As you take your final exam, you may find yourself shopping last minute for your family’s holiday gifts. Don’t despair. There is a day for that. December 18th is Free Shipping Day; a one-day, online-shopping event when thousands of merchants offer free shipping with delivery by Christmas Eve.1 So how do your packages go over the river andContinue reading “Drones are taking off”

In 1942, while Dr.Percy Spencer was testing a magnetron, a candy bar in his pocket melted. This was Dr. Spencer’s ‘aha moment’ when he realized that radioactive beams can cook food. The Raytheon Company filed a patent application for Spencer’s invention on October 8, 1945. Then the company built the first commercially available microwave oven calling it the Radarange. It debuted in 1947 standing six feetContinue reading “Get Cooking; Saturday is Microwave Oven Day”

December 1st is Cyber Monday, a day created by marketing companies to persuade people to shop online the first Monday after Thanksgiving. Employees returning to their desks after the holiday, stuffed full of turkey, are considered prime to shop on their high-speed internet connections at work. Warehouses, such as Amazon, are stocked to the brim with merchandise, and according to theContinue reading “Need a Lift?”

HISTORY Ironically, it was during the American Depression when Monopoly, a game of wealth and finance, became popular. Charles Darrow devised of a buying and selling real estate game with Atlantic City’s street names. He sold each hand-painted oil-cloth game for $4. When it caught on, and he could not keep up with the demand for manufacturing, he wroteContinue reading “A Real Life Game of Monopoly”

In honor of Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day, celebrated on November 15th, you may want to know how your refrigerator operates. HISTORY Refrigerators are a modern invention. Until the advent of wide-scale electricity, keeping food cold had been a challenge for civilizations. Even as late as the 1800s, ice continued to be the major method for cooling.Continue reading “How Cool Is This”

Autumn is a beautiful season: waning days of warmth, cool nights, and dramatic color. All is blissful until the leaves fall from the trees covering the ground with a thick mass of debris. So begins the raking…or blowing. The Invention Although not confirmed, it widely is believed that the leaf blower was invented by Dom Quinto inContinue reading “Blowing in the Wind”

ALFRED NOBEL October 21st is the birthday of the late Alfred Bernhard Nobel who lived from 1833 to 1896. He was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator and manufacturer. In 1862, he started experimenting with nitroglycerin as an explosive material for oil mining. By the next year, at age 30, he obtained his first patent. A year later, he alsoContinue reading “Happy Birthday, Alfred Nobel”

In this day in 1876, Alexander Bell demonstrated the first two way telephone conversation over outdoor wires. (October 9, 1876) Timeline of the Telephone: 1667: Robert Hooke created an acoustic string telephone that convey sound over a taut extended wire by mechanical vibrations. 1849: Antonio Meucci demonstrated a communicating device, it is disputed whether or notContinue reading “1st Two Way Phone Conversation”