FOOTPRINTS

The first known mention of Trick-or-Treating occurred in 1927.  

Nearly 600 Million pounds of candy is purchased for Halloween each year in the United States.

Halloween has its roots in the Gaelic festival, Samhain which when translated means "End of Summer".

Halloween is the second largest commercial holiday in the United States. It ranks second after Christmas  

New York City throws the biggest Halloween parade in the United States.  

The fear of Halloween is called Samhainophobia.  

For a mere $125,000, you, too, can purchase a trip to ascend some 20 miles into Earth's upper atmosphere onboard a luxury space balloon.   Space Perspective, a human space flight company in Florida, on Wednesday began selling tickets for its inaugural voyage way high into the sky at $125,000 a pop. The trip is scheduled for late 2024 aboard the Spaceship Neptune, a hot air balloon-style craft lifted by hydrogen. Anyone interested in the trip must pay a $1,000 deposit.     The company said it plans to send eight passengers on a "leisurely" ascension into space from a launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, an excursion in which they will reportedly travel up to 20 miles above the Earth's surface for a "profoundly life-changing" experience.  

As of 24/10/2021, 1 Bitcoin equals ₹45.50 lakh.  

Petrol price in India. Petrol for two wheelers and four wheelers in India is now 33% more expensive than jet fuel. ATF (Jet Fuel) in Delhi costs ₹79,020.16 per kilolitre (i.e., ₹79 per litre) whereas petrol in Delhi costs ₹105.84 per litre.  

Morning saliva is rich in healing and has anti-inflamatory & anti-bacterial properties and can help treat stye, pimples, acne, etc.  

D o Ghosts really exist? According to Science, Ghosts cannot exist. This is because, if they exist they will be made up of pure energy as by definition they do not have any matter. To stay forever they would need some continuous supply of energy. Even if they exist, they won't disturb you as they will be spending their own energy which will reduce their lifespan. It's all thermodynamics.  

If Jeff Bezos spend ₹7.31 crore per day, it will take him about 485 years to spend his entire wealth. His total networth is approximately $190.8 Billion (₹14.31 lakh crore).  

Birds have developed an ability that let half their brain sleep while keeping the other half awake. Researchers report that ducks manage this trick to stay alert for predators while still getting some shut-eye. The findings suggest that different parts of the vertebrate brain can sleep independently of each other.    Although researchers have known about this so-called "unihemispheric" sleep for 3 decades, they could only guess why this particular kind of shut-eye evolved in birds. But when filming mallards for a different experiment, sleep researcher Niels Rattenborg of Indiana State University noticed a remarkable pattern.    The sleep pattern is as important as the amount, says Jerome Siegel, a sleep researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles. Each animal has evolved its way to balance the need for sleep with the need for safety.  

They looked identical and even shared the same name, but the two prisoners pictured were actually different people and their remarkable case helped bring in the era of fingerprint identification. The man on the left was called Will West, the man on the right William West, and they were both sentenced to jail at Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas over 100 years ago. The arrival of Will West in 1903 caused the records clerk at the prison considerable confusion because he was convinced he'd processed him two years previously. The clerk, M.W. McClaughry, asked Will West if he'd ever been to the prison before. West said he hadn't. McClaughry then set about taking his Bertillon measurements – named after the French policeman Alphonse Bertillon – which was the usual method of identifying people and involved recording the dimensions of key physical features. McClaughry, still convinced the man before he had already been to the prison, looked up his name in his filing system and fou...

To avoid being heard by sharks, marine iguanas can stop their own hearts for up to 45 minutes.  

Californian company the Gateway Foundation released plans for a cruise ship-style hotel that could one day float above the Earth's atmosphere. Then called the Von Braun Station, this futuristic concept, comprised of 24 modules connected by elevator shafts that make up a rotating wheel orbiting the Earth, was scheduled to be fully operational by 2027.    Fast forward a couple of years and the hotel has a new name, Voyager Station, and it's set to be built by Orbital Assembly Corporation, a new construction company run by former pilot John Blincow, who also heads up the Gateway Foundation. In a recent interview with CNN Travel, Blincow explained there had been some Covid-related delays, but construction on the space hotel is expected to begin in 2026, and a sojourn in space could be a reality by 2027.    "We're trying to make the public realize that this golden age of space travel is just around the corner. It's coming. It's coming fast," said Blincow.