RP250 Denmark's National Treasure

 RP250 Denmark's National Treasure

Hans Christian Andersen, celebrated Danish writer, was born in Odense, Denmark, in 1805 to a poor family. After attending various boarding schools, he briefly tried his hand as an actor before getting into writing. Writing would quickly become his life-long passion, so much so that he never had much time for relationships. By the time Andersen passed away in 1875, he had already been declared a "national treasure" by the Danish government.

Andersen is best known for capturing the imaginations of children around the world with his fairy tales. He wrote such classics as The Emperor's New Clothes, The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, and The Princess and the Pea. Even the hit Disney movie Frozen was based on a story by Andersen. Nowadays, it's hard to find someone who hasn't been exposed to at least one of his stories.

One remarkable aspect of Andersen is that he actually wrote all of these stories. Fairy tales tend to be passed down through generations, often adapted slightly to fit the times. Such was the case with the Brothers Grimm, another famous pair of Western fairy tale authors. They would collect and publish folk stories that had existed for centuries. Andersen, on the other hand, relied only on his imagination to weave his fantastic tales.

Hans Christian Andersen's impact on Western literature cannot be overstated. His stories contain all the elements of a good fairy tale: thrills, emotion, and a touch of darkness. The body of work he built up over a lifetime is very impressive. By the time of his death, he had written 168 fairy tales. Since then, his works have been translated into over 150 different languages. People all over the world now know the beauty and mystery of his writing.

RP249 The Code of Knights

 RP249 The Code of Knights

In the Middle Ages in Europe, battles, especially the religious Crusades, were fought on foot and on horseback. Knights—aristocratic warriors—rode horses, commanded men, and were expected to follow certain rules in war. This evolving concept of courage and honor eventually came to be known as chivalry. Though the word itself comes from different names for a fighter on horseback, chivalry is about much more than fighting.

People often refer to the "code of chivalry," but there is no specific written code of behavior. Codes were referenced in poems like "The Song of Roland," which describes loyalty to the Christian church, protection of the weak, honesty, courage, and chivalry as some of the virtues of a knight. Other kings' codes included temperance, hope, justice, prudence, and other virtues.

Chivalry evolved from a code of military conduct to a more expansive concept of how an honorable man should behave at all times. Inevitably, communication between the sexes was included in it. Knights were expected to honor and respect women under all circumstances. Service to the cause of love became an important part of the life of a chivalrous knight; and romantic love became highly idealized. Chivalrous love was even given a name, "courtly love," to separate it from other expressions of romantic love. Courtly love was very ritualized. Knights courted their sweethearts for months or years, giving gifts, performing brave acts, composing works of art, all for only a word or a gesture of approval in return. This love was rarely expected to lead to partnership or marriage. Instead, it was almost like religious worship of a woman. It was exalted, as every other aspect of a knight's life was meant to be.

The current meaning of chivalry comes from this romantic aspect of knightly life. Nowadays, chivalry refers to opening doors, pulling out chairs, and other acts of politeness performed by a man for a woman. It's a surprising modern definition for a word that originally described combat on horseback.

RP248 Shampoo-Do We Really Need It

 RP248 Shampoo-Do We Really Need It?

We wash our hands with soap, brush our teeth with toothpaste, and clean our hair with shampoo. That's the way it's always been, right? Well... maybe not.

Shampoo, as we know it, is only about 100 years old. Before that, people washed their hair with soap once or twice a month. Shampoo has been marketed successfully, but many people now think it isn't good for us. They say shampoo is actually bad for your hair and your scalp. A few key ingredients in shampoo may be the culprits.

Shampoos almost always contain alcohol. The alcohol dries out both your hair and your scalp, eroding a natural oil barrier and leaving you potentially more vulnerable to bacteria. The reason we need conditioner after shampoo is to replace the oil that alcohol strips away. Mineral oil is generally used to make shampoos more gentle, but it can clog pores and cause acne and other skin problems. Sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS, SLES) are cleansers. They make shampoo form bubbles, or lather. Both strip dirt from hair, but both also cause skin irritation. Many natural health activists say SLS and SLES cause eye damage, skin damage, and hormone changes.

Unwashed hair gets greasy, of course. So how should we clean our hair? First, you need to give your hair a few weeks to adjust to the no-shampoo routine. The drying effect of shampoo causes our scalps to produce more oil, leading to greasy hair. When we stop stripping our scalps of oil, however, they will stop overproducing it, and our hair will achieve a balance. After that, hair can be washed occasionally with gentler soaps like baking soda or apple cider vinegar. They say often all we need is to scrub our scalps with water and brush a powder through dry hair to soak up excess oil.

Many people who have stopped shampooing say their hair is more beautiful and more manageable than ever before. Perhaps shampoo really is a sham.

RP247 Joan of Arc

 RP247 Joan of Arc

This person rose from a village to address kings. This person commanded armies, won miraculous victories, and was so feared in battle that some enemies surrendered without even fighting. This saint sat at court one year and the next was burned at the stake. And all before she was 20.

When Joan of Arc was born in Domrémy village in 1412, France was a shambles. France and England had been at war for nearly 100 years. Within France, pro-French and pro-English forces were still fighting, despite a truce. Conditions were violent and unstable.

At about 12, Joan's visions began. Saints appeared and told her to drive the English forces out of France. At that time, the lack of leadership in France meant there was hardly any resistance when pro-English forces attacked. The country was so divided that it didn't even have a crowned king. Joan's visions told her to change these things.

