For all our genius and technology, humans still hit some weird walls. You can’t walk straight with your eyes closed, burp in space, or even buy Jack Daniel’s in its hometown. Some limits come from science, others from society, but all of them show that even the smartest species has its quirks.
1 Sponge Sanitizing Myth Busted
Humans can’t effectively sterilize kitchen sponges outside a lab. In 2017, researchers in Germany reported in Scientific Reports that used sponges, analyzed with microbiome sequencing and confocal microscopy, were massively colonized by Acinetobacter, Moraxella, and Chryseobacterium species. Common sanitation efforts, they found, failed to reliably reduce the bacterial load and could potentially increase the proportion of bacteria. The team recommended simple replacement on a regular schedule, such as weekly, instead of trying to disinfect at home.
2. Humans can’t burp in space. Aboard a spacecraft, microgravity keeps gases from separating from liquids and solids in the stomach. If an astronaut tries to burp, the mixed contents rise together, turning it into a messy “wet burp.” In orbit, this separation breaks down, but on Earth, gravity allows gas to rise and escape cleanly.
3. People can’t name their children whatever they want in Iceland. The country uses a Personal Names Register, and a naming committee checks new submissions for compliance with Icelandic language rules and alphabet. Parents can apply for an unlisted name, but the committee rejects ones that break grammar or could cause embarrassment.
4. People aren’t allowed to move the ladder at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Since 1757, it has sat beneath a window, and any change requires agreement from all six church clerics who share the site. When a chair was once shifted 20 cm, a fistfight broke out between factions. The scuffle reinforced the fragile status quo, so no one dares alter the ladder today.
5. Jai alai is one of the sports that can’t be played left-handed. The sport joins polo and field hockey in banning left-handed play, with polo and field hockey citing safety concerns, while jai alai’s design makes left-handed throws impractical. The rule means left-handed athletes must switch hands or sit out.
6 You Can Talk Pay
Employers in the United States cannot ban employees from discussing their wages with one another at work. In 1935, the National Labor Relations Act created the National Labor Relations Board, and it protects concerted activity like talking about pay and working conditions. The Board has repeatedly ruled that rules forbidding wage discussions violate Section 8(a)(1) and ordered employers to rescind those policies and provide remedies.
7. In Lynchburg, Tennessee, the location of the Jack Daniel’s distillery, people cannot legally purchase the product. The distillery sits in Moore County, a dry county that bans alcohol sales, even though it is legal to distill the product there. A narrow state-law exception lets the distillery sell one commemorative product at a time, but regular retail sales remain off-limits.
8. You can’t legally resell or freely lend most ebooks. On major platforms, buyers pay for a license to access the file, not ownership of a transferable copy. Digital rights management and store terms restrict sharing and resale, so the license stays tied to the purchaser’s account. The practical result is access, not traditional possession, unless the book is sold DRM-free by the publisher.
9. Skin can’t be cut easily by a cast saw during cast removal. In clinics, the tool uses an oscillating blade that vibrates rather than spins, so skin moves with the blade while the rigid plaster or fiberglass does not. That motion concentrates force in the hard cast, which splits instead of slicing soft tissue. The design lets clinicians open and lift the cast safely when used with proper technique.
10. Jewelers can’t reliably spot tungsten-filled fake gold bars or coins with a simple density test. Tungsten’s density closely matches gold, so gold-plated tungsten bars and coins can mimic the correct weight and dimensions. Professionals use ultrasound to probe the interior, as sound waves can reveal discontinuities that expose tungsten cores or cladding hidden beneath a gold surface.
11 Seawater Won’t Hydrate You
You can’t hydrate on seawater. Human kidneys cannot produce urine more concentrated than about 2 percent salt. Since seawater is roughly 3 percent salt, the kidneys must draw water from the body to dilute the excess before excreting it. That process leaves you with a net water loss and makes you even thirstier.
12. You can’t legally make Stilton cheese in the village of Stilton in England because the protected designation of origin limits the name to cheeses produced in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire. Stilton is an English cheese made in two varieties, including a blue type inoculated with Penicillium roqueforti, and it takes its name from the village where it was long sold rather than made. In 1996, the European Commission granted Stilton PDO status, formalizing those county and production rules after earlier national trademark protection.
