Maybe Popeye Wasn't as Strong as We all Thought

In 1870, some German scientists did a study to find the iron content in spinach.  Dr, E von Wolf published his findings, but with one minor error. His decimal point was one spot too far to the right. So, for example, instead of 1 serving of spinach containing 0.8 mg of iron, his study claimed it contained 8 mg of iron. With red meat containing 2.2 mg of iron in a serving size, this made spinach seem like an iron gold-mine (metal puns!).


So what does this study have to do with Popeye? Well, the error wasn't fixed until the 1930's, and people had spent decades believing that spinach had 10 times as much iron as it really did.  When the character of Popeye was created, he found his almost super human strength from spinach.  By the time the error was found, sales in spinach had already increased by 30% due to the comic strip. The new, accurate information was less easy to spread than the myth that Popeye was helping to perpetuate. Even to this day some people still believe that spinach has a higher iron content than red meat. And the creator of Popeye certainly wasn't going to switch out his iconic can of spinach for a slab of beef, or decrease his hero's strength by a factor of 10! If you'd like to read a lot more about spinach, iron, and Popeye (and when I say a lot, I mean 28 pages) click here!

For those of still believing that spinach is the iron motherload, all it has to say for itself is "I am what I am, and that's all that I am."

The Single Most Expensive Hyphen in History

The Mariner 1 was launched July 22nd, 1962.  After 293 seconds, the craft was commanded to destroy itself.  The purpose of Mariner 1 was to fly by Venus and report findings. However, due to a single missing hyphen in the computing code, the space craft veered off course substantially.  The new trajectory could have sent it into the North Atlantic shipping lanes or into a populated area.  The destruction command was sent with merely 6 seconds to spare.  After separation from the first stage, the craft would not have been able to destroy itself.  In total, the missing hyphen cost NASA $80 million dollars, making it the most expensive hyphen in history.  Click here to read more about the Mariner 1 and its subsequent crafts (all 10 of them).

Not every typo is a catastrophe.

Sometimes, typos are just down right funny. Have some prime examples:

The watermelons probably shouldn't see what's about to happen to them anyway.

"See honey, the sign says it will be fine. Now park in the fire lane!"

Yes Reebok, that includes editing and spell checking.









And finally, the worst of the worst. Or maybe the best of the best if you look at it from a humorous viewpoint.

Thinks of the children, road workers! The poor, poor shcool children!

You never know when you'll have to put your spelling and grammar skills to the test. Stay sharp. And maybe stay in shcool.