July 2012
Popeye was supposed to be a one-off character in...
Popeye was supposed to be a one-off character in Olive Oyl’s comic strip! In case you’re not familiar at all with Popeye, he was a famous cartoon and comic strip sailor who ate spinach like Nutella. But the strip that spawned him actually had little to do with him at all. The strip that spawned Popeye was called Thimble Theater, and for a good portion of time he was never in it at all.
...
Crash Bandicoot was almost changed to
Crash Bandicoot was almost changed to
Crash Bandicoot was a very popular and very well received platforming video game published by Sony and produced by Universal Interactive Studios (known more recently as Vivendi Games). It was developed by Naughty Dog for the PlayStation in 1996 and spawned a successful franchise.
The series follows Crash Bandicoot, an anthropomorphic cartoon of the weird...
A single 4th century Bishopâs actions ended the...
A single 4th century Bishopâs actions ended the Christian persecution by the Sassanid Emperor! Bishop Acacius was over Amida, Mesopotamia during the reign of Roman Emperor Theodosius in 400-425 AD. The Romans had captured 7,000 Persians and were holding them in Amida at the time. Acacius saw that the prisoners of war were starving and in utter misery, and decided to do something about it.
He...
Oreo filling used to be made of pork fat!
Oreo filling used to be made of pork fat! Oreo cookies are the best selling cookies in the 20th century, selling a whopping 500 billion cookies since their debut in 1912. The annual Oreo recipe calls for 18 million pounds of cocoa and 47 million pounds of its delicious cream filling.
That delicious cream filling used to be made of pork fat, though. Oreos are obviously widely popular, which is...
A young Jim Carrey and his family once lived in...
A young Jim Carrey and his family once lived in their Volkswagen van. Jim Carrey spent his teenage years attending high school during the day and working 8 hour cleaning shifts every night to support his family. There came a point when the Carrey’s financial difficulties forced Jim out of school and into a VW bus on his elder sister Pat’s driveway with his mother and father. They lived there for...
Kurt Cobain overdosed on heroin, was injected with...
Kurt Cobain overdosed on heroin, was injected with antidote by Courtney Love, and then played a concert. Kurt Cobain was the famous musician and lead singer/guitarist of Nirvana. Nirvana’s first album was released in 1989 before their breakout success with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in their 1991 album. In Nirvana’s height of popularity, Cobain was hailed as the spokesman of a generation, but...
There is a lake that drains into both the Atlantic...
There is a lake that drains into both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Even more surprising is where the lake is located. Though your first guess might be somewhere like Panama or Nicaragua, this lake is located in the heart of the landlocked United States- Wyoming.
It’s called Isa Lake, and is located in Yellowstone National Park. The lake sits along the continental divide at Craig Pass, and...
Crash Bandicoot was almost changed to...
Crash Bandicoot was almost changed to “Wuzzle/Wez/Wezzy the Wombat” or “Ozzie the Ottsel” by Universal, but remained Crash because Naughty Dog threatened to leave the production. Crash Bandicoot was a very popular and very well received platforming video game published by Sony and produced by Universal Interactive Studios (known more recently as Vivendi Games). It was...
As a boy, Michael Bay attached some firecrackers...
As a boy, Michael Bay attached some firecrackers to a toy train and filmed the ensuing fiery disaster with his mother’s camera. Michael Bay is a filmmaker best known today for the Transformers trilogy, and for his style of producing movies, which involves copious amounts of real and CG explosions. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen actually made news for containing the largest (real)...
Mimicking the behavior of the people you are...
Mimicking the behavior of the people you are talking to makes you appear friendlier to those people. If you’ve ever had the “annoying childhood friend” who just copies everything you say when he/she begins to lose the argument, then you probably don’t believe this. However, according to the Chartrand and Bargh experiment; subtly mimicking another’s body language, speech inflection, and facial...
A common Japanese prank is sticking oneâs finger...
A common Japanese prank is sticking oneâs finger into someone elseâs butt. The Japanese term for this very classy act is Kancho. Kancho is performed by clasping the hands together so that the index fingers are pointed out, and then inserting them into someone’s anal region when they are not looking.
If the attack is successful, then the offending party is meant to scream “Kan-CHO”...
Ninety year old Christopher Lee has a heavy metal...
Ninety year old Christopher Lee has a heavy metal concept album coming out this summer! Most people know that Christopher Lee is an English actor. He is famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films. His other notable roles include Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film “The Man with the Golden Gun” and Saruman in “The Lord of the Rings”...
Zebras are black with white stripes!
