The history of Santa Claus: 7 interesting facts (The Week)

New York ? From why he wears a red suit to when he got hitched to Mrs. Claus, a look at the mythmaking behind jolly old St. Nick

As Christmas approaches, children around the world have Santa on the brain. They're anxiously wondering if they've been overly naughty or sufficiently nice, and eagerly daydreaming about their potential gift hauls. But exactly how did the jolly, bearded North Pole resident evolve into the cultural icon we know today? Here, seven interesting facts about his evolution:

1. He was real... sort of
Folklore may have turned Santa Claus into a toy distributor who mans a sleigh led by eight flying reindeer, but he is actually based, loosely, on a real person. Born around the year 270, St. Nicholas was the Bishop of Myra, a town in what is now Turkey. He earned a reputation as an anonymous gift giver,?says MSNBC, by paying the dowries of impoverished girls and handing out treats and coins to children ? often leaving them in their shoes, set out at night for that very purpose. Since his death, Nicholas has been canonized as the patron saint of children.

SEE MORE: Why are there no new Christmas songs?

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2. He's only been 'Santa Claus' for 200 years
A Dutch tradition kept St. Nicholas' story alive in the form of Sinterklaas, a bishop who traveled from house to house to deliver treats to children on the night of Dec. 5. The first anglicizing of the name to Santa Claus was in a story that appeared in a New York City newspaper in 1773.

3. Satire first sent Santa down a chimney
In his satiric 1809 book A History of New York, Washington Irving did away with the characterization of Santa Claus as a "lanky bishop," says Whipps. Instead, Irving described Santa as a portly, bearded man who smokes a pipe. Irving's story also marked the first time Santa slid down the chimney, says the U.K.'s Independent.

SEE MORE: The Secret Santas who are paying strangers' debts

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4. "Twas the Night Before Christmas" introduced the reindeer
Clement Moore's 1822 poem A Visit From Saint Nicholas ? which is now more commonly referred to as "Twas the Night Before Christmas" ? was first published anonymously in the Troy, N.Y., Sentinel on Dec. 23, 1823. The 56-line poem introduced and popularized many of Santa's defining characteristics ? chiefly, that he drove a sleigh guided by "eight tiny reindeer."

5. Coca-Cola created the modern Mr. Claus
When Father Christmas first began showing up in illustrations, he wore many different colored robes: Green, purple, blue, and brown, among others. Beginning in the late 1800s, it became popular to outfit Santa in a red suit. Artist Louis Prang depicted him that way in a series of Christmas cards in 1885, and The New York Times reported on the red garments in 1927. But the modern image of Santa Claus as the jolly man in the red suit was seared into American pop culture in 1931, when artist Haddon Sundblom illustrated him that way for a widely-circulated campaign for Coca-Cola.

SEE MORE: America's 'booming' Christmas tree business: By the numbers

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6. The department store Santa is a 120-year-old tradition
In 1890, Massachusetts businessman James Edgar became the first department store Santa, according to The Smoking Jacket. Edgar is credited with coming up with the idea of dressing up in a Santa Claus costume as a marketing tool. Children from all over the state dragged their parents to Edgar's small dry goods store in Brockton, and a tradition was born.

7. Santa was a bachelor until the late 1800s
The first mention of a spouse for Santa was in the 1849 short story A Christmas Legend by James Rees. Over the next several years, the idea of Mrs. Claus found its way into several literary publications, like the Yale Literary Magazine and Harper's Magazine.?But it wasn't until Katherine Lee Bates' widely-circulated 1889 poem Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride that Santa's wife was popularized. ("Goody" is short for "Goodwife," or "Mrs.")

SEE MORE: Is the U.N. declaring 'war on Santa'?

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Sources: Colour Lovers, Independent, MSNBC, The Smoking Jacket

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EssayThe last word: He said he was leaving. She ignored him.

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Engineers achieve record conductivity in strained lattice organic semiconductor

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Organic semiconductors could usher in an era of foldable smartphones, better high-definition television screens and clothing made of materials that can harvest energy from the sun needed to charge your iPad, but there is one serious drawback: Organic semiconductors do not conduct electricity very well.

In a paper to be published online on Wednesday by the journal Nature, researchers at Stanford led by chemical engineer Zhenan Bao have changed that equation by improving the ability of the electrons to move through organic semiconductors. The secret is in packing the molecules closer together as the semiconductor crystals form, a technique engineers describe as straining the lattice.

