New haven fun facts : Frisbees!

A flying disc is a disc-shaped gliding toy or sporting item that is generally plastic and roughly 20 to 25 centimetres (8 to 10 in) in diameter with a lip, used recreationally and competitively for throwing and catching, for example, in flying disc games. The shape of the disc, an airfoil in cross-section, allows it to fly by generating lift as it moves through the air while spinning. The term Frisbee, often used to generically describe all flying discs, is a registered trademark of the Wham-O toy company.

The  Frisbie Baking Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, made pies that were sold throughout New England. Hungry college students soon discovered that the empty pie tins could be tossed and caught, providing endless hours of game and sport. Many colleges claim to be the home of ‘he who was first to fling’ what became the Frisbee, but many attribute it to Yalies making a game of throwing the pie tin on The Green.

Another tale of the first frisbie fling – in 1827, a Yale undergraduate  grabbed a passing collection tray from the chapel and flung it out into the campus, thereby becoming the true inventor of the Frisbee. This student’s supposed name? Elihu Frisbie.  This tale is often disputed because the pie tins had “Frisbie” stamped on them.

The inventor of the Frisbee, Walter Frederick Morrison (always known as ‘Fred’) was born on January 23, 1920.On his 37th birthday, on January 23, 1957, he sold the rights to his invention to the Wham-O toy company, which later gave it the name ‘Frisbee’.

Morrison had the frisbee idea as a teenager throwing lard popcorn tin lids with his girlfriend.He later discovered that cake pans were better than lard can lids and he developed a business called “Flyin’ Cake Pans”.Later names he gave to the disc were Whirlo-Way, Flyin’ Saucer and Pluto Platter.

The Wham-O company changed the name when it learnt that students were calling them ‘Frisbie’ after pie tins from the Frisbie Pie Company.Morrison, who died in 2010, was the uncle of Colonel Steve Warr, who is the fifth highest-ranked pole-vaulter in the world aged 70-74.

The worldwide database of the European Patent Office lists 84 frisbee-related patents.These include an Underwater Frisbee Golf Disc Locator and a Multipurpose Frisbee for Dogs.At his own request, Morrison was cremated and his ashes moulded into frisbees for his family.

• Ultimate Frisbee ( International Game )

Now, they are many kind of activities that can be held with frisbee. One of it is Ultimate Frisbee which is kind of competition mainly held in US.Ultimate has come a long way since it's days as being perceived as a counter-culture activity bore during the 1970's.

It's now a sport with an international governing body, several tournaments, and it is likely to be added to the Summer Olympics.

• The end zones in Ultimate are twice as big as those in football

While covering almost the same amount of area as a football field, the actual playing field of ultimate is thirty years shorter because each end-zones being twenty-five yards deep.

On the international level, the end-zone size is shortened to about twenty yards. Both fields are forty yards wide, whereas a football field is around fifty-three and a half yards wide. 

• Some cool tricks you can do with frisbee

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Facts That Will Change The Way You See Dolphins

 Everyone loves dolphins. They’re intelligent, inquisitive, playful creatures who have captivated people since the dawn of time. 

 But dolphins didn’t get to be everyone’s favorite aquatic mammal just by lounging around all day. Having to adapt to life in the harsh ocean environment requires some serious skills. As a result dolphins, have developed some incredible abilities that continue to amaze researchers.

• Sleeplessness

 Everything needs sleep. The human world record holder, Randy Gardner, stayed awake for 11 days straight. By the fourth day, he was hallucinating. Not sleeping will eventually kill you and every other mortal creature with higher brain functions—except dolphins, which have apparently found a way around sleep. Baby dolphins actually forgot to sleep for the first month of life—and so, therefore, do their parents.

 The trick is that these amazing sea critters can shut half of their brain off at a time. Scientists tested dolphin reactions without rest for five days straight and their reaction time never slowed. Blood tests for signs of stress or sleep deprivation turned up negative. Dolphins may be able to do this indefinitely.

 Another study showed that dolphins can use their sonar for 15 days straight with almost perfect accuracy. It makes sense that dolphins evolved a way to keep an eye out for predators while they’re dozing in the open ocean. 


 But the truly fascinating part about all of this is that tests showed visual information was being passed from the snoozing side to the active side. Even though they shut down half of their noggin at a time, the other half can take over all the functions. It’s almost as if they have two brains.

• Alien-like ( Awesome )  respiration system!

It turns out that dolphins are pretty good swimmers. The bottlenose can hold its breath for 12 minutes and dive nearly 550 meters (1800 ft). Part of the reason dolphins can do this is because they’ve got incredible lungs. Though they aren’t much bigger than our own, they’re much more efficient.

With each breath, a dolphin exchanges 80 percent or more of its lung air. We puny humans can only get out about 17 percent. Their blood and muscles can store and transport more of that oxygen, too. This is because they have more red blood cells, which in turn have greater concentrations of hemoglobin than we do.

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Shocking secrets you didn't know about Bermuda Triangle!

Even though you won’t find it on a map, the Bermuda Triangle is a very real place. In the past there have been many stories of disappearing ships, planes and people. Although there is a reasonable explanation for many incidents, some are still a mystery.

The Bermuda Triangle is located off the coast of Florida between Miami, Puerto Rico and the Bermudas. It covers about 500 000 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean. It is also known as the Devil’s Triangle because Bermuda was once called Islands of the Devils. The coasts around the island are surrounded by dangerous reefs that ships ran into throughout the centuries.

Unusual events around the Bermuda Triangle go back to the voyages of Christopher Columbus. He sometimes reported that compass readings were wrong. Many journalists have tried to prove that a number accidents and unusual things have happened in the region. Some cases show that there are no explanations for them.

One of the best-known incidents is the disappearance of Flight 19 during a training exercise of the US Navy. In December, 1945 five American bombers left Fort Lauderdale, Florida on a routine mission. 14 crew members disappeared after sending several radio messages. When a rescue plane went to search for the Navy bombers it also vanished.

What went wrong during the mission is not fully known. Compasses showed wrong directions and visibility was bad so the flight leader decided to navigate by landmarks which he saw below. Then there was a sudden storm and radio contact broke off. Wrecked parts of Flight 19 have never been recovered.

Ships have also disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. Among them is the Mary Celeste, an American merchant ship, in 1872. The ship was sailing from New York to Genoa, but was later found off the coast of Africa without any crew members on board. Although there is no evidence that the Mary Celeste even entered the Bermuda Triangle there are many who connect its mysterious disappearance with the area.

There are many theories about why so many airplanes and ships have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. Some suggest that there are special magnetic fields that cause unknown physical forces. Others say that the lost continent of Atlantis sank in the region causing mysterious events. There is even a theory about unknown chemicals in the waters of the Atlantic.

Some experts, however, point out that the region north of the Caribbean is not as safe as it may seem. It is one of two places on Earth where the compass points to the geographic North Pole. It is also a region in which the weather is unpredictable and where storms can emerge quickly. There are strong currents because of shallow places and deep trenches in the ocean. These factors can confuse even experienced sailors.

Over 1,000 people were killed in The Bermuda Triangle during the 20th century. Scientists have concluded that this figure is normal and most disappearances have a logical explanation. The myth of the Bermuda Triangle, however, remains.

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