The only place in the universe where a flag flies all day, never goes up or comes down, never flies half-mast and does not get saluted, is the moon.
It is, of course, the American flag, the only country to have landed people on the moon even though British Interplanetary Society engineers had in 1939 designed a ship to carry people to the moon. Since Apollo 11 landed on moon on 20th July 1969 untill 1972, 12 American astronauts walked on the moon, spending 170 hours roaming over 60 miles (100 km), planting 6 flags in total. They brought home 880 pounds (400 kilograms) of soil and rock, and 30,000 photographs.
The 6 American flags on the moon were planted during the missions of Apollo 11,12,14,15,16,and 17. The flags of the European Union, Russia, and India are also on the moon but they are displayed on equipment or probes.
The first landing of the moon is celebrated in the festival of Evoloterra on 20th July.
Last man on the moon
The Apollo 17 crew were the last men on the moon. With Ronald Evans in the command module, Commander Eugene Cernan and scientist Harrison H. Schmitt drove 34 km (21 miles) in the lunar buggy. On December 11, 1972 they left behind a plaque that reads: "Here Man completed his first exploration of the Moon, December 1972 A.D. May the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind." Cernan was the last man to have set foot on another celestial body.
Last words spoken on the moon
The first words spoken on the moon, by Neil Armstrong, are well known, but what were the last words spoken from the moon?
"America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow." - Commander Eugene Cernan, Apollo 17 Mission, 11 December 1972.
Just in case you forgot Neil Armstrong's words: "One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind." On returning to Earth, he explained that he thought he had said "one small step for a man."
Who owns the moon?
Planting a flag on the moon does not mean owning it or any part of it. The United Nations Outer Space Treaty (long name: Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies) of January 27, 1967 states that "outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of occupation, or by any other means."
Sunday, October 11, 2009
An espresso has less caffeine than a cup of coffee
A cup of drip brewed coffee has about 115 milligrams of caffeine, an espresso (and percolated coffee) about 80mg, while instant coffee has about 65mg of caffeine. Decaffeinated coffee is not totally caffeine free, containing about 3mg of caffeine. A 8oz can of Coca-Cola has about 23mg of caffeine, Pepsi Cola 25mg, Mountain Dew 36mg, and TAB 31mg. Tea has about 40mg of caffeine, while an ounce of chocolate contains about 20mg.
The first Espresso machine was introduced in 1822 by the French, but it was the Italians who perfected and distributed it.
Coffee business
Coffee is the world's most popular stimulant: 4 out of 5 Americans drink it, consuming more than 400 million cups a day. Consumption in Scandinavian countries is more than 12kg (26lb) per capita. With more than 25 million people employed in the industry, coffee is one of the largest trade industries in the world.
Although coffee is believed to have been grown near the Red Sea since the 7th century, an Arabian author of the 15th century, Shehabeddin Ben, wrote that Ethiopians enjoyed coffee ever since anyone could remember. By the 16th centuries, coffee plants were found throughout the Yemen region of Arabia. After a Turkish ambassador introduced it to the court of Louis XIV in 1669, Europeans quickly acquired a taste for it. A few years later, the Dutch introduced coffee into Java. In 1714, the Frenchman Desclieux planted a single cutting of a coffee tree on the island of Martinique. Plantations soon grew from French Guiana to Brazil and Central America. Today, coffee is planted in moist regions around the world.
Instant coffee was invented in 1906 by Mr. G. Washington, an Englishman living in Guatemala.
Genus Coffea
Coffee beans on tree
Red coffee beans ready for picking
Coffee is the seed of a cherry from the tree genus Coffea, a tree yielding about 1kg (2lb) of coffee per year. There are more than 25 species of coffee, the 3 main commercial types being Robusta, Liberia and Arabica, the latter representing 70% of total production. It takes 42 coffee beans to make an espresso.
Caffeine increases the power of aspirin and other painkillers, that is why it is found in some medicines. Ironically, caffeine withdrawal also is one of the most common causes of headaches. Women who drink 2 or more cups of coffee a day also have an increased risk of developing osteoporosis. This, however, can be offset by drinking milk or yoghurt to replace the lost calcium. Most studies have found that high caffeine consumption impairs fertility, and taken during pregnancy may cause premature or defected birth.
Caffeine is removed from coffee by treating the green beans - large seeds are commonly referred to as beans - with chlorinated hydrocarbon solvents. Instant coffee is prepared by mixing ground and roasted coffee with hot water. The water is then evaporated by spray dryers and high pressure, leaving only the coffee powder. In some coffee products, coffee is replaced with chicory (a wildflower herb), fig, date, malt, or barley, remotely resembling real coffee.
