Hammer-Head Bat

Ok, just a bit of advice. If you're listening to a comedy/science podcast, don't let your mind wander too much. No Such Thing As A Fish is one of my favorite podcasts (I'll tell you more about that later), and I got distracted for a moment, then came back to the sentence 'the hammer-head bat looks like a moose'. I was pretty sure I heard that wrong, so I took it back 30 seconds, then I heard it again, so I looked it up. 

Yeah, that checks out. Wow. No wonder it's known as a flying moose. The picture is from the Live Science link below. 

Before you start thinking that you'll be meeting these bats some dark night, they're only in Africa. They're the largest bats in continental Africa, but they aren't the largest bats overall--those are a different group known as flying foxes that are seriously giant, with a 5 foot wingspan, and they range from Madagascar to Australia (yet another thing there that wants to kill me?). Both the flying foxes and the moose above eat fruit though, mostly figs apparently, so there's nothing to worry about there either. 

Other than their strange heads, one thing I feel I need to tell you about them is that, sometimes, when a group of males meet up and want a girlie, they'll find a group of trees and settle into their own roost, then they'll honk to try to make themselves more attractive to mates, and the girls get to just peruse the options. Kinda like window-shopping. 

If you want to know more or see more pictures, please investigate the sources below. They're kinda fun and I think people will enjoy seeing more pictures of them. 

Sources:

Bat Conservation International-- Hammer-Head Bat

Animal Diversity Web-- Hammer Head Bat

iNaturalist- Hammer Headed Fruit Bat

Live Science-- Hammer Headed Fruit Bat

IFL Science-- Hammerhead Bat

Fact Animal-- 9 Hammer Head Bat Facts

The Squirrel with the fluffiest tail

 So, I told you about the Rainbow Squirrel, which is the world's biggest. And, unfortunately, I do have to point out that the best pictures of them have the contrast up way high so that they're so strikingly colorful. I acknowledge that, but I still love how beautiful they are. 

Now, I'm going to tell you about the squirrel with the largest tail, compared to it's body. The Tufted Ground Squirrel, Rheithrosciurus macrotis, is found in Borneo, and is also known as the vampire squirrel. It's tail is larger than it's body, and it's awesome. No one is really sure why it's got such a big tail, but there are a few theories that it's so that it's harder for a predator to grab them or something.

And because I know you're curious, it's known as the vampire squirrel because there are stories about this squirrel hanging out in lower branches and jumping down to rip open the throat of innocent deer to get at the blood. This has not been confirmed and may just be made up by the locals as a theory of something. 

Not much is known about these furry creatures, but they're adorable. (And I might have added them to the long list of things that might kill me but I still want to pet.)

These pictures come from the article below from Popular Science. 

If you want more pictures or are curious and want to know more, please look at the sources below. There isn't a lot more known right now, but still. 

Sources:

Science Magazine- Vampire Squirrel

Business Insider- Video of a Vampire Squirrel

The Independent-- The World's Fluffiest Tail

Popular Science-- This Squirrel Breaks Record for Fluffiest Tail

The Cockroach Hall of Fame Museum

 Plano, Texas, used to be home to the Cockroach Hall of Fame Museum. It's closed down now, but it's still worth a thought. 

It isn't a museum about the variety of cockroaches or anything like that though, it's actually a bunch of little dioramas with the dead cockroaches dressed up like famous people, such as Liberoache. Micheal Bohdan put the museum together and had it as a side business of sorts, but it closed in 2012 when he retired and moved to Phoenix. He has hopes to be able to put it back together, but he hasn't found anywhere to do it yet, and since it's been so long, he might not at all. 

I couldn't find nearly as many sources about this as I'd hoped, so I apologize. I'd been hoping to find more about the different exhibits he had, but the only ones I could really find were Liberoache and the Statue of Liberty, roach version. Those are in the sources below. I considered copying a picture over, but some people really hate the sight of a cockroach, so I'll let you find those pictures on your own. 

If you're curious and want to know more, google and the sources below can help. 

Sources: 

Esteem Education-- Cockroach Hall of Fame

Plano Magazine-- Roach Hall of Fame

Roadside America- Cockroach Hall of Fame

Rainbow Squirrels

 So, I want to start by apologizing for disappearing. I've got a really bad cold right now and actually had to go to the doctor for prescription cough syrup. It tastes like artificial cherry soap, and I really hope I don't have to take it long. 

But, on to more interesting things. Rainbow Squirrels. 

