Tidbits Grand Forks - April 13, 2017

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LES • PUZZ A I V I R S •T FACT • FUN April 13, 2017

The

Since 1997

Mrs.

For thousands of years, crude oil bubbling to the surface trapped Ice Age animals in sticky goo, leading to a trove of fossils. Come along with Tidbits as we visit La Brea Tar Pits!

Issue # 1,014

ack says...

“Dress it Up for Spring”

“Mirjam 21”

A STICKY TRAP

• For millions of years, the remains of marine plankton collected in the bottom of an ocean basin off the coast of what is now California.

Over time, this deposit was transformed into crude oil. As the continent drifted and the California coast lifted, the oil crept through cracks in the rocks, pooling on the surface in what is now downtown Los Angeles.

• Beginning about 40,000 years ago, the sticky oil gathered in pools, where lighter compounds evaporated, leaving thick asphalt behind. Covered by water, leaves, and weeds, these tarry pits looked like normal ground.

Animals would walk over the crusty top, then suddenly find themselves mired in the muck.

Predators and scavengers trying to prey upon the victims would also get stuck. Their bones sank to the bottom and became fossilized.

• The native tribes used the tar to seal baskets and boats. Spanish explorers made the first written record of the tar pits in 1769. The first permanent settlement was established in the late 1700s. The Spanish word for tar is “brea” and the area became known as Rancho La Brea.

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Quiz Bits 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6. What is the name for the type of marriage where a woman has more than one husband?

Name the gas that causes the 7. Which composer created bubbling in the tar pits. the muscial scores for “Toy T or F: No dinosaur bones Story” and “Monsters, Inc.”? have been found in the La Brea 8. What year did the movie “The Tar Pits.

Terminator” debut in theaters?

What is an obelus in math9. What two different names ematical formulas? did the diner go by on TV’s What does LED stand for?

“Happy Days”?

In anatomy, what is a more TRIVIA common name for the hallux?

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THE TAR PITS DEVELOPED

• Eventually a man named George Hancock went into business drilling the oil and mining the asphalt at La Brea, which was used to pave roads, preserve railroad ties, and waterproof pipes. Animal bones were dug up often. However, it was believed the bones belonged either to ranch animals who had wandered away, or recently killed wildlife.

• In 1875 a professor traveled to the tar pits and wrote about finding fossilized bones, though his report garnered little notice. It was a geologist working for an oil company in 1901 who was the first to draw attention to the fact that the bones belonged to prehistoric animals, now long extinct.

• In 1913 George Hancock granted the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County the exclusive rights to excavate the area. In the next two years, they dug up over 750,000 fossils.

Hancock subsequently donated 24 acres to the county, stipulating that the fossils found there be preserved and displayed. The area is now called Hancock Park after him.

• In the 1940s the first fossilized mammoth bones were pulled out of the pit, generating much excitement. A museum was constructed in the mid1970s, named after philanthropist and founder George C. Page.

• Over 3.5 million fossils have been uncovered so far. More than 650 different species have been identified ranging from mammoth and mastodon to the tooth of a baby mouse. Archeologists have found over 231 species of vertebrates, 159 species of plants, and 234 species of invertebrates.

• The tar pits are not actually tar. They are really asphalt. Asphalt is what remains when crude oil is exposed to air, and the lighter elements such as kerosene and butane evaporate off, leaving the heavier residues behind. Tar, on the other hand, is what’s left behind when woody materials such as coal or peat is distilled. ...continued

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• So far over 3 million fossils have been recovered from the pit. Based on the number of bones found, and the number of years the tar pits have been bubbling away, scientists estimate that if only one large animal had become trapped once every ten years, that would account for the number of bones found.

• The dire wolf is the most common large mammal found in the pits, with over 3,000 individuals identified so far. Dire wolves were the size of a large timber wolf. Most were probably trapped when they tried to feed on other animals stuck in the muck.

• Bones from over 2,000 saber tooth cats have been found, making them the second most common animal found. Saber tooth cats went extinct about 10,000 years ago.

• In third place is the coyote. The oldest bones found in La Brea so far belonged to a coyote who died there approximately 44,000 years ago, according to carbon-14 dating.

• About 15 mastodons have been found.