Caffeine is known medically as trimethylxanthine, and the chemical formula is C8H10N4O2.
Cappuccino
The word "cappuccino" comes from the 16th century Capuchin order of friars, whose hoods were called cappuccinos. A cappuccino is a coffee topped with steamed milk.
Barista
A barista is an expert in the preparation of espresso-based coffee drinks. Top Baristas compete annualy in the World Barista Championship.
The small cup in which an espresso (sometimes referred to as expresso) is served is called a demitasse.
TIP
The word "tip" is also related to coffee. It comes from old London coffeehouses where the waiters' brass boxes were etched with the inscription, "To Insure Promptness." In fact, it was in one such coffeehouses which belonged to a Mr Lloyd that a few cargo insurers got together to start the Lloyd's insurance company.
The first Espresso machine was introduced in 1822 by the French, but it was the Italians who perfected and distributed it.
Coffee business
Coffee is the world's most popular stimulant: 4 out of 5 Americans drink it, consuming more than 400 million cups a day. Consumption in Scandinavian countries is more than 12kg (26lb) per capita. With more than 25 million people employed in the industry, coffee is one of the largest trade industries in the world.
Although coffee is believed to have been grown near the Red Sea since the 7th century, an Arabian author of the 15th century, Shehabeddin Ben, wrote that Ethiopians enjoyed coffee ever since anyone could remember. By the 16th centuries, coffee plants were found throughout the Yemen region of Arabia. After a Turkish ambassador introduced it to the court of Louis XIV in 1669, Europeans quickly acquired a taste for it. A few years later, the Dutch introduced coffee into Java. In 1714, the Frenchman Desclieux planted a single cutting of a coffee tree on the island of Martinique. Plantations soon grew from French Guiana to Brazil and Central America. Today, coffee is planted in moist regions around the world.
Instant coffee was invented in 1906 by Mr. G. Washington, an Englishman living in Guatemala.
Genus Coffea
Coffee beans on tree
Red coffee beans ready for picking
Coffee is the seed of a cherry from the tree genus Coffea, a tree yielding about 1kg (2lb) of coffee per year. There are more than 25 species of coffee, the 3 main commercial types being Robusta, Liberia and Arabica, the latter representing 70% of total production. It takes 42 coffee beans to make an espresso.
Caffeine increases the power of aspirin and other painkillers, that is why it is found in some medicines. Ironically, caffeine withdrawal also is one of the most common causes of headaches. Women who drink 2 or more cups of coffee a day also have an increased risk of developing osteoporosis. This, however, can be offset by drinking milk or yoghurt to replace the lost calcium. Most studies have found that high caffeine consumption impairs fertility, and taken during pregnancy may cause premature or defected birth.
Caffeine is removed from coffee by treating the green beans - large seeds are commonly referred to as beans - with chlorinated hydrocarbon solvents. Instant coffee is prepared by mixing ground and roasted coffee with hot water. The water is then evaporated by spray dryers and high pressure, leaving only the coffee powder. In some coffee products, coffee is replaced with chicory (a wildflower herb), fig, date, malt, or barley, remotely resembling real coffee.
Caffeine is known medically as trimethylxanthine, and the chemical formula is C8H10N4O2.
Cappuccino
The word "cappuccino" comes from the 16th century Capuchin order of friars, whose hoods were called cappuccinos. A cappuccino is a coffee topped with steamed milk.
Barista
A barista is an expert in the preparation of espresso-based coffee drinks. Top Baristas compete annualy in the World Barista Championship.
The small cup in which an espresso (sometimes referred to as expresso) is served is called a demitasse.
TIP
The word "tip" is also related to coffee. It comes from old London coffeehouses where the waiters' brass boxes were etched with the inscription, "To Insure Promptness." In fact, it was in one such coffeehouses which belonged to a Mr Lloyd that a few cargo insurers got together to start the Lloyd's insurance company.
Predictions that missed the mark
In 1894, the president of the Royal Society, William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, predicted that radio had no future. The first radio factory was opened five years later. Today, there are more than one billion radio sets in the world, tuned to more than 33 000 radio stations around the world. He also predicted that heavier-than-air flying machines were impossible. The Wright Brother's first flight covered a distance equal to only half the length of the wingspan of a Boeing 747. He also said, "X-rays will prove to be a hoax."
