What Fun Facts Do You Know?
File this under “the most random CoJ post ever,” but the other day, Freddie and I went to a party…
We snagged seats at the kitchen table and were snacking on potato chips, when our friend launched into a great parenting story. “After a long day with my kids, I desperately needed a few minutes of alone time,” she told us. “I decided to take a shower and told my six-year-old twins to play together in my bedroom. I looked them in the eyes and said, ‘Come get me ONLY if it’s an emergency.’”
Two minutes later — you guessed it — our friend heard loud knocking on the bathroom door. “Mom!!!!” her daughter shouted. “I need to tell you something!!!!!!” She kept banging until her mom got out of the shower, naked and dripping, and cracked the door.
“MOM,” said her daughter, her eyes wide.
“Yes?!”
“Two Pomeranians survived the Titanic.”
***
Oh my gosh, at that kitchen table, Freddie and I could not stop laughing. Sometimes you just really need to share a cool fact. Bonus: it was true!
The story reminded me of Brooke Barker’s book of Sad Animal Facts – have you read it? Here are a few:
Finally, on my Hinge dating profile (rip), I went with this prompt:
Another banger!
So, on this sweaty Wednesday, please share with the group: What’s a fun fact you know?
P.S. What’s your personality type, and are you a billion seconds old?
(Top photo by Taylor Kampa/Stocksy.)
Comments
231 commentsHumans are evolving to not have wisdom teeth! So if you were born with only 3… you’re more evolved?
Sun Ra was a triple Gemini !!!
A baby puffin is called a puffling! They’re not related to penguins and puffins mate for like and have one puffling every season.
I just learned this a few days ago and I’m still laughing about it. The original title of Honey I Shrunk the Kids was Teeny Weenies and the name change was part of the reason the original director left the project.
If you add a space and then -ai in a Google search, it will omit the ai summary and just show you the website results the way it used to.
Sienna, thank you so very much!
Best fact EVER! THANK YOU!!
This is sooooooo helpful!!! Thank you!!!
Woodpeckers’ exceptionally long tongues are longer than their beaks and, when their beaks are closed, wrap around their skulls, acting as a shock absorber as the birds hammer away at trees. Wild and brilliant!!
The center of the galaxy smells like raspberries and taste like rum. There is a lot of ethyl formate in a dust cloud at the center, the same chemical responsible for the flavor of raspberries and the smell of rum.
Paperwhite narcissus are the cilantro of the flower world. While some people can’t get enough of their scent, to others they smell like a cross between dirty socks and wet diapers. I’m in the latter group!
I’m a new mom with a 7 month old baby and after lots of singing in the car I realized that ABC, twinkle twinkle little star and Ba Ba black sheep are all the same tune. It blew mine and my husbands minds 😂
You can sing EVERY nursery rhyme interchangeably to the same song. At my summer camp we should have impromptu competitions singing them back and forth to each other with the ABCs in between and whichever group couldn’t think of another nursery rhyme on their turn lost.
Also to blow your mind: the melody was written by Mozart!
You can drown in under 2 inches of water. I learned this fun fact at age 6 watching Dragnet on Nick at Nite. When my first grade teacher asked the next day if anyone had any fun facts I cheerfully shared my knowledge. There was a call to home AND she never asked our class for a fun fact again
My go-to fun fact: Horses and rats don’t have gallbladders.
A “dactyl” in poetry is a series of 1 long syllable followed by 2 short syllables – so named because the bones in your finger go long-short-short (do an image search – much easier to visualize than to describe here ha!). It’s the perfect trivia intersection for my worlds of medicine + poetry nerd
Sharks, my friends, sharks. Sharks (as a class of animals, not any individuals) are older than trees. Are older than flowers. Are older than insects. ARE OLDER THAN THE RINGS OF SATURN. Radio Lab, the very fun science pod cast, recent had an entire week of shark episodes in honor of the 50th anniversary of Jaws. Here’s another fun fact, JAWS was hyped and advertised as a FAMILY MOVIE. Is this why so many of us saw it as small children? I saw it at a drive in theater with my teen age brothers when I was 4 or 5 (several years after it had come out, still being played every summer). The History Hit pod cast The Ancients also has a very fun episode out this week on ancient sharks. It’s great, and it’s an awesome pod for history geeks, with the occasional earth science/ animals/ biology theme thrown in. Am I obsessed with sharks? Nope, but I can’t stop thinking about the RL episode about immune cells and sharks. Mind blowing. Also the one about the shark side who invented the cage and feels really bad about Jaws.
This is what I came here for. Can’t wait to get SHARKED UP!!
An acre is the amount of land that one man and one ox can plow in one day.
I love this. <3
Dogs can absolutely see television. In fact, some dogs go bonkers seeing other animals on tv–even if the sound is off and/or the screen is paused.
