Today I found out a ‘jiffy’ is used as an actual unit of time. The word ‘jiffy’ has been around since at least the late 18th century. What it derived from is unknown, but it first popped up as a “thieves slang for ‘lightning’”. Fast forward about a century and a half later and famed Physical Chemist Gilbert Newton Lewis, […]
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Amazingly, if we were actually able to convert matter perfectly to energy with 1 kg of matter being completely annihilated, the energy produced from just that small amount of matter is about 42.95 mega tons of TNT. So an adult male weighing in at around 200 pounds has somewhere in the vicinity of 4000 megatons of TNT potential in their […]
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In the early days of the World Wide Web, one of the most popular alternatives to the Web (and indeed more popular for a time), Gopher, looked like it was destined to dominate the Internet. Then the University of Minnesota announced in 1993 that they would no longer let people use their Gopher server implementation for free. Instead, licensing fees […]
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Today I found out Ernest Vincent Wright’s 1939 novel Gadsby is over 50,000 words long, yet doesn’t contain a single letter “e” anywhere other than the cover. Given that ‘e’ is the most commonly used letter in English, you might think this would have been impossible, but Wright stated this wasn’t nearly as limiting as one might think. For instance, […]
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The ancient Romans once used dolphins to help them fish. The dolphins were trained to drive fish towards fishermen. Once a large enough group of fish was near the fisherman, the dolphins would signal the fishermen to cast their nets. Fisherman in Santa Catarina, Brazil, still train dolphins to do this. Source
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Myth: Popcorn was first introduced outside of the Americas after Columbus made his jaunt across the big blue. In fact, popcorn was made in such places as China, Sumatra, and India long before 1492. However, archeologists do think that popcorn was first popped in Mexico around at least 80,000 years ago. Sources and Why Popcorn Pops
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Myth: James Doohan was Scottish. In fact, Doohan was actually Canadian and a very successful voice actor before his role in Star Trek. When he was auditioning for the role of the ship’s engineer on Star Trek, he went over various accents for Gene Roddenberry for the character. After he finished, Roddenberry asked him which he liked best and he […]
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Myth: sign languages generally resemble the spoken language from the area they originated. In other words, in the majority of cases, the various sign languages used were not developed from spoken languages. For example, American Sign Language resembles Chinese in form more than it does English in terms of a single gesture often represent a phrase or whole idea, rather […]
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Myth: redheads turn into vampires when they die. In real life, they are Vampires from birth. *note: My wife is a redhead. What causes red hair.
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Myth: TNT and Dynamite are the same thing. In fact, TNT and dynamite are not the same thing at all, contrary to what the Road Runner and Wiley coyote would have you believe. Dynamite doesn’t actually contain TNT, but rather is comprised of an absorbent mixture soaked in nitroglycerin, which is extremely sensitive to shock, unlike TNT; this is then […]
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Myth: the last period of the “S.O.S” brand was left off due to an error in the trademark submission. In fact, they meant to leave it off because “S.O.S.” could not be trademarked thanks to the SOS distress signal often being written as “S.O.S.”, even though it’s not actually an acronym. By leaving the last period off, it made the […]
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Myth: Native Americans were first introduced to “firewater” by Europeans. In fact, Native American tribes had numerous different types of alcoholic beverages that they brewed long before the “white man” came to the Americas. Sources and the Origin of the Word “Booze”
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Myth: Honey Bees Don’t Sleep. Honey Bees do in fact sleep, though there is always significant activity in the hive 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Research done in 1988 shows that, occasionally, Honey Bees will take rest and become relaxed, their body temperature drops, and they become unresponsive. Their sleep is not exactly like human sleep, but […]
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Myth: slaves likely built the pyramids of Giza. In fact, it is no longer thought that the pyramids of Giza were built by slaves. Archeological evidence shows that the worker’s town comprised of whole families, not just men as would have been the case if they were slaves. Further, the people were extremely well taken care of including the highest […]
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Myth: Searing meat seals the juices in. In fact, water in seared meat evaporates at either the same rate or higher, in some cases, than non-seared meat. What searing does do is play a role in browning, which can affect the flavor. But, in this case, the browning is caused by caramelization of sugars combined with a chemical reaction with […]
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Today I found out why Dick is 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 German as ‘Ricohard’, and from there to Old French, then Old English as ‘Richeard’, and today as […]
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Myth: Velcro was invented by NASA for the space program. In fact, Velcro was already commercially available before being used by NASA. It did receive a huge boost in popularity after being used by NASA on parts of astronaut’s space suits as well as used to allow astronaut’s to store things along the walls of their space craft. Because of […]
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Myth: a cocoon and a chrysalis are the same thing. In fact, the chrysalis is a butterfly pupa, which is a hard skin which appears after the caterpillar’s final shedding of its skin when it’s attached to a leaf via a silk pad spun by the caterpillar. A cocoon is just a constructed silk casing used by moths and certain […]
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