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There’s so much more to science than graduated cylinders and broken Bunsen burners

40 Random Bits of Trivia Your Science Teachers Have Been Gatekeeping Your Whole Life

September 28, 2024

Natalie Portman and Jimi Hendrix are actually tremendous nerds.

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40

NASA is not trying to cover up an alien satellite in orbit around the Earth.

Conspiracy theorists think a thermal blanket lost during a space mission is an alien satellite. CRACKED.COM The Black Knight satellite theory combines several un- related stories into one nar- rative, most notably that a piece of space debris is alien technology that has been locked in polar orbit for 13,000 years. — Space

39

WATER FILTRATION Now standard technology, NASA developed iodine and cartridge filters to ensure clean drinking water for astronauts in the 1970s. CRAC — Source: USA Today

38

Pumping Gas

Gross and weird things before modern technology PUMPING GAS Since 1905, Americans have been able to pump their own gas. Before that, they had to buy it in cans and fill up themselves. ALL- PURPOSE GASOLINE and CAN CRACKED — Skitterphoto/Pixabay,
bpcraddock/Pixabay
Smithsonian Magazine

37

Hundreds of drones in the sky led to a massive Rick Roll.

WEIRD WORLD A man arranged hundreds of drones in the sky to create a QR code that 'Rick Rolled' an entire city. 14-47 o PLENS For Individuals Une Alpay Sear by pay me Specific - - Store Trensaction History крациве As an April Fool's prank, Jared Guyness said he used next-generation technology with 300 drones to create a giant glowing QR code in the skies above Dallas, which took you to the YouTube video for Never gonna give you up by Rick Astley. CRACKED.COM — WTRF

36

The soviets were able to steal US secrets with a keylogger on a typewriter. underwood FIVE CRACKED.COM Project Gunman discov- ered primitive keylogging technology installed by the KGB into the IBM Selectric typewriters used in the US Embassy in Moscow, which went unnoticed for 8 years. — Source

35

Hulk is green because 1960s comics printing technology sucked. In The Incredible Hulk's first issue, 12 THE INCREDIBLE he was grey. But Marvel's printers HULK apparently couldn't consistently THE STRANGEST MAR OF ALL TIME!! print a given shade of grey, so FANTASY te NE 42 - LIKE MAN m MONSTER ON they had to redesign Hulk. OR... 15 ME They picked green as his new color, and handwaved away the change by saying he was always green. CRACKED.COM — Source

34

CRACKED.COM Strange Science Stories Physicists think if you smash photons together hard enough you can create phys- ical matter. Now scientists have detected this phenom- enon in the photon-clouds of ions being collided at 99.995% light speed. In 300 years we'll be using this technology to replicate Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. — Source: Science Alert

33

Hackers ACEDHORNO OLOVE LOVE to GODOSEXЬ ROSECRETOLE 28PHREAK12U SKILL LORDNIKO LOCRA LAVERRIDE SECRETOS NEW On-demand TV, RV gaming, and more. The 1995 thriller is often mocked for its campy portrayal of teenage tech-whizzes, but it was surprisingly prophetic about modern technology, accurately predicting on-demand TV, tech world sexism, virtual reality gaming, and the dangers of simple passwords. CRACKED — Source

32

Dairy Queen 1940 DAIRY QUEEN CRACKED.COM In 1938, to test a new soft serve technology, Sherb Noble of Sherb's ran a deal of all-you-can-eat ice cream for 10 cents. In 1940, Noble opened a Dairy Queen, that specialized in soft-serve. — Source

31

Transparent Mice

Scientists turned mice and organs) transparent. This mouse might look like an exotic street delicacy, but it's heralding a revolutionary medical technology: 3D-printed organs for transplants. German researchers have developed a technique to remove pigment and fat from organic tissues like those in mice- and more importantly, humans. The resulting transparent organs can provide blueprints for a stem-cell-loaded biological 3D printer. And perhaps it can also be infused with flavors like BBQ and ranch. CRACKED.COM — Sci Fi-Grade Experiments That (Somehow) Happened

30

CRACKED.COM Despite what they show in movies and on TV, if someone flatlines (aka, astystole, or no heart beat), using the defibrillator paddles (CLEAR!) will do nothing. You need to perform CPR. Instead, you would use the paddles when someone is in ventricular fibrillation, or Vfib (rapid heart contractions due to abnormal electrical activity in the heart). http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/d/ De-fib the V-fib. defibrillation.htm — 15 Science Myths Out There (Thanks To Pop Culture)

