Today I found out the creator of Lamborghini S.p.A. originally owned a tractor company, Lamborghini Trattori S.p.A., which produced tractors from surplus military hardware. He decided to get into making cars as a result of frustrations he had with a Ferrari he had purchased which ultimately resulted in him being insulted by Enzo Ferrari, the founder of the famed Ferrari […]
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Today I found out that the earthquake in Japan on March, 11, moved the Earth on its axis by about 4 to 6 inches, which resulted in shortening of a day by around 1.8 microseconds. Massive earthquakes typically affect the Earth’s rotation with the impact of every individual earthquake depending on its magnitude, location, and the details of how the […]
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Today I found out where the word “mouse” comes from. “Mouse” comes from the Sanskrit word for mouse, “musuka”, which in turn derives from the Sanskrit “mus” meaning “thief” or “robber”, presumably referring to the fact that mice like to steal food from humans, particularly grains and fruits. The Ancient Romans then used the word “mus” to refer to rodents […]
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Today I found out the baseball box score was first developed and introduced by Henry Chadwick, “The Father of Baseball”. Chadwick also authored Baseball’s first rule book; devised the batting average and earned run average; compiled the game’s first instructional guides and player and statistical reference books, among a variety of other contributions to the game. He is also the […]
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Today I found out Chef Boyardee was a real person. Ettore Boiardi was an Italian-American immigrant born in 1897. He worked as a cook at his first restaurant at the tender age of 10 years old in Italy. He later immigrating to America at the age of 16 and took the name “Hector Boiardi” as he passed through Ellis Island. […]
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Today I found out why we are supposed to take our hats off for the national anthem. The origins of this tradition happen to be the same as the origins of the tradition of saluting. Knights, wearing helmets that covered their heads, would typically lift their visors to show their faces to their monarchs and others as a sign of […]
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Today I found out that one Calorie is equivalent to one gram of TNT in terms of energy. (It is important to note the capital “C” in calorie signifies a kilo-calorie, also known as a “food calorie” because the value listed on food labels are typically in kilo-calories.) A Calorie is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature […]
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Today I found out how flies land on the ceiling. A popular notion of how they accomplished this used to be that the flies would do a half barrel roll sideways just before landing on the ceiling and then let their momentum carry them the rest of the way up. This was shown to be incorrect when, in 1958, Natural […]
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Today I found out South African earthworms can grow as large as 22 feet long, with the average length being about 6 feet long. The largest one ever found so far, being 22 feet long, was found on a road side in 1967. Other varieties of large earthworms include the Giant Gippsland earthworm of Australia, which grows about 3 feet […]
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Today I found out the human gut contains about 100 trillion bacterial cells, about 10 times as many cells as make up the human body. The human gut is basically sterile until you are born. For the first year of your life, the cultures of bacteria and other microbes in your gut fluctuate wildly and begin settling down around the […]
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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 them a little steel wool […]
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Today I found out that Ada Lovelace was the world’s first computer programmer all the way back in the mid-1800s, writing the world’s first computer program in 1842. She was also an accomplished mathematician, which was obviously quite rare for women in the era she lived. Lovelace was the only legitimate daughter of Lord Byron, though she never knew him […]
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Myth: Any big surge of water from the oceans is called a tidal wave; the terms “Tsunami” and “Tidal Waves” mean the same and are interchangeable. Tsunamis are mistakenly called tidal waves because, when approaching land, they look as a tide which suddenly rushes away and crashes back in a form of a huge wave. It is true that both […]
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Today I found out what causes the “sleep” or “eye crusties” you may have around your eyes in the morning. “Sleep” is a type of “rheum”, which is the name for discharge from your nose, mouth or eyes during sleep. More specifically, eye rheum is known as “gound”. Gound is made up of a mixture of dust, blood cells, skin […]
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Today I found out why spicy foods can cause your nose to run. In most spicy foods, this is thanks to the same chemicals that cause the burning sensation on your tongue, namely capsaicin or allyl isothiocyanate. Capsaicin is chemical found in fruits of the genus Capsicum, which includes peppers. It is present, usually in relatively high amounts, in the […]
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Today I found out why red meat turns brown when cooked. This is thanks to a protein called myoglobin, which also is what makes the raw red meat look red, not blood, as many people think. Myoglobin is a protein that stores oxygen in muscle cells, very similar to its cousin, hemoglobin, which stores oxygen in red blood cells. This […]
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Myth: Bats are blind The saying “blind as a bat”, simply isn’t correct. The truth is that all 1,100 bat species can see and often their vision is pretty good, although not as excellent as many other night-hunting animals. There are two main groups of bats, which are believed to have evolved independently of each other, but both from a […]
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Today I found out how anti-static dryer sheets work. There are two primary methods used to get rid of static charge buildup in drying clothing, which happily go hand in hand with one another using the same substance. The first method is to lubricate the clothing. The second method is to use a positively charged material to more or less […]
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