Cool fact: It takes three licks to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop according to public information snipits from the 1970s. Maybe they were commercials.

A. Honey

Thanks for teaching us this great and hysterical feature on Greek mythology but you forgot to mention the greatest thing about Uranus’ castration (lol). Uranus’ testicles (lol)fell into the ocean and one of them become Aphrodite- the goddess of Love. Imagine that, love born from balls.

Researchers recently found a group of Norway Spruce trees between Norway and Sweden that have carbon dated between 4500 and 8000 years old (holy crap!).

After hitting the behemoth (wikipedia) it turns out the previously eldest tree was thought to be Prometheus (cut down in 1964) at 4900 years old. Prometheus (forethought) was the titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man.

And my long and winding trip does lead to Uranus.

So to speak.

One waits with bated breath, not baited breath.

Bated, as in “abated”. One holds one’s breath in anticipation (or contrarily “don’t hold your breath” if waiting with bated breath is a waste of one’s time).

Baited breath, on the other hand, is when you eat a can of tuna, in hopes that the seventeen year old feline master of the house gets close enough to its human slave so that said slave (i.e., you) can grab feline master by the scruff of the neck and inject its insulin shot for the evening.

And here is something you may not know (thanks to my sister of course)

When Uranus was first discovered by William Herschel in 1781, he originally wanted to name the planet George after King George III (Cole 17). After some dispute between astronomers, the planet was named Uranus after a sky god in Greek mythology (Gierasch). Little information was known about Uranus until the Voyager 2 spacecraft captured several images as it flew by in 1986. With the whole world in anticipation, scientists began processing the information received by Voyager 2.

Perhaps a couple of interesting mythology related bits, which are probably well known anyway, but I feel churlish for having queried your Uranus post, so must make some small offering in recompense.

The Roman hero Hercules was originally named Heracles in Greek mythology. This was because his human mother wanted to appease Hera, queen of the gods, for having slept with her husband Zeus. Hera was still not best impressed and sent an asp to kill Heracles in his cot. The baby strangled the snake with his bare hands and thus began his notable career as a hero.
Once Heracles got tricked into holding up the heavens (not the world) for Atlas, when the poor old Titan fancied a bit of a break. The misleading idea that Atlas held up the world is something perpetuated by unscrupulous map-makers to this very day

Waiting with baited breath for next week’s fabulous fact factory