Beer-nails

College students have loved beer for centuries. They are also generally very smart. In one fit of brilliance, students invented biernagels (beer-nails).

These are metal studs placed on the covers of books to keep the leather covers away from wet (spilled beer) pub tables. With biernagels on it, a book cover is raised half a centimeter from the surface of the table, and thus remains mostly dry. From the name, we can only assume it was some inventive German students.

Guarana

This is a climbing plant in the maple family, native to the Amazon basin and especially common in Brazil. Guarana features large leaves and clusters of flowers, and is best known for its fruit, which is about the size of a coffee bean. As a dietary supplement, guarana is an effective stimulant and its seeds contain about twice the concentration of caffeine found in coffee beans (about 2–4.5% caffeine in guarana seeds compared to 1–2% for coffee beans). As with other plants producing caffeine, the high concentration of caffeine is a defensive toxin that repels herbivores from the berry and its seeds.

If you look at the contents of any energy drink, chances are that guarana is listed as one of the main ingredients. European missionaries in 17th-century Brazil recorded the native people’s use of the berry, noting that it not only gave them energy, but allowed them to go for days without feeling hungry. It became a colonial trading commodity that was said to help protect the body from illness, but too much of it was known to cause insomnia.

The caffeine that is found in the guarana berry is thought to be different from the caffeine found in coffee. Guarana contains chemical components called tannins, which are thought to produce a longer-lasting effect than caffeine from other sources. For centuries, guarana berry seeds have been powdered or smoked in a long process that is done by hand. Drinking properly prepared guarana can be central to formal occasions and gatherings, where groups of people pass around a calabash bowl.

Two Summer Ice Cream Tips

Ice cream two ways - one is to slice it for serving the other is to put the whole carton in a large freezer bag and it will not freeze so hard, so it is easier to extract.

What's in a Name, Wenis

Wenis has achieved the status of a dictionary word and can be found in the online Merriam Webster dictionary. Even Wikipedia is reserving the word for inclusion. It refers to the skin on the outside of the elbow. The excess skin allows your elbow to move and flex. Medically speaking, it is called the olecranal skin.

The word has long been used as slang, because it sounds like the male appendage. Sample usage, "I fell and scraped my wenis."

Browser Tip

If you accidentally close a tab in either Firefox or Chrome, hold down CTRL and Shift keys then hit the letter t. The tab will come back.

Fifteen More Coffee Facts

Coffee is the second largest traded commodity in the world (oil is the largest).

1. There are two types of oils in coffee, good oils and bad oils. The good oils are good for your body and your health, the bad oils may give you ulcers and stomach problems. To avoid the bad oils in coffee use paper filters to minimize the effects.
2. Mocha Java Coffee has no chocolate in the Mocha or Java bean. Mocha is the name of the port in Yemen, where all African coffee beans are traded and transported. Java is the name of an island in Indonesia where the Java bean originates. Both coffees are dark bean and provide a bold coffee, when you mix the two together you get Mocha Java coffee.
3. Coffee starts out as a yellow berry, ripens into a red berry, and is then harvested by hand. Through water soaking process the red berry is de-shelled and leaves the green coffee bean. This bean then dries in the sun for 3-5 days before bagging.
4. In Africa, coffee beans are soaked in water mixed with spices and served as candy to chew.
5. Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world and the US is the largest coffee consuming country in the world.
6. There are 65 countries in the world that grow coffee and they are all located along the equator.
7. Black coffee with no additives contains no calories.
8. There are two types of coffee plants, Arabica and Robusta.
9. Espresso Coffee has one third of the caffeine content of a cup of regular coffee.
10. James Mason invented the coffee percolator on December 26, 1865.
11. Instant coffee was invented in 1901 by a Japanese American chemist, Satori Kato. In 1906 English chemist, George Constant Washington claimed he invented instant coffee.
12. Melitta Bentz a housewife from Dresden, Germany, invented the first coffee filter in 1908.
13. It takes five years for a coffee tree to reach full maturity, coffee trees can live up to 100 years and the average yield from one tree equals about one pound of roasted coffee.
14. A regular 6oz cup of coffee contains about 150 milligrams of caffeine.
15. Robusta coffee beans have twice as much caffeine as Arabica beans, but are of less quality.

Reheat Crunchy Fried Foods

Few foods are as good the next day when you reheat them, especially fried foods. If you want to get your french fries or fried chicken crispy again after they spent a night in the refrigerator, wrap them in aluminum foil and stick them in the broiler. The top-down heat on oil-soaked food makes these leftovers become crunchy again.

Sports Wave Origin

The wave, also generally known as the 'Mexican wave' outside of the US, was the brain-child of the longest continuously active professional cheerleader, Krazy George Henderson. It made its national debut on October 15, 1981 in a playoff game between the Oakland Athletics and the New York Yankees, which the Yankees won 4-0.

Krazy George’s claim is easily verified by the Major League Baseball archives. As the wave was something not seen before, with nearly all 47,000 in attendance participating, players and the announcers were amazed. Video of this first documented wave, including Krazy George leading it, made it onto the Oakland A’s highlight video for the season.

Of this first documented wave, Krazy George states, “I started with three sections and it went about five or six sections down. I did it again and it went 11 and then all the way around. Joe Garigiola was in the broadcast booth yelling at his cameramen to get that thing. Of course, no one knew what it was.”



It is generally called the 'Mexican wave' outside of the United States due to the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, where the rest of the world was first introduced to the wave. Krazy George invented the move, but not 'the wave', or the 'Mexican wave' name.

Free Smile Friday

Summer Joy

Happy Friday

Some people forget their smile is always right under their nose.

The best way to hide wrinkles is to smile, especially while enjoying a Happy Friday!

Sports Drinks

A study found that sports drinks work because they activate the pleasure center of your brain. You don't even have to drink them, just swishing some around in your mouth and spitting it out has the same effect.

The carbohydrates in the drink stimulate receptors in your mouth that then send your brain messages that things are all great. Your brain then becomes more active in the pleasure center, allowing you to enjoy feeling the burn longer than someone without a sugary drink.

Smiles Work

NYU students smiled, on average a little over once a minute when they were with a smiling confederate and averaged only a third of a smile per minute when they were with a confederate who did not smile.

We judge people and objects to be more pleasant when we are smiling in comparison to when we are frowning, so if you want your interviewer to think positively about you, try smiling.