Fun facts!

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
What about when coffee makes you tired? Legit asking since coffee makes me more tired and irritable afterwards than before I drink it.
I don't really know, unfortunately... I guess in such a case it doesn't help that much, but it should still block a few of the receptors that are responsible for parts of the depression.

Pay close attention to the statues of people riding horses in parks and similar locations; the horse's pose actually tells you how the person riding the horse died. If the horse has both front legs in the air, it means the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air, then he died as a result of wounds received in battle. And if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
I really like that fun fact, but unfortunately, it seems that not all statue makers adhere to this method. Some go for dashing poses, some for easy to make poses and so on...
It really depends on where, when and who made the statue.
 
Obsidian can become absurdly sharp, something like a blade only a few molecules thick. Under microscope, even a very sharp steel knife will have burrs, while and obsidian blade will not.
However, obsidian is a glass, and is terribly brittle and not particularly suited for hard and repeated use. Steel is typically sharp enough, and holds up a lot better under typical work.
 
The last US silver coins issued for circulation bear the date 1969. This was also, incidentally, the last good year.
This is true.

Every single modern networked computer uses Unix Time, which just counts up how much time has passed since New Year's 1970. As of when I'm posting this, it's currently 1565630852, which is how many seconds were between then and August 12, 2019 at 17:27:32 UTC. So if you went back in time to before 1970 and brought your computer, a lot of things on it simply wouldn't work if you tried to set the date accurately. There was even that infamous bug where setting an iPhone to midnight on 1/1/1970 at one point could cause the phone to brick.

Here's a video that goes into way more detail if you're interested:

1969 was the last year modern computers couldn't work right at all. 1969 is also the year we landed on the moon. That's why 1969 was the last good year.
 
This may look like an image from an alien planet, but it's actually firefly larvae in South America nestled in an abandoned termite mound. The bioluminescence emanating from their heads attract airborne prey.
http%3A%2F%2Fprod.static9.net.au%2F_%2Fmedia%2F2018%2F03%2F27%2F08%2F46%2FCATERS_BIOLUMINESCENT_TERMI.jpg
 
One common thing all rich roman dwellings had was a room called "Vomitorium". This room had a very particular use during parties and orgies, where the attendees would stuff themselves with all sorts of food and drink. After eating their fill, they would go to this room to introduce a goose feather in their throats to puke out all they ate and go back to eat once more.

And since i am talking about ancient Rome, there were nearly 15 different types of prostitues in the roman empire split by where they practised prostitution and prices. One of these was named the "Lupae" who were women that practised prostitution solely for the pleasure of sex and therefore their usual price was a loaf of bread.
Did the guy who made up this myth ever, you know, ride a plane or drink too much, or you know, vomit?
 
How would that be determined?

So caffeine is a stimulant essentially. Some people have a major sensitivity to caffeine, and it's usually determined by how your body handles a large dose of caffeine. Most people who are super sensitive find themselves more irritable afterwards, and also in some cases the caffeine has weird effects on the heart beat. Best way to determine sensitivity is to try a different caffeine product, tea or energy drink, etc and see if it has the same effects.

That said, Coffee is a stimulant, and it's best not to over indulge or drink copiously throughout the day, as the body will build up a tolerance to it and in some ways retar-d its self function in order to maintain normal levels of alertness. (IE your brain dumbs itself down and makes you feel tired in expectation of coffee. Weird but it's true.)
 
So caffeine is a stimulant essentially. Some people have a major sensitivity to caffeine, and it's usually determined by how your body handles a large dose of caffeine. Most people who are super sensitive find themselves more irritable afterwards, and also in some cases the caffeine has weird effects on the heart beat. Best way to determine sensitivity is to try a different caffeine product, tea or energy drink, etc and see if it has the same effects.

That said, Coffee is a stimulant, and it's best not to over indulge or drink copiously throughout the day, as the body will build up a tolerance to it and in some ways retar-d its self function in order to maintain normal levels of alertness. (IE your brain dumbs itself down and makes you feel tired in expectation of coffee. Weird but it's true.)

Oh. Fair enough. I know that, I just thought that perhaps there's a way you can determine particular sensitivity to caffeine.

By the way, while we're at it - is this weird that I've started to have very deep sleep after having two or three cups of coffee a day?
 
Smiling and frowning to express emotion is instinctual. It's not something humans came up with one day, like flipping the bird, and then taught to others and their children. It is natural; people who have been blind since birth smile, frown, smirk, etc. and they have never seen what that looks like or means.

Kissing for any reason (romantic or familial affection) is also instinctual, although romantic kissing has a different purpose. When you mouth-to-mouth kiss a romantic partner, or someone you're attracted to sexually, your brain/body analyzes their spit. By doing this, your body can tell if their immune system is a good match for yours. If they are, that means your offspring will more than likely have much stronger immune systems. This means species survival. This is also why we have the urge to kiss partners.

This is similar to being attracted to someone by their natural scent, that we can't consciously smell or analyze, but our brain can and does. Hopefully I'm remembering everything right.
 
The reason your fingers wrinkle underwater isn’t because of them drying out or having oils washed away. It’s actually an evolutionary trait that humans developed to allow them to easily grip things underwater.

Weird how a lot of our evolution went towards helping us adapt to water when most of us don’t really spend a significant period of time in the water anymore.
 
