Author Archives: Cris

Greater Periwinkle

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Greater Periwinkle

Greater periwinkles are greater than lesser periwinkles.

  • Greater periwinkles are also known as ‘big leaf periwinkles’, ‘large periwinkles’, ‘blue periwinkles’ and ‘blue buttons’.
  • The scientific name of greater periwinkles is ‘Vinca major’ and is from a family of six species of Vinca.
  • Greater periwinkles are native to Europe and North Africa and are from the family ‘Apocynaceae’, which is typically known as the dogbone family.
  • Greater periwinkles grow up to 50-70 cm (1.6 – 2 .3 feet) in height and spread 2-5 metres (6.6 – 16.4 feet) wide.
  • Greater periwinkles are ground vines with dark green coloured leaves that are glossy and sit in pairs opposite each other, with flowers that can bloom all year round, but generally in spring and summer.

Greater Periwinkle, Purple Flower, Multiple, Two, Bush, Violet, Lavendar, Colour, Austalia, Flower, Vegetation, Ten Random Facts

  • The flowers of greater periwinkles can be white or blue in colour but are typically coloured in purple shades and are 3-5 cm(1.2 – 2 inches) in diameter.
  • Greater periwinkles are an invasive weed in parts of Australia, New Zealand and United States, due to the ease of propagation from waste plant material.
  • Greater periwinkles are often mistaken for lesser periwinkles (Vinca minor) due to their similarities, although the flower and leaf sizes are larger in the greater, which also has tiny hairs on the leaves, that the lesser doesn’t.
  • The stems of greater periwinkles can be used for basket weaving and the plant is also used medicinally, although it is poisonous if large portions are consumed.
  • Greater periwinkles are happy to grow in shady areas and send down roots from their runners, making them easy to grow from cuttings.
Bibliography:
Vinca Major, 2013, Plants for a Future, <http://www.pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?latinname=Vinca+major>
Vinca Major, 2013, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinca_major>

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Adhesive Bandage

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Adhesive Bandage

Sticky, sticky, adhesive bandages.

  • ‘Adhesive bandages’ are also known  as ‘sticker plaster’ or ‘sticking plaster’,  but are often known by brand names such as ‘Band-Aid’ and ‘Elastoplast’.
  • Adhesive bandages are used to guard small cuts from foreign objects or particles as well as extra damage to the cut.
  • Adhesive bandages often hold cuts together to quicken the process of healing the cut.
  • Adhesive bandages are typically plastic, fabric or rubber strips that are coated with a special adhesive to stick to the skin and have a pad to absorb moisture from the wound.
  • Blue, waterproof adhesive bandages are often used by those working in kitchens or the food industry, as they are less likely of losing the adhesive’s stickiness as well as increasing the likeliness of spotting the bandage if it falls off.

Adhesive Bandages, Sqaure, Circle, Strip, Kids, Waterproof, Open, Packet, Ten Random Facts, Woolworths

  • Adhesive bandages come in all different shapes and sizes, and can have adhesive that is quite sticky, flexible or stretchy.
  • Adhesive bandages, once removed, can leave a sticky residue on your skin, which is said to be able to be removed by rubbing with moisturiser, baby oil, rubbing alcohol, vinegar or vegetable oil.
  • The first adhesive bandages were invented by Earle Dickson in 1920, for his wife, which his employer, Johnson & Johnson then started making commercially and called them a ‘Band-Aid’.
  • Some people are allergic to the chemicals used in the glue of an adhesive bandage, and a significant portion of people will develop a skin rash from the bandage if left on for more than a short time.
  • Adhesive bandages often stick and bond with the hairs on the skin, so the removal of the bandage can sometimes be quite painful.
Bibliography:
Adhesive Bandage, 2013, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhesive_bandage>
Carson N, About Bandage Adhesive, 2013, eHow, <http://www.ehow.com/about_4617276_bandage-adhesive.html>

