Say it with a Kiss

Like so many other cool things, Hershey’s red and green Kisses were born in the ’60s! 😉 You could eat ‘em year round, but the best ones came from the dish your granny put out around the holidays. 

Hershey’s has been a staple for Stakers throughout their entire lives, and won’t be changing any time soon. They actually just rejected an acquisition offer from confectionary giant Mondelez—not enough dough! 

They know what they want ;)

Congratulations to our Day 6 winner D Anderson! Now let’s get ready for Day 7 of our annual 12 Days of Giving. Each weekday between now and December 20th we’re giving away a $100 Amazon eGift card and all you have to do to get in on the fun is answer today’s poll question before 6pm (ET)!*

NOTE: If you’re checking us out here online and would like to take part in the giveaways, please subscribe to the newsletter. Good luck!

The conventional wisdom suggests that when you drop food on the floor, it’s still safe to eat as long as you pick it up within five seconds. This is a self-evidently unscientific proposition, yet it’s a common and long-standing piece of wisdom.

Is that because it’s actually true? Well…simply put, absolutely not. Several studies beginning with a high school experiment in 2003 have increasingly looked deeper into the science behind this so-called rule, basically finding more detailed evidence each time that bacteria definitely infects a piece of food inside the five second window.

The first one, conducted by Chicago high school student Jillian Clarke, found gummy bears were contaminated with E. coli within five seconds of landing on a pair of tiles she inoculated with the bacteria.

A later study found there actually is some truth to the rule, depending on the surface the food falls on and the type of food. Pasta falling on a carpet could be contaminated much quicker than a cracker on a laminate floor, for example. Contamination can happen within 3 seconds or sometimes after as long as 30 seconds. Yet another study determined the amount of bacteria in the area also matters.

On average though, if you drop food on the floor, you’re almost definitely going to pick it up too late.

A team of astronomers observing the heavens detected a strange radio signal in Western Australia two years ago. It bore signatures that could have belonged to several different celestial objects, but the team was stumped by the presence of each signature in what was seemingly one signal.

The first signature suggested the object was a radio pulsar, which is an incredibly fast-spinning neutron star. But radio pulsars are super rhythmic and consistent—hence their name—and the object detected in 2022 rotated once every 18 minutes. They observed it doing so before it emitted a massive radio wave that outshone everything around it for three months before disappearing.

Training South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope—the world’s most sensitive radio wave telescope—on the region of the sky the radio waves were initially detected in, the team found an object behaving in a similar way to the bizarre “pulsar.”

It turns out they weren’t looking at a neutron star at all, but an extremely dim red dwarf. The radio waves were pulsing in a pattern that suggested the waves were actually coming from a white dwarf instead. Turns out the two dwarfs were locked in orbit with each other.

Chalk another one up for intrepid astronomers in pursuit of a mystery!

Everyone who’s lived in a wintery climate knows all too well how important it is to routinely salt the driveway and sidewalk, but it turns out there’s another part of the home that could benefit from salt in the winter.

There are plenty of places mold likes to form in and around the house, but it likes fewer places more than a damp windowsill, soaking up that condensation from the window as the heat competes inside against the cold outside.

That window dew will fall to the sill, form droplets, and be well on its way to facilitating the grand entry of the uninvited guest.

A bowl of salt, however, can be your proverbial security guard, soaking up all that moisture before it sets into another surface. The bowl doesn’t have to be enormous, but the size should vary based on how big the window is. You’ll be able to tell if it’s doing its job when it starts to clump and the bowl itself becomes slightly moist.

This is a solid trick, though it can certainly require quite a bit of salt if you have a bunch of windows. Routinely ventilating the area and wiping down the windows can also be sufficient, though it’s a little more hands-on. A bowl of salt is happy to take that work on for you.

Kansas wrapped up their Another Fork in the Road 50th anniversary tour the other day, with original bass player Dave Hope reuniting with co-founding drummer Phil Ehart, and legendary guitarist Rich Williams. The three were flanked by the rest of the band’s current iteration.

Ehart had a major heart attack earlier this year, but miraculously managed to recover in time to play the last two shows of the tour, including its finale at Pittsburgh’s Benedum Center, a staple venue the band has frequented since the 1970s.

Hope and Ehart were each on stage for Hold On and the encore, which was a little song called Carry On My Wayward Son.

Dust In The Wind was also performed, though fiddler and co-founder Kerry Livgren wasn’t able to make the show as his wife Vicki had recently broken her collarbone. Not to worry, though, the unfortunate circumstances cleared the way for a beautiful moment when their daughter Kate filled in on the viola instead.

It was business as usual for the iron band of rock ‘n roll, wrapping up 118 dates of 20-song, 130-minute sets.

Thanks to all the Stakers who have been participating in our 12 Days of Giving Polls! We’ve had a blast seeing the results and reading all your comments! 🤗 

The fact that astronomers are observing radio signals from across the universe is totally rad, but equally cool is how radio signals travel across time.

For instance, you were probably tuning into the radio quite a bit in 1988. Are those waves still reaching you today? Find out with today’s trivia ;)

Have a great day ahead Staker!

Trivia courtesy of funtrivia.com. Today’s issue written by Michael Cowan, Joey Cowan, and Maureen Norman.


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