npower Reveals Brits Baffled About History of Household Items

npower research has found that Brits believe many appliances were invented almost four decades later than they were.

2013-02-08

WORCESTER, ENGLAND, February 08, 2013 (Press-News.org) A survey released by npower shows that Brits are baffled when it comes to the history of technology, with the average guess 36 years out.

npower research showed that while many believe these life-changing gadgets came into existence in the last 50 or 60 years, many are actually more than a century old.

Take the dishwasher for example. Invented in the 1890s by Josephine Cochran, the dishwasher is a Victorian invention and has been around for more than 120 years. Yet Brits believe it was actually invented in the 1970s, more than 80 years out.

Another big misconception was central heating, which was invented in in 1889 by Edwin Rudd, but is believed to be a 1950s invention by 16% of the British public. Similarly, just 4% knew that the telephone was invented in the 1870s and just 8% identified the vacuum cleaner as an invention of the 1900s.

The research was commissioned by npower to support an online energy archive on Historypin.com called 'Remember How We Used To', which invites the public to view and share pictures of appliances through the decades.

TV's Tony Robinson, who is working with npower to promote the online energy archive on Historypin.com, commented: "We see new appliances being invented all the time and so we tend to think ourselves as the generation which has paved the way for future technology. However, a lot of new gadgets today are built on the legacy of what has come before, and it is actually the inventors of the late 1800s and early 1900s that have shaped the technological world we live in today."

Using research compiled by Warwick Business School, npower's online archive on Historypin also hosts an interactive timeline detailing the introduction of gadgets, from washing machines to games consoles, which have changed our lives over the years.

Tony Robinson added: "For the majority of us, inventions such as the television, vacuum cleaner and microwave occurred before our lifetime and so we find it hard to place these in a certain decade.

"However, by using npower's inventions timeline, we can plot the introduction of new technology over the last 100 years and also see the subsequent effect it had on lives by browsing through the photos in the archive.

"Technology has developed at an astonishing pace, from the first telephone in the 19th century to the multi-faceted smart phones today, and so looking back at the roots of our mod-cons helps us to really appreciate what we take for granted in modern day life."

npower's online energy archive 'Remember How We Used To...' can be found at www.historypin.com/rememberhow. Whether it's a picture of the family's first washing machine, or children avidly playing on a games console in the 1980s, npower is encouraging the general public to share their memories, pictures and videos on the online montage.

PR Contact:
Sunita Patel
Bridgwater Road
Worcester
WR4 9FP
0845 070 2807
www.npower.com

Notes to editors:
Survey completed by One Poll with 2,000 UK adults in January 2013.

About npower
npower is one of the UK's largest electricity suppliers and has 6.6 million customer accounts across the UK.

npower has been awarded platinum status in Business in the Community's CR Index and is one of 29 companies to have achieved the CommunityMark since its launch. All CommunityMark achievers have been recognised for demonstrating excellence in their holistic and strategic approach to community investment.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Molton Brown Certified by Cruelty Free International

2013-02-08

Molton Brown has been awarded the Leaping Bunny stamp of approval by Cruelty Free International, certifying all of the brand's products to be free from animal tests under the international Humane Standards. This rigorous standard stipulates that no animal testing is conducted or commissioned for finished cosmetic products or ingredients by the company, its laboratories or its suppliers. Knowing that ethical shoppers recognise the Leaping Bunny as a trusted mark, Molton Brown is pleased to be able to place the Leaping Bunny logo on packaging appearing over the coming ...

MARINA, America's Original Fitness Recording Artist, Loses 100 Pounds "Singing Off The Pounds!"

2013-02-08

High-nrg singer MARINA is a 53-year-old mother of 3, a Billboard charting recording artist, certified fitness trainer, casting director, choreographer, writer/producer/violinist. MARINA has lost 100 pounds, been married 30 years and raised 3 grown children ages 19, 21 and 26. Infomercial television products call on MARINA to actually find those people and transform them into those beautiful before and afters we see on TV. She gets them to lose weight by singing and dancing off those pounds! She has written hundreds of songs we hear every day in our fitness classes and on ...