13. People can’t end an LSD trip fast, even when the drug leaves the bloodstream, in spite of the fact that it has a half-life of 30 minutes. In 2017, researchers showed that an LSD molecule gets stuck inside a brain serotonin receptor at an angle, and a loop on the receptor folds over like a lid. That lid traps the molecule, slowing its exit and keeping the receptor active. The mechanism explains why the hallucinogenic effects can persist for up to 18 hours despite the drug’s short presence in circulation.
14. Humans can’t absorb left-handed sugars the way they absorb right-handed ones. Life mostly uses right-handed (D) sugars, and our enzymes fit that shape. Mirror-image L sugars can still trigger the sweet-taste receptor, so they taste sweet, but the body can’t break them down for energy. So you get sweetness without usable calories.
15. People can’t receive a pope’s organs, even if he carries a donor card. In February 2011, Vatican officials said Pope Benedict XVI’s German donor card became invalid when he was elected in 2005. They explained that a pope’s body belongs to the Church and must be buried intact, which also avoids problems with veneration of relics. So even a pro-transplant pope cannot donate after death.
16 Different Meals In Cockpit
Pilots and copilots can’t eat the same meal when they fly the plane together. Many airlines require the captain and first officer to choose different dishes to reduce the risk that both get food poisoning. The policy keeps at least one pilot healthy enough to operate the flight if a meal turns out to be bad. Flight attendants serve pilots separate meals for this reason.
17. People can’t have their names called out or written on cups at the Starbucks inside the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. For security, baristas skip the name-on-cup routine and work under tighter controls than a normal store.
18. Deaf Britons and deaf Americans can’t understand each other’s signs. British Sign Language and American Sign Language developed separately, with ASL drawing heavily from French Sign Language, so they use different grammar and finger alphabets (BSL is two-handed; ASL is one-handed). The result is that the two are distinct and require learning the other system to be mutually intelligible.
19. Pilots can’t descend to a safe 10,000 feet over Tibet during an emergency due to its high geographical elevation. Commercial flights follow that protocol after depressurization or engine failure, but the Tibetan Plateau averages about 14,370 feet, leaving no room to level off safely. Pilots also face severe mountain-wave turbulence and extreme cold that can contribute to fuel icing. Airlines route around the region to keep emergency descent options open.
20. Drivers can’t go straight from North America to South America. On the Panama–Colombia border, the Pan-American Highway breaks at the Darién Gap, about 100 kilometers of roadless rainforest and swampland. The terrain and protected areas, including Darién National Park and Los Katíos National Park, make construction difficult, dangerous, and environmentally sensitive. The result is a permanent discontinuity in the highway with no drivable route across the isthmus.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Helium Won’t Freeze Atm
At atmospheric pressure, humans can’t freeze helium, even at 0 K, so it never becomes solid without added pressure. By contrast, carbon and arsenic skip the liquid phase at 1 atm and sublimate, jumping straight from solid to gas when heated.
22. We can’t push human life much beyond about 120 years. Our cells can divide only a set number of times, a limit written into our genetic code. As cells hit that cap, maintenance and repair slow, and organs lose function. Therefore, the division limit sets a practical ceiling on lifespan even when medicine improves everything else.
23. Humans can’t exercise free will under the influence of scopolamine. In 2012, journalist Ryan Duffy traveled to Colombia to investigate the drug known as Devil’s Breath. The film shows dealers, firsthand accounts, and scenes that describe victims who comply with commands while the drug is active. The story portrays scopolamine’s power as the reason targets obey and later struggle to recount what happened.
24. People can’t legally pump their own gas in New Jersey. Since 1949, the state’s Retail Gasoline Dispensing Safety Act has required trained attendants to dispense fuel, and that rule still stands. Oregon used to share the restriction, but a 2023 law legalized self-serve statewide while keeping some full-service requirements. Today New Jersey is the only state with a blanket ban on self-serve.
