THE BIG QUESTIONS
My cat was asleep on the couch next to me and hadn’t moved for an hour – until I began to peel an orange, then she was off like a bat out of hell. Why would that be? – R
Although oranges and other citrus fruits are toxic to cats as they can’t break down the essential oils the fruit contain, cats don’t have a sweet tooth, so they won’t eat them.
The reason your cat ran off is simply that it has a much greater sense of smell and they find citrus smells overpowering.
I’ve just had my first Covid vaccine, I’m pleased to say, but what was the first vaccine, and what was it for? – T
Edward Jenner (1749-1823) was the English country doctor who pioneered vaccination.
In Jenner’s time, smallpox killed around one in 10 people, and he knew that milkmaids seemed to be immune to the disease.
Exploring further, he thought that the pus in the blisters milkmaids received from cowpox (a disease similar to smallpox, but much less virulent) protected them from smallpox.
In 1796, he injected a young boy, James Phipps with the pus, in the first vaccination ever.
Boney M – where on earth did they get that name from? – M
The band was put together by German producer Frank Farian, who had recorded a dance track, Baby Do You Wanna Bump in 1974.
He needed singers to perform the song on TV and hired four members who became Boney M.
The name came after Farian saw an Australian detective series, Boney, and he thought it sounded good, adding M for no particular reason.