In this debut episode of our new The BrainFood Show podcast, we discuss the surprising similarities between online commenters and audiences throughout history, as well as how the practice of throwing tomatoes at performers got started. We’ll also be looking at the various ways to monetize on youtube and websites and just generally explaining how all that works. Finally, we […]
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With the Super Bowl this weekend, we thought we’d do a “Football facts” roundup to help you impress your buddies with amazingly interesting Football knowledge. 891) Buffalo wings were invented sometime around the 1960s by either John Young or Frank and Teressa Bellissimo in Buffalo, New York. The spreading of this tasty appetizer was relatively slow until Football stepped in. […]
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1026: Bed bugs reproduce via the male bed bug literally stabbing the female in the abdomen with his hypodermic genitalia rather than using the female’s reproductive tract. Once he’s stabbed the female, he then releases his sperm insider her body cavity. The sperm ultimately travel via the female’s blood to sperm storage structures in her body. The males also are […]
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A commonly held folk etymology for “doohickey” is that it derives from the mark left on a leaf after dew has evaporated, with said mark essentially being akin to a the skin-blemish definition of the word “hickey.” Thus, lacking a commonly known word for such, people referred to this dew mark as a “dew hickey,” with this later evolving to […]
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This is an excerpt from our book, The Wise Book of Whys, available on Kindle | Nook and in Print | Audiobook This tradition is mostly thanks to Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadian Band. While their work is largely unknown to those born in the last few decades, the band has sold over 300 million records to date. Guy […]
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On the whole, people don’t generally like to kill one another. Most wars throughout history are often more about the agendas of the state’s leaders than the soldiers on the field actually inherently feeling any real malice towards those they are asked to try to kill or otherwise defeat. Few events in history illustrate this as well as a remarkable […]
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1016: Mistletoe tends to spring from bird droppings that have fallen on trees, with the seeds having passed through the digestive tract of birds. From this, it should come as no surprise that the name “mistle” or “missel” meant “dung” and “toe,” which came from the Anglo-Saxon “tan,” meant “twig.” Thus, mistletoe is another way to essentially say “poop twig.” […]
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Myth: Pilgrims wore black and white clothing with buckled top hats. The myth that they dressed like this stems from a popular clothing style in England in the late 17th century, which carried over to 18th and 19th century artist depictions of Pilgrims. In fact, historical records of Pilgrims’ clothing, such as the passenger list of the Mayflower, wills, which […]
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Today I found out why turkeys are called turkeys. In the 16th century, when North American turkeys were first introduced en masse to Europe, there was another bird that was popularly imported throughout Europe and, most relevant to this article, England, called a guinea fowl. This guinea fowl was imported from Madagascar via the Ottoman Empire. The merchants who did […]
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Today I found out turkey does not make you drowsy after you eat it. Now to be clear, turkey does contain tryptophan. Tryptophan is an amino acid which the human body doesn’t naturally produce, but is essential to proper body function and, thus, must be acquired from food. The reason tryptophan is tied to drowsiness is that it is used […]
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If you happen to be into cooking or just want to learn to make some amazing tasting (and looking) food in an easy and quick way, one of our former authors and graphics designers, Noreen, just launched a great new channel on YouTube, Picture the Recipe. She also runs an awesome website if you prefer a non-video format. Go check […]
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This is a video covering how we come up with ideas, research, and write our articles. The second half of the video, for those interested, is the process for converting the articles to video form.
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1006) While Amanda McBroom is probably best known for her role as Judge Advocate General Captain Philippa Louvois in what is generally considered one of the best Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, The Measure of a Man, it might also surprise you to learn that she wrote the song, The Rose, first made famous by Bette Midler in the […]
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This is an excerpt from our book, The Wise Book of Whys, available on Kindle | Nook and in Print | Audiobook This tradition is mostly thanks to Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadian Band. While their work is largely unknown to those born in the last few decades, the band has sold over 300 million records to date. Guy […]
Read more
Myth: Pilgrims wore black and white clothing with buckled top hats. The myth that they dressed like this stems from a popular clothing style in England in the late 17th century, which carried over to 18th and 19th century artist depictions of Pilgrims. In fact, historical records of Pilgrims’ clothing, such as the passenger list of the Mayflower, wills, which […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. How Dick Came to Be Short for Richard The name Richard is thought by most etymologists to derive from the Proto-Germanic ‘Rikharthu’, meaning more or less “hard ruler” (‘Rik-‘ meaning ‘ruler’ and ‘-harthu’ meaning ‘hard’). This was adopted into Old High […]
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Here’s a round-up of all the interesting Olympic facts we’ve covered over the years, including eighteen articles and seven Quick Olympics Facts. Why Do Olympians Wear Colored Tape? The colored tape the Olympians and other athletes wear is called “Kinesio® Tex Tape”, which is essentially just an elastic cotton strip with an acrylic, heat activated adhesive. The tape was designed […]
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997) Ever wonder how blind people tell when they’ve wiped enough after going to the bathroom? Well, wonder no more. To begin with, the vast majority of the world’s population uses water to clean, rather than starting with toilet paper. With something like a bidet with reasonable pressure, you just spray for a bit and use toilet paper to dry- […]
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