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There are fences around London made from WWII medical stretchers.
During the war, Great Britain tore down fences and used the metal for the war effort, then they repurposed the stretchers back into fences after the war ended. You can tell which fences used to be stretchers, because they are black wire mesh and still have the curved handholds. . http://mentalfloss.com/article/519824/secret-world-war-ii-history-hidden-londons-fences |
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The jewel caterpillar is covered in brightly-coloured, translucent spines that make it look like a cute little pile of gummy candies.
. https://www.wired.com/2015/10/absurd-creature-of-the-week-jewel-caterpillar/ |
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In 1914, 6 men were sent out to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. One of them threw a bomb and missed, so he immediately tried to kill himself by taking a cyanide pill and jumping in the river.
Because the pill only made him vomit and the river was just 5 inches deep, he managed to fail at murder, assassination, and suicide all in the same day. . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand#Bombing |
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Fruit flies drink alcohol when they are sexually frustrated.
. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/335/6074/1351 |
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The Swedish Vallhund is a dog that looks like a cross between a Corgi and a wolf.
. https://dogtime.com/dog-breeds/swedish-vallhund#/slide/1 |
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The scientists who first discovered the platypus thought it was fake. Although indigenous Aboriginal people already knew of the creature, European scientists assumed an egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed, venomous mammal had to be an elaborate hoax.
. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus |
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You can’t usually smell your own house (or perfume) because of a survival instinct called ‘olfactory adaptation.’ The brain is always looking for new, unusual, or changing smells as a sign of possible danger, so it ignores smells that have become familiar.
. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/69262/science-explains-why-you-cant-smell-your-own-house |
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If you have a bottle of champagne that has recently gone flat, drop a raisin in it. The carbon dioxide left in the bottle will cling to all the grooves in the raisin and release back into the liquid, making it bubbly again.
. https://www.today.com/video/can-a-raisin-make-flat-champagne-bubbly-again-1122447939825?v=raila& |
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Your lie will be more convincing if you have to pee when you tell it. Because of a phenomenon called the ‘inhibitory spillover effect,’ the need to control your bladder also forces your brain to activate more self-control, which helps hide the tells you have when fibbing.
. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053810015300301 |
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If you didn’t sleep well last night, you can convince yourself that you did just by believing you aren’t tired. It’s called ‘placebo sleep,’ it improves cognitive function, and it makes you perform better than when you spend the day thinking about being tired.
. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0035546 |
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There’s a tube of wax that keeps your glasses from sliding down your nose. Nerdwax, which was featured on the show Shark Tank, is designed to rub onto your nose or glasses pads like chapstick and hold your frames in place for hours at a time.
. https://nerdwax.com/ |
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People who swear a lot are usually more honest than those who don’t.
Always feckin thought that. . https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550616681055 |
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‘Backpfeifengesicht’ is the German word for ‘a face that’s badly in need of a punch’.
. https://www.germany.info/Vertretung/usa/en/__pr/GIC/TWIG__WoW/2014/23-Backpfeifengesicht.html |
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The town of Nördlingen, Germany, was built inside an old crater from a meteor that once crashed into the countryside. Residents have incorporated parts of the meteor into their town, including the church - which is encrusted with meteorites and microscopic diamonds.
. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/german-town-contains-millions-diamonds-180961467/ |
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Lay your arm on a flat surface and push your thumb and pinky together. If you don’t see a raised band across your wrist, you are a product of evolution. If you do, you’ve got a useless extra muscle in your arm that is slowly being erased from our genetic code.
. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/you-can-find-evidence-evolution-your-own-body/ |
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People who receive organ donations go through personality changes and characteristic similar to those of the donor.