In the 6th century BC Greek mathematician Pythagoras said that earth is round - but few agreed with him. Greek astronomer Aristarchos said in the 3rd century BC that earth revolves around the sun - but the idea was not accepted. In the 2nd century BC Greek astronomer Erastosthenes accurately measured the distance around the earth at about 40,000 km (24,860 miles) - but nobody believed him. In the 2nd century AD Greek astronomer Ptolemy stated that earth was the centre of the universe - most people believed him for the next 1,400 years.
In the early 20th century a world market for only 4 million automobiles was predicted because "the world would run out of chauffeurs." Shortly after the end of World War II (1945), the whole of Volkswagen, factory and patents, was offered free to Henry Ford II. He dismissed the Volkswagen Beetle as a bad design. Today, more than 70 million motorcars are produced every year. The Beetle became one of the best-selling vehicles of all time.
The telephone was not widely appreciated for the first 15 years because people did not see a use for it. In fact, in the British parliament it was mentioned there was no need for telephones because "we have enough messengers here." Western Union believed that it could never replace the telegraph. In 1876, an internal memo read: "This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication." Even Mark Twain, upon being invited by Alexander Graham Bell to invest $5 000 in the new invention, could not see a future in the telephone.
Irish scientist, Dr. Dionysius Lardner (1793 - 1859) didn't believe that trains could contribute much in speedy transport. He wrote: "Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers ' would die of asphyxia' [suffocation]." Today, trains reach speeds of 500 km/h.
In 1927, H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, asked, "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" In 1936, Radio Times editor Rex Lambert thought "Television won't matter in your lifetime or mine."
In 1943, Thomas Watson, the chairman of IBM forecast a world market for "maybe only five computers." Years before IBM launched the personal computer in 1981, Xerox had already successfully designed and used PCs internally... but decided to concentrate on the production of photocopiers. Even Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, said in 1977, "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
After the invention of the transistor in 1947, several US electronics companies rejected the idea of a portable radio. Apparently it was thought nobody would want to carry a radio around. When Bell put the transistor on the market in 1952 they had few takers apart from a small japanese start-up called Sony. They introduced the transistor radio in 1954.
In 1894, A.A. Michelson, who with E.W. Morley seven years earlier experimentally demonstrated the constancy of the speed of light, said that the future of science would consist of "adding a few decimal places to the results already obtained."
In 1954, a concert manager fired Elvis Presley, saying, "You ought to go back to driving a truck." In 1962, Decca Records rejected the Beatles, "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
In 1966, Time Magazine predicted, "By 2000, the machines will be producing so much that everyone in the U.S. will, in effect, be independently wealthy." In that year too CoCo Chanel said about miniskirts: "It's a bad joke that won't last. Not with winter coming."
Sometimes a few decimal places make a massive difference. Investment banks rely on computer models to direct trading activity; in August 2007, Goldman Sachs’ hedge funds and other quant funds were left exposed by a series of market swings, each of which their software predicted would occur only once every 100,000 years. Goldman Sachs required a $3 billion (€1.9 billion) bailout, with other banks joining the hand-out queue.
Perhaps the guy who got it wrong most was the commissioner of the US Office of Patents: in 1899, Charles H. Duell, assured President McKinley that "everything that can be invented has been invented."
To prophesy is extremely difficult - especially with regard to the future. - Chinese proverb
In the 6th century BC Greek mathematician Pythagoras said that earth is round - but few agreed with him. Greek astronomer Aristarchos said in the 3rd century BC that earth revolves around the sun - but the idea was not accepted. In the 2nd century BC Greek astronomer Erastosthenes accurately measured the distance around the earth at about 40,000 km (24,860 miles) - but nobody believed him. In the 2nd century AD Greek astronomer Ptolemy stated that earth was the centre of the universe - most people believed him for the next 1,400 years.
In the early 20th century a world market for only 4 million automobiles was predicted because "the world would run out of chauffeurs." Shortly after the end of World War II (1945), the whole of Volkswagen, factory and patents, was offered free to Henry Ford II. He dismissed the Volkswagen Beetle as a bad design. Today, more than 70 million motorcars are produced every year. The Beetle became one of the best-selling vehicles of all time.
The telephone was not widely appreciated for the first 15 years because people did not see a use for it. In fact, in the British parliament it was mentioned there was no need for telephones because "we have enough messengers here." Western Union believed that it could never replace the telegraph. In 1876, an internal memo read: "This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication." Even Mark Twain, upon being invited by Alexander Graham Bell to invest $5 000 in the new invention, could not see a future in the telephone.
Irish scientist, Dr. Dionysius Lardner (1793 - 1859) didn't believe that trains could contribute much in speedy transport. He wrote: "Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers ' would die of asphyxia' [suffocation]." Today, trains reach speeds of 500 km/h.
