15 Little Facts That Fit Perfectly Into Our Brains

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15 Little Facts That Fit Perfectly Into Our Brains

Australia's own flat-butted marsupial, the wombat, excretes cube-shaped dookies -- but it has nothing to do with the back door, it's all about the plumbing. Meanwhile, hummingbirds aren’t just impressively quick flappers, it turns out they’ve got some astounding “elastic micropumps” in their repertoire, too. 

There are also birds in Mozambique who are actively recruited and trained to hunt down bees and report back to humans on the honey situation. In somewhat darker bird news, the TV dinner only exists because Swanson had a surplus of a certain bird after a certain holiday. In non-news news, there was at least one day in 1930 that the BBC found newsworthy specifically because there was no news being made. Man, wouldn’t that be nice? As it stands, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before some greedy country challenges the international pact expressly forbidding any one nation from owning the moon.

Wombat's guts form square poops.

Wombat poop is cube-shaped. CRACKED.COM In the wombat, the grooved tissue and the irregular contractions of the intestinal muscles over many cycles shape firm, flat-sided cubes.

Source: Science

Gum chewing can boost concentration.

Chewing gum boosts concentration. - mo gre trué fruits CRACKED.COM A 2013 study showed that participants that were given chewing gum outperformed their gum-less peers in cognitive tasks.

Source: Wired

Hummingbirds lick at astounding speeds.

A hummingbird can flick its tongue 15 times a second. CRACKED.COM When feeding, hummingbird tongues act as elastic micropumps, allowing the birds to feed at rapid speeds.

Source: Live Science

Good Friday, 1930 was a very boring day.

One day in 1930 was so uneventful, the BBC reported there was no news. CRACKED.COM On Good Friday in 1930, the BBC reported, There is no news and instead, they played piano music.

Source: BBC

The patent for the seatbelt was made freely available.

Volvo gave away their three-point seat belt patent for free. V90 vs GRAGKED.COM The revolutionary patent from 1962 was made available for no fee so that more car manufacturers could use it to save lives.

Source: CNET

TV Dinners started as a way to get rid of leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

Swanson made the first TV Dinners because they had leftover turkey from Thanksgiving. CRACKED.COM In 1953, Swanson had 260 tons of frozen turkey leftover after Thanksgiving, so they packaged them into trays with peas and potatoes, and the TV Dinner was born.

Source: Distractify

Honey hunters use birds to find beehives.

Hunters in Mozambigue recruit birds to help find honey. CRACKED.COM Honey hunters use special calls to recruit birds known as honeyguides, who lead the humans to the beeshives and in return, they get the leftover beeswax.

Source: Independent

Ants can end up in a circle of doom if they get the wrong smell.

Ants that misread scent trails can wind up in death spirals. CRACKED.COM Army ants that misinterpret the scent trails left by other ants will sometimes break from the crowd and walk in circles, with other ants joining in the march to nowhere.

Source: Gizmodo

Washington (the person) was America's biggest whiskey producer at one time.

The nation's largest whiskey producer was once George Washington. CRACKED.COM Не made 11,000 gallons in 1799, two years after he left the presidency, which sold for a total of $1,800 ($120,000 by today's standards).

Source: Smithsonian Magazine

There is a treaty to keep the moon unclaimed.

The Outer Space Treaty forbids any nation from owning the Moon. CRACKED.COM The United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom opened the treaty in 1967, and so far 104 nations have signed.

Source: The Verge

The feeling of forgetting someone's name has a name.

Tartle is the feeling of forgetting someone's name. GRAGKED.COM That panicky hesitation you get when you can't remember someone's name was coined by the Scots, defining it as hesitating in recognizing a person or thing.

Source: BoingBoing

You're more likely to be bitten by a guy from Brooklyn than a great white.

More people are bitten by New Yorkers than sharks every year. GRACKED.COM The annual number of worldwide shark bites is 10 times less than the number of people bitten by other people in New York.

Source: NY Post

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