Ok, it's actually the Malabar Giant Squirrel, the largest squirrel in the world, but it's also known as a Rainbow Squirrel because it's pretty colorful. 

This picture is from the Live Science article on Rainbow Squirrels, link below. 

This picture is from the Smithsonian article, link below. 

Normally I'd talk about them a lot more, but not today. Sorry. They're giant, they're colorful, and they live in India. If you want to know more, go to the sources below to learn more if you're interested. I would suggest at least looking at the pictures of them, because they're beautiful. 

Sources:

Smithsonian-- Giant Technicolor Squirrels exist

Live Science-- Indian Giant Squirrel

BBC Discover Wildlife--Rainbow Squirrels

Animal Diversity Web-- Ratufa Indica

Animalia-- Indian Giant Squirrel

RCW 70.54.050--Stay home if you're sick

 To be more specific, this is for the Revised Code of Washington that states it's a misdemeanor crime to go into public and knowingly expose someone else to your contagious illness. 

This law is only for Washington State in the United States of America, but it's a good rule, and I wanted to share it because I've got a bad cold and I'm in Washington state, so...why not tell everyone this law that I find so amusing? 

Just one source this time--the actual law. 

Source:

Washington State Legislature- RCW 70.54.050

Rogeting and Sinister Buttocks

I was listening to a podcast called 'A Way With Words', and they brought up the idea of Rogeting, which I then had to look up a bit more, test it myself, and share with everyone. 

So, the basics of this is that Rogeting is where a student plagiarizes something they don't understand well and uses the thesaurus to replace each word so it won't be flagged as plagiarism. 

The problem with this is, to quote an old meme I saw a while ago, English synonyms aren't always good. There's a lot of difference between going for the weekend to a 'cottage in a meadow' or a 'cabin in the woods', and 'forgive me father for I have sinned' is very different from 'sorry, daddy, I've been naughty'. 

There's also a lot of words that have more than one meaning, such as 'set', which could be replaced with 'place' or with 'collection' depending on what you're doing with it. Or, looking at older English for some words, they mean something then that is different from what a thesaurus would tell you to use for right now, such as gay meaning homosexual or cheerful. 

The weird use of a thesaurus here has led to it's own issues, with 'left behind' being turned into 'sinister buttocks', since 'left' is sometimes referred to as sinister because that's the Latin word for it, and behind is also used to reference a body part that is always behind us. 

So, just for myself, to test it, I decided to try a few phrases. 

May the Force Be With You=Could the Influence Happen Beside you

I'm going to walk to the dog=yours truly traveling near promenade the pooch

Couch Potato=Phrase Vegetable

And, as my last one, 

A Comedy of Errors= Ampere Entertainment of Blunders

So, try it yourself, or use the sources below to find more information about Rogeting/Rogetism. 

Sources:

The Guardian- Rogeting

Slate-- The Right-Click Thesaurus and Rogeting

PC Mag- Definition of Rogeting

Big Think-- Rogetism

Canadian Perspective on Academic Dishonesty- Rogeting

Canada's Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve

 Yeah, you read that right. Canada has a strategic maple syrup reserve. It's actually pretty cool, because it's to make sure that there is always maple syrup available, but it also sounds a bit ridiculous. 

Maple Syrup is dependent on weather, just like any other crop, and with the shifting weather patterns recently, it has had a few issues. The reserve means that it won't disappear on us if they have a bad year, and basically protects the market overall. It also means that the people who work the trees don't have to worry about storing the maple sugar themselves. Since the people in charge of the Reserve buy all the maple syrup to sell on themselves, the growers also have a bit more protection since they don't have to worry about advertising or figuring out pricing for the syrup, which makes it a lot simpler on them. 

Located in Quebec, the reserve is set up to be able to hold about 130 million pounds of maple syrup, which is a lot, between three warehouses. Unfortunately, it's currently at a 16 year low, with only 7% of what was there four years ago. If the weather keeps going like this, the price of real maple syrup might skyrocket and it might disappear. Well, until they can find somewhere else that has the right conditions for gathering maple syrup. 

Beyond the existence of the reserve, there is some hilarity over a heist that happened. It's actually been turned into a comedy by Amazon, the Sticky Situation, if you're interested in that. The story is that some workers managed to steal over 18 million dollars worth of maple syrup by taking barrels out, emptying them, then taking the barrels back. In the beginning, they filled the barrels with water again, but towards the end, they didn't bother. That's what led to their downfall, as an inspector ended up noticing the light barrel and therefore investigating further. It took a while to track down all the people involved in this smuggling ring, and figure out how many of the thousands of barrels were still syrup--which was less than half, according to some sources. 

