Fact of the Day .CA

Unless you discovered the internet in your mid-20s or later, odds are you have encountered the personality test. Of course personality tests have been littering the pages of magazines for decades, but the internet is really a ripe medium for testing. Who are you most like. What type do you fit

best, How likely are you to… we humans seem to like being assessed and seeing where we fit in, but perhaps that’s for another article. What I’m really getting at is: where did this really start? The first official personality inventory: Woodworth’s Personal Data Sheet. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

I’m not particularly morbid, nor do I find death to be funny, except in the manner that we all must sometimes adapt to deal with the harsh reality of our mortality. That being said, there are an enormous variety of ways to expire, and they do fascinate me.

My original curiosity to this subject belongs to Tycho Brahe (the 16th century Danish astronomer, not the alter-ego of Jerry Holkins of the webcomic Penny Arcade), whose cause death, upon further investigation, is not a sure thing. Brahe’s best-known expiration is from a strained bladder, due to his want to maintain etiquette rules during a banquet – leaving the table early would have been rude. Although it is likely he died of uremia (a failing of the kidneys), consistent with early considerations of an overstressed bladder, blockage by kidney stones, etc., investigations in the 20th century have shown Brahe had high levels of mercury in his system that could cause poisoning. Some cry assassination, but Brahe’s frequent chemistry experimentation and possible self-treatments using mercury seem a more likely cause. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…