Bao and her colleagues have more than doubled the record for electrical conductivity of an organic semiconductor and shown an eleven-fold improvement over unstrained lattices of the same semiconductor.

"Strained lattices are no secret. We've known about their favorable electrical properties for decades and they are in use in today's silicon computer chips, but no one has been successful in creating a stable strained lattice organic semiconductor with a very short distance between molecules, until now," said Bao.

In the past, engineers have tried to compress the lattices in these materials by synthetically growing the crystals under great pressure. "But, as soon as you release the pressure, the crystal just goes back to its natural, unstrained state," said Bao. "We've been able to stabilize these crystals in tighter formations than ever before."

Fine-tuning

Bao's team used a solution shearing technique similar to a coating process well known in the semiconductor industry. Solution shearing involves a thin liquid layer of the semiconductor sandwiched between two metal plates. The lower plate is heated and the upper plate floats atop the liquid, gliding across it like a barge. As the top plate moves, the trailing edge exposes the solution to a vaporized solvent and, heated by the lower plate, the crystals form into a thin film.

"Using a process so similar to current industry technology is important, as it could speed these new semiconductors to market," said Bao.

The engineers can then "tune" the speed at which the top plate moves, the thickness of the solution layer, the temperature of the lower plate, and other engineering factors to achieve optimal results.

The crystals form in differing structures based on the speed at which the top plate moves. These differences are clearly evident in photographs. At slow speeds, the crystals form in long, straight structures, in line with the direction the top plate is moving. At higher speeds, the crystals form wildly irregular patterns, and in other speeds the patterns resemble tiny snowflakes.

The engineers next tested the various crystalline patterns for their electrical properties. They found that optimal electrical conductivity was achieved when the top plate moved at 2.8 millimeters per second, a speed in the middle of the range they tested.

"In comparing the photographs of the crystals, it is not the longest, straightest structures that result in the best electrical characteristics," said Bao, "but the one with a shorter, yet highly consistent pattern."

New structures, new analyses

Bao's new semiconductor proved challenging in at least one other regard: Measurement and visualization of the lattices to understand how and why they work. To gain this understanding, she turned to Stefan Mannsfeld, PhD, a staff scientist and expert in x-ray scattering at Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, a co-author of the paper.

"We have been able to improve how we analyze the relative brightness of the peaks we can see in x-ray diffraction images," said Mannsfeld. "Previously this was only possible when analyzing relatively big single crystals, but we have for the first time been able to duplicate this for very thin films of these crystals."

With improved analysis, the team was able to understand the physics behind the improvement. "Our analysis made it possible not only to see the impact of the strain on the lattice geometry, but also to determine the exact way in which the molecules pack in the lattice. As a result we obtained a better understanding of why such structures improve the molecule-to-molecule electrical coupling that improves the electrical efficiency," said Mannsfeld.

In the paper, Bao describes her new technique as general enough as to be applicable to other materials that might someday yield even better electrical characteristics in in a wide range of organic semiconductors.

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Stanford School of Engineering: http://soe.stanford.edu

Thanks to Stanford School of Engineering for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116231/Engineers_achieve_record_conductivity_in_strained_lattice_organic_semiconductor

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Church Fire Could Be Arson

Investigators believe a fire that broke out at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses in University Heights could be a case of arson.

The fire in the staging area of the church on Adams Ave. was reported around midnight, according to firefighters.

The fire was knocked down quickly.

The cause was believed to be suspicious in nature.

"We do our own investigation after the initial knock down and were unable to find the cause determination. So the mast unit came out to investigate the fire," said Chuck Adams from the San Diego Fire Dept.

Posted Wednesday, Dec 21, 2011 - 8:10 AM PST

Source: http://feeds.nbcsandiego.com/click.phdo?i=4bfffa7017347b8e9aaf5e5cb93391a4

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House begins debating Republican proposal rejecting Senate's two-month payroll tax cut (Star Tribune)

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652 dead, 808 missing in Philippine floods (AP)

ILIGAN, Philippines ? The Philippine Red Cross says the death toll from a storm that ravaged a wide swath of the south has risen to 652 with 808 others still missing.

Red Cross Secretary-General Gwendolyn Pang said Sunday that flash floods set off by Tropical Storm Washi killed 346 people in Cagayan de Oro city and 206 in nearby Iligan city. Deaths were also reported in five other southern and central provinces.

