A common thing you’ll hear monolingual adults saying whenever discussing potentially learning a second language is that they lament not having done so as a child when it is easier. But the truth is, while the notion that kids learn languages faster and more easily is an almost universally held belief, even among some linguists, it turns out adults actually […]
Read more
Godzilla’s roar has long been considered one of cinema’s most iconic and recognisable sounds. Oft-copied or otherwise homaged, the original and rather unique roar terrified audience goers in the 1950s and has been built upon to dramatic effect in the numerous sequels and remakes since. So how did they actually make the original sound and where did the idea for […]
Read more
Mindy N. asks: After a long run my leg muscles are tired, but my heart is not. Why doesn’t the heart need any rest? An average of around 60 to 100 times every minute of every day of every year of your ultimately meaningless life, your heart beats… until it doesn’t. Not long after it stops, all knowledge of your […]
Read more
LegitMarmalade asks: Is it true medieval jesters could insult the King in any way they wanted without risk of getting executed? Although you might assume that being made to wear a stupid costume, be mocked, and act like an idiot for the entertainment of fatuous rulers would be a job nobody would want- like the position of Groom of the […]
Read more
In the early 1960s, international communications were limited to transmissions through undersea cables or occasionally unreliable radio signals bounced off of the ionosphere. As you might imagine from this, many in the Western world weren’t too keen on the state of the situation given that were to someone, say, the Soviet Union, cut those cables before launching an attack, international […]
Read more
GatGatCat asks: Is cooking grenades and pulling the pins with your teeth something people really do or just something in games? We’ve all seen it- the protagonist of a film whips out a hand grenade, dashingly yanks the pin with his teeth as his hair flows in the wind, counts one-potato, two-potato, three and hucks it at nearby teeming hoards […]
Read more
Born on August 22, 1930 in Temple, Texas, Forrest Fenn did not begin his life wealthy, with his father working to support the family via a job as a principal at a local school. Things would change, however, during the latter half of his life thanks to a love of exploring and collecting various artifacts. His first such object was […]
Read more
Macuzila asks: Why does everyone only drink wine out of wine glasses? For a lot of people, a nice glass of wine is used to enhance enjoyment of things like the four F’s that make life worth living- friends, family, food, and… one other thing… Regardless of when or where you’re drinking that wine, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll be […]
Read more
Amikkik asks: How do celebrities buy exotic pets like a tiger like Mike Tyson has? How is that legal? As you may or may not know, there are around twice as many tigers in the United States, around 5,000-10,000, as there are in the wild in the rest of the world, with the vast majority of those big cats belonging […]
Read more
Throughout the 1930s pilots around the world were continually trying to push the limits of anything that had been done before in the air. While the likes of Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart are more familiar names in the Western World, the Soviets had their own equivalents such as Mikhail Gromov who, in 1937 along with his two man crew, […]
Read more
Hippiekiyay asks: Do pets care if you leave the radio on when you leave? A survey of about 2000 British dog owners conducted in early 2017 found that around 40% of dog owners admitted to leaving the radio on when they left the house so that their dog wouldn’t be lonely, while another 32% admitted that they did the same […]
Read more
While the entertainment industry has never exactly been a bastion of diversity, fascinatingly, a century ago in fledgling Hollywood, during the so called “Yellow Peril” era no less, one of their most bankable heartthrobs and one of the highest paid actors of the age was a Japanese man- Hayakawa Kintarō, better known by his stage name, Sessue Hayakawa. Born in […]
Read more
Trunksme32 asks: How do outdoor vending machines keep the coke from freezing in the winter? Vending machines of some form or another have been around at least since the 1st century AD, with the first known of such being supposedly made by Hero of Alexandria, a Greek engineer who invented, among many other remarkable machines, one to automatically dispense holy […]
Read more
In September of 1808 Covent Garden Theatre in London burned to the ground. The exact cause of the fire has never been established but due to the extensive amount of flammable items throughout combined with an amazing number of flaming light fixtures, fires of some sort at theaters were relatively common, even inspiring a London fire code requiring several wet […]
Read more
MarcoDerp asks: You covered who started the flat earth and moon landing conspiracy theories. What about the lizard people? People have been referencing sentient reptilian entities, sometimes humanoid, sometimes not, going back to some of the earliest written works and legends known to man. In more modern times, according to a survey done by the firm Public Policy Polling approximately […]
Read more
HailCaesoo asks: What all happens when the queen of England dies? Queen Elizabeth II has reigned over the UK and the Commonwealth for almost seven decades, but it turns out what happens when she sheds this mortal coil has been planned out in detail going all the way back to shortly after she ascended the throne in the 1950s, with […]
Read more
Joyme asks: Who first came up with the “little green men” stereotype for aliens? Flying saucers, little green men, and anal probes have been a staple of our perception of aliens for as long as most of us have been alive. The reasoning behind the latter is a obvious- human scientists also can and do learn a lot about an […]
Read more
Jay Soy asks: Who invented rock, paper, scissors? Hand based games have been around seemingly as long as humans have been humaning. As to the exact genesis of Rock, Paper, Scissors, however, this appears to originate in hand games from China, supposedly going back about two thousand years, though primary documented evidence of this is scant. That said, the trail […]
Read more