15 Spectacular Facts We Can Never Unlearn

People often think of blackouts as forgetting what happened the night before, but it's actually much more complicated than that. Drinking too much alcohol can cause a person to have a blackout by preventing memories from being transferred to long-term storage. Alcohol-related blackouts happen when ethanol blocks the transfer of memories from short-term to long-term storage in the hippocampus, which is especially likely to occur when people quickly drink enough alcohol to reach peak blood alcohol content levels. Blackouts are more likely to occur for females because they generally take in higher amounts of ethanol and reach peak BAC levels more quickly than males do.

Although it's been over two decades since he was last seen, Richey Edwards' bandmates still talk about him like he might come back home any minute. The Manic Street Preachers set aside royalties for their missing guitarist in case he ever returns to their hometown Wales so that he'll be able to provide for himself and his family.

15 The "Uncanny Valley" is the point at which something becomes too realistic and starts to look creepy.

CRACKED BEWARE THE UNCANNY VALLEY. The Uncanny Valley idea says that, as an entity becomes more lifelike, our affinity for it increases - until it becomes too realistic, and starts to look creepy, causing our affinity for it to dip into negative territory. — *Warren Scherer/Shutterstock*
IEEE Spectrum

14 Mayor's dating pool solution: “ugly ducklings,” move here!

CRACKED AUSTRALIAN MAYOR INVITES UGLY PEOPLE OF THE WORLD TO HIS TOWN. The Mayor of Mt. Isa, Australia suggested that ugly ducklings should move to town, in order to improve their gender ratio (five men to every one woman). — *Rafael Tomazi/Shutterstock*
Reuters

13 A 70-year-old albatross just had a baby.

CRACKED 0007 A 70-YEAR-OLD ALBATROSS JUST HAD A BABY. Wisdom the albatross, the world's oldest known wild bird, has successfully hatched another chick at Midway Atoll in Hawaii. She still returns to her nest every year to incubate a single egg with her mate. — *Wiki Commons*
NPR

12 There are villages in England and Wales that lost no men in World War I.

CRACKED A DISTURBINGLY SMALL NUMBER OF ENGLISH VILLAGES HAD NO WORLD WAR I CASUALTIES. In the 1930s, Arthur Mee coined the term Thankful Villages to refer to communities in England who had lost no men in World War I. More recent research has found 41 such villages throughout England and Wales. — *coxy58/Shutterstock*
Historic UK

11 Submarines were key to the U.S.'s WWII victory, but at a cost of over 3,000 lives.

CRACKED SUBMARINES COST OVER 3,000 U.S. LIVES DURING WORLD WAR II. Subs were a key part of the U.S. Navy's success in the war, but the cost was high: 374 officers and 3,131 men were on board the 52 submarines that are still on patrol. 240 — *Wiki Commons*, *Rich Carey/Shutterstock*
The Historical Marker Database

10 Cigarettes were once a part of everyday life, even in hospitals and airplanes.

CRACKED THE BRIGHTEST MINDS OF THE 1960S WERE HEAVY SMOKERS. In the '60s, healthcare professionals smoked in hospitals, pilots smoked in the cockpit, and three of the seven NASA astronauts introduced at a huge press conference were smokers. Cigarettes were part of the atmosphere, in every sense, of Mission Control during Apollo missions. — *NASA*
Fast Company

9 Richey Edwards’ bandmates never gave up hope that he will come back home.

CRACKED BANDMATES HAVE SET ASIDE RICHEY EDWARDS' ROYALTIES FOR YEARS. Richey Edwards, guitarist for the Manic Street Preachers, disappeared in 1995. His bandmates still talk about him like he might walk through the door any minute, and set aside royalties in case he ever comes back to their hometown. — *Masao Nakagami/Wiki Commons*
*Enfield Independent*

8 The NFL is using RFID tags to track players and collect data.

CRACKED NFL PLAYERS ARE MICROCHIPPED. The NFL tracks players with RFID tags in their shoulder pads. The data collected are used to improve player safety, create more realistic Madden games, and even place bets. — *Nomad_Soul/Shutterstock*, *Nor Gal/Shutterstock*
*Nomad_Soul/Shutterstock*

7 Celebrate Leif Erikson Day on October 9th!

CRACKED THE U.S. CELEBRATES ITS FIRST NORWEGIAN IMMIGRANTS. October 9th is Leif Erikson Day. It's the anniversary of the 1825 arrival in New York of the ship Restauration, which carried the first organized group of Norwegian immigrants to the U.S. — *Sharon Mollerus/Flickr*
History

6 The Flynn Effect is the finding that intelligence test scores have been rising across generations.

CRACKED IQ TEST Part I Question F of 56 ? 2 3 a 5 IQ TEST SCORES HAVE 6 BEEN STEADILY RISING. The Flynn Effect, which says test scores have been slowly but steadily rising across generations, is typically thought to be due to improvements in things like nutrition, healthcare, and education. — *Kaspars Grinvalds/Shutterstock*
ScienceDirect

5 The game 'Secret Writer's Society' became infamous for its text-to-speech feature that would read back a list of obscenities instead of what was written.

CRACKED PANASONIC'S DIRTY WORD GENERATOR-FOR KIDS! Secret Writer's Society Panasonic's Secret Writer's Society was supposed to teach kids how to write. The game had a text-to-speech feature that would read back what you wrote, but under the right circumstances, the Macintosh version would spout off obscenities instead. — *Panasonic Interactive Multimedia*
The Obscuritory

4 Drinking lots of alcohol can cause blackouts by preventing memories from being transferred to long-term storage.

CRACKED ALCOHOL-RELATED BLACKOUTS HAPPEN BECAUSE OF DATA TRANSFER ISSUES. When you drinks enough, the transfer of memories from short-term to long-term storage is temporarily blocked. Blackouts are more likely to occur when alcohol enters the bloodstream quickly, causing higher peak blood-alcohol content levels. — *Nomad_Soul/Shutterstock*
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

3 Inmate James Washington confesses to 1995 murder after suffering seizures in prison.

CRACKED AN INMATE CONFESSED TO A MURDER WHILE HAVING A SEIZURE. James Washington, 50, was already serving a 15-year sentence for attempted second- degree murder when he suffered seizures in 2009, and told guard James Tomlinson about a brutal 1995 murder he'd committed. — *Pictrider/Shutterstock*
ABC News

2 Babies under one shouldn't drink water -- it's dangerous.

CRACKED WATER: DANGEROUS FOR BABIES? 125 Babies under one should not drink water, as it can be dangerous for them. They get all the hydration they need from breast milk or formula. Water can be introduced in small amounts when they start eating solid food. — *Oksana Kuzmina/Shutterstock*
WebMD

1 Buzz Aldrin didn't end up being the first person on the Moon because NASA thought someone like Charles Lindbergh would be better.

CRACKED ARMSTRONG NASA EVERYONE THOUGHT NEIL ARMSTRONG PULLED RANK TO BE THE FIRST PERSON OUT OF THE SPACESHIP. But it turns out NASA had a meeting and decided the first person on the Moon should be someone like Charles Lindbergh, i.e. Armstrong himself, instead of Aldrin. — *NASA*
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