In a study, a patient received a heart transplant from a man who was killed by a gunshot to the face, and the organ recipient then reported to have dreams of seeing hot flashes of light directly on his face. In another case, Claire Sylvia, a heart transplant recipient who received the organ from an 18-year-old male that died in a motorcycle accident, reported having a craving for beer and chicken nuggets after the surgery. She also began to have reoccurring dreams about a man named ‘Tim L.’ Upon searching the obituaries, Sylvia found out her donor’s name was Tim and that he loved all of the food that she craved. These cases may support cell memory theory. But as someone who wants to study human consciousness, I have this one question. What does this say about the human mind? Is it only stored in the brain? Can our cells also have the capacity to store information such as memory and personality? Are they aware of what makes us, who we are? Are they conscious in that sense? |
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The football huddle was first used at a college for the deaf in the 1890s so the players could keep their signing hidden from the opposing teams
. https://theweek.com/articles/451763/true-origin-story-football-huddle |
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There’s a Japanese town that looks just like Sweden, sells Swedish folk crafts, and celebrates Swedish traditions. Sweden Hills, located on Hokkaido island, hosts Swedish festivals throughout the year and is popular with tourists.
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Clearing the area to the left of your driveway after it snows can help you avoid the ‘second shovel’. This gives the ploughs a space to push all the snow from the road that would normally end up blocking your way, and then you won’t have to shovel twice.
. https://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/2014/11/how_to_avoid_the_second_shovel.html |
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If you want to be more productive, listen to a video game soundtrack while you work. People who work in silence are slower and less proficient than those who listen to music, and video game music is specifically designed to keep you motivated and finishing tasks without stealing your focus.
. https://desktime.com/blog/why-you-should-listen-to-video-game-soundtracks-at-work |
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Taylor Muhl is her own twin. She has chimerism, which means her cells fused with her fraternal twins in the womb. Her body has 2 sets of DNA, 2 immune systems, and 2 bloodstreams. This has plagued her with autoimmune issues, as her immune system is constantly trying to fight off her twin sister’s cells.
. https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/twin-woman-opens-rare-genetic-condition-202923507.html |
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Thomas Jefferson was afraid of public speaking.
He had terrible stage fright, added accent marks to his copy of the Declaration of Independence in case he ever had to read it aloud, and often faked illness to avoid giving speeches. He was so opposed to public attention that about 20 pages into his own autobiography, he complains that he’s already tired of talking about himself. . https://news.stanford.edu/pr/93/930401Arc3340.html |
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Curiosity is fueled by what you already know. You’re far more likely to be curious about the things you already know a little about than you are of something you know a lot about or know absolutely nothing about.
. http://nautil.us/issue/33/attraction/curiosity-depends-on-what-you-already-know |
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Old-timey ‘high-wheeler’ bicycles were also known as ‘penny farthings’, because people thought they looked like the largest (penny) and smallest (farthing) coins of the day rolling after each other. The reason one wheel was oversized was that they had no gears or chains, and the only way to make them go faster was by having a big front wheel.
. https://curiosity.com/topics/why-did-old-timey-bikes-have-one-giant-wheel-curiosity/ |
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Iconic photo taken four minutes after she jumped, several artists have used the image including David Bowie on one of his video's the picture has been referred to as "the most beautiful suicide".
http://www.atchuup.com/the-most-beautiful-suicide-picture-of-evelyn-mchale/ |
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Psychopaths are more likely to stay friends with their exes. It’s not for sentimental reasons, but for practical ones, like being able to hook up with them again or borrow money in the future.
. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/513402/6-totally-normal-behaviors-might-mean-youre-psychopath-according-science |
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Pineapples were a sign of wealth in 18th-century England. They were so expensive that you could rent them by night and take them to parties with you as a status symbol.
. http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/10/pineapple-used-symbol-wealth-power-amongst-english-elite/ |
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In Japan, public napping is a sign of hard work. It’s called ‘inemuri,’ which means ‘sleeping on duty’ or ‘sleeping while present.’ Because falling asleep in public is thought to be a symptom of working yourself to exhaustion, it’s socially acceptable in restaurants, stores, commuter trains, and on park benches- as long as you don’t sprawl out and take up too much space.
. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/world/what-in-the-world/japan-inemuri-public-sleeping.html |
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Galapagos batfish have frowny-faces and giant red lips. They also use their fins as feet to walk around the sea floor, because they’re terrible swimmers.
. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-lipped_batfish |
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In 1836, a group of boys went out rabbit hunting and ended up finding 17 tiny coffins hidden in a hillside cave near Edinburgh. At the time, people thought they were used for witchcraft or created as a memorial for men who had died at sea, but recent evidence suggests the dolls represent the 17 victims of serial killers Burke and Hare.
. https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/scottish-history-and-archaeology/mystery-of-the-miniature-coffins |
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Having good sex gives you a greater sense of well-being and adds more meaning to your life.
. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317554437_Sexuality_Leads_to_Boosts_in_Mood_and_Meaning_in_Life_With_No_Evidence_for_the_Reverse_Direction_A_Daily_Diary_Investigation |
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Honeycrisp apples are expensive because they’re so high maintenance. They demand a specific soil, ripen at various times, must be harvested by hand, and need a trellis to support their delicate branches. Growers also didn’t expect them to be so popular, so there aren’t as many trees producing the fruit as there are people to buy it.
. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/519290/why-do-honeycrisp-apples-cost-so-much |
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Since 1922, over 30 cash rewards of up to $1,000,000 have been offered to anyone who can offer proof of the paranormal. To this day, none has ever been claimed.
. https://curiosity.com/topics/the-million-dollar-challenge-offered-cash-for-proof-of-the-paranormal-curiosity/ |
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Two minutes is the longest you could survive without a spacesuit on the other planets in our solar system.
On Mars and Mercury, you’d stay alive for as long as you can hold your breath (about 2 min), and Venus is so hot that you’d instantly be vaporized. But just like Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune, Uranus is a gas giant with no surface to land on - so you’d descend forever into the gassy atmosphere until you’re crushed by the pressure, which takes less than a second to kill you. . https://curiosity.com/topics/this-is-how-long-you-would-survive-on-every-planet-in-the-solar-system-curiosity/ |
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Researchers studying the happiness and mortality of people around the world found that the key to a longer life is having a sense of purpose. When the elderly participants felt their lives had a meaningful purpose, their chances of dying were dramatically reduced.
. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)61489-0/fulltext |
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In 2010, famous stoner Cheech Marin beat Anderson Cooper (Yale graduate) and Aisha Tyler (Dartmouth graduate) at Celebrity Jeopardy. He won with a score of $10,200, while the other two tied for 2nd with $0.
. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2H8IOzWAuo |
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Joseph Stalin had a secret lab that analyzed the poop of foreign leaders in order to build their psychological profiles.
The idea was that traces of compounds in faeces could reflect a person’s psychology, like high levels of tryptophan, which might imply calmness and approachability, or a lack of potassium, which could indicate nervousness. Stalin even reportedly refused an agreement with China’s Mao Zedong after reading an analysis of his poo. . https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/stalin-may-have-studied-maos-poop-secret-lab-180957980/ |
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In Wisconsin, children of all ages are legally allowed to drink alcohol in bars and restaurants as long as they are accompanied by a parent or guardian of legal drinking age and the establishment allows it.
. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_Wisconsin |
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Actor Anthony Perkins found out he had AIDS by reading it in a tabloid magazine.
Perkins, who played Norman Bates in Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’, was in the hospital in 1990 and had his blood tested for another illness. His wife suspects someone tested him for HIV and leaked the positive results to the Enquirer, which ran the story before he even knew about it. He died of AIDS two years later. . https://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/16/arts/anthony-perkins-s-wife-tells-of-2-years-of-secrecy.html |
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Big dogs are more well-behaved pets.
Studies show bigger dogs usually have better behaviour than small dogs, but it’s not because they’re inherently better animals; it’s because of humans. We tend to put less effort into the discipline of little dogs because we assume they can’t do as much damage- so larger dogs typically end up having better training. . https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/canine-corner/201507/behavior-differences-between-smaller-and-larger-dogs |