In 1927, H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, asked, "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" In 1936, Radio Times editor Rex Lambert thought "Television won't matter in your lifetime or mine."
In 1943, Thomas Watson, the chairman of IBM forecast a world market for "maybe only five computers." Years before IBM launched the personal computer in 1981, Xerox had already successfully designed and used PCs internally... but decided to concentrate on the production of photocopiers. Even Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, said in 1977, "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
After the invention of the transistor in 1947, several US electronics companies rejected the idea of a portable radio. Apparently it was thought nobody would want to carry a radio around. When Bell put the transistor on the market in 1952 they had few takers apart from a small japanese start-up called Sony. They introduced the transistor radio in 1954.
In 1894, A.A. Michelson, who with E.W. Morley seven years earlier experimentally demonstrated the constancy of the speed of light, said that the future of science would consist of "adding a few decimal places to the results already obtained."
In 1954, a concert manager fired Elvis Presley, saying, "You ought to go back to driving a truck." In 1962, Decca Records rejected the Beatles, "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
In 1966, Time Magazine predicted, "By 2000, the machines will be producing so much that everyone in the U.S. will, in effect, be independently wealthy." In that year too CoCo Chanel said about miniskirts: "It's a bad joke that won't last. Not with winter coming."
Sometimes a few decimal places make a massive difference. Investment banks rely on computer models to direct trading activity; in August 2007, Goldman Sachs’ hedge funds and other quant funds were left exposed by a series of market swings, each of which their software predicted would occur only once every 100,000 years. Goldman Sachs required a $3 billion (€1.9 billion) bailout, with other banks joining the hand-out queue.
Perhaps the guy who got it wrong most was the commissioner of the US Office of Patents: in 1899, Charles H. Duell, assured President McKinley that "everything that can be invented has been invented."
To prophesy is extremely difficult - especially with regard to the future. - Chinese proverb
So, who invented the paperclip?
When Johann Vaaler patented his paper clip in 1901, therealready were similar designs on the books. William Middlebrook of Waterbury, Connecticut patented his design in 1899. Cornelius Brosnan of Springfield, Massachusetts patented his Konaclip in 1900.
The paper clipSo, who was first? Well, it is thought to be Johann Vaaler. Drawings of his design date to early 1899, but since Norway had no patent law at the time, he had to seek patent rights in Germany and the US in the following years.
Johann Vaaler was born on 15 March 1866 in Aurskog, Norway. Known as an innovator in his youth, he graduated in electronics, science and mathematics. He was employed by the owner of a invention office when he invented the paperclip in 1899.
Several designs followed the original. Only a few remain, such as the Ideal, Non-Skid, Owl and Gem.
The first double-oval clip, the Gem, was launched in early-1900 by Gem Manufacturing Ltd of England.
Tickling
Tickling is the act of touching a part of the body, so as to cause involuntary twitching movements or laughter. Such sensations can be pleasurable or exciting, but are sometimes considered highly unpleasant, particularly in the case of relentless heavy tickling.
Etymology
The word "tickle" (helpinfo) evolved from the Middle English tikelen, perhaps frequentative of ticken, to touch lightly. The idiom tickled pink means to be pleased or delighted.
Physiology
In 1897 psychologists G. Stanley Hall and Arthur Allin described a "tickle" as two different types of phenomena. The first is a sensation caused by very light movement across the skin. This type of tickle, called knismesis, generally does not produce laughter and is sometimes accompanied by an itching sensation. The second type of tickle is the laughter inducing, "heavy" tickle, produced by repeatedly applying pressure to "ticklish" areas, and is known as gargalesis.
The feather-type of tickle is often elicited by crawling animals and insects, such as spiders, mosquitoes, scorpion or beetles, which may be why it has evolved in many animals. Gargalesis reactions, on the other hand, are thought to be limited to humans and other primates, however some research has indicated that rats can be tickled as well.
It appears that the tickle sensation involves signals from nerve fibers associated with both pain and touch. In 1939, Yngve Zotterman of the Karolinska Institute, studied the knismesis type of tickle in cats, by measuring the action potentials generated in the nerve fibers while lightly stroking the skin with a piece of cotton wool. Zotterman found that the "tickling" sensation depended, in part, on the nerves that generate pain. Further studies have discovered that when the pain nerves are severed by surgeons, in an effort to reduce intractable pain, the tickle response is also diminished. However, in some patients that have lost pain sensation due to spinal cord injury, some aspects of the tickle response do remain. Tickle may also depend on nerve fibers associated with the sense of touch. When circulation is severed in a limb, the response to touch and tickle are lost prior to the loss of pain sensation.