Zebras are black with white stripes! The debate is over. Adam Egri at Eotvos University in Budapest and his colleagues believe Zebras evolved stripes to protect themselves from blood sucking insects. Zebra embryos are completely black and the white stripes appear at the last embryonic stage.
Each zebra has their own variation of stripes, too, that are very subtle. It’s like nature’s own barcode...
Space Invaders was so popular, it created a coin...
Space Invaders was so popular, it created a coin shortage in Japan. This classic game was released by Taito to the unsuspecting Japanese public in 1978. The game had a simple premise: aliens were getting close to your planet, and you had to shoot them all before they reached you.
Space Invaders is considered one of the most influential games of all time, because it basically created the genre...
Russia and Japan have still not signed a peace...
Russia and Japan have still not signed a peace treaty to end World War II. Nearly 70 years on, two countries that never fought each other on the level that the Soviet Union did with Germany, or the level that Japan did with the United States continue to have a dispute over four islands. Though today, Germany and Russia as well as Japan and the US have fairly good relationships, the four Southern...
The U.S. government investigated making a âgay...
The U.S. government investigated making a âgay bombâ! The plans for the “love bomb” involved an aphrodisiac chemical that would provoke widespread homosexual between soldiers. It was meant to cause a lethal blow to the enemy’s morale. The government came up with some other pretty kooky ideas.
One of the ideas was to create a chemical that caused lasting and severe halitosis. The chemical...
Jane Goodall was criticized for naming chimpanzees...
Jane Goodall was criticized for naming chimpanzees instead of numbering them! Jane is a busy lady. She is technically Dame Jane Morris Goodall and is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace. She’s considered the world’s leading expert on chimpanzees and spent 45 years studying their social and family interactions in Tanzania.
She founded the Jane Goodall...
Zebras are black with white spots!
Zebras are black with white spots! The debate is over. Adam Egri at Eotvos University in Budapest and his colleagues believe Zebras evolved stripes to protect themselves from blood sucking insects. Zebra embryos are completely black and the white stripes appear at the last embryonic stage.
Each zebra has their own variation of stripes, too, that are very subtle. It’s like nature’s own barcode...
Sean Bean has died in at least 25 films and TV...
Sean Bean has died in at least 25 films and TV shows! Some call the man a “two legged spoiler”, because he almost always dies in his pieces. He was born in Sheffield, England and died in his first film in 1986 called “Caravaggio” as Ranuccio. He was naked a whole lot during the film, and then got his throat sliced open and died.
His latest notable death was in the TV show “Game of Thrones” as...
After just 5 weeks of training, Eddie Izzard ran...
After just 5 weeks of training, Eddie Izzard ran 43 marathons in 51 days! In 2009, Sport Relief asked Izzard to be part of some sort of sporting challenge. He was interested in doing a big physical running challenge, so he surrounded himself with Olympic experts and started training for a long string of marathons. The challenge also helped raise money for Africa and some of the poorest countries...
Monks in northern Japan once practiced...
Monks in northern Japan once practiced self-mummification. Sokushinbutsu were Buddhist monks who caused their own deaths in a way that resulted in their mummification. If is believed that many monks in northern Japan attempted the act, but only between 16 and 24 mummifications have been discovered to date.
For 1000 days, a monk would eat a special diet consisting only of nuts and seeds while...
An average professional hockey player loses 7...
An average professional hockey player loses 7 pounds in one game! Hockey players are on the ice for only one minute shifts. The workout of the game is one of the most intense in professional sports. Players say that the time on the ice is spent holding their breath. They are pushing and shoving so much that they feel they exhale almost the whole time they are on the ice.
Players don’t have...
The average human body temperature is 97.9 °F,...
The average human body temperature is 97.9 °F, not 98.6 °F, because someone rounded before converting their units. In the US, normal human body temperature is often said to be 98.6F degrees. In other places, like Russia, the commonly quoted number is 36.6 celcius, which is 97.9F. Why the difference? Both numbers come from the same source, in which a German study found that the average body...
The Judean Date Palm, a tree extinct since 150AD...
The Judean Date Palm, a tree extinct since 150AD was resurrected in 2005 after finding its seeds in an ancient jar! No, when you find ancient seeds you cannot just plant them in the ground and expect them to sprout. Solowey, the director of an experimental orchard of Kibbutz Ketura in Israel had to do a lot of research before doing anything with the Judean Date Palm seeds.
She soaked the seeds...
The world's youngest venture capitalist is only...
The world’s youngest venture capitalist is only 19! 19-year-old Alex Banayan became the world’s youngest venture capitalist on March 1, 2012, when he signed on as an associate at Alsop Louie Partners, a San Francisco-based technology venture capital firm.
A college student at University of Southern California, Banayan read an article about Ernestine Fu, another venture capitalist at...
