Carrots in the Arts & Sciences

Carrot Trivia - Part Two - The Arts & Sciences



Mind Test - Tattoos - Outer Space - Icy Sparks - Flaming Carrot - Mysteries - Henry Ford - Campaign Monument

Trivia 1 lists the many and weird interesting facts about carrots.

Trivia 2 which gives examples of the carrot in the Arts and Sciences together with some fascinating "rock art" discovered by Brian Lee in America. Here you will also find the famous icy sparks microwave effect explained, and examples of carrot tattoos. Carrots can make antifreeze and see if carrots could unlock the mysteries of the universe!

Were Carrots the first step in cloning? and so much more ......... Trivia 3 concentrates on Carrots in Literature, Poetry and Quotations. Trivia 4 starts to register the carrot in Films and Television. Trivia 5 - Even More "one liner" trivia items! . Fine Art works containing depictions of Carrots are now on a separate page. Click here to go there.

Rock Art -

"Carrot Men in the Rocks" This panel is several miles south of Rangely, Colorado, in a sandstone overhang on a small wash. It is referred to as the "carrot men" site.

The Carrot Men Site is number 16 on the Rangely Rock Art Tour near Rangely, Colorado. The site is listed as Moon Canyon on the National Register of Historic Places and is considered an important resource in the work of discovering more about the early inhabitants of Western Colorado. Signs of habitation date from the Archaic Period (3000 BCE - 100 CE) up to the Ute Period (1300+ CE). More detail The red carrot men loom largest among the images. A close examination reveals that while the main portions of the carrot men were done with red iron ore pigments other colours are present, including green, blue and black, in places like their headdresses and body areas. These blue images (left) may have been done with azurite which is quite rare in this area. That might possibly signify trade with other people or distant travels. (photos courtesy of ghikes.com)



Cloning Experiments In an interesting 1958 experiment, F.E. Steward, a biologist working in the Lab of Cell Physiology, Growth, and Development at Cornell University succeeded in growing a complete carrot plant from a fully differentiated carrot root cell.



Steward literally shook apart cells from a carrot root and placed these individual cells in a rotation tube containing cell nutrients. The cells surprisingly began to divide and grew to form tissues. Some cell masses broke from the tissues and grew their own roots. When these massed were planted in soil, they developed into complete carrot plants. Steward's results surprised biologists because at the time it was thought individual differentiated cells would not divide and grow to form complete organisms. After the failure of Robert Briggs and Thomas J. King and other scientists to clone animals from differentiated cells, Steward's results led some scientists to hold on to the belief that cloning from differentiated cells was not biologically impossible

Can you get high on Carrot Seed?

Daucus has been reported to contain acetone, asarone, choline, ethanol, formic acid, HCN, isobutyric acid, limonene, malic acid, maltose, oxalic acid, palmitic acid, pyrrolidine, and quinic acid. Reviewing research on myristicin, which occurs in nutmeg, mace, black pepper, carrot seed, celery seed, and parsley, Buchanan (J. Food Safety 1: 275, 1979) noted that the psychoactive and hallucinogenic properties of mace, nutmeg, and purified myristicin have been studied. It has been hypothesized that myristicin and elemicin can be readily modified in the body to amphetamines. Handling carrot foliage, especially wet foliage, can cause irritation and vesication. Sensitized photosensitive persons may get an exact reproduction of the leaf on the skin by placing the leaf on the skin for awhile, followed by exposure to sunshine

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Carrot Musicians and Musical Instruments Several groups of people make and play musical instruments made from carrots. To learn more about carrot musicians visit the page in the Carrot Museum dedicated to these true artists - here. These include Flutenveg; Linsey Pollack; Wyldmen; Vienna Vegetable Orchestra and Heita. ENJOY!! Carrots in Space (1) Yes you read it right - here is STS-43 Pilot Michael A. Baker, on the Atlantis Orbiter vehicle in 1991, seated at the forward flight deck pilots station controls, eating a free floating peanut butter and jelly sandwich while holding a carrot in his right hand. Click on photo to see larger image.

And when they return from Outer Space, what do they ask for? ..... Carrots :

Associated Press Writer Mike Schneider explained on Wed Apr 5, 2006:-



CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida. - After more than six months in orbit, returning U.S. astronaut Bill McArthur longs for two simple pleasures: a hot cup of fresh coffee and a carrot!!!.

"Life up here is an extraordinary experience ... but we miss the richness, the texture, the three-dimensional nature of living on our home planet," McArthur said Wednesday in an interview from the international space station with The Associated Press and the Houston Chronicle.



"I'm a big coffee drinker and I always like a nice hot cup of coffee in the morning," he said. "The coffee on board tastes good but it's all in bags."



McArthur will fly back Saturday on a Soyuz spacecraft, landing in the steppes of Kazakhstan. Also aboard will be Russian flight engineer Valery Tokarev and Marcos Pontes, Brazil's first man in space.