Yes, mine do this! Even if we have it muted during commercials and a dog (or horse, or cat, or even the Geico gecko lol) comes on the screen, they lose their minds. We once had the Westminster Dog Show on and they both stared at the tv, mesmerized by the dogs and following them with their eyes for the entire thing. There is no way they can’t see it!
I think it totally depends on the dog. Mine has no interest in tv and when I try to facetime with her, she looks confused to hear my voice but does not look at the screen, despite my enthusiastic waving :)
I was thinking the same thing! Even with the volume off- my will always try to follow any animal on the screen and bark at birds or cats that pop up. I remember there was a commercial of a guy throwing a frisbee to a dog and my dog tried to run after the frisbee too. Ended up knocking down the Tv.
As a SoCal transplant from South Florida–I love to point out that the entirety of Disneyland can fit into the parking lot of Disney World.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fkn WHAAAAAATTTTTTT
I know a few facts, but despite scoring a 28/32 on the NYT quiz, I would not have gotten the Vogue internship😅 If you’re into 90s culture, check it out! https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/07/14/style/vogue-quiz-90s.html
@Chris: I took the quiz and passed but Anna Wintour would have ejected me immediately when she got a look at my work “wardrobe” (aka thrift shop jeans and t-shirts). :-D
As a kid, I read one of those weird fact books and what always stayed with me was that you only breathe out of one nostril at a time and it changes about every 4 hours. Now, I just fact checked myself and it seems like it is more 75/25 and perhaps changes every 2 hours rather than 4. But still, usually a fun party fact to share!
Funny you mention that. I recently learned that from my ENT before nose surgery. I guess I’ve got a fun fact to remember now!
the reason smells evoke such strong emotions and memory is because the olfactory system in our brain bypasses and is linked to the thalamus, a region associated with emotion and memory processing
My kids and I found a great book at the library last weekend called I Eat Poop. It’s the cutest story about a dung beetle’s first day of school, and it’s filled with bizarre and fascinating facts about insects. My 7 year old said to me, Mommy this book is SO good, I’m learning SO much!! Like did you know that moths have ears in their armpits?? Highly recommend this book!
I love how this book talks about difference in folks! It is one of my go-to’s for gifts – along with Otis the Tractor
The Dansko shoe brand is a portmanteau of the Danish/Scandinavian words dansk ‘Danish’ and sko ‘shoe’, because they’re based on Danish riding clogs. (I have an MA in linguistics and have about a million pedantic language facts, especially about English and the Nordic languages! I am VERY fun at parties, haha!)
You are my dream party companion!! Please make a podcast. :-) my favorite part of learning languages are these tidbits! I need more intel than “tiramisu” literally means “pick me up!” (Because of the caffeine)
Those are my kind of parties!
Sheriff comes from “reeve” an elected official and “shire” – so now you can guess what the ancestors of Christopher and Keanu Reeves were!
I am just wondering… Is anyone on staff double checking the accuracy of each fact? It occurs to me that anyone could write anything and people might believe it! I doubt regular COJ commenters would do that, but who’s to stop some random internet prankster? I simply ask before I start to read these comments so I know whether they are actual “facts” or just “Could possibly be a real fact”. Lol. Thank you!
I would not expect COJ to fact check 350+ comments!
The ones I fact-checked with Google are correct!
How about if there’s one that interests you, check it yourself?
It’s a blog, not a research journal. That said, CoJ’s audience is pretty darn well-rounded.
The composer Joseph Haydn’s tomb houses one skeleton and two skulls. His was stolen shortly after his death in 1809 (an elaborate phrenology plot). Somewhere along the way, circa 1820, another human skull was subbed in. In 1954 his body was reunited with his own skull, but the spare remains entombed with him in his [currently] final resting place.
Currently reading Cranioklepty by Colin Dickey, which covers this whole saga! Great book for anyone into weird history!
Pigeons produce milk to feed their babies!
Bananas are berries but strawberries aren’t. Botanically, a berry must come from one flower with one ovary and have seeds inside. Bananas fit that definition. Strawberries, on the other hand, grow their seeds on the outside — so they don’t count. Flamingos are pink because they eat shrimp. They’re born gray. Their diet of shrimp and algae contains carotenoids that turn their feathers pink. They’d stay white or gray if their diet didn’t include carotenoids.
Bananas plants are actually herbs, not trees, and only produce one bunch and then die. Bananas are … bananas. Highly recommend the Banana Museum on the island of Madeira! My kids and I learned a ton—great way to spend an hour.
YES! Pumpkins and avocados are botanically berries, too. Mind-blowing.
The term “spats”, the footwear accessory used to cover and protect the uppers of shoes, is a shortened form of the orignal name: “spatterdashes”. They are also distinct from gaiters which are worn over the bottom of the trouser leg as well as the shoe.
