43 Random Facts That’ll Make Your Day A Little Better | Random List #220

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1Interstellar mission

Interstellar mission

The wait calculation states that an interstellar mission that cannot be completed within 50 years should not be started at all as it will be overtaken by more efficient and faster later missions.


2. An artist named Francis Tsai who worked for Marvel was later diagnosed with ALS. When the disease paralyzed his arms, he learned to draw using his right foot on an iPhone. When he was no longer able to use his feet, he used eye-gaze technology in order to keep drawing. He died on April 23, 2015.


3. Tom Dickson, the "Will it Blend?" guy, had his blender jar design ripped off by Vita-Mix. He took them to Federal court, won, and was eventually awarded $24 million.


4. Scientists have studied the ‘ice cores’ from Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the mountain which supplies the Nile with its water. The study has revealed that a drought did take place around 3600 years ago - around the same time the Bible sets Joseph’s story in Egypt.


5. After Warner Bros. executives suggested adding a third character to "Pinky And The Brain," writers responded to the unwanted input with the episode "Pinky & The Brain And...Larry" which featured a third, superfluous mouse named Larry that added nothing to the plot but repeatedly saying "I'm Larry."


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6Daughter from California syndrome

Daughter from California syndrome

"Daughter from California syndrome" is a phrase used in the medical profession to describe a situation in which a long-absent family member arrives while a patient is dying to demand inappropriately aggressive care.


7. When two subatomic particles called “bottom quarks” fuse, they release more than 7 times the energy of individual fusion reactions in hydrogen bombs. The physicists who made this discovery kept it a secret until they were certain the discovery cannot be weaponized.


8. In 1999, 40 million people suddenly lost power in the Philippines, igniting fears of a possible military coup, only to find out that the cooling pipes of one power grid had sucked up 50 dump truck’s worth of jellyfish which caused the outage.


9. Tivadar Kosztka, an early twentieth-century Hungarian painter, made an oddly asymmetrical artwork called The Old Fisherman. It was recently discovered that the painting contains two hidden images by mirroring just the left or the right side, which creates a symmetrical image of God or the Devil.


10. Elysis is a new smelting process for aluminum that releases oxygen instead of carbon dioxide. This new production process cuts operating costs by 15% and increases production by 15%. Apple has invested $11 million in the venture behind it and is offering technical support.


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11Dian Fossey

Dian Fossey

Primatology pioneer Dian Fossey determined to save the nearly-extinct Mountain Gorillas waged a war against poachers. She led armed patrols, burned their huts, arrested and placed bounties on poachers and convinced the locals that she practiced black magic, in order to scare them away.


12. Jack Black's older half brother, Neil Siegel, is a prolific computer scientist and engineer who has developed key systems for the US military and inventions that make GPS possible in our phones.


13. Only one commercial entity in America can import coca leaves with approval from the DEA, The Stepan Company. After extracting the Cocaine, the leaves are then shipped to Coca Cola to be used as an ingredient in the secret recipe thus making an imitation recipe near impossible.


14. Plastic and petroleum were originally environmental saviors because they eliminated the need to kill whales, elephants, turtles, and many other creatures for their materials.


15. Female psychopaths appear to be more prone to promiscuity than male psychopaths, and while they.prefer to date non-psychopathic men in the short-term, for long-term relationships they tend to look for a fellow psychopath.


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16Rembrandt painting

Rembrandt painting

A long-lost Rembrandt painting was found in a basement in New Jersey. It was initially valued by a local auction house at $800, who was unaware of its true value. But numerous art buffs recognized its true value, resulting in it selling for $870,000 ($1.1 million with the sale premium).


17. Draconian laws are named after the first Greek legislator, Draco, who meted out severe punishment for very minor offenses. These included enforced slavery for any debtor whose status was lower than that of his creditor and the death sentence for stealing a cabbage.


18. As a kid in D.C., American composer Duke Ellington loved to play baseball. Sometimes Teddy Roosevelt, who was president at the time, would ride by on his horse and stop to watch Duke and his friends play.


19. An 8 months Pregnant Mary Turner protested the lynching of her innocent husband Hayes Turner by a white mob in 1918 and threatened to have them arrested. In order to “teach her a lesson”, she and her unborn child were brutally murdered. No one was charged.


20. The Ibrahim Prize is a $5 million payout plus $200,000 per year given to African leaders who were democratically elected and left office after their term was up as part of their criteria. For 7 of the 12 years, it was offered, it was never awarded to anyone.


21Holocaust survivors

Holocaust survivors

A study of Holocaust survivors found that they passed their trauma on to their children. Their children were found to have an increased likelihood of stress disorders when compared to Jewish families who were living outside of Europe during World War 2.


22. Anthony Pellicano is a Hollywood fixer who was recently released after 15 years in prison for multiple indictments. He walked out to a six-figure trust that was funded by high-level executives and Hollywood stars for his silence while he was incarcerated.


23. Sue Jones-Davies, who portrayed Judith in Monty Python's Life of Brian, later became Mayor of Aberystwyth. She discovered that the town had banned the Life of Brian for 30 years, and her first act was to overturn the ban and stage a screening with Terry Jones and Michael Palin.


24. The song “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from The Lion King, was originally meant to have been sung by Timon and Pumbaa. This idea was scrapped after Elton John himself intervened, saying “I don't want a big, stinky warthog singing my love song!"


25. People with depression feel better after listening to sad music.

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