Myth: Violin strings were once made out of cat guts. Violin strings were not made out of actual cat guts. Catgut is (and was) made from the walls of various animal intestines though. Generally sheep or goat intestines are preferred, but occasionally other intestines are used, such as intestines from pigs and cows. This practice of making strings and cord […]
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Today I found out domestic cats fall from any height with a remarkable survival rate. This is, of course, assuming they don’t suffocate- say, if you dropped them from 40,000 feet- and that they land on relatively flat ground (nothing pointy or the like). This one seems like it shouldn’t be true. However, it turns out, a typical domestic cat’s […]
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Today I found out where the word “amen” came from. Specifically, “amen” comes from the Hebrew word… *wait for it*… “āmēn” (אָמֵן). More interestingly, amen is one of the rare examples where a word has survived thousands of years and been adopted into a few different languages without any real modification to its meaning across time and those languages, dating […]
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Myth: Handling a baby bird or bird egg will cause the parent birds to reject it. You’ll often hear this myth stated that if you touch a baby bird, the parents will completely abandon it and it will die. In fact, most birds have a very poor sense of smell, so in most cases are unable to even notice human […]
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Today I found out fifty percent of the ownership of Domino’s Pizza was once traded for a used Volkswagen Beetle. The year was 1961, just a little under one year after brothers Tom and James Monaghan had purchased a pizza restaurant, DomiNick’s, for $500. After eight months of running the business as a partnership, James Monaghan got the bright idea […]
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Today I found out why fingers wrinkle in water. For the quick answer, water washes away an oily substance that protects your skin. When that happens, a certain type of dead cell on your skin will absorb the water causing the cells to swell up, but the layer underneath does not. So the swelling, combined with the places the skin […]
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Today I found out why onions make you cry. Onions, along with many other plants in the Allium species (garlic is another popular one), absorb sulfur from the soil. When onions are chopped, it ends up breaking cells within the onion, which releases certain enzymes. These enzymes then react with the sulfur, creating amino acid sulfoxides. These, in turn, create […]
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Myth: Gun silencers make guns nearly silent. “Silencers”, also known as “suppressors”, on guns don’t make them anywhere near silent. Silencers primarily only suppress the noise due to the pressure wave from the rapidly expanding propellant gases. This is only a portion of what makes a gunshot loud. The primary other source of noise in a gunshot is the sonic […]
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Today I found out why turkeys are called turkeys. In the 16th century, when North American turkeys were first introduced en masse to Europe, there was another bird that was popularly imported throughout Europe and, most relevant to this article, England, called a guinea fowl. This guinea fowl was imported from Madagascar via the Ottoman Empire. The merchants who did […]
Read moreI thought I’d try something new by showing the most visited Today I Found Out articles each month, starting with October. Let me know what you think. Top 5 Most Visited Articles in October: 1. What the Things You See When You Rub Your Eyes Are Called [Oct. Visitors: 20,612 | Posted On Sept. 8, 2010] 2. Where the Words […]
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Today I found out why Swiss cheese has holes in it. The holes come from a byproduct of some of the microbes added to milk to make Swiss cheese. Specifically, there are three primary types of bacteria that are typically used to make Swiss cheese (these can vary slightly depending on the manufacturer): Streptococcus thermophilus; Lactobacillus helveticus; and Propionibacterium shermanii. […]
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Myth: Pilgrims wore black and white clothing with buckled top hats. The myth that they dressed like this stems from the popular clothing style of the day in England in the late 17th century, which carried over to 18th and 19th century depictions. Artist depictions, at that time, depicted Pilgrims having worn the same style clothing that had become the […]
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Today I found out David Letterman started out his broadcasting career as a radio newscaster. This was at the WBST radio station, which, at the time, was a college run 10 watt radio station and is now an Indiana public radio station. After being fired from that radio station for making fun of classical music, he helped found another campus […]
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As a general rule, historical anecdotes that seem a little “too perfect,” like “John Wilkes Booth’s brother saved the life of Abraham Lincoln’s son shortly before Lincoln was assassinated,” when researched thoroughly almost never turn out to be true. This, however, is one of the exceptions to that rule and it was no less than Robert Todd Lincoln himself who, in […]
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Today I found out Johnny Appleseed was a real person. His real name was John Chapman and his real story is actually nearly as interesting as the legends that have since developed. John Chapman made a quite successful business out of traveling around and planting apple orchards wherever he thought pioneers were going to settle in-mass a few years after […]
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Today I found out why getting kicked in the balls hurts in the abdomen, not just the region that was actually impacted. Testes originally form in the abdomen near the stomach and kidneys. The nerves and blood vessels remain attached in that region, even after the balls drop. So when a guy gets kicked in the balls or otherwise has […]
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Myth: Dropping a Penny from the top of the Empire State Building is Dangerous. You’ve probably heard people say how if you drop a penny off the top of the Empire State Building, it will accelerate to such a speed that if it struck someone, it would kill them. This simply isn’t true at all, not by a long shot. […]
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Today I found out why there is Braille on drive-thru ATM machines. Mainly, it is because it is required by law, thanks to the ADA Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities. There are certain exceptions, in terms of these requirements, when it comes to drive-up ATMs vs. walk up ATMs, such as the differing requirements on the “Reach Ranges” in […]
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