Wow! So, since my family is cool (and by that I mean we enjoy cosplay and outdoor adventures), we have actually pondered what the difference is between spats and gaiters (is it just fancy vs not?) and where the word “spats” even came from! ha!
Barilla has multiple playlists on Spotify with the perfect timing for al dente pasta. Pick your pasta shape, boil water and play. 🍝
omg i love this
Whaaaaat?!
Love this
This is amazing!!
Where are they basing it on? Because, fun fact, pasta takes about a minute longer per extra1000 feet above sea level :D
A group of owls is called a parliament! It’s the nickname my (nerdy, politically inclined, overachiever) group of high school friends use for our friend group chat/email chain. :-)
Haha I love this!
And a group of flamingos is called a flamboyance!! My toddler has a very fun book called They’re So Flamboyant and I’ve learned so much about birds.
A fun and (almost unbelievable) fact I learned recently is that Abraham Lincoln’s sole surviving child, Robert Todd Lincoln, once fell onto the train tracks in Jersey City and was almost killed as a young man. A bystander reached into the tracks and pulled him out, saving his life. By pure coincidence, the man who saved him was famous actor Edwin Booth…yes… the literal BROTHER of John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated President Lincoln at Ford Theatre shortly after. Blows my mind!
And do you know that Tom Hanks is descended from Abraham Lincoln, through Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks? Amazingly, despite Tom’s deep interest in American history, I don’t believe he’s ever played a part set in the Civil War years. Maybe News of the World came close? I love everything he’s in but I would especially love that.
Silly Lilly, just a quick fact check, Tom Hanks is a distant cousin of Abraham Lincoln (yes, through Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks) but he is not descended from Abraham Lincoln :)
I love this fact! So many strange coincidences surrounding this situation. IF you haven’t already check out Assassination Vacation. It’s one of my favorite books but I once alienated an entire book club I had just been accepted into by selecting that as my first choice.
I love this fact and it reminds me of how great the novel Booth is!!! Based on the whole Booth family and this story makes an appearance.
Robert Todd Lincoln was also present or close by for 3 presidential assassinations. To the point he thought he was bad luck and avoided presidential events.
Quite right, Alexa; Tom Hanks and Abraham Lincoln are third cousins, four generations removed. I myself have no connection to President Lincoln but I do have a Great Great Grandfather who was a Union soldier. I have no idea what his personal politics were but I’m proud of the fact that he gave his life in a war that (eventually) freed the slaves.
The Foo Fighters band name was originally terminology coined by WWII Allied aircraft pilots referring to mysterious aerial phenomena (UFOs) repeatedly seen in skies over both the European and Pacific theaters of operations.
Want to know how the calendar gods decide the date of Easter Sunday each year? Easter is always the first Sunday AFTER the first full moon AFTER the vernal equinox. Delightfully pagan!
And it was because so many different sects were operating on different calendars like the Julian or Gregorian, and the equinox is a fixed date and the that first full moon is the Pesach (Passover) Moon. Council of Nicea, babyyyyyyy.
The first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox – and for the Eastern Orthodox, adjusted for the calendar difference between Gregorian and Julian. This year, Eastern Easter and Western Easter were the same day. BUT for Eastern Christians, the day liturgically begins at sundown the night before, so that can affect it too!
Wait, Molly, wherever you are in this comment thread, please share your dinner party games list that sounds great!
Like us (and all mammals), cows only produce milk when they’re pregnant or nursing, to feed their calves. To keep the milk flowing, we repeatedly impregnate dairy cows—then separate them from their babies so the milk goes to us instead. It’s actually a pretty anti-feminist industry! Realizing this might not actually be a “fun” fact, ha, but it is a fact that regularly surprises people.
This is why I don’t drink milk. I have never found a commercial milk near me (even organic, small scale), that lets the calf stay with the cow. Imagine living a life where you give birth to baby after baby, have it ripped from you almost immediately, and you still have to keep producing milk. It’s so cruel.
I learned while touring a dairy that when the milk expires in the stores they ship it back to the dairy and only then the calves get to drink the milk that was meant for them.
Leah, how could that possibly work?
Roseanne, that might happen at that one specific location, but probably not anywhere else!
Vermont has the smallest biggest city of all the states! Our biggest city – Burlington – is just under 45,000 people which is smaller than any other state’s biggest city, just eeking out Charleston, WV. But I wouldn’t be surprised if that changes over the next 5-10 years. We also have the smallest state capitol by population, Montpelier with about 8,000 people.
Burlington may be a small city, but it’s heart is big! :-)
There is an icon in your car that tells you which side of the car your gas goes in. The little gas icon has a small triangle either to the left or right of it that tells you. After having different cars over the years, this is just one of those details my that mind always goes blank on when I’m pulling into the gas station, so it’s nice to know you can just look at something on your dashboard to remember.
