From an underwater music festival to kooky counting in Korea, ancient pizza in Pompei, and a story from California that’s positively a gas, it’s true that last week was indeed strange.
DON’T GET US STARTED ON THE CAKE CANDLES
South Korea is campaigning to retire an old and odd age-counting method that makes people a year or two older than they really are. The country’s traditional age-counting custom considers every person one year old at birth and adds another year when the calendar hits Jan. 1, meaning a child born on Dec. 31 turns two the next day.
While the new law is the country’s latest attempt to retire that method and standardize international ages based on the passing of birthdays, there is still much confusion. For example, a child could be at risk if his or her parents see a cough syrup instruction that reads “20 ml for 12 years and older” and think it means the “Korean age,” the ministry said in a statement. Meanwhile, differing age interpretations inspired a major dispute in 2004 at a dairy company, Namyang, after unionists and management disagreed over the terms of their collective bargaining agreement that allowed the company to gradually reduce the salaries of employees aged 56 or older.
WHERE WAS THE PINEAPPLE?
A still-life fresco discovered recently in the Pompeii archaeological site looks like a pizza, but it’s not, experts at the archaeological site have determined. They noted that key ingredients needed to make Italy’s iconic dish – tomatoes and mozzarella – were not available when the fresco was painted some 2,000 years ago. The image is instead believed to be a focaccia covered with fruit, including pomegranate and possibly dates, finished with spices or a type of pesto. In the fresco, it is served on a silver plate and a wine chalice stands next to it.
Nevertheless, Italian agricultural lobbyist seized on the discovery of the fresco to promote pizza – invented as a quick meal for the working poor – as a national treasure. Today, pizza represents one-third of the food budget of foreign visitors and generates billions of dollars in total annual revenues in Italy.
THAT’S A LOAD OF MANURE
A California man is going to prison for running a cow dung-to-green energy scheme that authorities say was a load of manure. Ray Brewer, 66, of Porterville was sentenced to six years and nine months in federal prison in a years-long scam that bilked investors out of US$8.75 million, according to a statement from the US attorney’s office.
IT’S BETTER DOWN WHERE IT’S WETTER
Hundreds of divers and snorkellers listened to an underwater concert that advocated coral reef protection earlier this month in the Florida Keys. The Lower Keys Underwater Music Festival which also spotlighted eco-conscious diving, took place at Looe Key Reef, an area of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary located about 10 km south of Big Pine Key.
Participants swam among Looe Key’s colourful marine life and coral formations while listening to water-themed music broadcast by a local radio station. The music was piped undersea through waterproof speakers suspended beneath boats above the reef. The oceanic playlist included the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine,” Jimmy Buffett’s “Fins” and the theme from “The Little Mermaid.”
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
On Feb. 14, 1904, someone curious about the emerging possibilities of a key force of nature checked out James Clerk Maxwell’s “An Elementary Treatise on Electricity” from the New Bedford Free Public Library. It would take 119 years before the scientific text finally found its way back to the Massachusetts library.
The discovery occurred when Stewart Plein, the curator of rare books at West Virginia University Libraries, was sorting through a recent donation of books.
Plein found the treatise and noticed it had been part of the collection at the New Bedford library and contacted Jodi Goodman, the special collections librarian in New Bedford, to alert her to the find.
“This came back in extremely good condition,” New Bedford Public Library Director Olivia Melo said Friday. “Someone obviously kept this on a nice bookshelf because it was in such good shape and probably got passed down in the family.”
The New Bedford library has a five-cent-per-day late fee. At that rate, someone returning a book overdue by 119 years would face a hefty fee of more than $2,100. The good news is the library’s late fee limit maxes out at $2.