Browsing: Science & Technology

A Brief History On February 20, 1959, the government of Canada cancelled the Avro Arrow supersonic jet fighter program, creating conjecture and controversy that continues to this day.  Within two months of the cancellation, the government ordered all plans, tools, and all five existing prototypes to be destroyed. Digging Deeper Designed to fly at Mach 2 and at 53,000 feet, the Arrow would have been cutting edge technology to protect Canada.  Avro was the third largest company in Canada, one of the 100 largest in the world, but the Arrow fiasco basically ruined the company, and it went out of…

A Brief History On February 17, 1996, Chess champion Garry Kasparov bested the IBM Deep Blue supercomputer in an historic chess game between man and machine.  The battle between organic and electronic brains went far beyond a single match, as Kasparov beat the special-built chess playing machine three games to one and two ties. Digging Deeper Not content with beating the Grand Master once, IBM reworked their computer, doubling its computing speed, and a rematch was held in 1997, this time resulting in a win for Deep Blue.  An irate Kasparov demanded a rematch, but IBM had taken the computer…

A Brief History On February 16, 2024, we celebrate another National Do a Grouch a Favor Day.  Why would we want to do a grouch a favor?  Are grouches a good thing? Digging Deeper Whether you call them a grouch, a crab, a whining sniveling malcontent, or a more formal name such as curmudgeon, grouches are all around, complaining about everything and snapping at others.  Here are some reasons we should be thankful for grouches and do them a favor. Grouches are funny.  Famous comedians such as Don Rickles, Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Burr, Lewis Black, and Ricky Gervais made a…

A Brief History On February 15, 1949, even Indiana Jones would have been envious of the work of Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux who began digging at the Qumran Caves where they later found the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Jewish documents that date back as far as the 3rd Century BC. Digging Deeper Some other contenders for the title of “Greatest Archaeological Find” include: The Rosetta Stone, found in 1799 by Napoleon Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt, finally allowed researchers to interpret Egyptian hieroglyphics. King Tut’s Tomb, found in 1922, totaled over 5,000 objects from Ancient Egypt, the…

A Brief History On February 7, 2014, scientists in England verified that footprints found in an uncovered sediment layer in Happisburgh, Norfolk were of human, or “hominid” origin and dated back about 900,000 years.  The footprints, called “The Happisburgh footprints” thus became the oldest known human footprints ever found outside of Africa. Digging Deeper The prints were found under an ancient forest bed the previous year and were meticulously photographed and documented before a rising tide covered and destroyed the impressions.  Prior to this epic discovery, the previously known oldest hominid footprints found outside of Africa were found in Italy,…