If you're curious about it, look it up or read more in the sources below. 

Sources:

Quebec Product producers

BBC Maple Syrup Reserve

Reuters- Quebec unlocks world's only maple syrup reserve

NPR- Maple Syrup Reserve

Quartz- Canada's Maple Syrup Reserve

The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist

Canadian Encyclopedia-- The Great Canadian Maple Syrup heist

Hawaiian Alphabet

 The usual English alphabet, the one that I'm using to write here, has 26 letters. 

The Hawaiian alphabet has 13, one of which is the 'okina', the apostrophe used as a glottal stop, which is basically a stutter in sound. They also have an accent mark to elongate a sound, which is called a kohako. 

They have 5 vowels, like normal, and 8 consonants, along with the okina for a thirteenth. Their alphabet is A, E, I, O, U, plus H, K, L, M, N, P, W. 

The first time I heard about this, I thought of the words I know in Hawaiian and tried to figure out the letters from those. I got pretty close, but I didn't consider the okina because the apostrophe is considered punctuation in English, so I assumed the same for Hawaiian. The words I knew were Hawaii, Wiki, Mahalo, mele kalikimaka, and humuhumunukunukuapua'a, which covered all of the alphabet aside from the okina, so I drove myself crazy trying to figure out what the 13th letter was, and failed. 

If you're interested or want to know more, please feel free to Google everything or look at the sources below. 

Sources:

Go Hawaii-- Language

Kona Boys- Hawaiian Alphabet

PoliLingua--Hawaiian Language History, Features, and Place in the Modern World

Historic Hawaii-- The First Printing, a written Hawaiian language

Hawaii Public Radio--A Teacher's Mission to Recover the forgotten Hawaiian Alphabet

Hilbert’s Infinite Grand Hotel

This paradox is used to explain how infinity plus one can work, or infinity doubled.

Imagine a hotel with infinite rooms and infinite guests in those rooms. But, oh the horror, someone new appears and needs a room.

The simple answer he came up with was that everyone moved over one room, so the newcomer gets room 1, and whoever was in room 1 before is now in room 2 and so on.

But, suddenly a bus shows up with an infinite number more of guests. Where do they go?

His answer was that he’d ask everyone to go to the room number double theirs, so room 3 goes to room 6 and so on, which leaves all the odd numbers open for the new guests to use.

If you want to know more, check the sources below.

Source:

Math Stack Exchange- Hilbert’s Hotel

Teaching Calculus- Hilbert’s Hotel

Science ABC—Hilbert’s Hotel

Plus Maths--Hilbert's Hotel

Britannica—Hilbert’s Hotel

Dendranthropology

The theory that man came from trees. As in we are created from trees, not that our ancestors were swinging through trees. 

This theory first popped up in the 1840's, and disappeared pretty quickly. I just wanted to bring it up because it's worth a good laugh and I love trying to imagine both how they came to this conclusion, and what people like us descended from trees would be (nymphs, ents, dryads, etc mostly). 

The easiest explanation I have for how this study came about is that some creation stories suggest that trees were important to the creation of humans. I'm not sure if they include the Garden of Eden as one of the trees humans owe life to, and I'm not sure exactly who has stories of us coming from trees like this, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't a culture that suggested that we're born of trees. 

Normally I'd assume that this is a crackpot theory that never got any traction, but the fact that it's a word that is recognized by a few dictionaries suggests that it had more than a single scientist working on it, or that they were very loud about their chosen theory and the field they created for themselves. 

Either way, I hope you got a laugh out of this. 

Sources/Proof I'm not making this up:

Umbrere-- Dendranthropology

The Free Dictionary--Dendranthropology

Oxford English Dictionary--Dendrantopology

English Encyclopedia--Dendranthrology

New Zealand Bird of the Year

 New Zealand is a bit of a fun place, and they've got a lot of interesting animals to talk about (and I'm more enthusiastic about them than they're cousins in Australia, where everything wants to kill you). Today, I want to tell you about a contest they do in September, where you vote for the New Zealand bird that you like best. 

The contest was started by the New Zealand Forest and Bird people. They want to bring attention to the wide variety of birds that are only found in New Zealand and are at risk of going extinct, so they ask for people to vote one the best for the year. I'm not sure about the whole country, but there are some that take this very seriously. People/Groups can pick a single bird and campaign for them, trying to help them win. Those campaigns can be a bit ridiculous because, like in human campaigns, they can be a bit negative about the other's birds and they can take things personally. 