It might be tempting to speculate that areas of the skin that are the most sensitive to touch would also be the most ticklish, but this does not seem to be the case. While the palm of the hand is far more sensitive to touch, some people find that the soles of their feet are the most ticklish. Other commonly ticklish areas include the armpits, sides of the torso, neck, and midriff.
Some evidence suggests that laughing associated with tickling is a nervous reaction that can be triggered; indeed, very ticklish people often start laughing before actually being tickled.
Social aspects
Charles Darwin theorized on the link between tickling and social relations, arguing that tickling provokes laughter through the anticipation of pleasure. If a stranger tickles a child without any preliminaries, catching the child by surprise, the likely result will be not laughter but withdrawal and displeasure. Darwin also noticed that for tickling to be effective, you must not know the precise point of stimulation in advance, and reasoned that this is why you cannot effectively tickle yourself.
Tickling is defined by many child psychologists as an integral bonding activity between parents and children. In the parent-child concept, tickling establishes at an early age the pleasure associated with being touched by a parent with a trust-bond developed so that parents may touch a child, in an unpleasant way, should circumstances develop such as the need to treat a painful injury or prevent harm from danger. This tickling relationship continues throughout childhood and often into the early to mid teenage years.
Another tickling social relationship is that which forms between siblings of relatively the same age. Many case studies have indicated that siblings often use tickling as an alternative to outright violence when attempting to either punish or intimidate a sibling. The sibling tickling relationship can occasionally develop into an anti-social situation, or “tickle-torture”, where one sibling will tickle the other, without mercy. The motivation behind tickle-torture is often to portray the sense of domination the tickler has over the "ticklee".
As with parents and siblings, tickling serves as a bonding mechanism between friends, and is classified by psychologists as part of the fifth and highest grade of social play which involves special intimacy or “cognitive interaction”. This suggests that tickling works best when all the parties involved feel comfortable with the situation and one another. During adolescence, tickling often serves as an outlet for sexual energy between individuals, with erotic games, foreplay and sex becoming the motivation of the tickler. The body openings and erogenous zones are extremely ticklish; however, the tickling of these areas is generally not associated with laughter or withdrawal.
Tickling is perhaps one of the most common human behaviors known. While many people assume that other people enjoy tickling, a recent survey of 84 college students indicated that only 32% of respondents enjoyed being tickled (32% and 36% of respondents, respectively, either gave neutral responses, or stated that they did not enjoy being tickled). In the same study the authors found that those people who indicated that they did not enjoy being tickled actually smiled more often during tickling than those who did enjoy being tickled, which confirms that the usual association between smiling and pleasure is broken in the context of unpleasant tickling.
Excessive tickling has been described as a primary sexual obsession and, under these circumstances, is sometimes considered a form of paraphilia. Tickling can also be a form of, or simply be mistaken for, sexual harassment.
Why do we tickle?
Many of history's greatest thinkers have pondered the mysteries of the tickle response, including Plato, Francis Bacon, Galileo and Charles Darwin. Many scientists have followed in their footsteps and have ventured opinions and theories that attempt to explain the nearly ubiquitous nature of the tickle response.
One theory, as mentioned above, is that tickling serves as a pleasant bonding experience between parent and child. However, this theory does not adequately explain why many children and adults find tickling to be an unpleasant experience. Another view maintained is that tickling develops as a prenatal response and that the development of sensitive areas on the fetus helps to orient the fetus into favourable positions while in the womb.
It is unknown why certain people find areas of the body to be more ticklish than others; additionally, studies have shown that there is no significant difference in ticklishness between the genders. In 1924 J.C. Gregory proposed that the most ticklish places on the body were also those areas that were the most vulnerable during hand-to-hand combat. He posited that ticklishness might confer an evolutionary advantage by enticing the individual to protect these areas. Consistent with this idea, University of Iowa psychiatrist, Donald W. Black observed that most ticklish spots are found in the same places as the protective reflexes.
A third, hybrid theory, has suggested that tickling encourages the development of combat skills. Most tickling is done by parents, siblings and friends and is often a type of rough-and-tumble play, during which time children often develop valuable defensive and combat moves. Although people generally make movements to get away from, and report disliking, being tickled, laughter encourages the tickler to continue. If the facial expressions induced by tickle were less pleasant the tickler would be less likely to continue, thus diminishing the frequency of these valuable combat lessons.
To understand how much of the tickle response is dependent on the interpersonal relationship of the parties involved, Christenfeld and Harris presented subjects with a "mechanical tickle machine". They found that the subjects laughed just as much when they believed they were being tickled by a machine as when they thought they were being tickled by a person.[19] Harris goes on to suggest that the tickle response is reflex, similar to the startle reflex, that is contingent on the element of surprise.