25. Human society can’t solve a “Wicked” problem with a single, final answer. In 1973, design theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber used the term in social policy and planning to describe issues that resist resolution and lack a clear stopping point. “Wicked” here means hard to settle, not evil, and each attempted solution changes the problem or exposes new ones. The result is management and mitigation, not a neat cure.
RE: Fact #47 (Why Homes Lose Their Smell) – So, the science behind it is that you should always think twice before hanging out with people who believe their farts don’t smell.
RE: Fact #46 (Parmesan Versus Vomit Confusion) – I get that too, even without a blindfold.
Real Parmigiano Reggiano has a faint fruity scent, kind of like pineapple. The cheap stuff, like Kraft, really does smell like vomit though.
This reminds me of when I ate way too much as a kid and then threw up a lot.
RE: Fact #30 (The Pull We Can’t See) – And the Great Attractor is being pulled toward the Shapley Attractor too.
There’s always a bigger fish
It’s drawn to the Great Cream Puff too.
But on the other side of the sky, there’s this thing called the Great Repeller. It’s like a huge empty spot in the universe with not many galaxies, and our local group of galaxies is actually moving away from it.
RE: Fact #3 (Iceland’s Strict Name Rules) – It’s the same situation in Portugal, but there’s no way to apply for a new name. This doesn’t apply if one of the parents is a foreigner.
I think the Portuguese list could definitely use more names. I work with a Portuguese team, and everyone seems to have the same few names.
Over in Germany, it seems like things are similar. I’m curious if maybe the US is one of the few places where you can actually name your kid “idiot sandwich” if you’re really set on it.
Yeah, it’s the same in Germany. As far as I know, there isn’t a list of approved names, but you do have to show that the name actually exists somewhere. That’s how it was when my sister was born, over 20 years ago at least.
In Brazil, anything goes! I knew this big Bruce Lee fan who named his kid “Arnold Schwarzenegger.” When I asked him why he didn’t go with Bruce Lee, he just said really seriously, “There can only be one Bruce Lee!”
In the UK, there aren’t really strict laws about names. The main rules are that a name can’t be offensive, contain numbers, or be a title. So, technically, you could name your child something like “Kiddy McKidface” and no one could stop you.
RE: Fact #25 (Problems You Cannot Finalize) – This wiki article mentions the AIDS epidemic as an example of a “wicked problem.” However, in industrialized countries, AIDS has pretty much been handled. HIV meds have advanced so much that people on them can get the virus to undetectable levels. If treatment is successful, patients have no symptoms and can’t spread the disease, which is basically a cure. AIDS is still a global issue, particularly in poorer countries, but with enough funding and resources, it’s now a solvable problem. It’s really interesting how technological and medical progress have actually made one of these “wicked” issues not so wicked anymore. You don’t have to change people’s sexual behaviors or biases when you can cure the illness and stop its transmission.
RE: Fact #17 (No Names At CIA Starbucks) – Just come up with a name. It’s not like Starbucks checks for ID when you grab your coffee.
There’s no way that’ll work. It sounds like it’ll end up with seven James Bonds, three Jason Bornes, and four Emmett Fitz-Humes.
And at least two Austin Powers movies.
One grande pumpkin spice latte for Deep Throat!
Hey Mister I. P. Freeley!
RE: Fact #13 (LSD Trips Linger Long) – The science behind this sounds wild, like something someone on LSD might dream up. “Dude, I’m stuck, I can’t stop being high.”
That’s a pretty rough thing to say to someone who’s tripping.
That sounds like a rough time. I had some pretty toxic friends in high school who pulled similar stunts on me one night. I was tripping, and they kept saying awful things and showing me disturbing videos, just trying to mess with me.
Luckily, I had a bit of experience and managed to brush it off, thinking, “Seriously, you guys are terrible friends.”
What I’m getting at is, sometimes things that seem like they’d be a disaster aren’t as bad as you’d expect because you just have a sense of what’s really going on.
RE: Fact #14 (Sweetness Your Body Rejects) – Basically, any molecule that’s a mirror image of itself and can’t be perfectly overlaid is chiral. Back in the day, a lot of meds were made with equal amounts of both mirror forms. But then they realized that not all of those mirror forms were actually harmless.