I just taught this to my husband a few years ago…his mind was blown. I loved that it was the first, and likely only time, I ever teach him anything about a car!
My car has this symbol – but it points in the wrong direction! Triangle points to the right, but the fuel cap is actually on the left hand side of the car. A funny little quirk that amuses me every time I pull in to fill up the car
What???!!! How did I not know this! It’s so annoying if you’re renting a car or have a loaner while your car is in the shop & you have no idea which side the gas is on! *goes straight out to check car*
The reason bunnies and eggs are associated with Easter is NOT because of pagan appropriation. The European hare can “superfetate,” meaning it could become pregnant with a litter of babies while already gestating another litter, and it resembled a miraculous immaculate conception, so the hare became the symbol of the Virgin Mary (you see it in Medieval art all the time). And the eggs were associated with Lenten fast because they counted as “meat” but had a long shelf life, so when the forty days were over, people would take their eggs out of storage, and eventually decorating and exchanging them became tradition. ALSO, Easter’s only association with “Ostara” the pagan goddess, is that in Germanic countries, which have a spring month named after her, was when the holiday frequently fell. (It would be like if future people saw we celebrated “Fourth of July” and thought we were honoring Julius Caesar.) If you go to any other countries, the holiday’s name is a variation on “Passover.” So it’s not an appropriation of pagan customs, but Jewish.
The bunny and eggs meanings are very interesting—I did not know either of those even though I would consider that I know a lot about Easter (including that it’s the first Sunday after the full moon after the vernal equinox etc.).
I wish someone would compile all these comments into an AMAZING kids’ book – my five-year-old is insatiable for these kinds of fun facts and I would enjoy reading it as much as she would!
National Geographic has a book series called “Weird But True” for kids which is full of these sorts of fun facts across all kinds of subjects. Both my kids have loved them for years and they are great for reluctant readers!
If she likes audio format, she might like Smologies! I love grown up version, Ologies—fun facts upon facts about everything under the sun. https://www.alieward.com/smologies
I have long loved this language of distinction between coast and shore, which are two sides of the same line ~ The coast is the end of the land, while the shore is the end of the water.
Language is wild. Filing this little fact away :)
Epic. Love this distinction.
I grew up on the south shore of Nova Scotia and have always used the two words interchangeably. So fascinating! Sending to my family right now.
Tips stands for To Insure Prompt Service (TIPS). If you don’t receive prompt service, it should be reflected in the tips you leave!
Tipping in the US was also introduced as a way to pay freed enslaved people less money and have them rely on tips only! https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tipping-jobs-history-slave-wage-cbsn-originals-documentary/
Not quite! https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tip-sheet/
Oooo. Here’s another: tag stands for touch and go
POSH = “port over, starboard home”, to indicate a preference for the shady side of the boat to India
POSH, it’s so good! I learned that a few years ago from this epic list of terms that have naval origins. Fans of this blog will appreciate the first one on the list!! https://www.boatus.com/expert-advice/expert-advice-archive/2021/february/nautical-word-origins
During the years of WWII, only 139 cars were produced in the US! Just 139! Across YEARS. I read that in WWll On the Homefront History Comics with my kid. Just shows how substantially life in the US changed during that war, and how Americans dramatically adapted. I had to look it up further and Ford Motor Co made 691,455 automobiles in 1941, then about 160,000 before production switched to all military supports in Feb of 1942. Plus, during WW1, peach pits were collected en mass by school children as it was discovered coal from burned peach pits was much more effective in gas masks than ordinary wood charcoal. There’s another children’s book about that – including images of enormous collection piles.
If you know the Hitchcock movie “Rear Window,” be aware, forever after, that the piano-playing neighbor in that film is also the person who conceived, wrote, and sang all the parts of “The Chipmunks Christmas Song.”
Hahaha, I teach Rear Window often and will now think of that always.
And now, on July 17th, I am humming “Christmas, Christmas time is near . . .”!
The secret, harrowing sequel!
Lollll
I just learned that the plural of octopus is NOT octopi, as it’s from the Greek and therefore the plural is octopuses.
I told a friend this years ago and he started referring to cacti as ‘cactopuses’ to troll me.
I believe ‘octopodes’ (like ‘Euripides’) is also acceptable
Hahaha cactopuses!
If you can tolerate another contribution from me: beavers butts taste vaguely of vanilla. A substance secreted through their anal glands is an ingredient used in making artificial vanilla. (Note to self: make sure to continue buying only real vanilla extract.) And the most interesting fact about THAT fact has to be — who was the poor soul who made that discovery?
