Random Facts - March 18 Flashcards
(write the main points from these 15 examples, no need to copy all the words)
Bogged Down
A “Bog Body” is a human cadaver that has been preserved by a bog. This natural preservation can be insanely effective. In 1952, researchers discovered a man who had live around 300 BCE that was so well-preserved that they could determine his cause of death: His throat had been slit.
Catch Phrase
Commercial slogans and jingles are designed to be as catchy as possible, but they sometimes drive us crazy. But imagine the actors who have become famous for these lines! Paul Marcarelli, star of Verizon’s ad campaigns, reported being plagued by his stint as the Verizon guy. He told The Atlantic in 2011 that someone even shouted his catchphrase “Can you hear me now?” at his grandmother’s funeral. While her casket was being lowered.
Mistaken Identity
In 2009, a judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Cap’n Crunch eater Janine Sugarawa against Pepsico, Inc, the company that manufacturers Cap’n Crunch. Sugawara claimed that, after four years of eating the cereal, she had only just discovered that she was not eating fruit for breakfast: instead of “crunchberries” being actual dried fruit, they were simply colored and sweetened corn cereal balls. A judge dismissed the case because, as he said, to not know that crunchberries weren’t real fruit would be “to ignore all concepts of personal responsibility and common sense.”
Unfortunate Inspiration
During a trip to New York City, Samuel Morse received a letter that warned of his wife’s illness. Morse left for home, but arrived to find his wife already buried. Heartbroken that he had been unaware of his wife’s illness and death for days, he developed an interest into communication technology, which lead to his research and patent of the telegraph, a way to transmit information across long distances instantaneously.
Stranger Danger
Every year in New York City, people are bitten 1,800 times by other people. That’s six times higher than the homicide rate in 2016, and 10 times the worldwide number of yearly shark bites. People may have some seriously misplaced fears.
Acoustic Kitty
In the 1960s, the CIA tried to spy on the Kremlin and Russian embassies by turning cats into listening devices! The program, called Acoustic Kitty, involved surgically implanting batteries, microphones, and antennae inside cats. This would allow the CIA to listen remotely to any meetings that the cats could record and transmit. The plan was scrapped after the CIA realized that you can’t train a cat to do much of anything!
Spam emails
A man was so enraged by spam, that he quit his job to study law and now makes a living filing lawsuits against spammers.
Taken
When Liam Neeson read the script for Taken, he thought the movie would go straight to DVD.
Rubik’s Cube
No matter how scrambled a Rubik’s Cube is, it can be solved in twenty moves or less.
More about farts, yup. Farts.
A nurse wanted to know if her farts were contaminating equipment in the lab. The doctor and a microbiologist tested the hypothesis by having a colleague fart clothed then naked onto two Petri dishes. The conclusion was that clothing acts as a filter, but naked farts can cause contamination.
Hmmm
Nintendo was originally a trading card company.
Stars, wow.
There are more stars in space than there are grains of sand on every beach in the world.
Watch out!
For every human on Earth there are 1.6 million ants.
What the…
Your chances of being killed by a vending machine are actually twice as large as your chance of being bitten by a shark.
How’s that?
A strawberry is NOT a berry.
A banana IS a berry.
