“Happy Birthday to You” Was Originally “Good Morning to All”

“Happy Birthday to You” famously went through a huge copyright battle, despite being one of the best-known songs ever written in English. Sisters Patty and Mildred Hill initially published the song in 1893, and it remained under copyright, most recently to Warner Music Group, until a judge deemed the copyright invalid in 2015. But the original song written by the Hill sisters wasn’t “Happy Birthday to You” — the melody was for a greeting song called “Good Morning to All.”“Happy Birthday to You” was simply a variation that popped up in the early 20th century, although it eventually became the main lyric associated with the tune.

The oceans are becoming greener.

Climate change isn’t just raising the temperature of the world’s oceans — it’s also changing their color. As the oceans absorb the excess heat generated by greenhouse gases, that heat is altering the aquatic life in their waters. New research published in Nature in 2023 shows that the familiar blue hue of the oceans has been steadily transforming over the past 20 years into a greener shade, especially in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. 

The color of the ocean is dependent on a variety of factors, but one key is the light absorption of H2O. Water usually readily absorbs longer wavelengths of light — red, yellow, and green — and scatters blue. However, a concentration of marine life can cause emerald waters. The newly green hue detected by the 2023 research likely reflects a change in the ocean’s phytoplankton — the algae responsible for 70% of the world’s oxygen, and which also provides the foundation for the marine food web. Scientists monitored ocean color using NASA’s Aqua satellite, and found marked shifts toward green in about 56% of the world’s oceans between 2002 and 2022. Statistical simulations showed that added greenhouse gases are to blame, although it’s not exactly clear how, since areas that warmed the most at the surface weren’t the ones that turned green the most. Some scientists theorize that the change may have to do with reduced mixing in the layers of ocean water, caused by the heat, which limits the nutrients that rise to the surface and consequently affects the types of plankton that can survive. But don’t go color-correcting your photos just yet: While satellites can detect the change in ocean hue, the change is slight enough that most humans probably wouldn’t notice a difference.

The entire Australian government was dissolved in 1975. 

W hile the majority of government shutdowns are averted with budget compromises, that wasn’t the case during the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975. On November 11, Governor-General Sir John Kerr — Queen Elizabeth’s representative in the Australian government — formally dismissed the country’s prime minister, Gough Whitlam, a member of the Labor Party who failed to broker a bipartisan spending bill. Whitlam’s firing came at 1:15 p.m., and 15 minutes later, Kerr appointed Liberal Party leader Malcolm Fraser, a member of the opposition, as the new prime minister. The Liberal-controlled Senate then pushed through a spending bill, though the Labor-controlled House revolted against Fraser with a vote of no confidence. All the bickering came to a head at 4:50 p.m., when Kerr, at the request of Fraser, dissolved the entire Australian Parliament. This forced Australia to hold new elections a month later that were ultimately swept by Fraser and the Liberals.

Queen Elizabeth II’s involvement in this debacle remained ambiguous until 2020, when a series of letters between Kerr and Buckingham Palace were released. Although she technically served as Australia’s head of state, the queen’s role in the country’s affairs was largely symbolic. Even still, Kerr consulted with Buckingham Palace over his theoretical right to dissolve Parliament on the monarchy’s behalf. Letters between Kerr and Martin Charteris — the queen’s private secretary — implied that Kerr would be within his power if he chose to act, but also concluded it was “better for Her Majesty not to know.” Around that time, Kerr also communicated with Prince Charles regarding concerns over the Australian prime minister, asking the prince to relay the message to the queen.

Woolly mammoths still roamed the Earth when the Egyptian pyramids were being built.

WORLD HISTORY

Woolly mammoths roamed the Earth for at least half a million years, coexisting with humans for millennia before finally going extinct some 4,000 years ago. That’s a long time, but it’s not that long in the grand scheme of things. For perspective, consider the fact that woolly mammoths were still alivewhen the pyramids of Egypt were being built. That speaks to both how long one of history’s most famous empires lasted — Egypt existed for more than 3,000 years, making it 15 times older than the United States — as well as how relatively recently the elephantlike creatures existed.