It’s true that castoreum, secreted from sacks near beavers’ anal glands, smells vaguely of vanilla. But there are no beaver farms producing castoreum for synthetic vanilla (which is made from wood pulp or other sources). That would be insane expensive. Castoreum is collected in minuscule quantities globally from trapped beavers and may be used for fragrances. It’s an extremely niche and expensive ingredient. And a very poor use of beavers. Beavers were North America’s primary hydrological architects before European colonization. There were between 60-400 million beavers back then, who felled trees and built dams that fundamentally shaped North America’s water systems. They are incredible ecosystem engineers who created networks of wetlands, ponds, and slow-flowing waterways from the Great Plains to the Southwest deserts, storing and slowly releasing water rather than letting it rush to the ocean. Their engineering increased the diversity of other species by 2-5 times, recharged groundwater, prevented floods, and maintained streams even in what we now consider arid regions. When the fur trade nearly wiped them out in the 1700s-1800s, it triggered “the great drying” of North America – streams cut deeper channels, wetlands drained, and water tables dropped, meaning many landscapes we consider “naturally” dry are actually the result of losing their beaver-maintained water infrastructure. Today there are only about 6-12 million beavers left.
Lots of gland extracts were/are used in perfumery – it’s the original origin of musk.
I was floating down the San Juan river in a kayak once, not really paying attention when I heard a growl and looked up and there was a very angry beaver up on his hind legs on the cliff that I was about to hit with the nose of my boat. It was growling to get my attention while it’s mate scuttled across the rock shelf and jumped in. SO cool!
Late to the party and I hesitate to ask this here but…why was there a picture of Toby, a 15 year old, on your Hinge profile ?? Such a curious choice to make. Did he agree to this ? Why not blur his face ? Admittedly I am on the far end on the spectrum for this (no picture of my child online at all), but on a dating profile seems a bit cavalier about it !
Hi Sandra! Have you online dated before? I have, and plenty of people put their kids or nieces and nephews in their photos. People’s profiles are their own business and the world would be such a better place if folks minded their own and judged less. Hope that helps!
1. A dating profile is not more online than a blog; it’s all the internet. You are simply deciding for your own personal reasons that dating profiles are somehow inherently unseemly. Another person might consider it sweet and wholesome to include family photos while seeking to form family. 2. Holy stars yours comment is judgy!
lots of people included their kids in photos, it felt fine and normal and industry standard! I liked showing that part of my life and felt totally fine about it.
I think Sandra’s comment may concern security, safety, and privacy of one’s children as opposed to public exposure? There’s creepers on the internet.
I thought Sandra’s post was fine. She was surprised, she wondered and asked about it. I wondered, too. Other commenters didn’t need to jump all over her about it.
Since the purpose of dating apps is to find a good fit, seems like the photo signals your kids are an important part of your life.
Ingrid Bergman was born 29 August 1915 and died 29 August 1982.
No joke, when I was little I thought that everyone died on their birthday. How morbid!
Corrie Ten Boom also died on her birthday – April 15
My grandmother was born on April 22 and my mother was born on April 22. My grandmother also died on April 22. As a kid I always worried that my mom would die on her birthday. She did not die on her birthday but she died at 4:22. We were shocked when we saw her time of death.
Oooh, this is made for me, I’m such a pedantic a**hole sometimes, hahaha. When you tell people about your lovely travels to the city of Barcelona, and they correct you to pronounce it “Barthelona,” right? No. See, “Barthelona” is the Castilian/Iberian Spanish pronunciation of it. Fine. But if you REALLY wanna sound like a local, you pronounce it Catalan style, the local minority (ish) language of the Catalan people. So you say “Barcelona” with the “c” sounding more like the letter “s” just like you originally said it before they interrupted you. Have fun with this one! (I’m fluent in Catalan from having studied abroad there and written my senior thesis on Catalan linguistics and then dated the only Catalan gal back at my university, and then finding the only job back in Seattle that required Catalan language skills, haha. To this day I still speak it with decent fluency even though it’s been 20+ years! It’s *incredibly* useless for almost every scenario except for correcting people who pronounce the city as “Barthelona” haha, but I still love it.)
Haha I love this
THANK YOU!! I am going to irritate people right back with this one ha ha!
From one occasional pedantic a-hole to another, gracias. Can’t wait to eyeroll and correct.
This gives me a lot of joy.
But my Catalan friend who was born and raised there pronounces it Barthelona?
Leonardo da Vinci discovered that erections are filled with blood. Before that there were various theories, including air. Idk if you can listen to BBC Sounds outside of the UK but if so, the radio show The Unbelievable Truth is brilliant for fun facts.
Feels like this needs a “holy airball” reply
Re: elephants and jumping, in 1950, Tuffi, a circus elephant riding a monorail (!) in Germany, freaked out, jumped through a window, fell nearly 40 feet into a river, and survived relatively unscathed. An elephant! 40 feet! Thank you, kids’ very cool lift-the-flap book about trains.
