Interesting Facts

According to career website, CareerCast.com, the people with the worst jobs in the US are newspaper reporters. (The five worst jobs were:- Oil-rig worker Actor Enlisted military personnel Lumberjack Newspaper reporter The top five jobs were:- Actuary Biomedical engineer Software engineer Audiologist Financial planner Poor old Clark Kent.)

According to a study carried out by researchers from University College London and the University of Cambridge, central heating in the home may be making us fat. (The article suggests that the increase in indoor temperature due to heating the house has reduced the calories we use to stay warm; leading us to store the excess energy as body fat.  It goes on to says that the “thermal comfort zone” provided by modern living may be a factor in the Western world’s increasing rates of obesity. I'm sorry, but I've been without working central heating for a couple of weeks now, and I haven't lost an ounce, in fact I've been comfort eating and stuffing my face with chocolate, so I want my central heating back. (BTW - The engineer is here! Yippee! Fingers crossed.) ) 

According to a report published by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, up to 30% of vegetables in the UK are not harvested because of their physical appearance. (Wonky carrots and blemished fruit don't sell, and so they are left to rot.   I guess that since the end of That's Life we just don't know what to do with them.) Source - http://www.imeche.org/Libraries/Reports/IMechE_Global_Food_Report.sflb.ashx

According to a report published by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, between 30% and 50% of the world's food goes to waste. (This means around two billion tonnes, of the four billion tonnes of food produced around the world each year, ends up not being eaten, and half the food bought in Europe and the US is thrown away. The reasons seem to range from poor engineering and agricultural practices, inadequate transport and storage, best before dates on food, and those notorious BOGOFF (buy-one-get-one-free) offers, that encourage consumers to buy more than they need. I would say that in Europe it could be down to weekly shopping too.  Once upon a time we bought food fresh from markets, but nowadays we do a weekly shop, and something is bound to go off in that time.  My worst culprit is salad items.  The number of half eaten cucumbers I've thrown away...) You can read the report here. http://www.imeche.org/Libraries/Reports/IMechE_Global_Food_Report.sflb.ashx

Richard G. Drew (1899-1980) invented masking tape and clear adhesive tape (also called cellophane tape, Sellotape or Scotch tape). Drew was an engineer for the 3M company (the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing). Drew's first tape invention was a masking tape made for painters in 1923 (this tape was designed to help painters paint a straight border between two colors). This early masking tape was a wide paper tape with adhesive on only the edges of the tape - not in the middle. Drew made an improved tape called Scotch (TM) Brand Cellulose Tape in 1930. This tape was a clear, all-purpose adhesive tape that was soon adopted worldwide. The first tape dispenser with a built-in cutting edge was invented in 1932 by John A. Borden, another 3M employee.