Collection of Insane and Fun Facts
90 years before the invention of the modern wireless telephone, Alexander Graham Bell invented a device that could transmit speech using sunlight. Bell was immensely proud of the achievement, to the point that he wanted to name his new second daughter “Photophone”, which was subtly discouraged by his wife Mabel Bell (they instead chose “Marian”, with “Daisy” as her nickname).
Recalling a memory more often makes the memory less accurate.That’s because instead of remembering the actual memory, you’re recalling the memory of the last time you remembered it and any mistakes that might have been introduced there.
Technically, you COULD stop a hurricane by shooting at it, if you had ~5000 machine guns firing constantly into the wind for 24 hours straight. So there you have it, folks: if you wanna kill a hurricane with bullets, all you need is 24 hours, a fortified brigade of heavy artillerymen, and $20 billion worth of ammunition. Of course, in the process, you’d probably put enough lead in the water to poison the entire eastern seaboard…so maybe don’t expect a medal.
300 million years ago insects could get really big. Millipedes and centipedes could get larger than humans, dragonflies as big as eagles, beatles the size of a large dog.The leading theory is that ancient bugs got big because they benefited from a surplus of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere. And the leading theory on why there was so much O2 is that trees were new on the scene and were able to grow because of lignin. But lignin could not be consumed by anything in that era so trees kept putting oxygen in the atmosphere but didn’t “balance the books” by releasing CO2 when they died.
They also believe this process led to the greatest mass extinction on the planet.
The US Air Force seriously considered and researched nuking the Moon as a show of force after Russia launched Sputnik, but scrapped it at the last minute as they felt landing on it would be better received by the public.
Le Bateau (“The Boat”) by Henri Matisse, caused a minor stir when the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which housed it, hung the work upside-down for 47 days in 1961 until Genevieve Habert, a stockbroker, noticed the mistake and notified a guard.
Japanese airline, All Nippon Airways in an effort to save costs asked passengers to visit the lavatory before boarding because empty bladders means less weight carried.
In 2009 California milk processors funded a 22-minute rock opera titled “Battle for Milkquarious.” It was marketed as “The most amazing rock opera ever made about milk.”
“Shoeless” Joe Jackson was illiterate. In restaurants, rather than ask someone to read the menu to him, he would wait until his teammates ordered and then order one of the items that he heard.
To deflect flight noises from the Amsterdam Airport, an 80-acre park in the shape of perfectly aligned furrows with high ridges in between (inspired by old farming techniques and Chladni patterns), was built. Finished in October 2013, the park cut the noise level in half almost immediately.