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Weet-Bix

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Weet-Bix

“Aussie kids are Weet-Bix kids” – Sanitarium’s Slogan

  • Weet-Bix is a wholegrain cereal that is shaped like a thin brick, known as a ‘wheat biscuit’, that is made by Australia’s Sanitarium Health Food Company and South Africa’s Bokomo.
  • The forerunner of Weet-bix were known as ‘Granose biscuits’, which were first made by the famous Kellogg brothers in the 1890s in the USA, and in 1899 they were being produced in Australia by the Sanitarium Health Food Company, and became popular during  World War I where they were being fed to the troops.
  • Grain Products Limited was established by Arthur Shannon in the mid 1920s to make wheat biscuits known as ‘Weet-Bix’, in competition to the Sanitarium Health Food Company’s Granose biscuits, and a newly formed company known as Cereal Foods that produced a sweeter wheat biscuit known as ‘Vita-Brits’.
  • Weet-Bix are a good source of fibre and are high in folate and thiamin, and are generally eaten for breakfast covered in milk.
  • Weet-Bix is a common food icon of Australia and New Zealand, and has become the two countries’ most popular cereal.

Weet-Bix, Wheat Biscuits, Woolworths, Pile, Raw, Plate, Ten Random Facts, Australia

  • In the 1920s, Bennison Osborne, Norman Jeffes, Frederick Foots and Arthur Shannon all contributed to the  new Grain Products Limited wheat biscuit, known as ‘Weet-Bix’, which became a quick success, although in 1928 the company was sold to the Sanitarium Health Food Company, who were buying out their competitors.
  • Australian soldiers ate Weet-Bix for breakfast during World War II, and the product sponsors some Australian sport teams and their players, such as cricket and soccer teams, which often appear on Sanitarium’s advertisements.
  • Australians eat approximately 1.4 billion Weet-Bix each year, and in 2010, the amount of Weet-Bix manufactured would’ve been enough to cover a soccer field up to 18 metres (59 feet) high.
  • Bennison Osborne and Ian Malcolm Macfarlane, who was also involved in the Grain Products Limited company, eventually moved to England and started a company called the British and African Cereal Company Pty Ltd, with their main product being a modified version of Weet-bix, known as ‘Weetabix’, which have become popular in a number of countries around the world.
  • Originally, Weet-Bix were delivered to shops by horse and cart, and some years later, they often had collectible cards included in the box.
Bibliography:
An Aussie Icon, 2010, Weet-Bix, <http://www.weetbix.com.au/an-aussie-icon>
Bagnall J, Weet-Bix, n.d., Weet-Bix: The Early History, <http://weetbixhistory.wordpress.com/weet-bix/>

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Tokyo

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Tokyo

Not a city, but a metropolis.  Do you want to see a real metropolis? Go to Tokyo!

  • Tokyo means ‘Eastern Capital’ in Japanese, but has been officially known as ‘Tokyo Metropolis’ or ‘Tokyo-to’ in Japanese since 1943, although it was originally known as Edo, a small fishing community, being renamed as ‘Tokyo’ in 1868.
  • Tokyo is the capital of Japan, located on Honshu, in the south-eastern part the largest and main island of Japan, and has been the home of the Japanese emperor, his family and his Imperial Palace since the 1800s.
  • In 2011, Tokyo had a population of over 13.1 million residents in the metropolis with the 23 special wards or ‘cities’ containing 9 million of the total population.
  • In 2008, Tokyo had a gross domestic product (GDP) of US$1,479 trillion, making it the wealthiest city in the world.
  • Tokyo was the host of the 1964 Summer Olympic Games, and will be hosting the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, while sumo, judo, karate, baseball and tennis are among the popular sports in the metropolis.

Tokyo, Panorama, Japan, City, Bird, Overveiw, Tower, Flickr, Ten Random Facts

Tokyo
Image courtesy of Sebastien Batardy/Flickr
  • Tokyo was the victim of a major earthquake, the Great Kantō Earthquake in 1923, and the bombing of Tokyo in World War II (1944-45) destroying half the city, with 140,000 and 75,000 to 200,000 fatalities respectively.
  • In 2011, Tokyo’s Skytree became the second tallest structure and the tallest tower in the world, and the city has numerous high rise buildings and apartments to cater for the densely populated area.
  • Tokyo is said to be the cleanest city in the world, and the metropolis covers an area of 2,187 square kilometres (844 square miles) and contains 26 cities, 8 villages and 23 wards.
  • Tokyo has a comprehensive train and subway system which is the major form of public transport there, with monorails and buses being second.
  • Tokyo is an urban heat island, explaining increases of temperature over the years, which the government is helping to reduce by planting thousands of trees during its ten year project which will be complete in 2016.
Bibliography:
TOKYO – 9 FACTS ABOUT THE MOST FASCINATING AND BIZARRE CITY IN THE WORLD, 2013, Just One Way Ticket, <http://www.justonewayticket.com/2013/02/19/tokyo-9-facts/>
Tokyo, 2013, Wikipedia, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo>
Tokyo Outline, 2012, Go Tokyo, <http://www.gotokyo.org/en/tourists/info/info_basic.html#01>

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Antelope

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Antelope

Hoofed and horned, the antelopes.

