Hold on just a second. I know that something about the term "rictal bristle" sounds rather...shady. But it's not. As you can see, it's quite normal.
Rictal bristles are, essentially, just stiff feathers found around the bill and eyes of birds. They may be like bird eyelashes. Birdlashes? Beaklashes? Billashes?
In truth, based on a minimal amount of reading I've done, it seems as though science has yet to determine what purposes they fully serve for the bird.
If you're interested in making your own judgments, you can read more in this paper entitled The Role of Avian Rictal Bristles by Roger J Lederer in 1971, which was truly the heyday for bristle-talk. Here's another blog post about them, and another quick post here.
Rickets is a medical condition that involves the softening of bones. It is most seen in children in developing nations, and is due to a deficiency in vitamin D or calcium
And now you know. If you want to see some pictures of kids with rickets, check out the GIS.
Interestingly enough, it appears that rickets is now on the rise in developed nations, in part because kids now spend so much time inside playing video games and whatnot instead of playing outside, and also in part because everyone lathers up with sunscreen so much. Most of the recent articles I found were about the UK, so either they are struggling with it more, or the US just isn't talking about it as much.
Another kind of derrick is used around oil wells and other drilled holes. This is generally called an oil derrick and is a complex set of machines specifically designed for optimum efficiency, safety and low cost. This is used on some offshore oil and gas rigs.
The centerpiece is the archetypical derrick tower, used for lifting and positioning the drilling string and piping above the well bore, and containing the machinery for turning the drilling bit around in the hole. As the drill string goes deeper into the underlying soil or rock, new piping has to be added to the top of the drill to keep the connection between drill bit and turning machinery intact, to create a filler to keep the hole from caving in, and to create a conduit for the drilling mud. The drilling mud is used to cool the drilling bit and to blow rock debris clear from the drill bit and the bottom of the well. The piping joints sections—usually each about 10 meters (30 ft) long—have threaded ends, so they can be screwed together. The piping is hollow to allow for the mud to be pumped down into the drilling hole, where it flushes out at the drilling bit. The mud then proceeds upwards towards the surface on the outside of the piping, carrying the debris with it.
The derrick also controls the weight on the drilling bit, because the drill bit works at an optimum rate only when it is pushed with a precise degree of pressure relative to the rock beneath it. Too much weight can break the drilling bit, and not enough weight will prolong drilling time. At the start of drilling extra heavy piping collars are used to create enough weight to drill. Since the weight of the pipes above the drill bit will increase the pressure on it as it goes deeper, the derrick will apply less pressure as piping sections are added. It will eventually lift the nearly entire drill string-and-piping complex to prevent too much weight as the well goes deeper.
And this is how an oil derrick works, per youtube:
("Its really basic. It took my like 10 min to animate. dont judge it.")
Our newest profile is that of a special dairy product, ricotta. People think it is cheese, and I did as well, but it is not. Not technically, at least. It's really a product made from the byproducts of cheese-making. The Italians really love ricotta, so if you're making Italians dishes, consider adding some ricotta. I might.
The internet tells me that it's actually really easy to make:
You hear about the Richter Scale whenever there is an earthquake, but what do we really know? Well, it was developed in 1935 by Charles F Richter at the California Institute or Technology to compare the size of earthquakes. And it did just that. For more details, the basic sciencey stuff is here, and a simpler, normal words description here. Although people enjoy finding out how big quakes are on the Richter scale (it does have a catchy name), it has been mostly replaced since the 1970s with the Moment Magnitude Scale for large earthquakes.
In case you don't want to read any of the linked articles, here's a video that explains the basics. So just go ahead and watch this guy tell you "something" about the Richter Scale.
The rickshaw. A marvel of the transportation world.
Originating in the mid 1800s, these guys rocked. You could get around faster, and someone else did all the work! Rickshaw originates from a Japanese word meaning "human-powered," and that they were. There seems to be a slight dispute over where exactly the rickshaw was first invented and by whom (you can see the linked wikipedia articles for the info). Anyway you cut it, this largely Asian form of transport is the rick-est. It has evolved, though. Once mostly pulled by hand, the rickshaw became largely cycle-powered. And in today's age, many have even become motorized.
Some still prefer it the old-fashioned way, though:
Have any members of the Rick Show readership ridden in a rickshaw (or pulled one)?
Okay, so I'm sure you've all seen wood. You've probably also seen wood stacked up. Maybe against a shed, a barn, a garage or just hanging out in a yard. You may have thought "look at that pile of wood."
But here's the thing:
Maybe it wasn't just a pile of wood. Maybe it was a rick of wood! A rick of wood isn't an official measurement, so there can be variations in the specifics depending on who you ask or where you live. However, it is usually a stack of wood that is 4 feet tall, 8 feet long and as wide as the piece of firewood (typically about 16 inches).
So, keep an eye out, Rick Show readers. There might be ricks in your neighborhood that you never noticed before.