29

CSI

MYTH: CSI teams sweep through the scene of a crime and solve it, fast. FACT: That's only on TV. Crime scene investigators don't solve cases. Their role is to collect enough evidence to support a case against the suspect who has been identified by old-fashioned police work. And the process isn't quick. Some laboratory tests, such as DNA samples, toxicology, and blood reports, can take weeks or even months to process. Also, while DNA criminal databases do exist, less than 1/10th of all criminals are a part of it. CRACKED.COM http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4284335.stm — Source

28

Cyborgs

55 50 CYBORGS 5 OPTICO-VIDEO NOVEMBER 1963 ASER ANTENNA SYNCHRO-ELECTRONIC SHAVER GAMMA-RAY REPELLER OPTICO-VIDEO HELMET SENSOR CONNECTED TO OPTIC NERVE RADAR-AUDIO SENSOR SELF-REGENERATING ATOMIC BATTERIES PUSHBUTTON PANEL FOR PSYCHO-BIOLOGICAL NEEDS EMERGENCY CARDIAC PUMP FORCE-FIELD OXYGEN TANKS REGULATOR AND COMPRESSOR IN THORACIC PUSHBUTTON BIOLOGICAL NEED PANEA CRACKED.COM CAVITY Popular Science believed we were close to the cyborg above, but their ultimate goal (Optiman) was more advanced. We had to hurry else Russia would do it first. Absurd, of course. We're not going to make our cyborgs green. — Source: 15 Really Inaccurate Predictions About The Future

27

Natalie Portman

GRACKED Natalie Portman has serious science cred. As a student at Syosset High School on Long Island in the late 1990s, Portman made it to the semifinals of a very demanding research competition, while also carrying out an investigation into a new method of turning waste into useful forms of energy. — Andrea Raffin/Shutterstock
The New York Times

26

Your earlobe wrinkles may predict future heart conditions. Like some sort of science-based palmistry, a crease on your earlobe (known as Frank's sign) may be correlated with a higher rate of coronary artery disease. No one knows how it works, with many assuming the sign results from smoking and other unhealthy habits. CRACKED.COM — Source

25

Purple Haze

Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze is about alien planets, not drugs. The song's title comes from the purplish haze of sunspots mentioned in Philip Jose Farmer's Night of Light. Inspired by this science-fiction novel, Hendrix wrote a long poem about the history of Neptune, which he then pared down into his legendary song. — More: Jimi Hendrix's 'Purple Haze' Is About Aliens, Not Drugs

24

The first woman ever to get a Ph.D. in computer science was a nun. READY 10 FOR X=1 TO 10 20 PRINT HELLO HIKIPEDIA 30 NEXT x RUN HELLO HI . HELLO HI - P = II 5 HELLO HIK IP E 3 I A HELLO WIK IP 2 b I 9 HEL H 0 ل WIK IP E C I A E L L 0 0 o WIK I P E > I H E L L WI K I P E D A A A I I HEL L WI IC I P E D Sister Mary Kenneth — Source

23

Boning Bones

CRACKED NO ONE REALLY KNOWS HOW DINOSAURS BONED. Because of their strong relation to birds, science is pretty sure it had something to do with cloacas, but it's currently impossible to say with any certainty. — vovidzha/Shutterstock
Smithsonian Magazine

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22

Strange CRACKED.COM Science Stories China's government has taken a 1% ownership stake in the Beijing subsid- lary of Bytedance, and one of 3 seats on their board of directors. Observers say China wants to rein in the power of tech companies. Who will have more data on Americans? Zuckerberg or Beijing? — Source: The Information

21

Pantheism GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD Pantheism is where science and religion meet: where reality is identical with divinity. Pantheists do not believe that God is a white-bearded man in heaven, but they see God in everything from an insect to a galaxy cluster billions of lightyears away. CRACKED.COM — Source

20

15 Scientific Explanations For Dumb Everyday Problems - The reason your tongue feels sore after eating pineapple is the fuit contains an enzyme called — Source: University of Melbourne

19

CRACKED Do we really need a march to raise awareness about global climate change? I mean, it's an accepted scientific phenomenon pretty much everywhere... except this one place called the United States House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. JON STEWART

18

Sherlock Holmes

The scientific career of Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes is taken from a real scientist. Apparently, Moriarty- -who presents himself as an accomplished — Source: 5 Famous Characters You Didn't Know Are Based On Real People

17

Go ahead and try, we'll wait.