Ha! I know exactly the flap you mean :) This was one of my kid’s first train books. He LOVED it at 2 and a half and is still very much a train kid at 7 and this book is still on our shelves. x
What book is this?! My “anything with wheels” kiddo would love this!
You can still ride that monorail and Wuppertal is full of Tuffi memorabilia, I have a Tuffi Christmas ornament!
Annie, hopefully you still see this! It is this very cool book, “How Trains Work”! https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44088025-how-trains-work
If you start counting from zero, your lips won’t touch again until you reach one million. (Isn’t that weirdly sexy?)
Ok – how many of us just started whisper counting to ourselves to test this one out? What a fun fact!
Also, if you want to talk for 5 minutes without saying the letter “a”, just leisurely count to 999.
My favourite fun fact: When a male anglerfish finds a female he bites onto her body. The male’s mouth fuses with the female’s body. The male fish degrades and becomes a specialized sperm-producing appendage attached to the female.
Truly… Thank you for this.
The Amazon River is insane! I skim the Wikipedia article every so often. There are no bridges that cross it! The amount of water that flows through it in a given year is equal to what flows through the next 7 or 8 largest rivers in the world combined. It dumps so much freshwater in the ocean that even many miles from shore, the ocean water is still fresh (maybe 50 miles out? I need to read the article again!)
This reminds me of a picture book on the Great Lakes! There was a wild fact about how high their contribution is to the world’s fresh water supply, using bottles of water as an example. Wish I could recall it – it boggled my mind.
Ok I just hopped on to to read about the Amazon and did you know that for millions of years, it appears to have flowed in the OTHER direction?
Mary, the book is The Great Lakes: Our Freshwater Treasure by Barb Rosenstock, illustrated by Jamey Christoph. :-)
I just got pulled into an hour-long deep dive on the Amazon. That was fun!!
Wait, what?! My dog barks every time she sees an animal on screen!
I agree. I don’t think this one is true.
I agree! My dog Jasper watches the TV quite intently and moves his head to follow action on the screen. He only watches for a few moments though; I assume he knows it’s fake? Or doesn’t like Murder, She Wrote?
I think it depends on the breed of dog! my friends dog barks every time a dog is on the screen. Our whippet sees nothing!
It definitely varies by dog! Our current dog clearly does not see what’s on a screen. He hangs out with us when we’re watching tv but clearly does not understand why we’re all sitting quietly on a couch looking at a wall. Our previous dog definitely saw what was on the screen. He particularly liked whales, for some reason.
Martin Van Buren is still the only president who spoke English as a second language. Dutch was his first.
This is a great fact! New to me!
This was a question on Jeopardy last week!
In some circumstances, hens can develop the characteristics of roosters including growing combs and spurs, increased aggression and attempting to mate with other hens, and crowing. I have one in my backyard flock!
Maybe it’s just your hen? haha
Fun fact – candles have “wax memory”. However close to the edge a candle has time to burn when it is lit for the first time, that’s as far as it will burn every future time it is lit. To avoid getting a narrow hole in the center and wasting a ton of the candle, let it melt the wax all the way to the edge the first time, and after that you are golden however long or short you burn it!
Omg
WOW. This blows my mind!!
wait, WHAT?!?!
Mind. Blown.
The company’s name Haribo, of Haribo gummy gold bears candy, is a syllabic abbreviation of the founder’s name HAns RIegel and his home town BOnn, Germany.
Cool! Like IKEA or Nabisco.
Tagging along with another Haribo fun fact that a friend of mine recently told me about: every year Haribo collects chestnuts and acorns to donate them to wildlife parks. They host an event at which everyone can exchange chestnuts and acorns for Haribo sweets. 10 kg (22 lbs) of chestnuts & acorns gets you 1 kg (2,2 lbs). My friend remembers people stopping by with trashcans and wheelbarrows full of chestnuts and acorns to exchange them for gummy bears. Nowadays there’s a limit of 50 kg (110 lbs) per person, but that’s still a lot of gummy bears!
I found this out right after I had visited Bonn! Saw a huge Haribo store there, but decided not to visit. Big regret.
Omg, yes to Berry Song!! It is one of our toddler’s all-time favourite books also, and we gift it to everyone with kids. The story is so beautiful and the illustrations are STUNNING. This overlaps with the art post – but for anyone looking for gorgeous nursery art, the author/illustrator, Michaela Goade, also sells prints from her studio in Sitka, Alaska! https://www.michaelagoade.com/
New England fact- there are only three native fruits in the US. Blueberries, cranberries and Concord grapes.
And pawpaw!
