Today I

Found Out

Today I found out the words moron, imbecile, and idiot mean different things.  In psychology, an idiot has the least intelligence on the IQ scale (this now is equivalent to someone who is mentally retarded or the more politically correct “mentally challenged”); an imbecile is not quite as dumb as an idiot and is now [...]

*Today I found out why your stomach growls when you are hungry.   Basically, because your body is a fine running machine, and stomach growling is just your body’s way of letting you know “everything’s working great in here”.  Generally speaking stomach growling, or as the Greeks named it and Doctors call it today “borborygmi” (which [...]

*Today I found out why getting kicked in the balls will not only cause incredible pain in your testicles, but also in your abdomen. Testes originally form in the abdomen near the stomach and kidneys.  The  nerves and blood vessels remain attached in that region even after the balls drop. So when a guy gets [...]

Today I found out what causes people to have red hair.  It turns out, it is not because they are the spawn of Satan or otherwise evil at heart (Well, supposedly.  Everyone knows a group of red-heads known as “The Fire of Rankin”, lead by the Septi Caput Capitis counsel, secretly rules the world in [...]

*Today I found out why some coins have ridges. (did anyone else just hear the “R-R-R-Ruffles have R-R-R-Ridges” commercial in their head?) In any event, putting ridges on some coins in America got its start back in the 1700′s; simpler times when top hats and pocket watches were the height of sophistication;  James Cook was [...]

*Today I found out that Hitler was a vegetarian.  Now he wasn’t always a vegetarian.  In fact, it was later in his life that he became one.  Around the same time he was killing millions of Jews and millions more from other cultural backgrounds and trying to take over the world.  Coincidence?  I think not! [...]

*Today I found out that Napoleon Bonaparte was not in fact especially short.   The myth that he was short stems primarily from the fact that he is listed as 5 feet 2 inches tall at the time of his death.  However, this is 5 feet 2 inches in French units.  In modern international units, [...]

Today I found out that the “S.O.S” in S.O.S brand scrub pads stands for “Save Our Saucepans”.  The name was originally thought up by the wife of the creator of the S.O.S pad, Ed Cox. In 1917, Cox was an aluminum pot salesman.  When Cox would introduce himself to potential new customers, he would give [...]

Today I found out the actor who played Uncle Phil in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was also the voice of Shredder in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoon series. *mind blown* Bonus Factoids: Uncle Phil, also occasionally known as James Avery in the real world,  was also the voice of James Rhodes in the [...]

Today I found out there is nothing that comes after the sequence “once, twice, thrice”. Interestingly, even though these words are roughly equivalent differing only in the numeric value they refer to, it is now considered poor English to use “thrice” instead of the equivalent “three times”.  At the same time, it is considered poor [...]