Hey, I work at a Science Museum, and we’ve got a new demo coming up that’s all about carvone. Turns out, the right-handed version smells like spearmint, and the left-handed one smells like caraway seed! I get to chat about chirality and even mention thalidomide.
My friend was born without legs but with feet, which is how I know about thalidomide.
RE: Fact #43 (You Cannot Tickle Yourself) – So if something bad is about to happen, your body just freezes up and you can’t do anything?
RE: Fact #30 (The Pull We Can’t See) – That original Men in Black movie had one of the funniest jokes about the Great Attractor, making it sound like a sentient being who loved playing pranks.
He found the New York blackout really funny.
If the Great Attractor existed before the Big Bang, maybe this blackout reminded him of how wild things were back then, and that’s why he thinks it’s so funny.
RE: Fact #6 (You Can Talk Pay) – In California, employers can’t ask about your previous salary. This is to stop them from offering you less than you’re worth, even if they know you’re being underpaid and they could afford more.
It’s a great law that could help a lot of people earn more.
Honestly, are we really okay with a culture where lying is expected? Starting a new job by being dishonest with your employer isn’t the best way to begin. These laws mean you don’t have to lie anymore.
RE: Fact #27 (Brazil Nuts Resist Farming) – Just a couple of Brazil nuts a day is plenty. They’ve got a lot of selenium, and too much of that can be toxic.
Yeah, it’s true, they’re not all the same. Some of them are fine to eat a lot of, but others, you’d hit your limit really quickly. The soil they grow in seems to be the main difference, but it’s tough to tell where they actually originate since they all end up processed and labeled as coming from Peru.
Seriously, no more than 3 a day? That’s pretty wild!
RE: Fact #39 (The Metal Smell Is You) – So, why does blood taste like dirty pennies?
You’ve got iron in your blood. It’s funny, though, if your blood tastes sweet, it could be a sign of high blood sugar. You could even try tasting other people’s blood for this. You can also taste urine or smell feces for similar indicators. While you shouldn’t do these things, it’s technically possible.
Hypothetically, if you were in the desert and your friend passed out, and you didn’t know if their blood sugar was too high or too low, you could taste their blood to decide whether to give them insulin or not.
Back in the day, before the scientific revolution, people who were called ‘doctors’ mostly just followed standard practices. They paid a lot of attention to how the body smelled because it was a big part of figuring out what was wrong.
RE: Fact #41 (Polar Bear Liver Kills) – Yeah, trying to catch a polar bear sounds like a recipe for disaster. You’d probably end up dead.
RE: Fact #3 (Iceland’s Strict Name Rules) – So, I know this guy who’s Canadian but has Austrian grandparents. That meant he was automatically eligible for Austrian citizenship from birth. He decided to apply for it as an adult. The thing is, because he qualified from birth, they treated him like he was a baby when it came to his name. They apparently said his uncommon Welsh name wasn’t allowed. He actually had to go to court to fight for the right to use his own name in Austria. He won the case, but get this – when he finally got his official documents and passport, they had his name spelled wrong on them.
RE: Fact #26 (Korean Split, Speech Split) – It’s probably not the language itself, but all the modern terms, lots of which are English, that North Koreans would never have encountered.
From what I’ve seen, Koreans tend to adopt English words instead of creating new ones. For example, the Korean word for camera is just “camera.” I watch a lot of Korean dramas, and English words pop up pretty often in the dialogue.
There’s a common phrase that sounds like “hi-team,” which they use to mean “Go for it!” or “Good luck!” My wife, who is Korean, always thought it was a Korean phrase. Turns out, they’re actually saying the English word “fighting.” I’m not sure how that became popular, though.
It’s pretty similar with Arabic dialects too. You won’t find many cognates in Modern Standard Arabic, especially when compared to English. But whenever I’m trying to think of a word for something, there’s usually a cognate that’s used way more often than the “official” term. Like, “pick-up” and “4 wheel” just get turned into Arabic words, and even the word for waiter, “garson,” is borrowed from French. It’s kinda confusing when you switch between dialects and MSA.
