26RRS Sir David Attenborough
In 2016, a research ship was named The “RRS Sir David Attenborough.” An internet poll to suggest a name for the ship ended up with the leading entry being “Boaty McBoatface,” but the Science Minister wanted a “more suitable name” and chose a different name from the poll’s choices.
27. Alaska is not the least populated state of the US. It has more people than Vermont and Wyoming.
28. Guitarist Eddie Van Halen was half Indonesian and his family immigrated to the United States because of how badly his mixed-race parents were treated in the Netherlands.
29. Unlike terrestrial mammals, whales do not have a connected mouth and respiratory system. They do not and cannot breathe through their mouths.
30. The CIA once secretly owned a Swiss company called Crypto AG. It was a communications and information security company that maintained offices all over the world and sold products with secret backdoors for the US government and key allies.
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31Chernobyl Accident
The explosion that led to the Chernobyl nuclear accident was chemical in nature, driven by gases and steam generated by the core runaway, not by nuclear reactions. No commercial nuclear reactor contains a high enough concentration of U-235 or plutonium to cause a nuclear explosion.
32. The role of Hannibal Lecter was turned down by Sean Connery, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro & others. Silence of the Lambs would go on to be the third film in history to win all “Big 5” Academy Awards & upon release in 1991 on VHS, became the most rented film in the United States.
33. Neuroscientists have found evidence to suggest feeling powerful dampens a part of our brain that helps with empathy. Even a small amount of power can have this effect on someone.
34. Spiders tune their webs like guitar strings, tightening and loosening strands so that they can read the different frequencies caused by intruders and determine where/how big the intruders are, if they are predator or prey, or if they’re just a potential mate flirtatiously strumming their strings.
35. Archaeologists excavating a cave in the mountains of central Mexico have unearthed evidence that people occupied the area more than 30,000 years ago, suggesting that humans arrived in North America at least 15,000 years earlier than thought.