Self-tickle
Knismesis may in fact represent a vestige of the primitive grooming response, in effect; knismesis serves as a “non-self detector” and protects the subject against foreign objects. Perhaps due to the importance of knismesis in protection, this type of tickle is not dependent on the element of surprise and it is possible for one to induce self-knismesis, by light touching.
Gargalesis, on the other hand, produces an odd phenomenon, when a person touches “ticklish” body parts on their own bodies, most people measure no tickling sensation. It is thought that the tickling requires a certain amount of surprise, and because tickling one’s self produces no unexpected motion on the skin, the response is not activated. A recent analysis of the “self-tickle” response has been addressed using MRI technology. Blakemore and colleagues have investigated how the brain distinguishes between sensations we create for ourselves and sensations others create for us. When the subjects used a joystick to control a "tickling robot", they could not make themselves laugh. This suggested that when a person tries to tickle him- or herself, the cerebellum sends to the somatosensory cortex precise information on the position of the tickling target and therefore what sensation to expect. Apparently an unknown cortical mechanism then decreases or inhibits the tickling sensation. A small percentage of people however, have found it possible to tickle themselves.
In popular culture
* Trout tickling is mentioned in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, the servant Maria refers to the approach of the hated Malvolio, head of Olivia's household, with the words "for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling". Trout tickling is also mentioned as a poaching method in Roald Dahl's classic novel Danny the Champion of the World.
* In some science fiction literature, devices known as tickling boots are depicted as punishment-torture devices employed by some technological societies. The British science fiction show The Tomorrow People featured tickling boots in the episode A Man for Emily. Tickling boots also appeared in several short story-plays on the Nickelodeon program Kids Writes.
* In the 1960's era comic book there is one instance of a weather control tower producing "Tickle Rain". People hid under transparent plastic domes that had handles on the inside, so that the first people who managed to get under the domes could hold the domes down from the inside and then watch the "unfortunate" others being tickled to helpless hysterics by the rain drops.
* In H.P. Lovecraft's short novel The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath the author describes nightgaunts — ebony-skinned, faceless, flying creatures that guard forbidden places from trespassers. When disturbed, the nightgaunts carry their victims away to unpleasant fates, tickling the poor captives into submission on the way. The more the captive struggles, the more he is tickled. The nightgaunts make no noise in the performing of their mindless duties, nor do they inflict harm by any other means; later, the captive is typically dropped into a death trap and left to fend for himself.
* In the VeggieTales episode Esther... The Girl Who Became Queen, which is based on the stories of the Biblical Book of Esther, instead of being executed by hanging- as described in the biblical book- offenders were instead exiled to 'The Island of Perpetual Tickling'. Watering down the graphic details of a story in this way is known as Bowdlerization.
* In the popular 1987 cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a minor villain named Don Turtelli, would frequently use tickling as a form of interrogation. When capturing a hostage, his normal procedure would be to tie the victim to a chair, bare feet propped up, and tickle the soles of their feet with a feather until the hostage told him what he wanted to know.
* A Star Trek audio story for children, entitled "To Starve a Fleaver", released in the 1970s and written by Alan Dean Foster, told the tale of the Starship Enterprise becoming infested with tiny parasites called meegees, which instead of drinking blood, feed on mirth expressed by their hosts. When a host isn't happy, the meegees move around and tickle their hosts to get them to laugh. The crew of the Enterprise, in hysterics, struggle to find a way to get rid of the meegees, and discover that thinking unhappy thoughts starves them to death.
* In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy III, the villain Man Ray is kept from performing evil acts by a tickle belt, a device belonging to Mermaid Man which, when activated, tickles the wearer into submission.
Etymology
The word "tickle" (helpinfo) evolved from the Middle English tikelen, perhaps frequentative of ticken, to touch lightly. The idiom tickled pink means to be pleased or delighted.
Physiology
In 1897 psychologists G. Stanley Hall and Arthur Allin described a "tickle" as two different types of phenomena. The first is a sensation caused by very light movement across the skin. This type of tickle, called knismesis, generally does not produce laughter and is sometimes accompanied by an itching sensation. The second type of tickle is the laughter inducing, "heavy" tickle, produced by repeatedly applying pressure to "ticklish" areas, and is known as gargalesis.
The feather-type of tickle is often elicited by crawling animals and insects, such as spiders, mosquitoes, scorpion or beetles, which may be why it has evolved in many animals. Gargalesis reactions, on the other hand, are thought to be limited to humans and other primates, however some research has indicated that rats can be tickled as well.
