Today I found out that Seattle doesn’t really get that much rain compared to most U.S. cities. In fact, Seattle ranks 44th among major U.S. cities in average annual rainfall, getting approximately 38 inches annually. Cities that get more rainfall than Seattle include such as Houston Texas (48 inches), New Orleans (60 inches), Mobile AL (65 inches), Memphis (52 inches), […]
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Today I found out how to speed tie shoes.
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Today I found out that almonds are not nuts. In fact, an almond is the seed of the fruit of the almond tree. This tree bears fruits with a “stone-like” seed within. Fruits with these characteristics are called “drupes”. Specifically, a drupe is a fruit that has an outer fleshy part surrounding a shell that contains a seed. Other drupes […]
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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 considered equivalent to moderate retardation; […]
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Today I found out why your stomach growls when you are hungry. Generally speaking stomach growling, or as the Greeks named it and Doctors call it today “borborygmi” (which is an onomatopoeia), is the noise created during rhythmic muscle contractions in your stomach and intestines. Your digestive system is one big long tube that goes from your mouth to your […]
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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 Edinburgh, Scotland; coincidentally this is […]
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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! see note According to transcripts […]
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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, he was just shy of 5 […]
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Today I found out around 85% of humans only breathe out of one nostril at a time. Even more interesting is that the pattern of switching from breathing out of one nostril to the other happens in a cyclical fashion, with about four hours or so between each switch typically; although, this can vary from person to person and vary […]
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Today I found out how a sewing machine works. Modern day sewing machines typically use something called “lock stitch”; in older machines a “chain stitch” was fairly popular, but is generally no longer used due to the fact that it pulls out very easily. A lock stitch on the other hand is quite strong and is created by using two […]
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Today I found out it’s “daylight saving time”, not “daylight savings time”. “Daylight saving time” uses the present participle “saving” as an adjective, as in “labor saving device”. Bonus Facts: Ben Franklin often gets credit for being the “genius” who came up with daylight saving time. Interestingly though, the letter he proposed something like what we now call daylight […]
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Today I found out that the mathematical volume of a pizza is pizza. How does that work you say? Well if z = radius of the pizza and a = the height then Π * radius2 * height = Pi * z * z * a = Pizza. On a different note, three statisticians go out hunting together. After a […]
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Today I found out the origins of the demotivator meme. The meme, as we know it today, has its origins in a company called Despair, Inc. Before them though was a company called Successories. This company was started by Mac Anderson in 1985. Among their products were motivational posters with the now classic black background and text underneath a picture. Around […]
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Today I found out how an LED works. An LED or “Light Emitting Diode” is basically as the name describes; it is a special type of diode that is specifically optimized to give off light, usually in the visual or infrared spectrum, as electricity is passed through it. A diode is a special type of semiconductor that has many uses. One of […]
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Today I found out what happens when you stick your head into a particle accelerator. Exhibit A: Anatoli Petrovich Bugorski, a Russian scientist who has the distinction of being the only person to ever stick his head in a running particle accelerator. Shockingly, he also managed to survive the ordeal and, all things considered, came out without too much damage. […]
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Today I found out the Sun is white, not yellow. For you graphics people or web developers out there, the exact color of the sun is #fff5f2. The reason the Sun looks yellow to us on Earth is that our atmosphere scatters light from the Sun; so the apparent color of the sun changes. This same scattering effect is why […]
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Today I found out how ‘gay’ came to mean ‘homosexual’. The word “gay” seems to have its origins around the 12th century in England, derived from the Old French word ‘gai’, which in turn was probably derived from a Germanic word, though that isn’t completely known. The word’s original meaning meant something to the effect of “joyful”, “carefree”, “full of […]
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Today I found out what a backronym is (also commonly spelled bacronym). In short, a backronym is when you treat a word that is not an acronym as if it was an acronym, constructing a phrase out of the word. For example: Delta – Doesn’t Ever Leave The Airport Backronyms are often used for humorous effect as in the example […]
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