BY JOURNAL TIMES STAFF | Posted: Friday, May 2, 2008 12:00 am
How do vending machines make coffee?
Very quickly, with very hot water.
The vending machine industry boasts annual sales of more than 5.5 billion cups of hot beverages. And coffee is the hottest seller.
On average, it takes seven to 15 seconds for a vending machine to make a cup of coffee. Most of the coffee vending machines are fresh brewers, and brew by forcing hot filtered water between 180 and 200 degrees through fresh grounds.
Other machines mix the hot water with freeze-dried crystals, like instant coffee.
The various grinds and crystals of coffee are specially formulated for vending machines, similar to coffee being tailored to your home coffee maker.
The water in the vending machine usually passes through two filters - one to remove impurities and another to prevent grounds from reaching your cup.
The temperature of the coffee drops by at least 15 degrees once it reaches the cup.
But the coffee needs to be that hot or it wouldn't have that rich, just-vended taste.
Learn more about the world of vending machines at the home page of the National Automatic Merchandising Association at: http://www.vending.org
Is the glue left on an ice cream cone after you peel away the paper edible?
It is edible. It also isn't glue - it's corn syrup. Plain, old, ordinary, food-grade corn syrup.
"It is safe to eat," said Dean Peters, director of public relations and communication for International Dairy Queen. "It's absolutely 100 percent safe to eat."
Peters went further and said the paper wrap and the ink in the paper wrap are also made of food-grade material and are also edible.
"If you wanted to, you could eat the whole works," Peter said. "Not that it'd be that tasty - we advise eating the soft serve and the cone."
How do hummingbirds migrate? On the wings of geese, or do they fly on their own?
The notion that hummingbirds migrate on the wings of geese is a myth. It just doesn't happen. Geese can fly at altitudes of more than 20,000 feet. They're strong and tough and fly in packs.
Hummingbirds are fragile, weighing between 2½ and 4 grams, and are no bigger than a baby dill pickle. They wouldn't survive the cold at such lofty heights. Hummingbirds fly much lower than other birds during migration and skirt tree tops and waves. They also migrate alone.
Other than that, hummingbirds migrate like any other bird. They fly south in the fall, when it starts turning cold, and fly north in the spring, as the weather warms.
Most fly to central or south America.
This information is courtesy of Operation Ruby Throat - The Hummingbird Project. Learn more at: http://www.rubythroat.org
Is "woken" a word?
Yes. "Woken," an irregular verb, is the past participle of "wake." This is according to the American Heritage Dictionary.
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