Myth: Helicopters will drop like a rock when the engine shuts down. In fact, you have a better chance at surviving in a helicopter when the engine fails than you do in an airplane. Helicopters are designed specifically to allow pilots to have a reasonable chance of landing them safely in the case where the engine stops working during flight, […]
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In the early days of the World Wide Web, one of the most popular alternatives to the Web (and indeed more popular for a time), Gopher, looked like it was destined to dominate the Internet. Then the University of Minnesota announced in 1993 that they would no longer let people use their Gopher server implementation for free. Instead, licensing fees […]
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Today I found out Ernest Vincent Wright’s 1939 novel Gadsby is over 50,000 words long, yet doesn’t contain a single letter “e” anywhere other than the cover. Given that ‘e’ is the most commonly used letter in English, you might think this would have been impossible, but Wright stated this wasn’t nearly as limiting as one might think. For instance, […]
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Myth: sign languages generally resemble the spoken language from the area they originated. In other words, in the majority of cases, the various sign languages used were not developed from spoken languages. For example, American Sign Language resembles Chinese in form more than it does English in terms of a single gesture often represent a phrase or whole idea, rather […]
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Myth: TNT and Dynamite are the same thing. In fact, TNT and dynamite are not the same thing at all, contrary to what the Road Runner and Wiley coyote would have you believe. Dynamite doesn’t actually contain TNT, but rather is comprised of an absorbent mixture soaked in nitroglycerin, which is extremely sensitive to shock, unlike TNT; this is then […]
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Myth: Native Americans were first introduced to “firewater” by Europeans. In fact, Native American tribes had numerous different types of alcoholic beverages that they brewed long before the “white man” came to the Americas. Sources and the Origin of the Word “Booze”
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Myth: Honey Bees Don’t Sleep. Honey Bees do in fact sleep, though there is always significant activity in the hive 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Research done in 1988 shows that, occasionally, Honey Bees will take rest and become relaxed, their body temperature drops, and they become unresponsive. Their sleep is not exactly like human sleep, but […]
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Myth: Searing meat seals the juices in. In fact, water in seared meat evaporates at either the same rate or higher, in some cases, than non-seared meat. What searing does do is play a role in browning, which can affect the flavor. But, in this case, the browning is caused by caramelization of sugars combined with a chemical reaction with […]
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Myth: Velcro was invented by NASA for the space program. In fact, Velcro was already commercially available before being used by NASA. It did receive a huge boost in popularity after being used by NASA on parts of astronaut’s space suits as well as used to allow astronaut’s to store things along the walls of their space craft. Because of […]
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Myth: a cocoon and a chrysalis are the same thing. In fact, the chrysalis is a butterfly pupa, which is a hard skin which appears after the caterpillar’s final shedding of its skin when it’s attached to a leaf via a silk pad spun by the caterpillar. A cocoon is just a constructed silk casing used by moths and certain […]
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Myth: Women Don’t Have Adam’s Apples. In fact, it’s actually not that terribly uncommon if you were to look close enough to most women’s throats, though “man sized” Adam’s Apples are somewhat rare in women. The “Adam’s Apple” is really just an enlarged larnyx which becomes big enough to be visible in your neck. For those of you who don’t […]
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Donna asks: What is a “kudo”, exactly? First, it should be noted that “kudos” is not the plural form of “kudo”, so a “kudo” was once technically nothing. However, because so many people in the last century, mainly in the United States, have thought kudos was plural, in some dictionaries today “kudo” is considered a valid word meaning the same […]
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Today I found out the actress who played TV’s “Blossom” has a PhD in Neuroscience. After starring in the TV show Blossom, Mayim Bialik decided to go to college rather than continue her acting career full time at that point. She was accepted to both Harvard and Yale, but decided to stay closer to home and go to UCLA where […]
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Myth: Marilyn Monroe was a size 12-16. From Roseanne Barr stating, “I’m more sexy than Pamela Lee or whoever else they’ve got out there these days. Marilyn Monroe was a size 16. That says it all”, to Elizabeth Hurley stating, “I’ve always thought Marilyn Monroe looked fabulous, but I’d kill myself if I was that fat…I went to see her […]
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Embed This Infographic: [Source: Today I Found Out] Click Here for Part 1: 10 Interesting Celebrity Facts
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This Day In History: April 12, 1994 On this day in history, 1994, the world’s first mass commercial internet spam campaign was launched when husband and wife immigration lawyer team, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, who had previously been subject to disciplinary action for unscrupulous practices (see Bonus Facts Below) and had been thrown out of the American Immigration Lawyers […]
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Mr. Rogers famously didn’t mind if people recorded his show with a VCR, arguing for people’s right to do so in a 1979 case Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. At the time, it was being argued by the opposition that this constituted a copyright infringement. Mr. Rogers was one of the few involved in television that […]
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Today I found out that a 17 year old girl survived a 2 mile fall from a plane without a parachute, then trekked alone 10 days through the Peruvian rainforest. On Christmas Eve, 1971, just a few hours after attending her high school graduation, 17 year old Juliane Koepcke and her mother, Maria, got on a flight from Lima, Peru […]
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