Oxygen Bottles
on Mt. Everest
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Oxygen masks: paramedics slap them on heart-attack victims. Mountain climbers use them as they scale the highest peaks. Flight attendants demonstrate their use in case of an in-flight emergency. People in war-ravaged areas wear them to protect themselves against gas attacks; others wear them on the busy streets of our largest cities as protection from inhaling the polluted air. We all need oxygen to exist — people, animals and plants alike. On this date in 1774, Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen. Noting its effectiveness in sparking combustion, he called the gas "dephlogisticated air," demonstrating his belief in phlogiston.
"Could we have entered into the mind of Sir Isaac Newton, and have traced all the steps by which he produced his great works, we might see nothing very extraordinary in the process." — Joseph Priestley
The amount of oxygen in the air decreases as altitude increases as you are higher up in the mountains. How do people who live in these types of evironments get enough oxygen?
Actually, the amount of oxygen does not decrease, as in becoming a smaller percentage of the gasses that make up the atmosphere. What does decrease is the pressure of the air. So when breathing in at higher altitudes, the lower pressure causes less air to rush in to the lungs as each breath is taken. At sea level, air contains about 21% oxygen. At 18,000 feet elevation, air still contains about 21% oxygen; there is just less air!
People (and animals, for that matter) adapt over a period of many years to a high-altitude environment. Their bodies become more efficient at getting and using oxygen.
bake blind
A term for baking a pastry shell before it is filled. The shell is usually pricked all over with a fork to prevent it from blistering and rising. Sometimes it's lined with foil or parchment paper, then filled with dried beans or rice, or metal or ceramic pie weights. The French sometimes fill the shell with clean round pebbles. The weights and foil or parchment paper should be removed a few minutes before the baking time is over to allow the crust to brown.
Slavery Abolition Act 1833: abolished slavery in Britain and Ireland
WWI: erupted as Germany declared war on Russia (1914)
Fulbright: scholarship program was signed into US law (1946)
MTV: cable music station was launched with, aptly, The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" (1981)
Yves Saint Laurent
Claudius (10 BCE-54 CE): 4th Roman emperor
Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829): the naturalist credited with first use of the word "biology"
Francis Scott Key (1779-1843): attorney who wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner"
Herman Melville (1819-1891): author of Moby ******; plus, writer Anne Hébert (1916-2000)
Dom DeLuise (1933-2009): actor and cookbook writer; actors Giancarlo Giannini (67) and John Carroll Lynch (46) share this birth date
Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008): fashion designer, popularized pants for women
Robert Cray (56): blues guitarist and singer; musicians Jerry Garcia (1942-1995), Michael Penn (51), Joe Elliot (50), Chuck D (49), Coolio (46) and Adam Duritz (45) also celebrate birthdays toda