Prickly pear country in the southwestern US begs to differ 💁🏻♀️
While less a quick table-top fact, the truth is there are actually MANY native fruits to the US. And they’re really interesting (especially if you get into their historical uses)!! There’s SO many other kinds of berries, including blackberries, strawberries, currants, elderberries, red & black chokeberries (beware, tart! hence the name haha), huckleberries, red sumac (kind of lemony, made into a spice!), red mulberries (not the white mulberry of silkworm fame, but delicious), red & black raspberries, many gooseberries (which make a *great* jam!), and serviceberries (which are also called shadbush because they bloom when the shad fish run!). Interestingly, as a related fun fact, while commonly grouped this way, not all of those are actually botanical berries (which develop from a single flower) but some are aggregate fruits (ex: raspberry), multiple fruits (ex: mulberry), pomes (ex: serviceberry), or accessory fruits (ex: strawberry). A banana is actually a more botanical berry than a strawberry! Anyways, there’s also native cherries, other types of grapes, crabapples, mayapple (careful!poisonous when unripe), prickly pear, half a dozen types of plums, and even an American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana). There’s also maypops, which are the craziest flower you’ve probably ever seen, would 100% recommend a look!! I say all that because these fruits deserve some love!! Native fruits are VAST and so unique. Cultivating, foraging, and eating more of them is good for our ecosystems and food systems :) And fun!
Also squash and tomatoes ☺️
I knew this! I have told my EFL students for years and enjoy shocking the American volunteers!
Wait…what time period are we taking about?! I’m in the PNW, and there are tons of wild fruits. Salmon berry, thimbleberry, oso berry, salal, huckleberry…
This Idaho girl sees your three fruits and raises you Huckleberries.
Pawpaws, some types of crabapples, and a number of different berries like huckleberries, salmonberries, juneberries are also native to the US!
Paw Paw, Chokeberry, Serviceberry and Mayhaw have entered the chat.
And paw paws!
There’s a great book called Berry Song about all the berries gathered in the Pacific Northwest! My son (and I) love it. https://birchbarkbooks.com/products/berry-song
I think the initial commenter was referring to the New England states, not the entire United States.
I went to go visit the original Concord Grapevine in Concord MA where I worked for many many years. It’s just at someone’s house. I always think, that’s kind of scary, what if they get a rogue landscaper or mower guy and he’s like ‘what’s THIS dumb vine????” yank’.
Bonnie, there are still lots more native New England fruits including many other commenters listed.
The colonialism of this initial fact is something else (not calling out the original poster, just how embedded it is in our views of the world).
Yes El! That, I think, is why this misconception has been bothering me even in the days after my initial reply. It’s not just a lack of awareness for all the native species around someone, but an actual erasure of the Native practices, experiences, and people who use these fruits and have for such a long time. Why would the US be different than anywhere else in the world with the variety of our flora? It all comes down to how the US tells this history and the engrained colonialism you point out.
While watching “Tiny World” on Apple TV, with my 4 year old son, I learned that there is an animal called a legless lizard. Looks basically like a snake but it’s a lizard. I can’t stop telling people about this new to me reptile. Why isn’t it just a snake?
And those are mostly what they used in the famous snake scene in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark!
I’m not sure why it’s not called a snake but… we sometimes have them in the garden and you just know he’s not capable of danger. It’s like an oversized worm who is trying to be a snake, I feel bad for them and try not to let on that I don’t know they’re not snakes. Like pretending to seem scared when a small child days boo.
I did a report in 4th grade on legless lizards and still have the one I made out of clay for the accompanying diorama!!
Lizards are distinguished from snakes through a number of characteristics beyond limbs. Legless lizards have other lizard characteristics like eyelids, external ears, and rigid jaw structure. The leg loss in these species evolved independently from snakes – it’s a case of convergent evolution where similar environmental pressures led to similar body forms.
The ceiling depicting the constellations in main hall of Grand Central Terminal {it is correctly called a terminal, not a station, since the Metro North trains end there} is upside down. When it was installed, instead of using the sky map by holding it overhead and looking up, the way we would see the the sky from earth, the contractors put in the stars by putting the sky map on a table, looking down at it, and orienting them that way. Instead of redoing it at great expense, the powers that be declared the view as what God sees when he looks down from Heaven. There is a tiny black patch in the ceiling in the main hall to remind people how filthy it was before Jacqueline Onassis spearheaded the renovations, which were completed in 1998 {and those of us who lived here before that remember how scary and awful it was!}. The big clock above the information booth is made of opal. In the basement there is a superb whispering gallery. Franklin Roosevelt had a personal rail car that is still stored beneath the terminal.
Loren, I could and would listen to your stories for hours. Do you have a podcast or sth? This was such a brilliant story and I love when humans do sth like this and it is actually better than the original idea. Thank you!
and let’s not forget the hole in the ceiling near the Pisces constellation. The hole, still visible today, is from a wire used to stabilize a Redstone rocket on display in 1957. The rocket was part of a display to reassure the public about the US space program during the Cold War.
