the world record for fastest omelet flipper. Helmer served for many years as a spokesperson for the American Egg Board.

• In a test at the University of Texas, rats were fed one food only in an effort to find out which are the best foods, and which are the worst. Two-thirds of the rats who were fed only white bread died af ter 90 days. Rats fared little better when fed only peanuts, hot dogs, hamburger, shredded wheat, or macaroni. They lived somewhat longer on tuna or milk. The best single food was egg. Rats eating only eggs lived indefinitely.

CHICKEN FACTS

• There are more chickens in the world than any other bird.

• A mother hen will turn her eggs over about 50 times per day to prevent the yolk from sticking to the sides of the shell.

• How often does a hen lay an egg? The entire time from ovulation to laying is about 25 hours. Then, about 30 minutes later, the hen will begin to make another one.

• Older hens tend to lay bigger eggs, but doubleyolked eggs are produced by younger hens whose egg production cycles are not yet synchronized.

award-winning

What defensive player, a member of the Super Bowl XLI champion Indianapo lis Colts, had 16 sacks to lead the NFL in 2004?

What

In

CHICKEN FACTS (continued):

• On average, each laying hen produces 296 eggs per year. In the 1930s, the average American hen laid 121 eggs per year.

• The world record for egg-laying by a chicken is held by a white leghorn in Sri Lanka, who laid 17 eggs in six hours in 1967. Another record was set by a white leghorn who laid 371 eggs in 364 days.

• A 6-month-old British pullet named Harriet has held the record for the world’s largest chicken egg since she laid it in 2010. It was 9.1 in. in diameter and 4.5 in long, which is nearly triple the size of an extra large egg. She broke her own previous record.

• Iowa leads the nation with more than 15 billion eggs produced annually. Ohio is second with 8 billion, followed by Indiana, Pennsylvania and California.

• Every year over 97 billion eggs are laid in the U.S. by over 325 million hens.

• Three-quarters of eggs produced are used for con sumption and the rest are hatched.

• Every day in the U.S. over 217 million chicken eggs are consumed. We eat chicken eggs instead of duck or turkey eggs because chickens lay more eggs while needing less nesting space. Some peo ple claim that it’s easier to collect an egg from a chicken than a turkey or duck. However, the fe male turkey is one of the few birds who is per fectly capable of producing fertile eggs without benefit of a male turkey.

During World War II when eggs were scarce, re searchers in the British Isles tasted other bird eggs trying to find a successful substitute. In blind taste tests, the hen’s egg received the highest rat ing, followed by a three-way tie between the coot, moorhen, and gull. At the bottom of the list were the eggs of the warbler and wren. Quail, emu, goose and ostrich eggs can all be cooked as well.

• Boxing heavyweight champion Jack Johnson in vented the household wrench in 1922.

• The movie title "Death Wish III" was changed to "Death Wish 3" after a survey conducted by the Cannon Group revealed that nearly half of Ameri cans couldn't read Roman numerals.

• Tom Hanks' brother Jim voices "Toy Story's" Woody when his sibling is too busy.

• A hat that doubles as a weapon? Sure, if you're a gum-leaf skeletonizer caterpillar, which wears its old molted heads on top of its noggin and uses them to bat away predators!

• The human jaw can clench with 250 pounds of force.

• Those chocolate-covered caramel candies we fondly know as Milk Duds were originally intend ed to be perfectly round. But when machines in 1928 couldn't produce them consistently, the mis shaped goodies were called "duds," hence their unusual name.

• From the "nothing like planning ahead" files: CNN has prepared a doomsday video, to be played by the last surviving employee. In 2009, a former intern posted the footage online. It shows a lowresolution video of a U.S. Army band playing a mournful rendition of "Nearer My God to Thee."

• The center of the Milky Way tastes like raspberries and smells like rum.

• In the 1970s, Chrysler advertised its luxury cars as containing "Corinthian leather." But spokes man Ricardo Montalban admitted on "Late Night with David Letterman" that the term really meant nothing, as said leather was actually sourced out of New Jersey.

• Romania's Movile Cave, isolated from the outside world for more than 5 million years, contains more than 30 species not found anywhere else on Earth.

• In the 1700s, "bitch the pot" or "standing bitch" was English slang for hosting a tea party. ***

Thought for the Day: "Try to be a rainbow in someone else's cloud." --Maya Angelou

Financial Solutions for the Military

Thieves must think they're smarter than the rest of us. Until they're caught, that is, and have to give up all their ill-gotten gains and spend time behind bars. Here are a few examples:

The president of a medical testing company has been convicted of paying kickbacks, misleading in vestors and committing health-care fraud for pushing an allergy test.

He made several outlandish claims to investors along the way:

-- That his company was valued at $4.5 billion and that his little test could show nearly any disease just using a few drops of blood when it wasn't actually a diagnostic test at all.

-- That Dr. Fauci had required testing for Covid and allergies at the same time, which was handy, because the scammer also claimed that his allergy test could test for Covid.