It really seems like over time, most languages might disappear, leaving English as the only one everyone uses. I think this is happening because with how much communication we have now, it’s becoming more and more important to have a language we all share. My wife is Korean, but since she grew up here in the US, she’s fluent in English. Korean is her native tongue because her parents taught her, but they moved to the US when she was only two, so she picked up English when she was really young.
RE: Fact #18 (Same Signs, Different Languages) – It’s interesting that American Sign Language and French Sign Language are pretty similar, so much so that people who use them can understand each other to some extent.
RE: Fact #24 (Jersey Still Bans Self Serve) – Moving to New Jersey as an adult was a big bummer for me. I just want to swipe my card, fill up my tank, and get going. It’s annoying having to wait around for the attendant.
I used to live in NJ and was pretty split on it. On the one hand, I really liked not having to get out of my car when it was zero degrees and snowing. Plus, I’m usually not in a rush, so it wasn’t a big problem for me. It’s a bummer if I am in a hurry, though.
RE: Fact #24 (Jersey Still Bans Self Serve) – I grew up in New Jersey and worked at a gas station for a bit. My favorite thing was when out-of-state drivers would tip me for pumping their gas. I guess they felt like I was doing them a favor and wasn’t getting paid enough to just hang out outside for a few hours.
Even though I’m not from New Jersey, I would have figured tipping was pretty standard. Back where I live, most gas stations have both full service and self-service, and I’d imagine folks would tip for the full-service option.
RE: Fact #19 (Why Jets Avoid Tibet) – During WWII, the Allies created an air route between India and China to keep supplies flowing to China and prevent Japan from cutting them off. They flew cargo over the southern edge of the Tibetan Plateau in unpressurized propeller planes that were pushed to their limits. This route was called “flying The Hump” and was super risky. In just over three years, nearly 600 planes and more than 1600 crew members were lost.
RE: Fact #49 (Michelin Inspectors Stay Anonymous) – So, you might be wondering why a tire company has food inspectors. Back in the early 1900s, when cars were still pretty new and there weren’t many of them, Michelin wanted to encourage more people to drive. They created a guidebook to promote car travel and, by extension, the sale of their tires. This guide initially featured places like hotels and gas stations. Over time, they started including restaurants and eventually began rating them for the guide. It all began in France and grew into this globally respected restaurant rating system that chefs and owners would work themselves to the bone to get stars in.
There was actually a chef who took his own life after his restaurant dropped from 3 stars to 2.
Just to clarify, that chef didn’t actually lose a star; he died because he was worried he *might* lose a star.
Bernard Loiseau was a French chef. He committed suicide by shooting himself in 2003 after newspaper reports suggested his restaurant could lose its 3-star rating.
RE: Fact #5 (Lefties Banned From Jai Alai) – So much for my dreams of playing jai alai professionally.
RE: Fact #21 (Helium Won’t Freeze Atm) – Wow, I guess I’ve completely misunderstood what absolute zero means for about 20 years now.
RE: Fact #48 (Champagne Name Ban In Switzerland) – It’s pretty wild that the village of Stilton, which is where it got its name from, isn’t even allowed to make it since it’s in Cambridgeshire!
The cheese wasn’t actually made in Stilton, it just got its name from there ’cause it became popular being sold at the pub in Stilton.
RE: Fact #8 (You Don’t Own Ebooks) – Yeah, pretty much the same deal with video games too, except for a few places like GoG. Steam, for instance, just gives you a license, so you don’t legally “own” the game. Most online stores are like that.
RE: Fact #9 (Cast Saws Spare Skin) – Basically, it’s a vibrating saw with super fine teeth. Your skin just moves with the vibration, so it doesn’t get cut. But if you’re sawing through a cast and drag the saw along it while it’s still touching your skin, it can really hurt.
RE: Fact #24 (Jersey Still Bans Self Serve) – The real question is still why you can’t do it yourself.
Or, in other words, job creation
RE: Fact #25 (Problems You Cannot Finalize) – So, basically, all the tricky issues society deals with
RE: Fact #45 (Fire Fails In Zero G) – Fire can totally burn in space! NASA’s done a bunch of experiments through programs called FLEX and SAFFIRE to see how fires spread without gravity. It’s a big safety concern for any spacecraft with people inside.