The founder and Taco Bell and Sherlock Holmes are...
The founder and Taco Bell and Sherlock Holmes are related! Well… kinda. The man who founded Taco Bell is a direct descendant of one of the pioneers of forensic science. He was the man that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used as a basis for the character of Sherlock Holmes.
Taco Bell’s founder was Glen William Bell, Jr. Born September 3rd, 1923 in Lynwood, California, he was a marine in World War II...
A 59 year old man from North Carolina with no...
A 59 year old man from North Carolina with no criminal record held up a bank for $1, because he wanted to go to prison to receive healthcare! James Verone robbed the RBC Bank in North Carolina in 2011 for $1. He’d never had any trouble with the law before the robbery. He was unemployed and dealing with severe health issues. He walked into the bank and handed the teller a note that said “This is...
The ACLU defended the right of a student to...
The ACLU defended the right of a student to protest against the ACLU. Not surprisingly, as ACLU stands for American Civil Liberties Union. In 2009, the ACLU of Virginia wrote the school officials of Gate City High School telling them that the sectarian prayer delivered over the public address system at each football game was constitutional.
Upon hearing of this, the students produced...
President Roosevelt was the first president to...
President Roosevelt was the first president to ever visit the Kilauea volcano. Roosevelt visited Hawaii in the summer of 1934. He visited what is called the Big Island, which is where Kilauea volcano is located. While he was there, he went to the Kilauea crater, where he sacrificed some ohelo berries out of respect to Hawaiian legend.
The legend calls for the berries to be given to Pele, the...
Seeing eye dogs are trained to poop on command.
Seeing eye dogs are trained to poop on command. Seeing eye dogs are perhaps the superheroes of domesticated animals. Every day, they help their blind or legally blind handlers make their way through a world riddled with speeding cars and shin-shattering coffee tables. This kind of responsibility however can only be earned after an extensive training period, which includes “special bathroom...
The oldest burning coal fire is six thousand years...
The oldest burning coal fire is six thousand years old! Mount Wingen, known also by its more fitting name, Burning Mountain, is a hill in Australia. It is located in Wingen, New South Wales. The reason it is called Burning Mountain is the presence of a burning coal seam beneath the ground. The coal is believed to have been burning for more than 6,000 years in the sandstone.
The hill is part of...
A nuclear physicist tried to singlehandedly...
A nuclear physicist tried to singlehandedly conquer a small island! The island of Sark is a little island in the southwestern English Channel. It is only 2.10 square miles total. It is located off the French coast of Normandy. It only has about 600 residents, but it has its own laws and parliament. Official languages are English and French and their currency is the pound.
At one point in...
The city of Chicago was raised several feet to fix...
The city of Chicago was raised several feet to fix a drainage problem. The city of Chicago was built on very low ground, almost as low as Lake Michigan. This meant that throughout the 1800s the city had virtually no drainage. This caused a lot of sitting water, which made living conditions poor.
Diseases like dysentery and typhoid fever abounded, and the sitting water was blamed for the...
Chef Gordon Ramsey was held at gunpoint for trying...
Chef Gordon Ramsey was held at gunpoint for trying to expose an illegal shark fin trade!
Chef Gordon Ramsey is a renowned chef and television personality. He has starred in the British shows Hell’s Kitchen, The F Word, Ramsay’s Best Restaurant, and Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. He starred in Hell’s Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, and Master Chef in America, which were...
One percent of the population in Greenland lives...
One percent of the population in Greenland lives in a single apartment complex. There is an apartment complex known as Blok P in Greenland. It is the largest apartment complex in Greenland with about 320 apartments. It is not very tall for its size—only five stories—but it is very long at almost 64 apartments long. It isn’t the most beautiful building, but it houses about 1% of the Greenland...
The first recorded use of the word âboredomâ...
The first recorded use of the word âboredomâ was only 160 years ago.
It’s unlikely that you’re unfamiliar with boredom. There’s a pretty good chance that your present visit to this site is an attempt to stave it off. But unlike many words that date back centuries, the word “boredom” has only been around since Charles Dickens put it on paper.
In Dickens’ novel Bleak House, written in...
Thereâs a scientific explanation for why the car...
Thereâs a scientific explanation for why the car trip home feels shorter than the car trip away. This is something you might not have noticed until you’ve thought about it. If you’ve ever gone on a trip to the beach/lake, for example, you might have realized that the trip home didn’t feel as long as the trip there.
Like many, you might be chalking up the perceived longer wait to get there to...
Sammy Davis Jr.âs widow had his body exhumed to...
