Windfall

Windfall.  That's what was waiting for me when I went out to the backyard the other day and three of the neighbour's lemons had fallen off their tree and on to our lawn.  I'd just thought "free lemons" while I scooped them up and took then inside. But they were a "windfall" - because the wind had made them fall off the neighbour's tree and on to the ground on our side of the fence ... which, as well as picking them, had also made them (legally?) ours.  I'm not sure when the term went from windfall (an apple or other fruit blown down from a tree or bush by the wind) to windfall (a large amount of money that is won or received unexpectedly) but you can see how they are essentially the same - a reward for.little or no effort.

Popularity contest ...

What makes an establishment - I am thinking cafe in this particular instance - popular? When we stopped in to get a hot beverage at one of the local cafes on (Public Holiday) Monday morning it was busier than I have ever seen it. The joint was positively jumping with almost every table taken and a serious line-up for takeaways. Why so busy ? And was the only other cafe open in the area doing a similar-sized trade?

We have a system for rating cafes based on (in no particular order): how close to home are they, is there adequate parking, are the amenities close by and well-maintained, is the coffee good, is the food good, is the service good? You would think it would be easy to find (most of) these in more than a couple of nearby establishments but it is harder than you'd think. Still this helps us go further afield in search of a good breakfast ... unless we are keen on having fruit salad which so far we've found at only one cafe. It's not easy to find boiled eggs on a menu either!

Look up!

At any point it seems that the world is surrounded by space junk … those bits of hardware that have boosted rockets and people into space that have not fallen back towards the earth and burned up in re-entry. They have to be small enough to burn up in re-entry though and there is apparently a piece of Chinese rocket is spiralling out of control towards earth – all 30-metres and 22.5 tonnes of it. Under international (should that be interplanetary) guidelines, rockets are supposed to return to earth in a controlled way. The Chinese rocket will not. A report on the ABC News site says no-one really knows where the Long March 5B will come down just that it will probably come down at lunchtime this coming Sunday – give or take a day. The last time this happened - yes, another rocket – the prototype of the one in question – fell to Earth in the Atlantic Ocean and dumped a 12-metre long piece of debris near an African village – luckily no-one was injured. You have to wonder if there’s a dollar or two to be made if you happen to be lucky enough to be near it when the Long March 5B falls to earth and lucky enough not to be damaged by it. The U.S. Skylab which had a “controlled” return to Earth in 1979 left a substantial debris field, including pelting Stan Thornton’s home in Esperance WA with bits of space station. He grabbed some and hopped the first plane from there to the offices of The San Francisco Examiner – it had offered a $10,000 prize to the first person to deliver a piece of debris to them within 72 hours of the crash. They paid up even though they may not have expected to get any takers on their offer especially from Australia!

Body parts ... with caps

The crossword clue had me stumped at first ... five letters ... body parts with caps ... who would have thought there were at least three possible answers ... heads, teeth, knees.  It was knees.  

Ice cream

We have been watching the new season of MasterChef and the other night two contestants used nitrogen to make ice cream for their dishes. It looked amazing with "mist" rolling out of the mixing bowl. Stunning stuff. We were lucky enough to see it done in real life today. We have a local shop - Nitrogen Ice Cream - which does just that. They have ten flavours or so - all starting from an Anglais base and then they add the different flavours to make the ice cream - and then the different components eg crumb on the Cheesecake for the different "flavours" as they "plate up".  The ones we had were delicious: dinner and a show. It was interesting speaking to the owner as well; she was saying that if you have ice cream at a fine dining restaurant, this is how it would be prepared - except they would mix it by hand rather than use a beater/mixer. 

Too many colours?

We all perceive the world differently but we'll never know quite how other folk see the world - particularly in relation to actual colours. Most folk have three receptors in their eyes for colour recognition but if you're born with just one extra cone cell in your eye you can see 100 million more colours. How amazing would that be - how many colours would you be able to see in a rainbow; more than the standard seven? And how would it be if your job was to look through the spectral whats-it to determine the chemical composition of planets. Who knew that's how it was done? Yes, those colours on the Periodic Table are there for a reason ... each element has a different colour and if there are numerous elements "together" then viewing then with the help of a spectral whats-it will allow the colours to be seen separately.

Dognostics

New research suggests that dogs are able to detect the presence of CoVid-19. At the moment the results are encouraging ... and at a hospital in Florida, Buffy (a two-year-old yellow Labrador) is trained to sniff out CoVid-19; she sniffs visitors to the hospital and if they are Covid-19 positive, she sits down. They are claiming a 95% accuracy rate for her. As well as the lab test, or dognostic test as some are calling it, visitors also have their temperatures checked but if Buffy gets a positive result, the person has to have a CoVid-19 test. In research elsewhere, nine previously untrained dogs have been first taught in general scent detection and then moved on to learning to distinguish between urine samples from Covid-positive and Covid-negative patients. The samples had first been "inactivated" so it was safe for the dogs (who can apparently catch Covid-19) to smell. Success rate:  96%.  The information I read suggested that the use of dognostics may not be implemented quickly for day-to-day screening ... this was supposed to be something to do with the costs involved in large-scale training/testing, but I'm wondering if it has more to do with the dogs being trained to detect the virus in urine ... it's going to take longer to screen people if they need to give that sample first!