“Slowly vary the angle of the nozzle [of a garden hose] from straight forward to directly up, and note the changing distance the water travels. Initially, as the angle increases, so does the distance. However, when the nozzle is at a forty-five-degree angle, the water reaches its farthest; increasing the angle still more only causes the angle to retreat. As Galileo first noted for artillery, maximum range is achieved at forty-five degrees, with shorter distances being traveled for angles both greater and less than that.”

420 feet is also the limit for the cohesiveness of the water column of a tree.

“Fruits are not night foods. They should be eaten in the morning, because they are an eye-opener, a tonic, the eliminators of waste that has been produced in your body during sleep.”

“It is very interesting how most essential oils useful in respiratory ailments are those that are distilled from the bark, leaves, berries, and branches of certain trees.”

“On a warm summer day the movement of water through a large tree is rapid. As much water is being evaporated from its leaves as a strong man with two buckets and a ladder and working as hard as possible, could carry from a ground level up to the very top of the tree.”

“Tension in the water column [of a tree] does not vary only with height, though. The environment at large affects it, too. At dawn, when the air is foggy and moist, little water evaporates from the leaves, and tension in the xylem is just what is predicted by gravity: about 180 pounds per square inch [at 360 feet in height]. But at noon, dry air and sunlight conspire to increase evaporation from the leaves, and the tension in the water column increases to some 260 pounds per square inch. [George] Koch [a plant physiologist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff] performed laboratory tests on the same plant tissues he had measured in the field, and the tests showed that the measured tension on the water column in the dry, sunlit air at noon is right at the limit of its cohesive strength.”

“Strangely enough […], the flowers we always use at Easter are for the most part earth-bound. Lovely as they are, lilies and narcissi and tulips do not stand far above the ground, and even such early-flowering shrubs as forsythia and lilac and spiraea rise but little higher. We seldom gather flowers from trees, unless they are low trees with branches easily seized from the ground, like hawthorn and cherry and crabapple. Flowers that aspire nearest to heaven, on tall trees [all the conifers, all oaks, hickories, maples, beaches, elms, poplars, willows, hackberries, walnuts, sycamores], we seldom seek.”

“… in the olden days there were plenty of medicinal trees everywhere. No diseases would be contracted if one breathed the air that had blown caressing those trees and leaves. The trees grown in those days were the peepal tree (banyan), the country fig tree and the neem or margosa tree.”

The brain needs protein for breakfast.

“Motor activity, sleep, food, and water consumption, body temperature, and the rates at which many glands secrete their hormones – all those vary with rhythms whose periods approximate 24h. Thus, the concentration of cortisol in the blood of human subjects has a characteristic 24-hour rhythm; it is maximal in the morning hours, and attains its nadir in the evening. When people reverse their activity cycles (for example, by working during the hours of darkness and sleeping during daylight), their plasma cortisol rhythms require 5-10 days to adapt to the new environmental conditions. […] Another cyclic environmental input – dietary protein – has also been shown to generate a daily rhythm. Amino acids consumed as protein travel to the liver via the portal circulation after each meal and cause the protein-synthesizing units (polysomes) to become aggregated. This accelerates the synthesis of a hepatic enzyme, tyrosine transaminase.”

“If the sight of a giant hairy spider has you trembling with fear, you will be surprised to learn that the cure may be a dose of the stress hormone, cortisol. […] This is in contrast to most theories that say cortisol triggers stress.”

“Treatment with cortisol can reduce phobia-associated fear and anxiety, according to findings by researchers from Switzerland, Germany, and the United States …”

“1. Cortisol secretion is stimulated during REM sleep. 2. GH secretion is stimulated during SWS. 3. Prolactin secretion is inhibited during REM sleep.”

“Not eating breakfast and having a large evening meal would be like going on a thousand mile trip, then checking and adding oil after one gets there. It is usually too late to do any good.”

“The fructose molecule exists in several different shapes when dissolved in water, and the different shapes have different effects on our sweet receptors. The sweetest shape, a six-corner ring, predominates in cold, somewhat acid solutions; in warm, hot conditions, this shape shifts to less sweet five-corner rings.”

COLD + ACID = MORNING.

“We all need food in the morning to resupply ourselves with quick sources of glucose, which is needed to fuel the brain. Studies show that people who eat breakfast are more productive at school and work than those who skip it.”

“If the insulin hypothesis has any validity, we are in starvation mode every morning. Our brain will try to keep every calorie we’ve got. Eating little or no breakfast gives the brain the message that starvation is continuing while fuel need increases. The brain responds by making sure fuel stores are protected, and no calorie will be given up without a struggle. Not eating breakfast is probably a great way to gain weight.”