@Charlotte, that is so kind! I don’t have a podcast, but I was a guest on one approximately ten zillion years ago, here is a link https://bodylearningcast.com/ot The few times I have put myself out there in the cyberverse I was way too thin skinned for all of the negativity.
Thank you Loren for the link! Will have a look right now! Also, just told my dad about your fact on the phone and he also was delightfully blown away :)
Prince William was the first British royal to be born in a hospital.
Princess Anne has entered the chat.
Florrie, Princess Anne was born in Clarence House not a hospital. I’m pretty sure Deana’s fact is correct.
The drug morphine was named after the Greek god of dreams, Morpheus.
People think of the tongue as a muscle, but it’s actually a bundle of eight muscles, four intrinsic and four extrinsic. When you play around with all the different kinds actions and shapes your tongue can do, it makes sense!
Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day. Blows my mind every time I think about it. what are the odds???
CS Lewis and JFK died on the same day, Nov. 22, 1963.
Aldous Huxley also died on the same day as C.S. Lewis and JFK!
Wow!!
This is my favorite. I learned it just before they turned 100 because it was on the cover of a magazine. I make them a birthday cake most years. Once we had an office Valentine’s Day party a couple days early on the 12th, I brought birthday cupcakes instead of Valentine’s treats. (extra appropriate since I work in genetics)
I’m a former Disney cast member, and this is my favorite fact. The number one buyer of explosives in the US is the military. The number two spot? Mickey Mouse himself lol
If a woodchuck was capable of chucking wood they would do so at a rate of 3 pieces of wood per hour. (My sons college essay topic after we were told during every tour to please give them something to read that does not include sports or covid!)
Me to my niece: Ebby did you know that a Wombat has square poo?. Ebby (8): actually, Aunty Tracey I do know that because you tell me every. Single. Time. I see you. Whoops!
they also have really hard butts!
LOLLL kids keeping us humble always :)
There is a lovely game called “who did this poo?” where you have to match the animal to the poo. I use it in speech sessions and I always point out that wombats poo looks like cubes of chocolate!
The fruit it the garden of Eden wasn’t an apple.
A pomegranate, is what I read!
Exactly! The Bible just says fruit and doesn’t ever specify. An apple comes up in common thinking bc when Jerome translated the Bible into Latin he used the word malum, which can either mean apple or evil, as an intentional pun!
Ants won’t cross a line of cinnamon
Ticks won’t cross a line of gravel or wood chips.
Ants won’t cross a picket line either.
Guess my kitchen is no-man’s land — I’ve seen it happen. :-(
The high you see in the weather forecast each day is the high IN THE SHADE. In the summer it can be 10-15 degrees hotter in the sun.
WHAT
OMG Briana, did you also just read this in the NYT piece about why humidity is miserable?!
Noooooo this fact is not fun ;)
As someone responsible for lots of city day camps this week, I don’t like this fact.
Stop panicking people.m, LOL. The air temperature is the same whether in the sun or under the shade of a large oak tree. Thermometers in the sun absorb radiation and heat up resulting in an inaccurate reading.
In medieval times, scholars thought that the uterus MOVED AROUND THE BODY unless a woman was pregnant, in which case, it got pinned down in her belly. They also assumed that this floating uterus made a woman hysterical, so pregnancy was her most stable state.
Hence the term “hysterectomy.” Removing the source of hysteria…
Dude research at its finest…. I won’t be surprised to see this “big, beautiful scientific theory” touted as a fix for declining birth rates 🙄
Yes the word hysteria is literally derived from the Greek word for uterus, hence why only women could become hysterical (and why they should not engage in vigorous exercise lest they jostle the wandering uterus).
Further on this topic ~ soon after their invention (to treat muscle fatigue in men), vibrators were used by doctors to treat “female hysteria.” It was believed that inducing orgasm would relieve the symptoms (lol).
I’m a professor of renaissance lit and history (so have done NO STEM classes in like 15 years), and at one of my first OB appointments when I was pregnant I asked the doctor ” so where’s my uterus now?” … because I thought this was true. I will never forget the expression on her face.
Emelye, that is hilarious!
Alexa, I know a 96 year old retired psychiatrist who says that people now often don’t understand how desperate doctors were and how horrific life could be for some patients before antipsychotics and tranquilizers came out in the1950’s. There was usually nothing they could do for people in deep psychoses, including people trying to hurt other people or self-harming and having terrifying hallucinations sometimes almost 24/7 for years! He said that the first time he saw a lobotomy calm someone down, even though the person wasn’t themselves anymore, it was like a miracle! Point is, he said that yes they sonetimes used vibrators, and that they occasionally seemed to work.