2021 actually caused a bit of a scandal because the winner was a bat, but it was allowed because the word for bird in Maori applies to the bat also. 

2023 is when I found out about this contest, because British/American comedian John Oliver told everyone about this and started campaigning for his choice of bird-- the Puteketeke. While I couldn't find a copy of the video, there's an article below that talks about what he said and did. One of the things he did was set up advertisements in several countries to get people to vote for the Puteketeke, his chosen bird. Among other things, he loved the bird, also known as an Australasian Crested Grebe, because they coparent the chicks, and their mating dance is grabbing a chunk of grass, awkwardly bump their chests together, then look around for a clue what they're doing. Which, they're kinda cool in their own way. I'm not sure I would have chosen to vote for them, but still. They did end up winning by quite a bit, mainly because he got a lot of people around the world involved, which is kinda awesome. 

This year's winner is the Hoiho Yellow Eyed Penguin, which has been listed as shy and, according to some, smelly. It had the Tuhura Otago Museum running it's campaign, and it's now one for a second time, which may mean it's not going to be an option in the future because they have taken the Kakapo out of the running after it won twice also--or that may just be something that is getting considered. 

The last thing I want to tell you about this contest is that it's got a lot of interesting birds as options, and my brother likes the Morepork owl, but I think I like the Tui, or maybe the Takahe, more, although the Kereru is very pretty. 

Go look, consider the birds, and maybe when you can, vote for an awesome bird. 

Sources:

John Oliver's Campaigning, USA Today

Video-John Oliver campaigning for the Puteketeke

Bird of the Year contest

Let’s Dig Up the Leicester Car Parks

 I know that sounds weird, but hear me out. In 2013, a screenwriter who was researching Richard III decided to travel to places that Richard went to during his life so that she could try to find his body. She went to Leicester and had a strong feeling about the car park, so she raised money and dug it up—and found him.

The people doing that dig apparently went on to another car park and found a 1,700 year old Roman cemetery.

So…let’s just dig them all up? Why not?

 

Source:

Science Daily

CNN Search for Richard

Murrey And Blue 

Mental Floss-- Things buried under parking lots

 

Ig Nobel Prizes

 Everyone knows about the Nobel Prize. This isn't that. Not really. The Ig Nobel Prizes are for people whose science makes people laugh, then think. These prizes go to those find unusual and imaginative things. They're fun. 

The 34th Ig Nobel Prize ceremony happened about two months ago, so it's not nearly as old as Nobel prizes, and it happened at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) instead of Harvard, where it had been previous years. 10 Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded every year, from the research gathered by the Annals of Improbable Research. 

Among winners have been a chemistry/geology win that answered the question of why geologists and paleontologists lick rocks--it makes them easier to study!--a medical win of someone who did a study of the number of hairs in people's left nostril versus their right, in nutrition, there was a study of if adding an electric current to your tongue alters the taste of food, and so on. 

One that stuck with me from when I first learned about this, was a woman who found a way to turn a bra into a pair of gas masks. While that sounds ridiculous, and no one argues that, she actually had a good reason for trying that because she born in Ukraine and was there for Chernobyl, and she noticed that a lot of the damage came from breathing stuff in, so she wanted something that would be everywhere that she could turn into a gas mask for everyone to use as gas masks. 

Another thing that stuck with me about this award is that, at the ceremony, after about a minute, a robot of a little girl called Miss. Sweetie-Poo, or an appropriate actual little girl, comes up to the podium and says 'Please Stop, I'm Bored', until everyone clears the stage. So, no long speeches, no boredom, and lots of laughter. 

For more information about the prize, the winners, and a few other things, please check the sources below. 

Sources: 

About the Ig Nobel Prize

Annals of Improbable Research

Prize Winners

BioTech--Some of the winners of the Ig Nobel Prize

Wiki list of Prize Winners

Montreal Science Center-- Ig Nobel Prize Winners

NPR-- Ig Nobel Prizes

Cambridge Day-- This year's Ig Nobel Prize

Andamanese Numbers

 So, a bit of backstory on them. The Andaman Islands are just off India, pretty close to Sentinel Island, if you know that one. Because of some issues with humans being idiots, not a lot is known about them and their culture before it got steamrolled by the Indian culture. 

