Moilruiko

11/04/2023

If you're an avid rainbow gazer and want to get your fill of the beautiful phenomenon, look no further than the state of Hawaii. A study published by the American Meteorological Society in 2021 noted that the area's "mountains produce sharp gradients in clouds and rainfall, which are key to abundant rainbow sightings." Air pollution, pollen, and a large amount of cresting waves also help to put Hawaii at the top of the list when it comes to rainbow quantity and quality.

If you're an avid rainbow gazer and want to get your fill of the beautiful phenomenon, look no further than the state of Hawaii. A study published by the American Meteorological Society in 2021 noted that the area's "mountains produce sharp gradients in clouds and rainfall, which are key to abundant rainbow sightings." Air pollution, pollen, and a large amount of cresting waves also help to put Hawaii at the top of the list when it comes to rainbow quantity and quality.

12/05/2022

Plenty of people have food allergies, but few are the result of an insect bite. In a strange and growing trend, some people who get bitten by the Lone Star tick can develop a sudden allergy to red meat. Beef, lamb, and pork (which are technically classified as red meat) can make people with this allergy experience headaches, sneezing, a runny nose, and nausea. In severe cases, it can cause the person to be unable to breathe. For some sufferers, the allergy fades over time, but for others, it's permanent.

03/05/2022

English, Portuguese, Latvian, Pashto, and Greek all sound very different today, but these languages all have a common ancestor called Proto-Indo-European. Though we don't have any written examples of it, linguists have worked backwards from a variety of modern languages to try to reconstruct it. Using their reconstruction, the sentence "The king wanted a son" would be written as "H3rḗḱs súhxnum u̯l̥nh1to."

27/04/2022

There are probably slang or informal words that get on your nerves from time to time, particularly when you think something should be taken seriously. In 2005, Australian Parliament took a few citizen complaints a little too seriously and banned anyone on their staff from using the word "mate" while at work. Fortunately, Prime Minister John Howard objected, claiming that "mate" was an important part of Australian culture, and the ban was overturned within 24 hours.

22/04/2022

Bram Stoker was an Irish author who is now best remembered for his gothic horror novel Dracula. Partially set in Transylvania, a mountainous region in central Romania, the story cemented the legend of the vampire in mainstream European and American culture. Despite Stoker's many world travels, he never visited Eastern Europe—and, by virtue, Transylvania—at all.

18/04/2022

Babies, particularly newborns, are surprisingly different from the children they'll grow up to be. When they're born, their heads account for a quarter of their full body weight, and the size of their brains will double in the first year of life. Babies have 300 bones and around 10,000 tastebuds all over their mouth. Some of the bones will fuse as they age (into 206, as an adult), but the tastebuds not on the tongue will eventually vanish.

13/04/2022

It is not known whether William Morrison had an ulterior motive for inventing the soft confection, but the dentist no doubt helped ensure others in his profession continued drawing in plenty of customers. In 1897, he partnered with candy-maker John C. Wharton to develop the cotton candy machine (which at the time was known as "Fairy Floss"), and it's been bringing kids cavities ever since.

08/04/2022

Copper and its alloys, such as brass, have long been popular materials for manufacturing door k***s. It turns out, this may not just because the metal's hue makes it look nice. In fact, the material has been found to kill bacteria. According to one study from the National College of Kathmandu in Nepal, "the metal ions denature protein of the target cells by binding to reactive groups resulting in their precipitation and inactivation. The high affinity of cellular proteins for the metallic ions results in the death of the cells due to cumulative effects of the ion within the cells." In other words, brass sterilizes the bacteria that can build up from all those (potentially unwashed) hands that grip it.

05/04/2022

That would be Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie, the two businessmen who created the candy-coated chocolates. The two actually had a very contentious relationship, as Mars leveraged Murrie out of his 20 percent share in the company in 1949—years before M&Ms would become the best-selling candy in the U.S., paying him just $1 million for a share of business that would quickly be worth billions.

04/04/2022

02/04/2022

Unlike cats or other animals that can cough up hairballs when they digest too much fur and other indigestible materials, rabbits are incapable of spewing. Their digestive system only goes one way, so the furry critters swallow plenty of roughage, which keeps things moving in the right direction.

31/03/2022

Most diners are too busy looking at their food to look all that closely at what the preparer is wearing, but the toque—the traditional hat worn by chefs—actually contains exactly 100 folds. This is not just a nice, round number: it is said that these folds represent the number of ways to cook an egg, though an investigation by Bon Appetit failed to track down where that saying originated. Need more distractions? Here are 35 Fascinating Fast Facts for When You're Bored.

10/03/2022

Some owners of disobedient dogs may have trouble believing this, but dogs can learn to recognize a vocabulary of about 165 words. Unsurprisingly, dogs respond best to short words, as well as words with hard consonants like "t" or "r," which may explain why they can hear "treat" from three rooms away.

21/02/2022

These days, supercomputers are everywhere—and they really don't need much space at all. Have an Xbox One posted up in your living room? That's a supercomputer. A laptop-tablet hybrid in your bag? That's a supercomputer, too. (Don't even get us started on the thing in your pocket…) But when supercomputers first came around, they needed much, much more space. Just take a look at the world's first one: The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC).

15/02/2022

A 2013 U.K. study from online retailer Littlewoods.com observed young children and recorded the questions they asked the adults around them. The children tended to turn to their mothers for answers, and these moms could end up answering an average of nearly 300 questions per day, or one question every two-and-a-half minutes, the study found. The moms reported that the hardest questions they were asked included "Why is water wet?" and "What are shadows made of?"

09/02/2022

In 1859, the U.S. almost went to war with Canada because of a pig. Just a few years after the Oregon Treaty was signed to end a border dispute between America and Britain (which still ruled over the area that came to be known as Canada), things got a little heated on San Juan Island where citizens from both countries were located. Historic UK explains that "a pig belonging to the British accidentally wandered onto the land of Lyman Cutlar, an American farmer. When Cutlar noticed the pig eating some of his potatoes he was incensed, and in a fit of rage shot and killed the pig.

09/02/2022

The next time you eat something that flaunts the rich flavor of vanilla, you might want to be aware of—or do your best to ignore—the fact that castoreum, a goo that beavers excrete to mark their territory, is sometimes used to enhance the flavor of vanilla in food, according to National Geographic. The goo is "generally regarded as a safe additive" by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but you'll probably never come across it in real life because it's difficult and expensive to collect.

28/01/2022

You already know that Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth while watching a performance at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. But what you might not have been aware of is that the president had a bodyguard named John Frederick Parker with him on that fateful night, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

24/01/2022

In the 1870s, the city of Liège, Belgium, attempted to employ 37 felines as mail carriers, according to the BBC. Messages were tucked into waterproof bags that the kitties would carry around their necks. However, while one cat apparently made it to its destination in under five hours, the other felines took up to a day to complete their journeys. Due to the fact that the cats weren't particularly reliable and definitely weren't speedy, the service didn't last very long.

21/01/2022

In the early 20th century, those who resided in North Frisia under Prussian rule were not allowed to raise the Danish flag. But some crafty North Frisians took action by breeding a pig, known as the Danish Protest Pig, to be red in color, with a large white stripe around its belly—thus creating an animal version of the flag. As they technically did not break the law, and because it wouldn't have been feasible to ban the breeding of pigs, the Danes successfully protested Prussia.