MOTnews 34 (31/05/2002)

Search engine on the website of the MOT

It was bound to happen: we are constantly putting more information on our website and now we have ensured that you can find it back more easily.

The website of the MOT has been expanded with a search engine: all you have to do is type in a keyword at the bottom of each web page in order to find out whether our website has something to offer you on that subject.

TRUE OR FALSE

The first wheel was a cross-section of a tree.

True or false? You can read the answer in the next MOT-news.

ANSWER to TRUE OR FALSE in MOT-NEWS 33 (03/05/2002)

The main ingredient for making glass is sand.

TRUE

Glass is composed of sand (three parts), lime (1 part) and soda or potash (potash is obtained by burning wood)

When these easy-to-find ingredients fuse together at very high temperatures, you get a liquid substance which - once it has cooled off - is known as glass.

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: a bedtime story for your children tonight

We already told you in the previous MOT-news something about the consumption of rotten things, now we are going one step further.

Eating insects (or "entomophagy", to use a scholarly word) seems unthinkable today for us in Europe, yet they are eaten in some regions because they contain many nutrients (including proteins, things we also find in fish and meat).

This is often the case in regions where insects are present in abundance and where it is difficult to find other food that contains the same amount of important nutrients.

In the past this also happened to us here when few other sources of proteins could be found. During the Famine of 1688 in Ireland, the poor Irish people also ate the larvae of cockchafers.

What is taboo in our eyes, is an important source of food for others and vice versa. Don't forget that many other countries would never put horsemeat on the menu and that we are prepared to shell out a fortune for a small spoon of fish eggs or caviar.

The three most frequently eaten insects are grasshoppers, termites and the larvae of certain weevils.

All three have two specific characteristics in common that makes them so suitable for human consumption: they are quite big and are easy to find in large swarms.

Most insects are eaten when they are in the larvae stage: they are often then at their biggest and contain the most calories.