15 Scientific Explanations For Dumb Everyday Problems - — Source: Scientific American

16

Chess

CHESS In 1859, an article from The Scientific American warned that chess robs the mind of of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler achievements, noting that none of the true greats bothered themselves with the useless game. CRACKED.COM — Source: Scientific American

15

15 Scientific Explanations For Dumb Everyday Problems - If you think you look worse than everyone else in a photo, that’s because you look so differen — Source: National Library of Medicine

14

Flies

15 Scientific Explanations For Dumb Everyday Problems - Yeah, flies are good at getting away from you. That’s because flies perceive about four times — Source: BBC

13

Bird Brained

PIGEONS WERE FOUND TO HAVE THE ABILITY TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN ARTWORKS BY PICASSO AND MONET. CRACKED This was proven in a real scientific study. — NCBI / niood

12

Hermann Detzner wrote a book about living among cannibals, but it was all lies.

A WWI German soldier lied in his book about his exploits and remarkable scientific discoveries. CRACKED.COM Hermann Detzner became famous for evading cap- ture by British forces in New Guinea. Не wrote a book, 'Four Years Among Cannibals,' but made ev- erything up, and just hid in one place for four years. — Four Years Among Cannibals

11

We don't swallow 8 spiders in our sleep per year. There's no scientific evidence that would suggest we swallow a single one. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Scientific American

10

40 Random Bits of Trivia Your Science Teachers Have Been Gatekeeping Your Whole Life — Source: Science Daily

9

Chickens used to be wild.

Foods we've been engineering for centuries CHICKENS Domesticated chickens started in Southeast Asia 3,500 years ago, then spread around the world as exotic, respected animals. A 2020 study found their ancestor was the jungle fowl subspecies, Gallus gallus spaedicus. CRACKED — Kym McLeod/Shutterstock,
Thanit Weerawan/Shutterstock
Smithsonian Magazine

8

Chimpanzees really enjoy eating cooked food. When given a straight choice of cooked VS raw potatoes, chimps in a study picked cooked potatoes about 90% of the time. They made the same choice nearly as often even when they had to wait a little for the researchers to cook it, and they chose to carry raw potatoes some distance to be cooked 60% of the time. CRACKED.COM — Animals That (Eerily) Demonstrate Human-Like Behavior

7

Think Size Matters? A study at UCLA found that 84% of women are pleased with their partner's parcel size. While only of penises are bigger 13% than 6.1 7 out of 8 women think that's just fine. 3 GRACKED.COM 1/2 2 — 25 Bizarre Statistics About Relationships And Sex

6

Product Recalls CSI Fingerprint Examination Toy Kit The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization did a study in 2007 and found out that the hit had asbestos in it. That's not something you want anywhere, let alone in a toy for kids, so the kit was recalled. AGES 10+ CSI: ADULT SUPERVISION RECOMMENDED WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD Jomal parts Mot for - - 3 years CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION WARNING: FINGERPRINT - - - - granos EXAMINATION KIT i E - USE FINDERPRINT BRUSH COLLECT TO BUST EXAMINE, REAL PRINTS D RECORD FINDERPRINTS WITH DRISSONS CSI TEAM CSI: un nar Done F 3 HANG CRIME — Source

5

Drinking milk could be killing you. A study published in the British Medical Journal says that 3 or more glasses of milk a day increases oxidative str

4

Gender

CRACKED GENETIC INFLUENCE ON GENDER OF OFFSPRING According to a Newcastle University study of hundreds of years of family trees, men who had more brothers were more likely to have sons, and those with more sisters were more likely to have daughters. This pattern wasn't seen in women. — BBC / Today's Parent

3

Oral sex has been linked to better heart health in pregnant women. A study of 225 pregnant women found that those without regular exposure to their partner's semen developed in-term high blood pressure twice as often. Researchers theorize this is because human semen has a priming effect that prepares womens' immune systems for pregnancy. CRACKED — Source: Unexpected Ways Sex Affects Your Health

2

The Smithsonian

CRACKED.COM James Smithson is entombed in the Smithsonian. Secres la the shampry James Sellow who died at Sense of Society the N yeon In a crypt just inside the north entrance of the Smithsonian Castle lies the relocated remains of the institute's founding father, James Smithson. Не was a chemist who enjoyed studying things like human tears and snake venom. — Source

1

Bike helmets would make your ride safer, if not for those pesky car drivers. A study showed drivers will typically drive closer to a helmeted cyclist

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