For those like me who love learning about languages, Andamanese is considered to possibly be one of the last of the paleolithic languages. It's a very old language that is very unique and very different from most known languages. Less than 400 people speak this language, and it has no written record, so there's probably a lot of this language that is now lost to time even with those studying it. 

What I wanted to share though, what I found awesome and interesting, is their numbering system. Andamanese have only two words for numbers. Something is either one, or more than one. 

Imagine trying to talk to someone about pretty much anything, with only those words for an amount or number. I don't think you can get through much of a conversation without needing a number word, unless you're very careful about it. 

I wasn't able to find very much, but you might like looking at my sources for more information. 

Sources:

Rare Language Fact File

Britannica-- Andamanese Language

Rainbow Eucalyptus

 Also known as Eucalyptus Deglupta or Mindanao Gum, this is an actual colorful tree. It's kind of amazing, which is why I wanted to tell you about it right now. Some scientists think that there are actually two different species of 'Rainbow' Eucalyptus, but maybe not. 

The tree is called a rainbow because it sheds it's bark constantly, in long strips, and the exposed wood underneath starts out green, then turns purple or blue, and fades to red/orange/yellow, which is why it's a rainbow. Shockingly, the main use for this colorful tree is making white paper. Shedding bark isn't unusual for trees because it's one of the ways that trees use to continue to grow, since they grow from the inside-out, as shown by the rings. To keep growing, some have 'tears' in their bark, which you've probably seen if you've been around a tree much. Those 'tears' then heal up into new bark around the larger tree, while other shed their bark a bit at a time to create new bark to replace it. In this case, strips fall off when the tree is growing, and gets entirely replaced over the course of a year.

Another claim to fame for this tree, aside from it's color, is that it's one of the very few eucalyptus species that is not native to Australia. (This makes me like it a bit more, because I'm a bit wary of anything from Australia, for good reason. I wrote up a post about it, in case you're confused.) This tree is actually found in, among other places, Hawaii. It's also common in the Philippines and several places that have rainforests and warm climates all year long. 

To the Natives of the areas this tree is found in, it's actually a medicine tree because it's leaves are antiseptic, and it can be used in teas to help with coughs. What makes me really happy though, is that mosquitos don't like it. If I didn't know it wouldn't like living here, I would have already ordered seeds for that reason alone. Unfortunately, I'm too far North. 

All pictures are taken from the sources below.

For more information, follow these links or google it yourself. 

Sources: 

Nature.Com Rainbow Eucalyptus

Selectree-- Rainbow Eucalyptus

Better Homes and Gardens-Rainbow Eucalyptus

Hawaii's Rainbow Eucalyptus

One Earth Species of the week

Hanlon's Razor

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained with stupidity. 

There are two things I need to add to this. Two things you need to keep in mind from this rule. 

1. Not everyone is out to get you. Most of the time, people don't realize they're being rude. Political Correctness is an attempt to help steer people out of being unintentionally unkind, but it has gone a bit insane sometimes because of people who want to make sure there's no risk of insulting people. 

You need to remember that there are a lot of people out there that don't want to hurt anyone (not everyone, there are some malicious people out there), and they will probably apologize if you point out that they said something hurtful. 

2. Judge the action, not the person. They can be braindead in one aspect and brilliant in others. They can be cruel in one aspect and kind in others. There is more to a person than one stupid or cruel thing. Hell, there's more to a person than a week of stupidity and cruelty. I'm not saying you have to like them, but try to remember that just because they did something stupid, doesn't mean they are stupid. 

I feel like this is something we don't remember often enough. One day should never define a life (aside from the day of birth defining someone as alive). You would hate for it to happen to you, so remember not to hold it against others. That applies to a stupid mistake, a stupid comment, or even a stupid crime. Don't assume the worst just because you can. 

Sorry for the rant. I hope you take something from this into your life and maybe use it to be kind when you might not have otherwise. 

Sources:

The Decision Lab-- Hanlon's Razor

Coffee and Junk-- Hanlon's Razor

Darwin Awards

 I don't know what you think the Darwin Awards are, but I'm curious what you first thought, so please let me know. 

What the Darwin Awards actually are is an award given to people who do something stupid and remove themselves from the gene pool. To be more specific, there are five requirements that must all be met: They must be removed from the gene pool, they must be the cause of the incident, they must be exceedingly stupid, they must be adults, and the event must be verified somehow. People can either win outright, or just be honorable mentions if they survive. There are some, however, that have managed to get themselves removed from the gene pool elsewise, such as one guy that fried his testicles by shooting himself in the upper thigh with a taser, while alone. 