• Camels evolved in North America before migrating to Asia, Africa, and South America, and the remains of a species called Camelops hesternus has been found in the pit. It looked very much like a camel but was actually more closely related to the llama.

• A giant sloth called the Harlan’s ground sloth is the largest species of sloth found in the asphalt deposits. It weighed up to 1,500 lbs.

• Many other species that still exist today have also been found there, ranging from horses and bison to rabbits, coyotes, and skunks.

• Under normal circumstances, it’s difficult to find a really good fossil of birds because their bones are hollow and delicate. But birds that got trapped in the tar are well preserved, giving researchers a trove of over 100,000 bird fossils of many different species. ...continued

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FACSINATING FOSSILS

• Many nearly microscopic fossils have also been recovered from La Brea, including crustaceans, insects, seeds, leaves, and pollen. The 159 species of fossilized plants help scientists track the history of ice age climate change.

• Interestingly, many of the saber tooth cat skeletons show evidence of healed injuries and diseases that would ordinarily have been fatal, suggesting that the animals were social creatures who depended upon each other for help when an individual was hurt or sick and needed time to recover. Saber tooth cats were more closely related to bobcats than to tigers.

• Lions that were very closely related to modern African lions have also been found in the pits, but in far fewer numbers than other carnivores. Perhaps they weren’t very common, or maybe they were smarter than other animals and avoided being trapped.

• One of the most interesting items discovered is a nearly complete mammoth skeleton. The only pieces missing are a vertebra, a rear leg, and the top of its skull. The mammoth is fondly known as Zed. Because of the size of the teeth and the state of their wear, researchers know that Zed was a male, and he was perhaps 50 years old

when he died. The story told by his bones tells of a hard life: several of his ribs were broken and then healed. He had arthritis in his joints. He suffered a strange growth on one of his jaws. Because his bones were mineralized and showed no sign of scavengers, it’s possible that he died in a streambed where he was covered with water before his remains became encased in asphalt.

• The process is on-going. Asphalt still bubbles to the surface, continuing to trap bugs, reptiles, birds, small mammals, and the occasional stray pet. The tar pits are most dangerous during warm weather when the asphalt is stickiest.

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• It was 20th-century German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht who made the following sage observation: "Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it."

• If you're like 83 percent of American pet owners, you believe that your pet is better at cuddling than your significant other.

• According to Guinness World Records, the world's largest snowflake measured 15 inches across.

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the government's principal fact-finding agency in the field of labor economics and statistics, tracks employment trends. Using nationwide employment data, the BLS created projections of which occupations are likely to increase and which are likely on the decline. Unsurprisingly, healthcare and technology jobs are on the rise, while employment in manufacturing and farming is falling. It even identified 15 specific occupations as "fast declining." At the top of the list of jobs on the way out are locomotive firers -- though the surprise for many may be that the job even still exists. Also included in the top 10 are telephone operators, switchboard operators, postal service mail sorters, and sewing- and shoe-machine operators.

• Those who study such things say that the average stalk of celery contains 6 calories. However, since they're in the form of cellulose, even those few calories aren't absorbed into the body. Since some minute amount of energy is burned in the process of chewing, eating celery does indeed result in a net caloric loss.

• You might be surprised to learn that Canada has more lakes than all the rest of the world combined. *** Thought for the Day: "I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth -- and truth rewarded me."

-- Simone de Beauvoir © 2017 King Features Synd., Inc.

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Amazing Plants:

KUDZU

• Kudzu is a fast-growing perennial vine rumored to have “eaten the South.” Although the plant grows quickly – up to a foot per day – rumors of the South’s destruction by kudzu have been greatly exaggerated.

• In 1876, kudzu was imported to the U.S. from its native Japan and Asia and displayed at the World’s Fair.

It didn’t attract much notice. However, horticulturists soon found that kudzu grows more quickly in the southern U.S. than it does in its native environments for two reasons: first, it established a symbiotic relationship with a certain fungus found in the soils in particular areas, and second, it was free of the biological controls that limited its growth in its homeland. What was a normal vine with a typical growth rate back in Asia became a monster vine growing at phenomenal rates in the southeastern U.S. • In the 1930s, American farmland was being ravaged by erosion due to over-plowing, and Congress declared war on soil erosion. The Soil Conservation Service grew millions of kudzu seedlings and paid farmers $8 an acre to plant it (equal to $115/acre today). Railroads and highways were cutting gashes into the land, and kudzu seemed ideal for stabilizing the raw cuts. When planted in these locations, the kudzu vine would grow fast enough to completely cover anything in its path: road signs, trees, abandoned buildings. By the 1950s, kudzu was no longer being recommended as erosion control because that’s when researchers found out how difficult it is to kill.

• Each node on a kudzu vine can turn into either a root or a tendril, meaning the plant can climb and creep at astonishing rates. Each branch can reach a length of 100 feet or more, and when a branch becomes separated from the mother plant, it continues growing apace.

• Kudzu requires a huge amount of herbicide applied regularly to kill, and any tendril that isn’t doused survives to start the growth all over again. Any part of the root left in the ground can regenerate, so plowing it under or burning it off doesn’t work well.

If it’s chopped, any part of the chopped vine that is left on the ground can put down roots, and in order to kill it by mowing, it must be mowed every few weeks for several years.

• Lately researchers have been developing biological controls, including weevils that eat the stems, beetles that eat the roots, and flies that eat the leaves.

The problem is that those insects may also damage adjacent crops. One promising development involves using a specific fungus which kills kudzu, with the main drawback being that this strain of fungus is harmful to livestock. Livestock themselves are a good agent of control, because they eat the plant right down to the soil line.

• Still, the menace of kudzu is over-stated. It cannot survive cold winters or heavy shade. The iconic photos of kudzu-covered buildings and kudzusmothered forests are generally taken in areas of little use anyway, where there’s high traffic and a lot of people gawking. Although abandoned buildings are easily covered by kudzu, inhabited buildings rarely are. And what can’t be seen from the window of a car is that the kudzu cannot penetrate beyond the margin of a forest.

• Kudzu currently covers about 227,000 acres in the southern U.S., equal to the size of a small county, or .01% of the South’s 200 million acres of forest. Its coverage increases at the modest rate of about 2,500 acres per year.

• And there are useful aspects to the plant: the vines can be used to make baskets; the leaves and tendrils are edible by livestock and humans; honey bees appreciate the abundant fragrant flowers; and it fixes nitrogen in the soil which benefits other plants in the vicinity.

Answer

Weekly SUDOKU

Answer

King CROSSWORD

THANKS FOR READING TIDBITS!

• On April 19, 1775, the American Revolution begins when 700 British troops march into Lexington to find 77 armed Minutemen waiting for them on the town's common green. Suddenly, the "shot heard around the world" was fired. Eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others were wounded.

• On April 20, 1841, Edgar Allen Poe's story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" first appears in Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine.

The tale, widely considered to be the first detective story, describes the extraordinary "analytical power" used by Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin to solve a series of murders in Paris.

• On April 21, 1865, a train carrying the coffin of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln leaves Washington, D.C. on its way to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried on May 4.

The train traveled through 180 cities and seven states, stopping at each town for a ceremony.

• On April 18, 1906, an earthquake estimated at close to 8.0 on the Richter scale strikes San Francisco, toppling buildings, igniting fires and breaking water mains. An estimated 3,000 people died and 30,000 buildings were destroyed.

• On April 22, 1945, Adolf Hitler, learning from one of his generals that no German defense was offered to the Russian assault at nearby Eberswalde, admits to all in his underground bunker that the war is lost. He committed suicide a week later.

• On April 17, 1964, the Ford Mustang is officially unveiled by Henry Ford II at the World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York. The new car debuted in Ford showrooms on the same day, and almost 22,000 Mustangs were immediately snapped up by buyers.

• On April 23, 1987, the Chrysler Corporation purchases Nuova Automobili F. Lamborghini, the Italy-based maker of high-priced, high-performance cars, for a reported $25 million.

© 2017 King Features Synd., Inc.

Southern Belle "North Carolina folks being what North Carolina folks are and such ... Tar Heels ... people who don't budge an inch backward, it should come to you as no surprise that the dadgum lot of them brought home a new set of silver for the table, yessir." ... something someone like Mark Twain could have said, while wearing seersucker and sipping sweet tea.