A horse and a donkey make a mule when they breed, right? Yes and no.
A mule is the cross between a female horse, a mare, and a male donkey, a jack. A hinny is the cross between the reverse: a female donkey, Jenny, and a male horse, a stallion.

To the novice eye a mule and a hinny look alike, which is mostly true. However, hinnies tend to look more horse-like in the face and neck, while a mule looks more donkey-like.

Why mules seem to be more popular? Nobody really knows. However, it may be because a stallion may be to big for a jenny to mount for breeding, and there's the risk of the baby growing to big for her to carry as well (this isn't really a risk with an average-sized mare of a light breed and a donkey).

Mules and hinnies are actually the first documented genome manipulation by humans (first documented purposely created hybrid). They are also one of the few hybrids that have been documented to occur naturally as well.

EDITED TO ADD: Also, the "mules are sterile" is only mostly true as well. Mules can be born fertile, but it is incredibly rare. Second generation mules (like a mule x horse) have been documented.
 
Last edited:
The reason your fingers wrinkle underwater isn’t because of them drying out or having oils washed away. It’s actually an evolutionary trait that humans developed to allow them to easily grip things underwater.

Weird how a lot of our evolution went towards helping us adapt to water when most of us don’t really spend a significant period of time in the water anymore.

The 'aquatic ape' hypothesis is, to put it very mildly, controversial. It's a fascinating idea, and one supported by no less a mind than the late Douglas Adams, but calling it a 'fact' is stretching things a bit.
 
The 'aquatic ape' hypothesis is, to put it very mildly, controversial. It's a fascinating idea, and one supported by no less a mind than the late Douglas Adams, but calling it a 'fact' is stretching things a bit.

If someone smokes a lot of weed it makes perfect sense but figuring things out by getting high is veering into the stoned ape theory.

Anyway, one of the big things about the aquatic ape is answering the question of why we walk upright even though we're not really made for it. The hypothetical aquatic ape went further than using water sources for hydration, it used rivers, lakes and oceans for food (and protection iirc). Living on seafood and not having any tools meant that they were wading out into the water to collect things like clams by hand/foot but apes have that natural hunched over posture and being hunched over limited how far out/deep they could go UNLESS they stood up to keep their head above the water. Standing up for long periods and walking standing up is way easier in water so they started getting accustomed to it while the exclusively land based apes had no reason to stand up or walk standing up.

I always found the aquatic ape theory appealing just because it's a fun origin story of sorts.
 
Continuing with hybrids.

Coydogs (coyote x domestic dog) and wolfdogs (wolf x domestic dog) are widely documented and bred (mostly by irresponsible backyard breeders sadly). However, one hybrid that you would think exists, bobcat x domestic cat, has never been officially documented or determined via DNA. All evidence of such is anecdotal and circumstantial.

There are a select few cat breeds, like the Savannah Cat, that were produced by crossed small exotic cats (like servals) with domestic cats, but the bobcat cross has yet to be seen...
 
Continuing with hybrids.

Coydogs (coyote x domestic dog) and wolfdogs (wolf x domestic dog) are widely documented and bred (mostly by irresponsible backyard breeders sadly). However, one hybrid that you would think exists, bobcat x domestic cat, has never been officially documented or determined via DNA. All evidence of such is anecdotal and circumstantial.

There are a select few cat breeds, like the Savannah Cat, that were produced by crossed small exotic cats (like servals) with domestic cats, but the bobcat cross has yet to be seen...

On the same note, wolf x coyote hybrids are not only known to exist, but have become significantly more common in recent years.

The extirpation of wolves from most of North America south of the boreal forest has left a huge ecological gap, which the opportunistic coyotes have rapidly filled in the past 50 years. Now even Chicago has a very stable population of coyotes which get a surprisingly large amount of their calories from bringing down fucking white-tailed deer. As the protected wolves have slowly (and oftentimes secretly - there's definitely areas in Maine and the LP of Michigan, for instance, where wolves are 100% present but where their presence has been stoutly denied by DNR-types who don't want to spark off the political controversies that the return of wolves inevitably creates) also spread back to the south and east, they've interbred with coyotes.

The hybrids are noticeably more dangerous than either wolves or coyotes. Wolves, see, are extremely skittish around people. By many accounts, the general response of a North American wolf to the presence of people is to get the fuck out of the area. I've seen speculation that this is an evolutionary adaptation to historically very strong persecution of wolves in North America, but this is unproven. What is pretty well-established is that wolf attacks in North American history are extremely rare. Coyotes, OTOH, as sneaky little bastards, are much less afraid of people. There's a number of coyote attacks every year - mostly in California, where stupid suburbans who have no respect for the fact that wildlife is, well, wild live in areas immediately abutting roadless wilderness zones - but if you know what you're doing they're not much of an issue because they're small, cowardly critters, weighing maybe 40 or 50 pounds tops.

But when you cross a coyote with a wolf, sometimes you get a beast with the greater size of a timber wolf and the lack of fear of humanity of a coyote, and they've been caught occasionally causing problems as far east as New Brunswick. It's just one more reminder that, despite the efforts of both conservationists who want everything left Exactly As It Was, and industrialists who want the inhuman paved over and herbicide'd into submission, nature'll end up doing weird and dangerous things we can't predict.
 
Back
Top Bottom