McArthur and Tokarev have been at the space station more than six months. They are being replaced by Russian commander Pavel Vinogradov and U.S. flight engineer Jeff Williams, who arrived at the station with Pontes last Friday.



McArthur said he also is looking forward to biting into a crunchy salad and feeling "that sensation of pressing into a nice fresh lettuce or a nice raw carrot."



This week, the crew tested a new method of preparing for spacewalks and produced sufficient data, even though the test was cut short, McArthur said.



Before beginning spacewalks, crew members usually have to breathe pure oxygen for several hours to purge their body of nitrogen and prevent a condition known as the bends. The new method could reduce that preparation time.



McArthur and Williams had planned to spend eight hours sleeping in an airlock. But the test was stopped after five hours when two alarms went off while the astronauts slept.



The alarms were triggered by a software glitch that gave an erroneous message about oxygen pressure.

"We were never in any danger," McArthur said. "There was never any problem with the atmosphere."



Carrots in Space (2)

Fresh Food for Astronauts on Its Way - CHICAGO-

New research indicates that astronauts will soon have their own gardens aboard the International Space Station with the ability to grow vitamin A-rich carrots in space, according to a study in the Journal of Food Science, published by the Institute of Food Technologists. Researchers from Tuskegee University in Alabama conducted a study targeted at finding a way to incorporate natural and fresh antioxidants into the diets of astronauts while travelling in space.

They grew 18 different varieties of hydroponic carrots using two different methods of nutrient delivery. Growing carrots hydroponically cultivates the vegetables by placing the roots in liquid nutrient solutions rather than in soil. Among all foods, carrots have the highest carotenoid content. They also contain a natural pigment known for provitamin A and have been associated with protection against cancer, cardiovascular diseases, cataracts and macular degeneration as well as enhancing the immune response. Astronauts can be exposed to elevated levels of radiation, which might put them at risk for some types of cancer. Researchers believe that the addition of unprocessed carrots to their diets may help reduce the negative effects of radiation and cancer development. The

Hydroponically grown carrots were issued nutrients in two different methods. One method is the nutrient film technique (NFT), in which the roots were exposed to a nutrient solution within a plastic film trough. The second method is the microporous tube membrane system (MTMS), in which nutrient tubes were embedded into Turface, a material similar to crushed clay, where the carrots were planted. All carrots were harvested 70 days after planting. They were tested for moisture, fat and carotene content as well as colour and texture. Consumer testing also occurred to test the acceptability of the hydroponic carrots.

This group evaluated colour, crunchiness, sweetness, fibrousness, blandness and overall preference of the 18 different carrot types grown using NFT and MTMS. The study concluded that hydroponic carrots grown using the MTMS method were most appealing to consumers due to their colour and more carrot-like appearance. Moisture contents were similar among all hydroponic carrots as was the carotene content. Lead researcher A.C. Bovell-Benjamin stated, The Nevis-F carrot cultivar grown using the NFT method had the highest carotenoid content and acceptability among consumers, and therefore, it will be the most likely choice for inclusion in NASAs food system.

Campaign Carrot Monument

The Carrot Campaign monument, located in Port Hardy, British Columbia Port Hardy is a small community in British Columbia, Canada located on the north-eastern coast of Vancouver Island. Port Hardy has a population of over 4,500.

It is the gateway to Cape Scott Provincial Park on the northern most tip of Vancouver Island. British Columbia provincial highway 19, which stretches from one end of Vancouver Island to the other, ends in Port Hardy, right near Rotary Park. This explains the town's motto, found on a sign entering town, that reads, "where the highway ends and the adventure begins."

If you can't read the sign, it says: The Carrot Campaign - "This carrot, marking the northern end of the island highway, is a symbol of government road building promises, dangled in front of north island settlers since 1897. The successful late 1970's 'Carrot Campaign' was aimed at making the government keep promises of a completed island highway."

There was no highway connecting the northern end of the island to the rest of the southern communities up until 1979. The only infrastructure, logging roads, in place was built and funded by private logging companies, coupled with a ferry system.

What is more, companies decided to hike prices to local ferries. Residents were in an outcry, so much so the ferry company immediately reduced fare prices to appease the northern communities. North islanders had to navigate a network of unpaved dirt roads to reach the closest community to the south, Campbell River. Naturally, residents grew tired of it.

In 1976, the North Island Gazette wrote a damning headline targeted at the provincial government, Do you carrot at all? This slogan was born out of a response to funding cuts for the highway. Residents would send carrots to the provincial capital as a reminder that there was still no finished highway, but more importantly it kept pressure on the politicians.

The island highway ends with the carrot. And theres a reason as to why theres a piece bitten out of it  a commemorative symbol that residents wanted a finished highway. We want the rest of the carrot another slogan reads Build the North Island highway. And they finally got it in 1979.