So North Carolina has its sixth championship, and coach Roy Williams has his third after a not-so-thrilling final that capped off a very thrilling tournament in 2017. The nearly flawless Gonzaga Bulldogs, the great spirit of Spokane, finally went from bracket buster to Butler-style heartbreaker, while North Carolina cemented the notion that you have to take the belt from a champion.

Going into the finals, the Gonzaga storyline was welltrodden. Mark Few is quite a basketball mind, and he has steadily built his program into perennial, outer-fringe contenders since the Clinton administration. This year, with a stepped-up foreign-student program, the Zags ripped through the regular season and worked their way into the finals on the strength of a strong inside game and tight defense.

Not so for the Tar Heels.

They were down in almost every contest. Down five to Kentucky. Down eight to Oregon, and yes, even down seven to

Gonzaga at one point. But they refused to go away each time. And it's why the rankings meant nothing when the two programs took to the floor. As soon as the Heels came out for warmups, the Gonzaga players knew it was for real. This is North ... Freaking ... Carolina.

These guys ain't gonna fold.

You cannot start a second half throwing up bricks, letting North Carolina go on runs, getting anywhere near the lead with four minutes to play. Whatever they needed to do (outside the obvious, making their shots) -be it call more timeouts, fewer timeouts, purchase ACME products and build a tremendous wall around their basket -- it should have been done.

It should have been done because everyone in the stadium or watching on TV saw that North Carolina finished like a steam train -- a really fast and powerful steam train -- the kind that gets fouled in the paint and wins championships.

They kept flogging the whole "#redemption" angle of the game ... that the boys were struggling from the aftereffects of horrendous PTSD for having been in the finals last year, too.

What it showed was a remarkable consistency and tenacity.

North Carolina is in a different class. It doesn't make a difference how many they invite to the dance ... the Southern belle from Chapel Hill left with the crown yet again.

© 2017 King Features Synd., Inc.

Mark Vasto is a veteran sportswriter who lives in New Jersey.

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(Answers located after next page)

April 3, 2017

• “Use an old, fine-tip paintbrush or makeup brush (natural bristles, not plastic) to remove mistakes in nail painting. Dip brush in remover, and paint around the edges of freshly painted nails to remove overpaint with precision. Make sure to rinse brush immediately, and mark it so that you don’t accidentally use it to apply makeup or anything.” — E.I. in Ohio • To “hang” a sturdy file sorter inside a low cabinet, use stick-on hooks. You can use it to store cutting boards or pot lids. Also, when hung in a mid-level cabinet, you can create a wrap dispensing station with aluminum foil, waxed paper and plastic wrap.

• A dryer sheet can be used to safely clean dust from your TV screens.

• N.B. in Tennessee writes in response to using toothpaste to camouflage a nail hole in the wall: “I have found that white chalk is much better, because it hardens just like Sheetrock.” To use the chalk, make a paste from chalk shavings and water, and apply as you would spackle. Let dry 24 hours.

• “When traveling, let your host or hostess know of any serious health problems or allergies you may have, and what to do in case of an emergency.” — M.W. in Saskatchewan, Canada • With spring in full swing, here’s a fun activity to keep the toddlers in your life occupied while you take care of the gardening. Give your kids a bucket of water and a paintbrush, and let them “paint” a wooden fence or even the side of a cement-block house.

Send your tips to Now Here’s a Tip, 628 Virginia Drive, Orlando, FL 32803.

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TAUTOLOGICAL NAMES

• Given that “la brea” means “the tar” in Spanish, if you say that you’re going to visit the La Brea tar pits, you’re actually saying you’re going to visit “the the tar tar pits.” This is called a tautological place name. Tautology means saying the same thing twice using different words. “Taut” is the Greek word meaning “same.” Tautological names are common when two different languages are combined using words from each language that both mean the same thing. Let’s visit some other tautological locations.

• The River Avon comes from the Welsh word “afon” meaning river. There are various Avon Rivers located in England, Scotland, Wales, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

• “Hatchie” means “river” in the Muskogean language, the tribe native to the southeastern U.S., and the Hatchie River runs for 238 miles through Mississippi and Tennessee.

• Speaking of Mississippi, the Algonquin word meaning “big river” is “mississippi,” so the Mississippi River is “the big river river.” There is also a Mississippi River in Ontario, Canada.