Sammy Davis Jr.âs widow had his body exhumed to extract $70,000 worth of jewelry buried with him when she found out he was bankrupt! The name is familiar, but in case you can’t place it-Sammy Davis Jr was a entertainer known for his celebrity impersonations. He started out as a tap dancer and singer on Broadway and in Las Vegas and transitioned into a recording artist and actor. He’s famous...
Chuck Palahniuk wrote a story that caused people...
Chuck Palahniuk wrote a story that caused people to faint when it was read. Chuck Palahniuk is an author who is well known for his ability as a writer and especially for having written the book Fight Club, which the movie was made off of. One of his most interesting stories was title “Guts” and was included as part of a series of horror stories called Haunted.
His goal in writing the short...
Ohio and Minnesota have special license plates for...
Ohio and Minnesota have special license plates for DUI offenders. If you’re one of the 17 million people who drive drunk at least once every year (and come on, don’t), and not a resident of Ohio or Minnesota, you’ll probably be glad things are that way.
In 1967, Ohio started issuing special license plates to DUI offenders with limited privileges. Like any state, if the offense is severe...
"Germany" Schaefer was the only baseball player to...
“Germany” Schaefer was the only baseball player to ever steal first base! Normally, first base isn’t stolen since you have to hit a ball to get on a base. To steal first, Germany Shaefer had to go back to first base from second base. It wouldn’t seem to make sense at all to go backwards in a baseball game, which is why Germany is the only one who has ever done it.
Germany’s...
Students created an artificial intelligence...
Students created an artificial intelligence program to recognize âthatâs what she saidâ jokes. Chloé Kiddon and Yuriy Brun are computer science and engineering students at the University of Washington. Their challenge was to create a computer system capable of recognizing sexual related humor, a classification that can be difficult to program into computers since there is an element of...
Forty thousand more people watched the 2005...
Forty thousand more people watched the 2005 Starcraft Finals than attended the Super Bowl! The Starcraft Finals is a gaming competition. For the average person, videogames are a leisure time activity, entertaining, but hardly profitable. For people at the very top, however, gaming is not just for fun, it is a serious sport with serious opportunity and earnings.
Gaming competitions are so...
Twenty-four rabbits set lose in Australia grew to...
Twenty-four rabbits set lose in Australia grew to a population of 10 billion in about 67 years. In 1859, a man named Thomas Austin in Barwon Park, Australia released 24 rabbits. These European wild rabbits spread rapidly, about 130 km per year. By 1926, there were over 10 billion rabbits in the island.
Since the peak in population, disease has reduced the rabbit population down from...
In Hiroshima, there are permanent shadows caused...
In Hiroshima, there are permanent shadows caused by the intensity of the nuclear blast when the bomb was dropped. Hiroshima was an event that left both the emotional shadows of tragedy and also permanent physical shadows on the landscape of Hiroshima, Japan. These shadows were created by the great force of the nuclear weapon.
Thermal radiation travels in a straight line, which means that when...
Atomic clocks are proving Einsteinâs theory of...
Atomic clocks are proving Einsteinâs theory of relativity. The higher you live, the faster you age! Eintstein’s theory of relativity was a huge leap for the time he came up with it, and it’s only beginning to be proven now. Einstein’s theories were based in the realization that gravity is basically acceleration.
Extrapolating from that idea, you can come to the understanding that the...
An MIT student wrote Newtonâs equation for...
An MIT student wrote Newtonâs equation for acceleration before jumping out the window to his death. Phillip Gale was a sophomore student at the prestigious school MIT when he decided his life was no longer worth living. His plan to kill himself was fairly methodical and simple. He began with some research, asking fellow students about how he could get onto the roof of the tallest building at...
Almost half of movies fail the feminist Bechdel...
Almost half of movies fail the feminist Bechdel test. That means that they donât contain a conversation between women about something other than men! The Bechdel test was created by Alison Bechdel as a means of putting numbers to sexist trends in movies. The requirement is basically a litmus test: does it or does it not contain two, named female characters who have a conversation about...
George Reeves, who starred as Superman in the...
George Reeves, who starred as Superman in the 1950âs TV series, was frequently assaulted by children wanting to test his invulnerability.
George Reeves was always cautious when interacting with children who were fans of Adventures of Superman, because on multiple occasions they thought he was really Superman and tried to test his invulnerability.
Most often, kids would come up to him and...
The movie Old School is a retelling of Fight Club.
The movie Old School is a retelling of Fight Club. Many movies are retellings of previous successful movies. If it worked once, why not twice? The art of retelling is putting a new spin and perspective on the idea. For Todd Phillips, the writer and director of Old School, the goal was to add comedy to the past movie Fight Club.
Phillips deliberately modeled his movie after the Fight Club with...
