Ask Mike: The 4.0 legend

Hey Guys,

Of all the urban legends floating around college campuses, I think one stands out above all others. If your roommate dies, the legend says, you will automatically get a 4.0 GPA for the semester. True or false?

This one is 100% false, kids. Nobody knows for sure just how the story got started, but according to the experts at Snopes.com, stressed-out students were likely responsible. As the years went by, the story got told more and more, until people actually started to believe it.

And, as we pointed out in a piece from Ask Yahoo! several years ago, the notion does sort of make sense. After all, the death of a roommate would be extremely traumatic. Expecting a student to continue on with his or her studies does seem unreasonable. But, while students in this unfortunate situation are often given bereavement leave, an automatic 4.0 does not happen.

What are some of your favorite urban legends? Are they true, false, or unknown? Please leave a note below and let me know.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

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Will the world really end in 2012?

According to the Mayan calendar December 21, 2012 could mark a cataclysmic event.

January is a time when so many of us are gung ho about our goals.  Ready, excited, positive and determined this year will be the year we change, grow, progress and accomplish things.  But by spring many of us have completely abandoned those goals.  Why is it so difficult to follow through on them?

The media has tagged 2012 as “the end of the world.”  If it is, then how many of you are determined to do things just in case it is?  Will this inspire you to stick to your resolutions or to check things off your bucket list and be more of who you really want to be?

It’s natural to want to improve yourself and believing you can change is a great thing.  So, if this is our last year on earth what will you do to make it memorable?  And if it isn’t how many of you are ready to apply this philosophy each year after?  Please leave a comment below.

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How to accelerate and slow banana ripening…

**Secret Revealed**

I love bananas.

They are a nearly perfect fruit. They taste great. They’re fairly inexpensive. They have their own protective skin and they contain many nutrients such as: vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.

But, if I had to register a complaint about bananas, it would be their shelf life. Keeping them perfectly ripe is a fine art — one worth mastering.

The first trick is something my wife, Kristen, taught me: don’t buy all your bananas from the same bunch! Pick a couple green ones and a couple that are ripe/near ripe. Then you have some you can eat right away and others that will be ripe when you’re ready for them.

The interesting part is that those two bunches are likely the same age. You assume the less ripe ones are newer, but the food distributors control ripeness. They have large, air tight banana ripening vaults that give them very precise control over banana ripening. They’re usually divided into multiple sections, so bananas can be kept at different stages of ripeness. If they’re selling a lot of bananas, they can accelerate the ripening so they will be ripe when they arrive at the store. If sales are slow, they can slow ripening to avoid waste.

How do they do that?

Ethylene gas is used to induce ripening. In fact, bananas ripen themselves by producing ethylene and that’s why adding more ethylene to the air will speed banana ripening further. It’s really that simple.

To accelerate ripening at home, you just need ethylene gas. Luckily, tomatoes, apples, pears and bananas all produce it at an increasing rate as they ripen. If you put an apple or tomato in a bag with bananas, that will speed the ripening. Because bananas produce it, you can place the bananas in a bag to trap the gas and ripen them faster.

To slow ripening, you need to remove ethylene. You can’t remove ethylene completely, but you can slow its reaction by putting ripe bananas in the fridge. The skin of the banana will turn brown, which is normal, and the fruit inside is still good. You can keep bananas in the fridge for a couple weeks and they may not look good, but they still taste great. Do not put unripe bananas in the fridge, it will impede the early stages of ripening and spoil the fruit.

Some retailers also have “un-gassed” bananas; they aren’t as vivid a yellow color as the gassed bananas and are usually a mix between green and a muted yellow color, but the flavor of un-gassed bananas is generally better.

Chad Upton is the editor-in-chief of Broken Secrets and an official Yahoo Answers contributor.

Sources: Ripening, Banana, Raw Food Health

Thanks for reading,

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Your favorite questions in 2011!

Happy New Year!

Last year we asked you, “What was your favorite question in 2011?” And we got some great, quirky questions from our community. Thank you to everyone who participated and shared. Take a look at a few of the favorites or you can still tell us your favorite in the comments below.

What cartoon defines your childhood?

Is there a limit to human imagination?

If you were to put just 5 items into a paper bag that represented you, what would you pick?

Would anyone enjoy gefilte fish flavored ice cream?

Who brightens your day?

What is your future wedding song?

What is your weakness?

Are you stronger in knowledge or imagination?

If you could give one piece of advice to a 21-year-old, what would it be?

Have you ever fallen in love with someone you never expected to love?

How do I propose to my chicken?

If the world was really ending, what would you do for your last day on earth?

Could free will just be an illusion?

How can I make myself into a human peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

Thanks for reading,

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Ask Mike: Close but no cigar

Hey Guys,

Anyone who tosses a crumpled up piece of paper at the garbage can and misses is likely to hear a familiar expression from watchers: “Close but no cigar,” they’ll shout. How did this expression originate?

Like a lot of old timey phrases, nobody is 100% sure about how this one became so popular. However, most idiom experts agree that it likely originated at county fairs and the like during the mid-1900s.

According to The Phrase Finder, “fairground stalls gave out cigars as prizes, and this is the most likely source, although there’s no definitive evidence to prove that.”

The site writes that “Close, but no cigar” appeared in print form for the first time in 1935 as a line of dialogue in “Annie Oakley” starring the great Barbara Stanwyck in the title role.

The site, Take Our Word For It gets a little more specific with its theory. “It is widely assumed that it arose in carnivals, where the prize for ringing a bell with a sledge hammer was often a cigar. If you got close to ringing the bell but didn’t actually hit it, you might be told, ‘close but no cigar.’”

Got any favorite phrases with mysterious origins? Leave a comment below!

Thanks for reading,

Mike

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