The Mississippi River in the U.S. is the largest river on the North American continent, running for 2,320 miles, whereas the one in Ontario runs for only 120 miles.

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NUGGET OF KNOWLEDGE

Both mastadons and wooly mammoths have been found in the tar pits. What's the difference between them? Mammoths were bigger and grazed on the plains, while mastadons were smaller and preferred wooded areas.

• The Rio Grande River forming the border between Texas and Mexico is another big river, from the Spanish “rio” meaning “river” and “grand” meaning large.

• “Walla” means “river” in the native Sahaptin tongue, and when repeated “walla walla” it means “little river.” So the Walla Walla River near Walla Walla, Washington is literally “the little river river.” ...continued

(Solution on Next Page)

TAUTOLOGICAL NAMES (cont'd)

DIFFERENCES: 1. Tie is different. 2. Newspaper is smaller. 3. Switch is missing.

4. Picture is smaller. 5. Doll is missing. 6. Drawer handle is missing. © 2017 King Features Synd., All rights reserved.

• In California, there’s Laguna Lake, with “laguna” being Spanish for “lake.”

• Lake Tahoe Answer: Dell. straddling the California/Nevada border comes from the English version of the A VERY LARGE NUMBER Washoe word for lake, “da-aw.” Lake Tahoe is •the Edward Kasner was a mathematician.

In 1938 6th largest freshwater lake in the U.S. after he was asked to come up with a name for a the Great Lakes. very large number: the numeral one, followed • Lake located edgehis of two the Sahara by a Chad, hundred zeros.onHethe asked young Desert, comes from the Bornu word for lake, nephews what name they would suggest.

This lake shrank by 95% abetween •“tsade.”

Nine-year-old Milton suggested name 1963 and 2001 due to overuse. out of the funnies. A cartoon strip character named Barney wascomes very popular.

• The Sahara Desert from theMilton Arabicchose word Barney’s last name for the number. meaning “greatest desert.”

• Kasner the new name the big • The Gobiannounced Desert comes from the for Mongolian number in his next book, altering the spelling. word for desert, “govi.”

The first dinosaur eggs •were Sixtyfound yearsinlater, LarryDesert.

Page and Sergey Brin the Gobi developed a new internet search engine.

• Then you have all the places all over the Other world search engines searched each webpage and that are named “Glendale” with the Gaelic ranked them according to how many times a word “gleann” meaning “valley” and the Norse specific term appeared on them, but Page and word alsotheir meaning Brin “dail” designed search“valley.” engine to search for • Even the Milky Way galaxy a tautological the specific term and then findis out how many phrase, sincewere the word “galaxy” from links there that led back tocomes that page, which resulted in a better search engine. the Greek “galaxias” meaning “milky vault.”

• They decided theyareneeded a name that • Tautological phrases not limited to places. reflected how many websites the search For instance, there’s chai tea, when the word engineis was searching. took the name “chai” Russian for tea.They The Italian word for of Edward Kasner’s very large number, only shrimp is “scampi” so “shrimp scampi” means they misspelled “shrimp shrimp.”it slightly, so it ended up being spelled exactly the same way the cartoon • There’s even a whole separate category of taucharacter Barney spelled his last name. What’s tological known as RAS synit called?abbreviations, (Answer at bottom of page) drome which is short for “redundant acronym COMPUTER FACTS syndrome syndrome.” A perfect example is • In 1981 Bill Gates said, “640 kb of memory when you use your PIN number at the ATM ought to be enough for anybody.” machine, since PIN stands for “Personal Iden•tification Moore’s Number” Law statesand thatATM computer performance is short for “Audoubles every 18 to 24 months, and ever tomatic Teller Machine.” Then there’s thesince VIN 1971, this has been true. number on cars (“Vehicle Identification Num•ber HP,number) Google,and Microsoft, and Apple all LCD displays (Liquidwere Crystal started in garages.

Display display).

Answer: Google, from googol.

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Quiz Answers

1. Methane.

2. True. Dinosaurs were extinct before the tar pits formed.

3. Divison sign.

4. Light-emitting diode.

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6. Polyandry.

7. Randy Newman.

8. 1984 9. Arnold’s, and Al’s Drive-In

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