Today I found out that the astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station witness around 15 sunrises and 15 sunsets every day. The International Space Station orbits about 354 kilometers (220 miles) above the Earth and travels at approximately 27,700 km/hr (17,211 mph), so it takes about 92 minutes to circle the Earth once. For this reason, every 45 […]
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Today I found out the difference between discrete and discreet. Simply put, “discreet” describes showing “reserve, prudence, or cautiousness” in one’s behavior or speech. “Discrete”, on the other hand, means “distinct, separate, or unrelated”. A quick and easy mnemonic to remember the difference is to see that in “discrete”, unlike “discreet”, the “e’s” are separated and the definition itself is […]
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Today I found out what nougat is made of. There are three main types of nougat: white nougat; brown nougat; and German nougat. White nougat is made primarily from whipping egg whites, sugar, nuts (usually almonds, pistachios, or hazelnuts), and honey together. Brown nougat is made in a very similar fashion as white nougat, except generally without the egg whites […]
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Today I found out why championship football games are called “bowls”. In 1901, the Roses Association sponsored a college Tournament East-West football game between Michigan and Stanford. In this game, Stanford quit in the third quarter, being down 49-0. For the next 15 years, this annual event stopped featuring football, rather featured other events such as chariot racing. However, in […]
Read moreTop Five Most Visited Articles in January: 1.Why Zippers Have YKK on Them [Jan. Visitors: 39,324 | Posted On Jan. 5, 2010] 2. The Woman Jack Nicholson Thought was His Sister was Actually His Mother [Jan. Visitors: 22,544 | Posted On Nov. 29, 2010] 3. Dragonflies can fly up to 60 mph [Jan. Visitors: 19,544 | Posted On Jan. 3, […]
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Myth: The Super Bowl is watched by over a billion people every year. This myth seems to get spread around by the media every year around Super Bowl time, as well as by fans themselves. For this amount of people to watch the Super Bowl, about one out of every seven people on the planet would have to tune in. […]
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Today I found out the rights to the game Tetris were originally owned by the Soviet Union. The game was created by Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov, with the assistance of Dmitry Pavlovsky and Vadim Gerasimov who ported it to an IBM PC, and was released on June 6, 1984. At the time, Pajitnov was working at the Dorodnicyn Computing Center, which […]
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Today I found out that no two people in this world have identical fingerprints, not even identical twins. You would expect identical twins to have the same fingerprints as they are monozygotic, which means that they develop when a single fertilized egg splits in two, leading to two embryos. As they both came from the combination of the same egg […]
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Today I found out how people swallow swords. But, don’t try this at home! If you always considered swallowing swords a gimmick, you may be surprised to find out that is not always the case. Besides the gimmicky acts where special trick swords are used or when performers prepare for the event by swallowing a metal tube, this amazing feat […]
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Myth: Tang was invented for the NASA space program. In fact, Tang was actually invented by chemist and occasional playwright William A. Mitchell in 1957 while he was working for General Foods. General Foods introduced Tang to the public in powder form in 1959, but it wasn’t popular initially. This changed when NASA decided to use it in 1962 during […]
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Myth: Swimming within an hour (sometimes stated 30 minutes) after eating is dangerous and can cause you to cramp up and drown. It is believed by many that you should not swim for at least an hour after eating, as it could be dangerous. This old wives tale has been told to kids around the world and has become more […]
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Today I found out where the tradition of yelling “Geronimo” when jumping out of a plane came from. In the 1940s, the U.S. Army was testing out the feasibility of having platoons of soldiers parachute from air planes. One of the first units to attempt to group jump out of a plane was located in Fort Benning, Georgia. On the […]
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Today I found out why the number four is considered to be unlucky in some East Asian cultures (mainland China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, among others). In the Chinese culture, whether a number is considered auspicious or not typically depends on whether the number’s name sounds similar to other words with positive or negative meanings or connotations. With respect to […]
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Myth: One dog year equals about seven human years. There is a popular belief that dogs age seven years for each calendar year because the lifespan of a dog is about one seventh in duration to a human’s average lifespan. So a two year old dog corresponds to a fourteen year old human teenager in the terms of this aging […]
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Today I found out the difference between an asteroid and a comet. A comet is simply a relatively small astronomical object that has a “tail”, known as a coma, which makes up a temporary atmosphere for the comet. Asteroids, on the other hand, do not exhibit this tail and are classically defined as simply an astronomical object that orbits around […]
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Some users are reporting that a vertical skyscraper ad is occasionally showing up blocking the main content of the articles. I’ve not seen it yet and am obviously on my site all the time, so I’m hoping the problem isn’t affecting most of you. *crosses fingers* I’ve contacted my ad company to get them to remove them, but it takes […]
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Today I found out that a cockroach can live without its head for up to a week. While many have commonly heard cockroaches are the species most likely to survive a nuclear war, which isn’t entirely accurate by the way, and they are well known as being among the most adaptable creatures on the earth, it’s still somewhat of a […]
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Today I found out why you get goose bumps when it’s cold or as result of a strong emotion. It turns out, goose bumps are an involuntary reflex of mammals called piloerection, usually triggered by a hormone released on certain situations that causes their body hair to stand. With time, humans have evolved to have less body hair, so what […]
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