Pang said more people have reported missing relatives, including 447 in Iligan and 347 in Cagayan de Oro.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

ILIGAN, Philippines (AP) ? As a storm that killed more than 530 in the southern Philippines raged outside the store where she works, Amor Limbago worriedly called home to check on her parents, but their cellphones just kept ringing and later went dead.

Limbago, 21, rushed home as soon as the flash floods receded and confirmed her worst fear: Her parents and seven other relatives were gone, swept away from their hut by the river. They had eagerly planned a small Christmas dinner in that hut just days earlier.

"I returned and saw that our house was completely gone," a weeping Limbago told The Associated Press from Cagayan de Oro city. "There was nothing but mud all over and knee-deep floodwaters."

Tropical Storm Washi blew away Sunday after devastating a wide swath of the mountainous region on Mindanao island, which is unaccustomed to major storms.

Most of the victims were asleep Friday night when flash floods cascaded down mountain slopes with logs and uprooted trees, swelling rivers and killing at least 532 people. The late-season tropical storm turned the worst-hit coastal cities of Cagayan de Oro and nearby Iligan into muddy wastelands filled with overturned cars and broken trees.

Most of the dead were children and women, Philippine Red Cross Secretary General Gwendolyn Pang said.

With 458 others reported missing, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and top military officials flew to Cagayan de Oro to help oversee search-and-rescue efforts and deal with thousands of displaced villagers. Among the items urgently needed are coffins and body bags, said Benito Ramos, who heads the government's disaster-response agency.

"It's overwhelming. We didn't expect these many dead," Ramos said.

Although the disaster-prone Philippines is lashed by about 20 typhoons and storms annually, the devastation shocked many, coming close to Christmas ? the predominantly Roman Catholic nation's most-awaited time for family reunions. Army officials in the south said they canceled Christmas parties and would donate the food to homeless survivors.

Limbago said she and her mother, Jean, 50, and father Amancio, 63, planned to have a simple Christmas dinner of spaghetti. Those plans had evaporated Sunday as she and surviving relatives checked crowded morgues, hospitals and evacuation centers for any sign of her missing parents.

Others lost homes and belongings but were happy to have survived.

Edmund Rubio, a 44-year-old engineer, said he, his wife and two children scrambled to the second floor of their house in Iligan city as floodwaters engulfed the first floor, destroying his TV set and other appliances and washing away his car and motorcycle.

Amid the panic, he heard a loud pounding on his door as neighbors living in nearby one-story houses pleaded with him to allow them up in his second floor. He said he brought 30 neighbors into the safety of the second floor of his house, which later shook when a huge floating log slammed into it.

"It's the most important thing, that all of us will still be together this Christmas," Rubio told the AP. "There was a nearby shantytown that was smashed by water. I'm afraid many people there may not have been as lucky as us."

Army officers reported unidentified bodies piled up in morgues in Cagayan de Oro, where electricity was restored in some areas, although the city of more than 500,000 people remained without tap water.

At least 239 died in Cagayan de Oro and 206 in nearby Iligan, the Red Cross said. The death toll was expected to rise because many isolated villages still had not been reached by overwhelmed disaster-response personnel.

"Our fear is there may have been whole families that perished so there's nobody to report what happened," Red Cross chief Pang said.

Both Iligan, a bustling industrial center about 485 miles (780 kilometers) southeast of Manila, and Cagayan de Oro were filled with scenes of destruction and desperation.

A lone worker gingerly embalmed scores of bodies laid side by side in an Iligan city funeral parlor. Outside the embalming room, seven white coffins were placed in a corridor, surrounded by weeping relatives.

"Many mothers, fathers were walking from one funeral parlor to another, looking for their children," said army Maj. Eugenio Osias, who led a rescue effort in Cagayan de Oro.

Ramos attributed the high casualties "partly to the complacency of people because they are not in the usual path of storms" despite four days of warnings by officials that one was approaching.

In just 12 hours, Washi dumped more than a month of average rain on Mindanao.

Thousands of soldiers and hundreds of local police, reservists, coast guard officers and civilian volunteers were mobilized for rescue efforts, but were hampered by flooded-out roads and lack of electricity. Rescuers in boats rushed offshore to save people swept out to sea.

