Thursday, October 23, 2008

Broken Bone


Under the "Who Knew?" Department (also filed in the "How the Heck Would Anyone Think To Try *That*? Department), peeling off Scotch tape from its roll quickly - and in a vacuum - makes the tape emit x-rays.

The breakthrough, reported by a lab at UCLA, may herald the advent of cheap and portable x-ray machines that can be hand-cranked. The lab also advises that simply using the tape in an open air environment should cause absolutely no harm.

In a sidebar I'm adding for my readers, Scotch Tape got its name from an ethnic slur. It used to simply be called cellophane tape. It was invented by lab technician Richard Drew in the early 1920s after watching an automotive painter use gummed paper on a vehicle. Trying to invent an adhesive that wouldn't strip paint off when removed, Mr. Drew came up with a two-inch piece of tape but only put adhesive on a half-inch of either side. When this experimental tape fell off due to not enough adhesive, the car painter grabbed it and yelled, "Take this back to your stingy Scotch bosses and tell them to put more adhesive on it!"

It's been known as Scotch tape ever since. I can't make this stuff up, folks.

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While I helped another technician get ready to take an x-ray of a little girl's leg, I overheard his conversation with her.

"Have you ever broken a bone?" he asked.

"Yes," the girl replied.

"Did it hurt?"

"No."

"Really? Which bone did you break?"

"My sister's arm."

[Mikey's Funnies]

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WISDOM for YOUR WEEK: "A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." (Proverbs 18:24)

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