-- That he was on the list to receive the Nobel Prize. The scammer was convicted of a whole list of crimes and could face five to 20 years in prison on each of the scams. A back-of-the-envelope calcula tion shows 115 years in prison.

Then we have yet another health-care fraud, this time for genetic cancer testing. The owner of a chain of laboratories paid kickbacks for referrals who sent him patients who didn't actually need the test he was providing. The scammer submitted 325,000 claims and received over $26 million in payments.

And yet another thief, this time a chiropractor, target ed health care in the durable medical equipment niche: crutches, hospital beds, canes, walkers, wheelchairs and more -- all supposedly prescribed through telemedicine visits. It involved bribery of doctors who approved the medical equipment. Civilian Health and Medical Pro gram of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMP VA) was just one of their targets, and the scammers col lected over $10 million from that one source alone.

Unfortunately, the head thief in this scam only got four years in the slammer. He will, however, be minus $3 million he has to pay back and $10 million in restitution when he gets out.

by Freddy Groves

OUT

OF THIS

• The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is named af ter James Webb, but who was James Webb? Short an swer, he was the second administrator of NASA and oversaw NASA from the beginning of the Kennedy administration through the end of the Johnson administra tion, watching over each one of the critical first crewed missions: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.

• James Webb was born in 1906 in North Carolina. He be came a Marine Corps pilot at a young age. Then he got a law degree. Next he worked his way up the ladder of a company called Sperry Gyroscope, a major supplier of navigation equipment and airborne radar systems used during World War II. He reentered the Marine Corps in 1944 where he was in charge of a radar program. When the war ended, he went into government service, filling a variety of positions before finally being appointed Un dersecretary of State.

• In 1961, Webb accepted President Kennedy’s appointment as administrator of NASA. NASA was formed in 1958. Webb’s job was to follow Kennedy’s di rective to put a man the Moon before the end of the decade.

• During Webb’s administration, NASA developed from a loose collection of research centers to a solidly coordinated organization. He had a key role in creating the Manned Spacecraft Center, later re-named the Johnson Space Center, in Houston. Despite the pressures to focus exclusively on the Apollo program, Webb instead en sured that NASA carried out a program of planetary ex ploration with the Mariner and Pioneer space programs.

• The Pioneer program, which started under Webb in 1965 and ran until 1992, included one probe sent to fly by the Moon, and another that explored the region between Earth and Venus.

• The Mariner program designed ten interplanetary probes built to explore the inner Solar System. Of the ten vehicles, seven were successful, and included a number of firsts: the first planetary flyby, planetary orbiter, and gravity assist maneuver.

• In 1967, a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test at Cape Kennedy killed all three Apollo 1 crew mem bers and destroyed the command module. Webb stepped up for NASA, heading up the investiga tion and refusing to pass the blame. Webb reported the investigation board’s findings to congressional committees and took personal blame at nearly ev ery meeting. By doing so, he managed to deflect the backlash away from both NASA as an agency and from the Johnson administration. As a result, NASA’s image and popular support were largely undamaged.

• Webb was a Democrat tied closely to Johnson. When Johnson chose not to run for reelection, Webb de cided to step down as administrator to allow the next president, Republican Richard Nixon, to choose his own administrator. He left NASA in October 1968.

• By the time Webb retired just a few months before the first moon landing in July 1969, NASA had launched more than 75 space science missions.

• In 1969, Johnson presented Webb with the Presiden tial Medal of Freedom.

• Webb died from a heart attack in 1992 at age 85 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

by

Cutting Down on Scam Phone Calls

Welcome to the season of increased scam telemarketer phone calls, either political or holiday related.

The National Do Not Call Registry is a government program intended to block unwanted sales calls. It's a free service, and all you have to do is sign up either on your phone or on the internet.

Call 888-382-1222 from the phone you want to block and follow the steps. Or go online to donotcall.gov and read the info. A word of warning: If you register your number online, you are also required to enter an email ad dress. They'll send you a note asking you to click a link in that email to finish the registration to stop unwanted calls -- if they stop.

Blocking scammers on the registry doesn't take care of the whole problem. The FAQ on the site says that certain types of calls are allowed: political, charitable, debt col lection, informational and surveys. Think about the holes those leave.

I maintain that receiving a political call is still a sales call -- they're trying to sell us on the idea of voting a certain way, and therefore political calls also should be blocked in the Do Not Call Registry. Surveys can be just as bad if the questions they ask are clearly skewed in one direction or another.

I see charitable calls as scams if they take your personal banking or credit-card information. Additionally, if you've ever done business with a company, they're allowed to call you.

So, there are holes in the system. But you can take steps to stop at least some of the calls by registering with Do Not Call.

As an aside, I called the registry to verify that my phone is already listed. Yes, despite all the calls I get, it's been listed as a do-not-call number since 2006.

