Diane F. asks: Who started the tradition of girls jumping out of cakes? Almost everyone has seen depicted the bizarre bachelor party tradition of a scantily-clad woman jumping out of a giant cake. It turns up most often in decades-old films, TV shows, and comics, but it still persists today at lavish Vegas shindigs—though the cakes are now usually made […]
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First discovered back in the 1930s, chlorine trifluoride is a rather curious chemical that easily reacts, sometimes explosively, with just about every known substance on Earth. Just to get the ball rolling, here’s a few of the more unusual things chlorine trifluoride is known to set fire to on contact: glass, sand, asbestos, rust, concrete, people, pyrex, cloth, and the dreams of children… […]
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This is the first video from our new movie trivia YouTube channel, Flick Facts, where we’ll cover all the interesting tidbits surrounding various movies. Subscribe here! TRANSCRIPT Released in 1985 on a relatively shoe-string budget of around $6.5 million, The Terminator is a bona fide cinema classic, but few are aware of how close this Sci-Fi cornerstone came to never […]
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Shristi U. asks: Why did trains used to have cabooses but now don’t? For well over a century, cabooses, the cute quintessentially red cars at the rear of trains in years past, served an integral function in train operations. Carrying a brakeman and a flagman back when brakes were set by hand, when it was time to slow the train, […]
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Ron17 asks: How do they decide who gets to guard the tomb of the unknown soldier? Since 1937, the Tomb of the Unknowns has famously never once been left unattended with there always being at least one guard present to keep vigil. The highly coveted position of Tomb Sentinel is only meted out to truly exceptional soldiers, all of whom must prove […]
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Lynn asks: Why are some cheeses made in wheels and others are in blocks? Whether a block, a wheel, a cylinder or a pyramid, a cheese’s shape is dictated by concerns with pressure, salt absorption, ripening, economics and/or tradition. Cheeses that are made in wheels, like creamy Brie and Camembert, need equal rates of salt uptake, as well as even […]
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Thor Heyerdahl was born in Larvik, Norway on October 6, 1914. His father worked as a brewer while Heyerdahl’s mother held a leadership position at a local museum. Heyerdahl spent his childhood trekking through the forest at the edge of town and then climbing mountains with his pet husky. Despite those adventures, he only learned to swim in his twenties- nearly drowning […]
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Ever wonder why if you want to buy a truck in the United States you have drastically fewer selections than many other countries tend to enjoy and why U.S.-made trucks dominate the market in the country, while the same ratios aren’t seen at all in cars? It’s all because of chickens. No, really. Before the twentieth century, chicken wasn’t nearly […]
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For most people, saying “a monkey could do my job” is a roundabout way of saying that their current position of employment isn’t exactly that mentally taxing. For James Wide though, it was more of a statement of fact because for 9 years in the late 19th century, his job of railroad signalman at Uitenhage station in South Africa was literally done […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader TV’s Star Trek franchise was a four-decade-long roller-coaster ride, beginning with two different shows helmed by two very different men- Gene Roddenberry and Rick Berman. Here’s their behind-the-scenes story. Macho Man In his youth, Gene Roddenberry was a lot like Captain Kirk- always looking for adventure. As a teenager, he […]
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The law is a funny thing and when it comes to defamation and libel, it’s notoriously murky. As such, writers often have to be careful when they’re trying to create characters “inspired” by real people to avoid a lawsuit. For writers who don’t care about that though, there’s always the small penis rule. In essence, the small penis rule is […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader One of the secrets of operating a successful family business is figuring out how to pass it along to your heirs without ending up in business-school textbooks as an example of how NOT to pass your business along to your heirs. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Bag Man […]
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Dan K. asks: Why is it that other people’s farts smell worse than your own? In 2005, two researchers published a series of articles investigating the subject of other people’s smelliness. They examined how much disgust people would feel and show after smelling a variety of odors, including armpits, garbage and farts. Among the stinks examined, farts elicited the strongest […]
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This Day In History: June 10, 1752 On a stormy June night in Philadelphia, American Renaissance man Benjamin Franklin purportedly decided to test his hypothesis that lightning is a form of electricity. Using a key attached to a silk kite, he found: “When rain has wet the kite twine so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will […]
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A running joke, a conspiracy, a challenge, a raspberry to authority and (at least formerly) an exclusive club, the members of the Order of the Occult Hand are those journalists who have successfully snuck the meaningless phrase “occult hand” past their editors and into published newspaper articles. How did this all start? According to two of its founding fathers, Joseph Flanders […]
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A major component of acid rain, an accelerator of corrosion and the rusting of metals, found in the tumors of cancer patients, a contributor to the greenhouse effect, fatal if inhaled, and capable of causing serious burns in the right circumstances, colorless, odorless and tasteless dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) is responsible for thousands of deaths each year. An exercise in perspective, […]
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In 1901, the Cologne, Germany newspaper, Rheinishe Zeitung (RZ), published a story titled (translated) “The Unmasking of Houdini,” in which a chief of police, Schutzmann Werner Graff, accused Houdini of attempting to bribe him into rigging an escape from the city’s jail, and of paying another man, Herr Lott, to help him with a phony performance. Incensed (and facing an […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Our favorite childhood classics make us feel as snug as a bunny in bed. Here’s a look at what’s down the rabbit hole. Goodnight Moon “Goodnight light and the red balloon…” Margaret Wise Brown wrote more than 100 books for children, but her most famous is Goodnight Moon, published in […]
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