Wikipedia "occasional" word of the day: Retrodiction

I received an email today from someone who mentioned the ability to predict the past and called it retrodiction. I laughed...shared it with others, then was dumbfounded when I found out that it is a real word...well...at least according to Wikipedia.

So...who would like to leave a comment with some retrodictions?

Wikipedia "occasional" word of the day: involution

At an all-day meeting today, one of my colleagues used the word "involution", which made many a brow furl. What was that? What does that mean? How's that?

Three of us headed to Wikipedia for the translation and had a good time. The definitions led to many more raised brows and chuckles:

• An involution is a function that is its own inverse, so that f(f(x)) = x for all x in the domain of f
• Any involution is a bijection.
• Examples of involutions include: identity map, circle inversion, the ROT13 transformation, and the Beaufort polyalphabetic cipher.

We know so little...

Wikipedia "occasional" word of the day: puppy breath

Since my last "occasional" word of the day post was of the animal genre, something at work made me continue on with the trend.

A colleague has a new puppy named Lucy and has brought it in the past couple of days. We noticed the ever present puppy breath when she opened her mouth and it caused me to wonder two things: where does it come from? and why does it go away?

Naturally, I knew where to turn. I present to you today's Wikipedia word of the day: puppy breath.

Alternatively, the scent could potentially arise from trace elements or vapors of the milk and digestive fluids emanating from the puppy's stomach up through its esophagus via the natural process of burping to relieve gaseous build-up.

Puppy breath tends to disappear abruptly at about six to ten weeks of age, when it is replaced by the typical "dog breath" of adult dogs.

Since Lucy is no longer in contact with her mother, it isn't from trace elements of the milk...it appears to be burp residue. Sadly...there is no Wikipedia link (not yet!) to dog breath, but "new car smell" is there. (Bonus day...two wikipedia links!)

How do you feel about puppy breath? (Count me: a fan!)