___

Jim Gomez reported from Manila. Associated Press writers Oliver Teves and Hrvoje Hranjski contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/weather/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111218/ap_on_re_as/as_philippines_storm

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Flash floods kill at least 450 in Philippines (AP)

MANILA, Philippines ? Flash floods devastated a southern Philippine region unaccustomed to serious storms, killing at least 450 people as they slept and turning two coastal cities into muddy waterways strewn with overturned vehicles and toppled trees.

With nearly 300 people missing, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and top military officials were to fly to the worst-hit city of Cagayan de Oro on Sunday to help oversee search-and-rescue efforts and deal with thousands of displaced villagers, as the weather began to clear and floodwaters receded. Among the items urgently needed are coffins and body bags, said Benito Ramos, who heads the government's disaster-response agency.

"It's overwhelming. We didn't expect these many dead," Ramos said.

Army officers reported unidentified bodies piled up in morgues in Cagayan de Oro city, where electricity was restored in some areas, although the city of more than 500,000 people remained without tap water.

Most of the victims were asleep Friday night when raging floodwaters cascaded from the mountains after 12 hours of rain from a late-season tropical storm in the southern Mindanao region. The region is unaccustomed to the typhoons that are common elsewhere in the archipelago.

Ayi Hernandez, a former congressman, said he and his family were resting in their home in Cagayan de Oro late Friday when they heard a loud "swooshing sound" and water quickly rose ankle-deep inside. He decided to evacuate to a neighbor's two-story house.

"It was a good thing, because in less than an hour the water rose to about 11 feet (3.3 meters)," filling his home up to the ceiling, he said.

At least 450 people were killed in the floods, Philippine Red Cross Secretary General Gwen Pang and other officials said. At least 229 died in Cagayan de Oro and 144 in nearby Iligan, which has more than 300,000 residents. The rest died in several other southern and central provinces, Pang said.

Many of the bodies were unclaimed after nearly 24 hours, suggesting that entire families had died, she said.

The Office of Civil Defense said 274 people were missing, but Ramos said the number would likely rise as more field reports come in. So far, 437 people have been rescued.

Cagayan de Oro and Iligan were filled with scenes of destruction and desperation.

A swollen river sent floodwaters gushing through neighborhoods that do not usually experience flooding. A man floated in an inner tube in muddy water littered with plastic buckets, pieces of wood and other debris. Ten people in one home stood on a sloping roof, waiting for rescuers even as water still flooded the lower floors.

Local television footage showed muddy water rushing in the streets, sweeping away all sorts of debris. Thick layers of mud coated streets where the waters had subsided. One car was thrown over a concrete fence and others were crushed and piled in a flooded canal.

Ramos attributed the high casualties in Mindanao "partly to the complacency of people because they are not in the usual path of storms" despite four days of warnings by officials that one was approaching.

Thousands of soldiers backed up by hundreds of local police, reservists, coast guard officers and civilian volunteers were mobilized for rescue efforts, but they were hampered by the flooded-out roads and lack of electricity.

The missing included prominent Filipino radio broadcaster Enie Alsonado, who was swept away while trying to save his neighbors, Iligan Mayor Lawrence Cruz said.

Authorities recovered bodies from the mud after the water subsided. Parts of concrete walls and roofs, toppled vehicles and other debris littered the streets.

Rescuers in boats rushed offshore to save people swept out to sea. In Misamis Oriental province, 60 people were plucked from the ocean off El Salvador city, about six miles (10 kilometers) northwest of Cagayan de Oro, said disaster official Teddy Sabuga-a.

Cruz said the Philippine coast guard and other rescuers were scouring the waters off Iligan for survivors or bodies that may have been swept away to sea.

In just 12 hours, Tropical Storm Washi dumped more than a month of average rains on Mindanao. The storm hit the western province of Palawan on Sunday and was expected to blow out of the country into the South China Sea later in the day.

Forecaster Leny Ruiz said records show that storms that follow the same path as Washi come only once in about every 12 years.

Palawan officials said mobilized emergency crews were on standby as the storm approached.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement that the Obama administration offered its "deepest condolences" for the devastation in the southern Philippines.

"The U.S. government stands ready to assist Philippine authorities as they respond to this tragedy," the statement said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with all of those affected."

___

Associated Press writers Oliver Teves and Hrvoje Hranjski contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/weather/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111218/ap_on_re_as/as_philippines_storm

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