High-energy X-rays shine light on mystery of Picasso's paints

2013-02-07

ARGONNE, Ill. (Feb. 6, 2013) -- The Art Institute of Chicago teamed up with Argonne National Laboratory to unravel a decades-long debate among art scholars about what kind of paint Picasso used to create his masterpieces. The results published last month in the journal Applied Physics A: Materials Science & Processing adds significant weight to the widely held theory that Picasso was one of the first master painters to use common house paint rather than traditional artists' paint. That switch in painting material gave birth to a new style of art marked by canvasses covered ...

Social media may prove useful in prevention of HIV, STDs, study shows

2013-02-07

Facebook and other social networking technologies could serve as effective tools for preventing HIV infection among at-risk groups, new UCLA research suggests. In a study published in the February issue of the peer-reviewed journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases, researchers found that African American and Latino men who have sex with men voluntarily used health-related Facebook groups, which were created by the study's investigators, to discuss such things as HIV knowledge, stigma and prevention and ultimately to request at-home HIV testing kits. "Researchers, policymakers ...

Volcano location could be greenhouse-icehouse key

2013-02-07

HOUSTON -- (Feb. 6, 2013) -- A new Rice University-led study finds the real estate mantra "location, location, location" may also explain one of Earth's enduring climate mysteries. The study suggests that Earth's repeated flip-flopping between greenhouse and icehouse states over the past 500 million years may have been driven by the episodic flare-up of volcanoes at key locations where enormous amounts of carbon dioxide are poised for release into the atmosphere. "We found that Earth's continents serve as enormous 'carbonate capacitors,'" said Rice's Cin-Ty Lee, the lead ...

Surgical procedure appears to improve outcomes after bleeding stroke

2013-02-07

A minimally invasive procedure to remove blood clots in brain tissue after hemorrhagic stroke appears safe and may also reduce long-term disability, according to late-breaking research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2013. Of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have intracerebral hemorrhages (ICH) each year, most are severely debilitated, said Daniel Hanley, M.D., lead author and professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Md. ICH is the most common type of bleeding stroke. It occurs when ...

Southern diet could raise your risk of stroke

2013-02-07

Eating Southern-style foods may be linked to a higher risk of stroke, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2013. In the first large-scale study on the relationship between Southern foods and stroke, researchers characterized a Southern diet by a high intake of foods such as fried chicken, fried fish, fried potatoes, bacon, ham, liver and gizzards, and sugary drinks such as sweet tea. In addition to being high in fat, fried foods tend to be heavily salted. "We've got three major factors working together in ...

Almost 8 percent of US stroke survivors may have suicidal thoughts

2013-02-07

Nearly one in 12 American stroke survivors may have contemplated suicide or wished themselves dead, according to a study presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2013. The proportion of stroke survivors who contemplated suicide was striking, compared with patients with other health conditions, said Amytis Towfighi, M.D., lead author of the study and an assistant professor of Clinical Neurology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and chair of the Department of Neurology at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation ...

Infant, child stroke survivors prone to seizures, epilepsy

2013-02-07

About one-third of American infants and children who suffer bleeding into brain tissue, may later have seizures and as many as 13 percent will develop epilepsy within two years, according to new research reported at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2013. Bleeding into brain tissue is a type of stroke called intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Each year, an estimated 6.4 newborns and children per every 100,000 in the United States suffer strokes. About half of the strokes are hemorrhagic, typically caused by rupturing of weakened or malformed ...

Some stroke patients whose life support is withdrawn may have achieved a less-than-ideal

2013-02-07

More than a third of patients who suffer a major bleeding in the brain and have their life support withdrawn might have eventually regained an acceptable level of functioning if life support had been sustained, suggests a new study presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2013. In the United States, 10 percent of the estimated 795,000 strokes each year are intracerebral hemorrhages (ICH). ICH is the most common type of bleeding stroke and it occurs when a weakened blood vessel inside the brain ruptures and leaks blood into surrounding ...

npower Reveals Brits Baffled About History of Household Items

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: