Today I found out squirrels can purr. In September 2010 a baby squirrel named Rocky fell out of his nest in Mississippi. The family who found poor Rocky decided that their nursing cat, Emmy, would be the perfect mother for the little rodent. Rocky quickly became one of the litter and began to purr along with the other kittens. This […]
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Today I found out the famous Star Trek line “…to boldly go where no one has gone before” is thought to have been inspired by a passage in a White House issued pamphlet on space. Specifically, it is thought to be from this passage in the pamphlet, “Introduction to Outer Space“: It is useful to distinguish among four factors which […]
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Today I found out split infinitives are not incorrect grammatically. As mentioned in the recent Star Trek “to boldy go” article (check that out here), the majority of modern English grammar guides list split infinitives as being perfectly acceptable. This has also been the case, not just in modern usage, but throughout most of the history of the English language […]
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Today I found out the origin of the term layman. The term layman has today come to mean “a person who does not belong to a particular profession or who is not expert in some field.” It also has a somewhat less commonly known meaning of “a person who is not a member of the clergy”, which is its original […]
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Today I found out Ron Jeremy was a special-ed teacher before pursuing a career as an adult film actor. In college, as an undergraduate, Ron Jeremy earned both a B.A. in education and a B.A. degree in theater. He then went on to earn a Master’s degree in special education. His dream was to become an actor, but he pursued […]
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Today I found out Dick Van Dyke was once saved by porpoises when he found himself lost at sea on a surfboard. In his younger years, Dick Van Dyke frequently spent time surfing. In an appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Van Dyke briefly mentioned one such time he was surfing using a 10 foot long-board and […]
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Today I found out the pharmaceutical company Bayer coined the name “Heroin” and marketed the drug as a non-addictive cough medicine, among other uses. While opium itself has been commonly used since at least 3400 BC, heroin is a relatively new invention, derived from opium. Heroin, more technically known as diacetylmorphine, was first synthesized in 1874 by chemist Charles Romley […]
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Today I found out there is a species of jellyfish that can age both forwards and backwards, making them theoretically immortal. Most jellyfish have a lifespan of between a few hours to a few months, though a few varieties can live for several years. The king of them all in terms of biological lifespan is the Turritopsis Nutricula which can […]
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Today I found out if you eat an excessive amount of carrots, your skin will turn an orangish/yellow shade. Take notes those of you from New Jersey, you don’t need to get a fake tan to turn orange, you can simply eat large amounts of orange plants, such as orange carrots. The resulting condition is known as carotenemia and isn’t […]
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Today I found out what grog was originally made from. Although today the word “grog” has more or less turned into a slang term to refer to just about any alcoholic beverage in many parts of the world, particularly in Australia and New Zealand, grog was originally just a mixture of rum with water, sometimes with a bit of lemon […]
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Today I found out former MLB player Moe Berg was once a secret agent in the predecessor to the CIA. Morris “Moe” Berg was originally recruited to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor to the CIA, in August of 1943 when he was 41 years old and had been retired from baseball for about four years. At the […]
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Today I found out why anvils are shaped the way they are and why blacksmith/farriers/etc. sometimes tap the anvil after a few strikes on the object they’re working on. Anvil shape has evolved greatly since the earliest anvil-like objects. These primitive objects used for anvils were typically made of stone, often just a slab of rock. The first metal anvils […]
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Today I found out the Cincinnati Reds were once renamed the “Redlegs” due to the second “Red Scare”. The Cincinnati Reds name was originally inspired by a previously existing team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, which was the first fully professional baseball team. This former team had ten men on salary for eight months to play baseball for the Red Stockings. […]
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Today I found out how a firefly glows. The glow from a firefly comes from the lower part of their abdomen. This “lantern” portion has an evolutionary gift in the form of bioluminescence. The light produced by a small layer of cells called photocytes is reflected off several layers of reflective cells and emits a greenish-yellow glow. Specifically, inside the […]
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Myth: the term “scot free” has its origins from the Dred Scott v. Sandford U.S. Supreme Court Case. “Scot free”, also sometimes written “scotfree”, “scot-free” or, incorrectly, as “Scott free” actually pre-dates the Dred Scott Supreme Court ruling in 1857 by a very large margin (having been around since at least the 11th century). Another common misconception is that the […]
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Today I found out how porcupines have sex….very carefully! Porcupines mate in a very bizarre way. They first begin their ludicrous lovemaking with some nose rubbing. If the female accepts the nose rubbing and, after the initial nose rubbing test, the female is still keen on the male, the male will then stand on its hind legs and the female […]
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Today I found out how the Americas got their name. Like most, I’ve known that the Americas were named after Amerigo Vespucci since my early education. However, the story behind why this is the case is somewhat more interesting and quite a bit less well known. Vespucci was a navigator that traveled to “the new world” in 1499 and 1502. […]
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Today I found out why cats like catnip. Catnip, which is a perennial herb in the mint family, contains a chemical called “nepetalactone” that is released when catnip is crushed. When cats get a whiff of nepetalactone, most will start rubbing themselves against it, playing around with it, sometimes eating it, and generally will act quite bizarrely. It is thought, […]
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