Science/Technology Archives – Page 18 of 38

April 8, 2023April 9, 2023

F is for Frankincense

Medieval portrait of the magi, from the Orthodox Life blog site.

We Three Kings of Orient Are
Tried to Smoke a Great, Big Cigar…
A 8-year-old’s parody of a famous Christmas carol…

What, you are dismayed? You don’t remember that one? Did you remember the one about Chinese and Egyptian astrologers taking African bark scrapings into the alleyway behind the Marriott, where the illegal aliens, who were on their way to the tax collectors, stopped to have a baby? Also known as “Adoration of the Magi.”

Let’s try to un-knot the facts here, which isn’t easy because everybody was fighting over the same territory, back in Year Zero of the Common Era (not AD anymore, in case you missed that memo). What is frankincense and where was it from? Who were the magi and where was this East that they were from? (I said it in yesterday’s post, east is a matter of perspective, depending on not just where the baby was born but who was writing about it and when.)

Frankincense sap collection process found on Youtube.

When Resins Ruled the World

First of all, frankincense is a perfume and an incense. It’s a scent, highly prized across the ages both because it was hard to get and because people didn’t bathe until just about a century ago, so anything that masked odor was prized.

April 3, 2023April 5, 2023

C is for Camel

There is an old British joke that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Attributable to Sir Alec Issigonis (who originated the Mini auto), the last laugh might be on Sir Alec if he tried to cross the Asian deserts with only horses. While horses did originate and thrive in the grasslands of Asia, the camels always ruled the dunes, whether the sand was in the Sahara, the Gobi, or even the deserts of Australia. A Mini wouldn’t last very long trying to cross the Silk Road. Camels–in particular the Bactrian camels–were the ships that sailed across the Asian deserts.

The camel has a single hump;
The dromedary, two;
Or else the other way around.
I’m never sure. Are you?
Ogden Nash

The mnemonic to separate the two types of domesticated camels, the Bactrian from the Dromedary, is pretty simple. “B” has two humps, whereas “D” has one. The problem is remembering the mnemonic. Maybe after this post, we’ll all just remember the difference.

April 3, 2023April 5, 2023

B is for Bombyx Mori

12th c. image of silk production, from James Hare website.

Here we go round the Mulberry Bush, the Mulberry Bush, the Mulberry Bush
Here we go round the Mulberry Bush
All on a Frosty Morning…

Were they experimenting, those first enterprising Chinese textile workers who pulled the threads off a caterpillar’s cocoon and found them to be strong and fine? Did they know to dip them in water to separate them from the egg or was that an accident, like most inventions? There may be up to a mile in threads in a single cocoon, so say the advertisements, and placing the unopened cocoon in water frees them.

The Chinese discovered as far back as the Neolithic Age (the New Stone Age) that the wispy strings of the cocoon could be spun into a cloth delicate, shiny, and strong. They held the secret close for centuries, until someone smuggled the cocoons and the mulberry out, to try it on their own.

Not everyone succeeded. Historian/humorist Bill Bryson thinks that the mulberry bush song we may have sung as kids reflectsthe frustrations of the 18th and 19th century British, who tried to replicate the Chinese silk production but found their climate too inhospitable on those frosty mornings.

The cocoons like it warm.