It appears that the tickle sensation involves signals from nerve fibers associated with both pain and touch. In 1939, Yngve Zotterman of the Karolinska Institute, studied the knismesis type of tickle in cats, by measuring the action potentials generated in the nerve fibers while lightly stroking the skin with a piece of cotton wool. Zotterman found that the "tickling" sensation depended, in part, on the nerves that generate pain. Further studies have discovered that when the pain nerves are severed by surgeons, in an effort to reduce intractable pain, the tickle response is also diminished. However, in some patients that have lost pain sensation due to spinal cord injury, some aspects of the tickle response do remain. Tickle may also depend on nerve fibers associated with the sense of touch. When circulation is severed in a limb, the response to touch and tickle are lost prior to the loss of pain sensation.
It might be tempting to speculate that areas of the skin that are the most sensitive to touch would also be the most ticklish, but this does not seem to be the case. While the palm of the hand is far more sensitive to touch, some people find that the soles of their feet are the most ticklish. Other commonly ticklish areas include the armpits, sides of the torso, neck, and midriff.
Some evidence suggests that laughing associated with tickling is a nervous reaction that can be triggered; indeed, very ticklish people often start laughing before actually being tickled.
Social aspects
Charles Darwin theorized on the link between tickling and social relations, arguing that tickling provokes laughter through the anticipation of pleasure. If a stranger tickles a child without any preliminaries, catching the child by surprise, the likely result will be not laughter but withdrawal and displeasure. Darwin also noticed that for tickling to be effective, you must not know the precise point of stimulation in advance, and reasoned that this is why you cannot effectively tickle yourself.
Tickling is defined by many child psychologists as an integral bonding activity between parents and children. In the parent-child concept, tickling establishes at an early age the pleasure associated with being touched by a parent with a trust-bond developed so that parents may touch a child, in an unpleasant way, should circumstances develop such as the need to treat a painful injury or prevent harm from danger. This tickling relationship continues throughout childhood and often into the early to mid teenage years.
Another tickling social relationship is that which forms between siblings of relatively the same age. Many case studies have indicated that siblings often use tickling as an alternative to outright violence when attempting to either punish or intimidate a sibling. The sibling tickling relationship can occasionally develop into an anti-social situation, or “tickle-torture”, where one sibling will tickle the other, without mercy. The motivation behind tickle-torture is often to portray the sense of domination the tickler has over the "ticklee".
As with parents and siblings, tickling serves as a bonding mechanism between friends, and is classified by psychologists as part of the fifth and highest grade of social play which involves special intimacy or “cognitive interaction”. This suggests that tickling works best when all the parties involved feel comfortable with the situation and one another. During adolescence, tickling often serves as an outlet for sexual energy between individuals, with erotic games, foreplay and sex becoming the motivation of the tickler. The body openings and erogenous zones are extremely ticklish; however, the tickling of these areas is generally not associated with laughter or withdrawal.
Tickling is perhaps one of the most common human behaviors known. While many people assume that other people enjoy tickling, a recent survey of 84 college students indicated that only 32% of respondents enjoyed being tickled (32% and 36% of respondents, respectively, either gave neutral responses, or stated that they did not enjoy being tickled). In the same study the authors found that those people who indicated that they did not enjoy being tickled actually smiled more often during tickling than those who did enjoy being tickled, which confirms that the usual association between smiling and pleasure is broken in the context of unpleasant tickling.
Excessive tickling has been described as a primary sexual obsession and, under these circumstances, is sometimes considered a form of paraphilia. Tickling can also be a form of, or simply be mistaken for, sexual harassment.
Why do we tickle?
Many of history's greatest thinkers have pondered the mysteries of the tickle response, including Plato, Francis Bacon, Galileo and Charles Darwin. Many scientists have followed in their footsteps and have ventured opinions and theories that attempt to explain the nearly ubiquitous nature of the tickle response.
One theory, as mentioned above, is that tickling serves as a pleasant bonding experience between parent and child. However, this theory does not adequately explain why many children and adults find tickling to be an unpleasant experience. Another view maintained is that tickling develops as a prenatal response and that the development of sensitive areas on the fetus helps to orient the fetus into favourable positions while in the womb.
It is unknown why certain people find areas of the body to be more ticklish than others; additionally, studies have shown that there is no significant difference in ticklishness between the genders. In 1924 J.C. Gregory proposed that the most ticklish places on the body were also those areas that were the most vulnerable during hand-to-hand combat. He posited that ticklishness might confer an evolutionary advantage by enticing the individual to protect these areas. Consistent with this idea, University of Iowa psychiatrist, Donald W. Black observed that most ticklish spots are found in the same places as the protective reflexes.
