Scott asks: What are the best ways to get rid of the itch from mosquito bites? Mosquito bites. They itch and itch and itch until you just can’t take it anymore. Itching solves one problem, yet scratching releases more histamines in the body, which makes the bite itch more. Those histamines are released by the body to fight off the […]
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Mark asks: When did people first start cutting the foreskins off penises? Having served variously as a mark of virility, servility and gentility, circumcision has throughout the centuries worn many symbolic hats. While anthropologists disagree as to the definitive origins of circumcision, the earliest hard evidence comes from the first ancient Egyptian mummies of considerable vintage, around 2300 BC. That […]
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What was supposed to be just another day on the job for 25-year-old Phineas Gage turned out to be anything but, with events transpiring to make him a legend – in neurology anyway. On that fateful day, Phineas Gage suffered a traumatic brain injury when a very large iron rod went through his head. Despite this, he survived and became one of […]
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Joseph August / Shutterstock.com Martin Lehmann / Shutterstock.com SeanPavonePhoto / Shutterstock.com Mark Herreid / Shutterstock.com Text Version: Fact 516: George W. Bush was the head cheerleader at Phillips Academy boarding school during his senior year of high school. At the time, it was an all-male school. Fact 517: The “USA Patriot” in USA PATRIOT Act actually stands for something: Uniting […]
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Ally asks: Is cellulite different from regular fat? In a sense, yes, but your question is a tad like comparing orange juice to the texture of an orange peel. While cellulite, also known as gynoid lipodystrophy, is often thought of as fat, that isn’t quite accurate. Fat is just a component of what causes cellulite, so perhaps more aptly cellulite […]
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Dan Lewis runs the wildly popular daily newsletter Now I Know (“Learn Something New Every Day, By Email”). To subscribe to his daily email, click here.. For a few centuries ending in the late 1800s, stocks were common in town centers in the United States and Europe. The device, used as a way to humiliate those who violated cultural norms […]
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Today I found out about Silbo Gomero, the whistling language. In Spanish, “Silbo Gomero” means “Gomeran whistling.” It is a language “spoken” on La Gomera in the Canary Islands (which incidentally may have been named after dogs, and certainly wasn’t named after birds) and is made up entirely of whistling sounds. The language was used by the Guanches—the aboriginal people […]
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1. Fastest Hundred Meter Hurdle Wearing Swim Fins (Men’s and Women’s) Perhaps she was hoping it would become the next Olympic sport. I mean, the 1904 Olympics included greased pole climbing and mud fights, so why not hurdling with swim fins? Regardless of her motivations, Zheng Da Zong Yi holds the record for the fastest hundred meter hurdle wearing swim […]
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Guest post by Gary Cieradkowski. Read more of his awesome articles at The Infinite Baseball Card Set. One of the many things I love about baseball is how many people that you know of, for an entirely different reason, happen to also have been ball players. President George Bush played in the first two College World Series’ and kept a […]
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A time-honored tradition in the U.S. military, contingency plans have been drawn up for the defense against, and invasion of, most major military powers. In fact, in response to recent events on the Korean peninsula, the U.S. and South Korea recently signed on to such a plan. One of the most interesting episodes in this rich history of preparing for […]
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Myth: Nero played music while Rome burned to the ground. The infamous phrase—“Nero fiddled while Rome burned”—has come to mean a person who is neglecting their duties, probably by doing something frivolous. Nero is painted as an emperor who didn’t care about his people, but it’s likely that he didn’t deserve such a bad reputation. This is extremely similar to […]
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The dodo, or Raphus cucullatus if you want to get fancy, is an extinct species of flightless bird that was native to the tiny island nation of Mauritius before it sadly died out. But enough of the Discovery Channel stuff, you’re reading this to find out how this sucker went extinct. And the answer is, well, complicated. It’s commonly believed that […]
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About eleven thousand years ago, in a remote corner of the cradle of civilization, Stone Age people who lacked cities, agriculture and metal tools built an enormous complex of multi-ton stone pillars called Gobekli Tepe (Potbelly Hill) in a region in modern day Turkey. The high degree of artistic skill and organizational wherewithal discovered at the site has caused the […]
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Today I found out the creator of the Nike “swoosh” logo was originally only paid $35 for it. The woman is Carolyn Davidson. At the time she created the now world famous logo, Davidson was a student at Portland State University where one of the co-founders of Nike, Phil Knight, was teaching as an assistant professor in accounting. On the […]
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Katie asks: How much caffeine would someone have to drink to be fatal? Katie- I’m going to assume this question is only inquisitorial in nature and you have no homicidal or suicidal thoughts. 😉 You’re correct in that caffeine in high doses can kill you. There have been numerous deaths attributed to excessive caffeine ingestion. However, the actual dose that […]
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Dan Lewis runs the wildly popular daily newsletter Now I Know (“Learn Something New Every Day, By Email”). To subscribe to his daily email, click here.. Every once in a while — less often than a few years ago — you’ll open a bag of potato chips and see one which isn’t like the others. It’s green-ish, especially around the […]
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If you liked these, check out more free quick-facts here. You might also be interested in QI’s 1,227 QI Facts to Blow Your Socks Off. Text Version: Fact 496: Nintendo’s name comes from the Japanese name “Nintendou”. Roughly translated “Nin” means “entrusted” and “ten-dou” means “heaven”, so basically “leave luck to heaven”. If this seems a strange name/slogan for Nintendo, […]
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Dan Lewis runs the wildly popular daily newsletter Now I Know (“Learn Something New Every Day, By Email”). To subscribe to his daily email, click here.. Google the phrase “magic of compound interest” and you’ll come up with about 4 million or so results. Compound interest — which Albert Einstein may have called ”the most powerful force in the universe” — is the […]
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