Popcorn saw its biggest surges in popularity during times of duress, particularly during the Great Depression and WWII. The former of which because popcorn was an extremely cheap snack, being one of the few snack items many families could afford. So while many in the snack industry struggled through the Great Depression, the popcorn industry thrived. Popcorn saw another huge […]
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Microwave ovens convert Vitamin B12 to an inactive form unusable by humans. From a practical standpoint, this means typically around 30-40% of the Vitamin B12 in microwaved foods gets converted during the time it spends being heated or re-heated in a microwave oven. On the flip-side, spinach loses about 77% of its Vitamin B9 when cooked in a normal stove, […]
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The Ewoks in Star Wars were named after the Native American tribe Miwok. The Miwok’s lived in the Redwood forest that is the setting for the Endor scenes on Return of the Jedi. It has also been suggested that Princess Leia’s bun hair style was also of Native American origin, based on the Hopi Indian “Squash Blossom” hair style that […]
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Earthworms are hermaphrodites. When two worms mate, both worms produce children. The worms mate by getting in more or less a 69 position and exchanging sperm with one another. Much later, a cocoon is then secreted by the clitellum band, which is visible near the front of the worm. This is roughly ring shaped. As it’s sliding out of the […]
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Daylight saving time once got a man out of being drafted for the Vietnam War. When drafted, he argued that standard time, not daylight saving time, was the official time for recording births in his state of Delaware at the time of his birth. Thus, he was actually born the previous day using standard time, so he should have had […]
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The first known reference of the term “Pop”, as referring to a beverage, was in 1812 in a letter written by English poet Robert Southey. In this letter, he also explains the term’s origin: “Called on A. Harrison and found he was at Carlisle, but that we were expected to supper; excused ourselves on the necessity of eating at the […]
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Jack Schmitt, an Apollo 17 astronaut and geologist, has the distinction of being the first human to have extraterrestrial hay fever. After returning to the lunar module and taking his helmet off, he had an instant reaction to the Moon dust with his nose stuffing up quickly. This lasted a couple hours before going away. However, every time he came […]
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Maine is the only state in the United States whose name has only one syllable. There is one U.S. territory that also has only one syllable, the island nation of Guam.
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The reason you can see eye floaters better when looking at, for instance, a bright blue sky, is because your pupils contract to a very small size, thus reducing the aperture, which in turn makes floaters more apparent and focused. Reference
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Male barnacles have the largest penis proportional to its body size in the animal kingdom. It can reach up to 50 times the length of the barnacles’ body. It reaches out of the shell and transfers its sperm to a female neighbor. After fertilization, the female barnacle broods its eggs until they hatch as a minute nauplius larva which swims […]
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The Rubik’s Cube was invented in 1974 by a Hungarian professor of architecture, Erno Rubik. He was toying around one day and attached several blocks together with a rubber band. In this original system, after several twists, the rubber band broke. He then became interested in the structural problem of how to move the blocks independently for an arbitrary number […]
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The standard responses to “ahoy”, when used in nautical terms, vary depending on who’s on the boat being hailed. If you have a commissioned officer aboard, “aye aye” is the correct response. If no officer is aboard, “no no” is the correct response. If a captain of a different ship is on board, the name of the ship is the […]
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Rum helped spur the American Revolution as well as the Australian Rum Rebellion. It is estimated that around 3 gallons of rum were consumed per person per year in the American colonies shortly before the American Revolution. Rum production was also colonial New England’s largest industry. The passing of the Sugar Act in 1764, also known as the American Revenue […]
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Viggo Mortensen broke two toes while filming the scene where he kicks the helmet by the pyre, thinking Marry and Pippen were dead. Because of his realistic cry of anguish after kicking the helmet and breaking his toes, Peter Jackson chose that take to include in the movie. Reference
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