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Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice. — La Rochefoucauld
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 Bad advice is often most fatal to the adviser. — Flaccus |
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A fop sometimes gives important advice. — Boileau |
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Advice is like snow: the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into, the mind. — Coleridge |
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 Remember this: they that will not be
counseled cannot be helped. If you do
not hear Reason, she will rap your knuckles.
— Ben Franklin |
Today's Word –
SHANGHAI
Shang·hai
A city of eastern China at the mouth of the
Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) southeast of Nanjing. The largest city in the country,
Shanghai was opened to foreign trade by the Treaty of Nanking (1842) and quickly
prospered.
shang·hai transitive
verb 1. To kidnap (a man) for compulsory
service aboard a ship, especially after drugging him. 2.
To induce or compel (someone) to do something, especially by fraud or force [After
Shanghai1, from the former custom of
kidnapping sailors to man ships going to China.]
Definitions from American Heritage Dictionary
Over the next several days the facts here on the DM will be about
Serendipitous Discoveries.
This is the first fact on this subject.
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SERENDIPITY 10 A young chemist, Hilaire de Chardonnet, was assisting Pasteur in trying to save the French silk industry. The silk worms were dying from an epidemic. He became convinced that the best answer to the silk problem was the development of a manmade substitute for silk. In 1878, while he was working in his darkroom with photographic plates he spilled a bottle of collodion. He didn't immediately clean up the spill. Later, cleaning up the spilled collodion provided him with the idea for the first synthetic silk. Leaving the spill until later caused partial evaporation of the solvent and left a thick, viscous, tacky liquid. As he tried to wipe up the mess he was left with long thin strands of fiber. The fibers resembled silk. This was enough to encourage him to experiment further with collodion. Working on the problem for nearly six years allowed Chardonnet to produce an artificial silk. He made collodion from a pulp of the natural food of the silkworm, mulberry leaves. The pulp was dissolved in ether and alcohol. He then drew out filaments of the fiber and coagulated them in heated air. |
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Cloth made from this new fiber was exhibited at the Paris Exposition in 1891. It was so successful that financial backing came easily. The new fiber was called "artificial silk" until nearly 1924 when it received the name rayon. The rayon produced by Chardonnet was very flammable. Later other processes were devised to convert cotton into silk-like fibers. The newer rayons of today are xanthate rayon and acetate rayon. The flammable nitrate rayons are no longer used. Sources: Serendipity | Encyclopaedia Britannica | The New Shell Book of Firsts
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"Sources: | On This Day | Britannica |" |
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| "What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable." Joseph Addison |
TRUE FACT ... Humans begin laughing at two to three months of age. Six year olds laugh about 300 times per day, while adults laugh from 15 to 100 times per day. SOURCE: NYT, Dr. William F. Fry, Stanford University
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Have A Great Day Phillip Bower |
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