If your mind still isn’t sufficiently blown by ancient Egypt’s longevity, remember also that Cleopatra lived closer to the moon landing than she did to the construction of the Great Pyramids of Giza. Woolly mammoths, meanwhile, were impressive in their own way, even if they weren’t as big as you might imagine — they were about the size of a modern African elephant. Nevertheless, these creatures still loom large in the collective imagination millennia after their extinction, which was long thought to have been caused by humans hunting them. More recently, a consensus has emerged that the true culprit was climate change: The planet warmed too rapidly for them to adapt, as melting icebergs wiped out the vegetation they subsisted on. 

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

The latest and greatest, if all is true on the net, is the 3 states that are suing the FDA over birth control because they are causing a lack of teenage pregnancies. So what are these states advocating, promiscuity or rape or incest, what? All have a religious background bordering on the excessive side and that does not match this issue.
One of the greatest losses that we are seeing is the lack of choice for women. There are no laws governing the male body but we sure have plenty to say about the female. Women have so many things thrown at them it is ridiculous. If they are virgin after a certain age they are old maids. If they are very sexual they are called names and said to have no morals. Now women that don’t have children are cat ladies and have no commitment to the nation.
The efforts to deprive women of the pleasure of sex is in some place a brutal procedure that should not be performed on anyone. Women are supposed to be the chased virtuous wife and mother on the street and act like a whore in bed. The men in these situations can be jackasses all the time.
Many men are saying that women should not be leaders and yet at this time in history we have several women that are the leaders of nations. One man for sure feels that a woman cannot do the job of President and that man is Trump. We know he can’t do it and yet he claims to be the best we have ever had. His claim is that he is the smartest on everything and the best at everything and the total opposite is true.
Men have claimed that women are inferior forever and yet the rest of the creatures on earth seem to favor the female. Lionesses do the hunting, leaders of elephant families are female, ants and bees have queens and the list goes on. This brings one to conclude that women may indeed be even better at the leader game than males. It is time to test the idea if for no other reason than right now we need a leader that brings us together not someone that pushes us apart.

Gender Icons

For centuries, ♂ and ♀ have represented the concepts of male and female in the world of science. Long before these icons had anything to do with biology, however, they were used throughout ancient cultures such as Greece and Rome. ♂ corresponded to the Greek god Ares (Mars, in Roman mythology), whereas ♀ was tied to the Greek goddess Aphrodite (Venus, in Rome). The association between the gods and those symbols came about because of metals used to forge weaponry, with Ares representing iron (thouros) and Aphrodite representing copper (phosphoros). Over time, the Greek words for the metals were written in shorthand using the symbols that we now use to convey gender.

The symbols first played a role in biological research in 1751, when the father of modern taxonomy, Carl Linnaeus, adopted and used the icons to refer to the gender of flowers in his dissertation Plantae hybridae. Many scientists thereafter followed in Linnaeus’ footsteps, with those symbols later extending to human genetics. In recent decades, new symbols have been created based on those centuries-old designs in order to be more inclusive of those who don’t identify as male or female.

We Share a Surprising Number of Genes With Other Animal Species

While we humans may look markedly different from one another, we are remarkably similar at the genetic level. Any two individuals share approximately 99.9% of their DNA sequence, meaning a miniscule 0.1% difference accounts for all the genetic variation among humans — our size, shape, facial features, and so on. Perhaps even more surprising are the genetic similarities between humans and other species. Humans and chimps, for example, share a surprising 98.8% of their DNA. Most of the genes in humans and chimps are nearly identical, but identical genes are used in different ways and in varying amounts across species, which explains our very notable differences. For example, a wide range of species have the PAX6 gene, which is responsible for the development of distinctly different eyes in everything from humans to fish, flatworms, parakeets, and water fleas.