Dancing At Santa Ana 10/30/2009

Did you know? - Popcorn or popping corn is a type of corn which explodes from the kernel and puffs up when heated. Corn popping was originally discovered by Native Americans, but became popular as a snack food during the United States Great Depression, especially in movie theaters.

Corn is able to pop because, unlike other grains, its kernels have a hard moisture-sealed hull and a dense starchy filling. This allows pressure to build inside the kernel until an explosive "pop" results. Some strains of corn are now cultivated specifically as popping corns.

There are many techniques for popping corn. Commercial large-scale popcorn machines were invented by Charles Cretors in the late 19th Century. Many types of small-scale home methods for popping corn also exist, with the most popular being prepackaged microwavable popcorn.

As a snack food, popcorn has both advocates and detractors. Some consider it to be a health food, while others caution against it for a variety of reasons. Popcorn can also have non-food applications, ranging from holiday decorations to packaging materials.

Popcorn was first discovered thousands of years ago by the Native Americans. Some tribes believed that the popping noise was that of an angry god who escaped the kernel.

During the Great Depression, popcorn was comparatively cheap at 5-10 cents a bag and became popular. Thus, while other businesses failed the popcorn business thrived and became a source of income for some struggling farmers. During World War II, sugar rations diminished candy production causing Americans to eat three times more popcorn than they had before.

At least six localities (all in the Midwestern United States) claim to be the "Popcorn Capital of the World": Valparaiso, Indiana; Van Buren, Indiana; Marion, Ohio; Ridgway, Illinois; Schaller, Iowa; and North Loup, Nebraska. According to the USDA, most of the maize used for popcorn production is specifically planted for this purpose; most is grown in Nebraska and Indiana, with increasing area in Texas.

As the result of an elementary school project, popcorn became the official state snack food of Illinois.

Did you know? - Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing chelicerate arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae modified into fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms. Spiders are found world-wide on every continent except for Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every ecological niche with the exception of air and sea colonization. As of 2008, approximately 40,000 spider species, and 109 families have been recorded by taxonomists; however, there has been confusion within the scientific community as to how all these genera should be classified, as evidenced by the over 20 different classifications that have been proposed since 1900.

Anatomically, spiders differ from other arthropods in that the usual body segments are fused into two tagmata, the cephalothorax and abdomen, and joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel. Unlike insects, spiders do not have antennae. In all except the most primitive group, the Mesothelae, spiders have the most centralized nervous systems of all arthropods, as all their ganglia are fused into one mass in the cephalothorax. Unlike most arthropods, spiders have no extensor muscles in their limbs and instead extend them by hydraulic pressure.

Did you know? - Esotropia is a form of strabismus, or "squint", in which one or both eyes turns inward. The condition can be constantly present, or occur intermittently, and can give the affected individual a "cross-eyed" appearance. Esotropia is sometimes erroneously called "lazy eye", which describes the condition of amblyopia - a reduction in vision of one or both eyes which is not the result of any pathological lesion of the visual pathway and which cannot resolved by the use of corrective lenses. Amblyopia can, however, arise as a result of esotropia occurring in childhood: In order to relieve symptoms of diplopia or double vision, the child's brain will ignore or "suppress" the image from the esotropic eye, which when allowed to continue untreated will lead to the development of amblyopia. Treatment options for esotropia include glasses to correct refractive errors (see accommodative esotropia below), the use of prisms and/or orthoptic exercises and/or eye muscle surgery.