12 Feral Bits of Trivia We Wouldn’t Get Too Close to If We Were You

In 1931, the chemistry editor of G. and C. Merriam Company wrote a confusing memo, trying to add the word “density” to a list of words that could be abbreviated by a capital D or a lower-case d. What he wrote was “D or d, cont./density.,” which other staff took to mean: “dord (dôrd), n. Physics & Chem. Abbreviation for density.” That definition appeared in the 1934 edition of the New International Dictionary, and wasn’t fully eradicated from the official record until 1947.

Essex County executive James W. Treffinger refused to let the show film at a park in his county, saying it “depicts an ethnic group in stereotypical fashion.” The next year, he was charged with 20 counts of extortion, fraud and conspiracy.

LEGO gave up on its trial run of bricks derived from recycled plastic, after finding production “didn’t reduce carbon emissions.” Meaning: It was as bad, or possibly worse, for the environment than the normal process.

After a quarter century of using a mallet-shaped mystery item to crack open walnuts, a man in China noticed a picture of his nutcracker on a poster of prohibited explosives. He brought it to authorities, who confirmed it was a stick grenade, and was probably still live the whole time he was whacking his nuts with it.

He’s also pretty convinced that he can get Elon Musk to finance it: “I think Elon would get on board with it, too. He is the type. That would be an amazing promotion for SpaceX, actually.”

American entrepreneur Kristina Roth sold her consulting company for $65 million, and used that cash to buy a private island in the Baltic Sea. She transformed it into SuperShe Island, a highly exclusive retreat campus where women — vetted through the SuperShe app — can indulge in yoga, kayaking and discussion groups in the presence of exactly zero dudes. 

Calling their abomination DishBrain, researchers slathered about 800,000 neurons in a dish and hooked them up to a computer. They incentivized the brain to learn a simple computer game by giving it a pleasing pulse of electricity when it won, and a barrage of static when it lost. At first, DishBrain didn’t know what was going on, but it evidently very clearly started picking up the rules and the stakes of the game. 

No one noticed until 1940, when a British Air Force pilot flying overhead saw it clearly: Each of the four sides that are evident from the ground are actually made up of two slightly concave faces.

Before entering a building, they’d pepper a room with Silly String as a way to detect trip wires. 

SEO company Reboot developed an algorithm that considers shininess of head, symmetry of face and public opinion, among other factors, to determine that Vin Diesel was 2022’s Sexiest Bald Man. 

You can be given a fine of approximately $150 if you’re caught not flushing, and that can be reinforced with jail time if you refuse to pay.

Technically, the stars stand for unity, solidarity and harmony. But by our count, that’s three things, not 12. There’s no symbolic reason for there being 12 stars at all — they just wanted a number that no member nation had any nationalistic emotional connection with.