Matilda Charles

•

On Oct. 24, 1921, from among 77,000 United States servicemen killed on the Western Front during World War I, the body of the first soldier to be honored is se lected in the French town of Chalons-sur-Marne. Four bodies were selected to become the Unknown Soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

•

•

On Oct. 30, 1864, the town of Helena, Montana, is founded by four gold miners at a location they called Last Chance Gulch. Miners flooded to the area by the thousands, finding $19 million in gold in four years. By 1894, Helena was the capital of Montana.

• On Oct. 26, 1881, the Earp brothers battle the Clan ton-McLaury gang in a shootout in a vacant lot be hind the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. The gunfight only took 30 seconds, but 30 shots were fired and several were killed. Two were charged with murder, but a judge later found them not guilty.

•

On Oct. 27, 1904, the New York City subway opens. The line traveled 9.1 miles through 28 stations. More than 100,000 people paid a nickel each to take their first ride. Today there are 26 lines, the longest run ning 32 miles.

On Oct. 29, 1969, Bobby Seale, a member of the "Chicago Eight," is gagged during his murder trial on or ders of the judge to stop Seale's outbursts. The "Chicago Eight" were charged with crossing state lines to cause anti-war demonstrations in Chicago. Seale was eventu ally sentenced to 48 months in prison for the outbursts alone, but the murder portion of his trial ended with a hung jury and the contempt charges were dropped.

•

On Oct. 25, 1983, President Ronald Reagan orders 2,000 Marines to invade Grenada to protect the 1,000 Americans there at the time, many of them students at the island's medical school. Codenamed "Operation Ur gent Fury," the fighting was over in four days.

•

On Oct. 28, 1998, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is signed into law. The act strengthened copyright protections and allowed copyright holders to issue "takedown" notices to individuals or companies who engaged in infringing use of a copyrighted work.

Assisted Living at Wheatland Terrace

• “The Sound of Silence” is a song released in 1964 that became a smash hit worldwide, making it to the top 10 list in the U.S., the UK, Australia, Ger many, the Netherlands, and Japan. But the song had a humble beginning before it kick-started the careers of Simon & Garfunkel.

• Simon and Garfunkel met in elementary school in Queens, New York, in 1953, where they learned to harmonize. Simon began tinkering with song writing. The two lived only three blocks from each other and attended the same schools, where they appeared in school plays, sang for school dances, and formed a street-corner doo-wop group. As teenagers, under the stage name Tom & Jerry, they had minor success doing gigs in the area. By 1964 they were ready to release their debut album, “Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.”

• The album included “The Sound of Silence” which was written by Simon at the age of 21. He explained that he used to write songs in the bath room, because it was tiled and had good acous tics. He’d turn off the light to cut down on distrac tions, and turn on the faucet because the sound was soothing. He’d sit and play and compose in the darkness. He wrote the song in a single day, and then took three months to tweak the lyrics. It was a natural to include on their first album, recorded for Columbia Records.

• Unfortunately, the album flopped, selling a paltry 3,000 copies. The discouraged duet broke up, with Simon flying to London to work on a solo career, while Garfunkel returned to college.

• Then something unexpected happened. Columbia producer Tom Wilson found out that the song was gaining traction on radio stations throughout Flor ida and also in the Boston region. Encouraged, he re-mixed the song without knowledge or permis sion from Simon and Garfunkel.

• Wilson used several musicians from Bob Dylan’s backup band to add some pizzazz. The newly released single began a steady climb up the charts. Paul Simon only learned of this when he picked up a copy of “Billboard” magazine in London and saw his name, and his song, in the top ten. This remixed version was released as a single in September 1965 and hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending on New Year’s Day, 1966.

• Simon and Garfunkel reunited and quickly released their second album, entitled “Sound of Silence.” The album also included other tunes that became hits such as “I Am a Rock” and “Kathy’s Song.”

• The song gained even more popularity when it was featured in the 1967 movie “The Graduate.”

The producer of the film felt that Simon and Garfunkel’s music fit the theme of the movie, and included other of their songs as well. The song “Mrs. Robinson” was written specifically for the movie, and the songs “April Come She Will” and “Scarborough Fair” appeared in the movie as well. These songs were all included on the soundtrack for the film, released in 1968, giving the duo extra exposure.

• Simon and Garfunkel had artistic disagreements and broke up in 1970. Their final studio album, “Bridge over Troubled Water” was released that January, becoming one of the world’s bestselling albums. It was the best-selling album in 1970, ‘71 and ‘72.

The duo have reunited several times; their 1981 concert in Central Park attracted more than 500,000 people, one of the largest concert attendances in history

• In 1972, “The Sound of Silence” was included on the album “Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits.” In 2012, it was added to the National Re cording Registry in the Library of Congress for being culturally important.

Quiz Answers

including those in pro cessed foods. 60% China, fol lowed by In dia, Indonesia and the U.S. McDonalds Iowa

(MN, WI, MI, IL, IN, OH) Lunar Larry Tiger Virginia and West Virginia Starland Vocal Band, in 1976