The Darwin Awards started in 1993, when a biochemist from Stanford started collecting stories of dumb deaths, which led to the collection she has now. There are a lot of them, and more added all the time. It's gathered a rather large following, especially among those that have darker humors or laugh at the ridiculousness of humanity. These are not stories for those with hope for humanity, so keep that in mind. If you'd rather not go online for them, they also have several books out with their greatest hits. 

For a few examples:

A guy needed to change a lightbulb that was 30 feet off the ground, and he was driving a forklift that could lift things about 8 feet into the air, so he stacked up 37 pallets to be able to reach the lightbulb. As anyone who has ever dealt with those pallets would know, those things aren't exactly a steady stack. So, no surprise when they fell over and killed the guy. 

An honorable mention. A guy wondered what it was like to get shot, so he shot himself in the leg. He then had to call an ambulance to take him to the hospital, where he was treated. Once he was healed up, he was curious if it would feel the same, so he shot himself again. He didn't die, but the stupidity shown is...special. 

A lovely old man decided to set up a security system for his shop, which kept getting burglarized. Instead of cameras, he laid out thin copper wires attached to a gun. Unfortunately, no thieves came that night. Instead, he triggered it himself in the morning. Oops.

Not all of them are funny, but there are a bunch that are. Just be careful that you don't read too many at a time, because they can lead to a loss of faith in humanity, a worse opinion of people as a whole, or an inflated sense of your own intelligence. 

Source:

The Darwin Award Website

The Drake Equation

So, first thing--This wasn't created by the Drake you're probably thinking of. Dragons can't use pencils, so they couldn't write it down. 

I mean, Sir Francis Drake didn't do it. Astronomer Frank Drake did it instead. Not sure about any possible relationship there. 

The Equation itself is used, in some ways, to prove that aliens are out there. Or rather, that it's ridiculous to believe we're alone in the universe. Some also consider it justification for searching for signals from alien civilizations. 

So, to the actual equation, in a simple version:

R* stands for the number of stars formed each year, or the total number of stars out there. 

fp stands for what fraction of those stars has planets orbiting them. 

ne stands for what fraction of those planets will have life. 

fe stands for what fraction of those planets actually gets life. 

fi is how many of those planets has life that's actually intelligent. 

fc is how many of those intelligent life forms actually gets together to form a civilization

L is how long it would take for them to actually release a signal that we can understand, and for it to get to us. 

All of that gets multiplied up to N, the number of technologically advanced societies in the Milky Way Galaxy. 

One of the links below will lead you to a page where you can play with the numbers yourself, but basically, it pretty much guarantees that there is someone out there. That, even in just the Milky Way Galaxy, there is another civilization that could talk to us. 

Source:

Drake Equation Calculator

Nova- Drake Equation

Astronomers EDU- Drake Equation

Arizona State University- How Many Aliens Are There?

Britannica- Drake Equation

SETI- Drake Equation

Information Is Beautiful- Drake

NASA- Drake Equation

Panacea

 A cure-all.

This used to just refer to a medicine that cured everything medical, but since has been used for anything that would solve all of another problem--such as crime, homelessness, and so on. It is sometimes used to refer to a 'cure-all' for a single issue, such as disease, but other times referring to all problems that a group might face. 

The origin of this word if Greek, for 'All-Healing', but it's also a lesser known (seriously lesser known) goddess of the Greek Pantheon. She is the daughter of Asclepius, the goddess of medicines, salves, and other curatives. She is not the goddess of Healing, just the pills and potions used for that. She only comes up a few times in the records of Greek Mythos, but one of those is the Hippocratic Oath. (Randomly, one of the oath's used as a modern equivalent to that oath is called the Lasagna Oath. Doctors, before becoming a Doctor, make the Oath of Lasagna.)

Doctors throughout history have searched for a panacea, something to rid the world of all illness, but it's also considered unattainable by many because of how diverse problems can be, and how varied medicine must be to combat the issues of the world. 

If you listen to Grandma though, you've probably got a soup recipe that makes everything better. As a woman, I've been told several times that chocolate is a good cure-all also. Combining those two, I'd say that chocolate fondue should make the world doubly better. So, with those in mind, please go eat whatever will make you happy. Happiness is a good cure-all too, so start there. The rest will follow. 

Sources:

Merriam Webster Definition

Cambridge Dictionary

Theoi- Panacea Goddess

Hippocratic Oath