  • Antelope are hoofed animals that look similar to deer and belong to the Bovidae family which is the family of cloven-hoofed mammals, that includes sheep, cattle, goats and buffalo.
  • Antelope are native to Africa, Asia and Europe, with about 70 of  the species, which is the majority, belonging to Africa.
  • All male antelope have permanent horns, which most females also have, that are used for fighting and defence.
  • Depending on the species, antelope can be as small as 24 cm (9.4 inches) in height like the royal antelope, or as large as 178cm (70 inches), like the common eland.
  • Antelope are typically brown, tan or red in colour, while a white underbelly is common, and their fastest speed is 70km/h (43m/h) with some species jumping over 2 meters (6 feet) high.

Antelope, Brown, herd, many, Impala, Serenget National Park, Tanzania, Ten Random Facts

Antelope
Image courtesy of National Geographic
  • Antelope have sharp hearing and eyesight, and they use these senses to detect predators like crocodiles, cheetahs, lions and hyenas.
  • Antelope typically live in herds, sometimes in herds of up to 800, which can be used as a defence against predators, although some of the forest species only have a handful of animals in a herd.
  • Many native people believe that some antelopes have horns with special powers, and the horns of the saiga antelope are used in traditional Chinese medicine.
  • Antelope are found in a variety of habitats including woodlands, savannahs, grasslands and forests, where their diet is mainly grass.
  • In 2009, 25 of the 91 species of antelope were endangered, which was worse than 13 years earlier in 1996.
Bibliography:
Antelope, 2013, A-Z Animals, <http://a-z-animals.com/animals/antelope/>
Antelope, 2013, San Diego Zoo, <http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/antelope>
 Antelope, 2013, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antelope>

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Stickers

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Stickers

Stick, stick, stick, stick, and stick the stickers.

  • Stickers are typically made from paper or thin plastic with one sticky side that is stuck on objects.
  • Stickers have their history in revenue or tax stamps which were used as early as the mid 1700s to collect tax or other fees on certain items, to which they were adhered, and later on in postage stamps.
  • In the United Kingdom in 1840, the first adhesive postage stamps in the world were used, which used a dry sticker formula that was moistened to stick the stamp to the item to be mailed.
  • Early stickers were paper stuck with gum glue, and were also used to make objects, such as crates, more attractive in the late 1800s.
  • The first modern stickers, known as self-adhesive labels, with a peel off backing, were made in 1935 by R Stanton Avery from Oklahoma, United States of America, who founded one of the biggest self-adhesive label companies, the Avery company which changed its name to the Avery Dennison Corporation in 1990.

 Stickers, Mulitple, 3D, Piffuy, Shiny, Flat, Sheets, Glittery, Figures, Plain, Ten Random Facts

  • Children are often given stickers as rewards, and are common sticker users, using them to decorate items, or make sceneries or pictures with them.
  • It is believed that bumper stickers were first made by Forest Gill, who was a printer, to advertise Rocky Mountain’s Rock City attraction.
  • Stickers can be sparkly, smelly (scratch ‘n sniff), 3D, fabric, acrylic or plain.
  • Stickers come in all shapes and sizes; they can be very large or very small, and are used for many different purposes, including labelling for identification purposes or for addressing mail; for marketing including signage and product labels; and hobbies like scrapbooking.
  • Some stickers are laminated to keep their appearance looking good and make them more durable, especially for outdoor purposes.
Bibliography:
The History of Stickers, 2013, Sticker Palace, <http://www.stickerpalace.com/the-history-of-stickers/>
William N, Sticker Printing Facts, 2009, Articles Base, <http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/sticker-printing-facts-796411.html>

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