At 16, Joan convinced a relative to take her to the aristocrat Robert de Baudricourt, who could arrange a visit to the royal court. Slowly, Joan convinced people that her visions and her calling were real. Eventually, Baudricourt helped Joan visit the would-be king.

Joan convinced the king, Charles VII, that she was truly the messenger of God. He let her go to the town of Orléans, then blocked by pro-English troops. That began the short but successful army career of this young peasant girl. For the next year, she urged French armies to victories and paved the way for Charles VII to be crowned king of a more unified country.

In 1430, she was captured and put on trial by the king's opponents. They called her Satan's instrument, not God's. She got no real help from her king. She was burned at the stake after a sham trial on May 30, 1431.

In 1456, Joan was proven innocent. In 1920, she was declared a saint. The girl who commanded is now a role model.

RP246 The Cotton Castle

 RP246 The Cotton Castle

Well, it's not actually a castle, and it's certainly not made of cotton. Turkey's Pamukkale, however, is almost as weird.

In Denizli Province, Turkey, are hot springs that have been used by humans for nearly 2,000 years. The hot springs were the site of an ancient Greco-Roman spa town, Hierapolis, and since it was built— and perhaps before then— people have been coming to the hot springs to be healed or just to relax. The minerals in the water there are said to help with asthma, skin conditions, eye conditions, and muscle aches, among other problems.

Those healing minerals— mostly calcium, magnesium sulfate, sodium hydrogen carbonate— are the reason for the Cotton Castle's name. For thousands of years, the water bubbling up out of the many springs has obeyed the law of gravity and gradually flowed downhill. As it went, it deposited calcium and released carbon dioxide and in the process created travertine. This white rock built up gradually, forming terraces of pools, cascading downward. Many terraces have stalactite formations hanging over their sides. The soft-looking white rock makes the entire site look like it's been molded out of a fluffy cloud or out of cotton. It is, of course, much more solid than any cloud, and people can explore the many shallow pools with their milky-looking water and porous stone sides.

There are many pools to bathe in at Pamukkale. One of the most special is the Sacred Pool. The Sacred Pool was the most important bathing spot of the ancient spa town and is still scattered with collapsed pieces of ancient marble columns. More ruins can be seen where Hierapolis once stood. Some surviving parts of the old city are Roman tombs, ancient archways, a theater, and a cave temple. Just as it did in ancient times, the site calls people to be healed or simply to bask in the beauty of nature.

RP245 The Missing Aviatrix

 RP245 The Missing Aviatrix

The first time Amelia Earhart saw an airplane, at age ten, she wasn't impressed. To her, it was "a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting. "Years later, one would speak to her, and everything would change.

At an air fair in Toronto, a stunt pilot dove at Earhart and a friend. Earhart stood her ground. As the plane passed, something happened. Flying obsessed her. She took her first flight in 1920, at age 23. She took her first lesson a few days later, and soon saved enough money to buy her own plane. Then, she went on to a life of breaking records.

Earhart had some accidents at first, either through her error or faults in the plane. Some of her contemporaries doubted her skills. However, after only about a year of lessons, Earhart broke the women's altitude record, taking her plane up to 14,000 feet. In 1923, she got her pilot's license.

In 1928, a phone call changed Amelia Earhart's life. George Putnam, her future husband, rang and asked if she'd like to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. It turned out that Earhart didn't do any of the flying on that trip. Her male copilots did.

However, Earhart was inspired to do solo flights. In 1928, she flew solo from the Atlantic to the Pacific, across North America. In 1932, she flew across the Atlantic again—solo, the first woman to do so. That was the start of many firsts. In 1935, she flew solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland, from Los Angeles to Mexico City, and from Mexico City to New Jersey.

In 1937, Earhart attempted to fly around the world along the equator. She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, made it about two thirds of the way over a month of flights. Then, between New Guinea and Howland Island, something went wrong. Earhart and Noonan disappeared. Their plane has never been found. Though it is a sad ending to Earhart's life, her legend lives on.

RP244 Do Facial Expressions Tell Us All

 RP244 Do Facial Expressions Tell Us All?

If the eyes are the window to the soul, the face is the window to someone's mood. That's what people commonly believe, anyway. The expressions on one's face are the best indicators of the person's emotional state, right?

Yes and no. “There's some sense in which faces express emotion, but only in the sense that everything expresses emotion,” says psychologist James Russell, PhD. “Music does, posture does, words do, tone of voice does, your behavior does. The real question is: Is there anything special about faces?”

Indeed, facial expressions are part of a whole system of actions that result from an emotion. Doctors Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen theorize that emotions cause electrical activity to flow from the brain's emotion center, triggering involuntary facial expressions and other physical actions like changes in heart rate. The key word here is “involuntary.” Different cultures show emotions differently, and humans can learn to hide or mask their expressions. However, it seems that humans can't suppress microexpressions. These are extremely brief flashes of expression that represent a person's true feelings, even when he or she is trying to hide them. Luckily, microexpressions pass too quickly for people to notice them most of the time.

There may be something special about faces, though. Some research shows that facial expressions do more than show emotions. They are emotions. Researcher Carroll Izard says, “Emotion at one level of analysis is neuromuscular activity of the face.” Studies have shown that asking people to assume expressions of anger, fear, happiness, and other basic emotions actually triggers those emotional reactions. People who are asked to smile experience a positive mood change; people who frown tend to feel worse than they did before.

Perhaps there's something to the idea of “fake it till you make it.” Smiling when you' re unhappy may help you on your way to happiness. Pay attention to the look that's on your face. It may affect you more than you think.