Holding hot stuff

We’ve seen that chemists use a really cool device to take hold of hot stuff. They take two small pieces of a rubber hose, cut them from one side, put them on the fingers and can hold any hot test tubes, flasks and glasses without getting burnt. This device protects the fingers and provides a firm grip at the same time. Katya’s mom even has this thing at home.

Be small. Sit low.

In cities traffic lights are always well above cars, and that is why they are so difficult to see. Drivers have to stretch their necks real hard in order not to miss the right signal. To prevent accidents small traffic lights have been installed across the whole of Europe… at eye-level to drivers. Sometimes getting smaller means getting better.

Mirror, mirror in the hall

Imagine yourself as a retired person visiting cathedral. Your neck is not as flexible as it used to be. In this case you would probably say thank God for the mirrors placed on the floor so that you could admire the reflection of marvelous arches without throwing back your head. It’s so thoughtful and so easy to do.

Save the bread

What happens if you love bread? One day you buy too much, and it gets stale. Inevitably. And then you have to do something about it. In Portugal people have a number of recipes for yesterday’s bread. Their Acorda de Marisco is the best one. It is a kind of shellfish bread stew, both tasty and good for satisfying a coal miner’s appetite. And what do you do with stale bread?

Antifreeze in a toilet bowl

In winter owners of summer houses in Russia face a major challenge: how to save their toilet bowls from splitting. The problem is that even when the owner removes all the water from the bowl before closing down the house for the winter season, and it still cracks as soon as the temperature outside reaches -10 degrees C. The solution came in the form of any car antifreeze – a wise owner just needs to pour it in the toilet bowl and leave it there till the next spring.

Shoot the wine

Yeah, we are obsessed with food and drink, so here is another one. Every time our colleague likes her wine in a restaurant, she gets her mobile and takes a picture of the label. We appreciated this practice after spending about half an hour in a wine shop trying to explain what kind of wine we wanted: “you know, white, rather sweet, very intense, German, or not…” Fortunately the owner of the shop understood us and delivered the bottle. But one cannot be this lucky every time, so now we are shooting the wine we like.

Flood the bog – get the cranberries

Cranberries have pockets of air inside the fruit. And that means they float in water. So, for years people are using the knowledge: the bogs, where cranberries grow, are flooded with water, then harvesters use water reels to stir up the water. This way the ripe berries are removed from the vines. And then they have a field of floating cranberries ready to be picked up. And besides the fact that it is an extremely clever way to harvest, it is also a spectacular look – a red sea of cranberries.