A third, hybrid theory, has suggested that tickling encourages the development of combat skills. Most tickling is done by parents, siblings and friends and is often a type of rough-and-tumble play, during which time children often develop valuable defensive and combat moves. Although people generally make movements to get away from, and report disliking, being tickled, laughter encourages the tickler to continue. If the facial expressions induced by tickle were less pleasant the tickler would be less likely to continue, thus diminishing the frequency of these valuable combat lessons.
To understand how much of the tickle response is dependent on the interpersonal relationship of the parties involved, Christenfeld and Harris presented subjects with a "mechanical tickle machine". They found that the subjects laughed just as much when they believed they were being tickled by a machine as when they thought they were being tickled by a person.[19] Harris goes on to suggest that the tickle response is reflex, similar to the startle reflex, that is contingent on the element of surprise.
Self-tickle
Knismesis may in fact represent a vestige of the primitive grooming response, in effect; knismesis serves as a “non-self detector” and protects the subject against foreign objects. Perhaps due to the importance of knismesis in protection, this type of tickle is not dependent on the element of surprise and it is possible for one to induce self-knismesis, by light touching.
Gargalesis, on the other hand, produces an odd phenomenon, when a person touches “ticklish” body parts on their own bodies, most people measure no tickling sensation. It is thought that the tickling requires a certain amount of surprise, and because tickling one’s self produces no unexpected motion on the skin, the response is not activated. A recent analysis of the “self-tickle” response has been addressed using MRI technology. Blakemore and colleagues have investigated how the brain distinguishes between sensations we create for ourselves and sensations others create for us. When the subjects used a joystick to control a "tickling robot", they could not make themselves laugh. This suggested that when a person tries to tickle him- or herself, the cerebellum sends to the somatosensory cortex precise information on the position of the tickling target and therefore what sensation to expect. Apparently an unknown cortical mechanism then decreases or inhibits the tickling sensation. A small percentage of people however, have found it possible to tickle themselves.
In popular culture
* Trout tickling is mentioned in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, the servant Maria refers to the approach of the hated Malvolio, head of Olivia's household, with the words "for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling". Trout tickling is also mentioned as a poaching method in Roald Dahl's classic novel Danny the Champion of the World.
* In some science fiction literature, devices known as tickling boots are depicted as punishment-torture devices employed by some technological societies. The British science fiction show The Tomorrow People featured tickling boots in the episode A Man for Emily. Tickling boots also appeared in several short story-plays on the Nickelodeon program Kids Writes.
* In the 1960's era comic book there is one instance of a weather control tower producing "Tickle Rain". People hid under transparent plastic domes that had handles on the inside, so that the first people who managed to get under the domes could hold the domes down from the inside and then watch the "unfortunate" others being tickled to helpless hysterics by the rain drops.
* In H.P. Lovecraft's short novel The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath the author describes nightgaunts — ebony-skinned, faceless, flying creatures that guard forbidden places from trespassers. When disturbed, the nightgaunts carry their victims away to unpleasant fates, tickling the poor captives into submission on the way. The more the captive struggles, the more he is tickled. The nightgaunts make no noise in the performing of their mindless duties, nor do they inflict harm by any other means; later, the captive is typically dropped into a death trap and left to fend for himself.
* In the VeggieTales episode Esther... The Girl Who Became Queen, which is based on the stories of the Biblical Book of Esther, instead of being executed by hanging- as described in the biblical book- offenders were instead exiled to 'The Island of Perpetual Tickling'. Watering down the graphic details of a story in this way is known as Bowdlerization.
* In the popular 1987 cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a minor villain named Don Turtelli, would frequently use tickling as a form of interrogation. When capturing a hostage, his normal procedure would be to tie the victim to a chair, bare feet propped up, and tickle the soles of their feet with a feather until the hostage told him what he wanted to know.
* A Star Trek audio story for children, entitled "To Starve a Fleaver", released in the 1970s and written by Alan Dean Foster, told the tale of the Starship Enterprise becoming infested with tiny parasites called meegees, which instead of drinking blood, feed on mirth expressed by their hosts. When a host isn't happy, the meegees move around and tickle their hosts to get them to laugh. The crew of the Enterprise, in hysterics, struggle to find a way to get rid of the meegees, and discover that thinking unhappy thoughts starves them to death.
* In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy III, the villain Man Ray is kept from performing evil acts by a tickle belt, a device belonging to Mermaid Man which, when activated, tickles the wearer into submission.
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