MOTnews 24 (19/10/2001)

NEWS from the MOT Adaptations to the website We have recently put a whole series of new photographs of unidentified objects on the website for visitors to the site to scratch their heads over. In addition, surfing 'technology freaks' have made a number of interesting suggestions regarding the identity of items in the current selection of 'What is it'. Do you think you can help us identify the new items or are you interested in what others think they could be? Surf to 'What is it?' on www.mot.be now and let us know if you think you recognise anything.

TRUE or FALSE

Almost all older people still talk about "those really hard winters" that we no longer experience, but much earlier on it seems to have been even colder still. Many 16th paintings, including those by Brueghel, depict snowy landscapes and the tableaus showing children and adults getting ready to go sledging and skating are past counting. Was it really colder in the past? You will find the answer in the next MOT news.

You will find all the previous subjects covered in TRUE or FALSE on the MOT website. On www.mot.be, under the heading "MOT news - Reading" you will find a summary of all the issues of MOT news that have appeared so far.

ANSWER to TRUE or FALSE in MOT news 23 (21 September 2001)

It takes an entire elephant tusk to make just three billiard balls.

TRUE

Just three billiard balls are taken from each tusk. So a whole elephant can provide only two sets of three balls. The best billiard balls are made from ivory from Zanzibar. Only the female elephants provide good ivory, and not by the kilo, but just in small quantities taken from the centre of the tusk. Fortunately, measures to protect the elephant put a stop to these practices. And the world of billiards didn't suffer because in a Walloon village called La Callenelle they have devised a way of making billiard balls of the same quality from plastic. These billiard balls are made of phenol resin, a product used in tannery. The resin is the same colour as the ivory and when it solidifies it's just a question of polishing to make it into a smooth, round billiard ball.

SAY WHAT? In this MOT-news item we try to explain proverbs and sayings that have their roots in our technical history. Similar proverbs are found in different languages, but each language has it's own typical sayings. Therefore we do not translate this item in English.

KIDS NEWS: something to tell your children this evening Poisonous potatoes? Don't you feel like a plate of potatoes with your evening meal? Perhaps you could try telling your mother that potatoes are poisonous. Of course, they're not poisonous any more when they are served on your plate. You only eat the tuber and it has usually been cooked first. But eating the fruit, the leaves and the parts of the tuber that have turned green through exposure to light can make you ill. The green parts of the potato contain poison: solanine, a powerful laxative.

Potatoes did not reach this part of the world until after the discovery of America, where they originally come from. At first they were not very popular, because most people tried to eat the leaves of the plant, rather than the tubers. It was only about 150 years later, when the grain harvests failed and people had no bread left, that they tried to do something with this odd tuber from America, after all. Today potatoes are standard fare on most tables and of course, once they have been prepared they are no longer poisonous.