RE: Fact #34 (Monet’s Post Surgery Blues) – I can’t imagine going through that surgery back then with the medical practices they had. Yikes.
So, get this, cataract surgery has been around for ages. They’d basically stick this little metal straw in the eye and nudge the cloudy part of the lens to the back.
That other way was way more fun. They’d just poke you in the eye until it popped out, no cuts needed. And those “straw” needles? Pretty sure they were for sucking out the cataract, not just shoving it around.
In a few generations, people will probably say the same thing about our medical procedures today.
We have anesthetics these days, but back then they had whiskey.
RE: Fact #31 (One Masters Jacket Only) – Gold jacket, green jacket, who cares?
RE: Fact #47 (Why Homes Lose Their Smell) – When you’re gone from home for a while, pay attention to the smell when you return. That’s pretty much what everyone else notices when they visit your place.
RE: Fact #18 (Same Signs, Different Languages) – just wait till you learn about Black American Sign Language, which actually came about because of segregation in schools.
RE: Fact #29 (You Cannot Sell Oscars) – Offer to sell it to them for $1, but with a catch: celebrity hand delivery for $10,000,000 is the only option. I’ve bought stuff on ebay before, so I get how these things go.
RE: Fact #30 (The Pull We Can’t See) – I think this scenario is less unsettling than the idea that our galaxy is moving away from every other galaxy out there. Plus, at 6000 km/s, which is about 0.02 light-years per year, it’ll take roughly 7 billion years for the Milky Way to get anywhere near it.
It’s wild how huge space is! We hear about things like this and our reaction is like, “Oh neat, we’re only going 6000km/s.” For real though, the fastest thing humans have ever made is only going 400,000 mph. 6000km/s is like 13 million mph, and I can’t even wrap my head around that kind of speed.
The Great Attractor is only pulling us towards it if you don’t consider the expansion of the universe. When they identified the Laniakea Supercluster, which showed us the Great Attractor, they didn’t account for this expansion. Right now, assuming the expansion stays steady, our galaxy is only connected to its local group of galaxies. Eventually, the Milky Way will combine with all the other galaxies in our local group, while everything else will move so far away it’ll be impossible to see.
If expansion keeps going at the same rate, the end result is basically a single, isolated galaxy with no signs of anything beyond it. If a civilization appeared then, they’d have no way of knowing about the distant past or other galaxies. It would seem like the Milky Way and Andromeda were the only galaxies that ever existed.
But honestly, I think that’s the best-case scenario. If gravity ends up winning against expansion, then everything will be pulled back together, and all life in the universe will literally be cooked alive. And if expansion speeds up, it could get so extreme that galaxies get ripped apart, then star systems, then planets, and maybe even down to atoms.
So, it turns out the Great Attractor isn’t quite powerful enough to stop space from expanding. Our local cluster will eventually merge, but the bigger supercluster is going to spread out.
It’s really wild how the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light.
RE: Fact #32 (Bass You Cannot Locate) – Seriously, when I’m stuck in traffic and I hear that kind of noise, I always know it’s coming from that one dude with the Civic hatchback and the loud exhaust.
RE: Fact #3 (Iceland’s Strict Name Rules) – Hey, so as an Icelander, I wanted to share that some folks have been trying to get the name Lúsifer approved for over 20 years now. They get denied every single year.
Imagine if the parents were vacationing in the US and decided to name their child Lucifer. The US would totally issue a birth certificate with that name, and then when the kid grows up, they could probably get both US and Icelandic passports.
So, some folks have headed to the USA to get around the naming rules here. A pretty well-known example is Jón Gnarr, the comedian and ex-mayor of Reykjavík, who legally changed his name by doing that.
Naming your kid Lucifer feels like it might set them up for a rough time, so I get why the government might feel that way.
My parents almost named me Lucifer and Lucius, but they ended up going with Tanner. I think I’m kinda glad they did!
So, an Icelander moves away, changes their name to Lusifer, then moves back. They have a kid, and now the kid’s last name is Lusiferson. Makes you wonder what the end game is, right?
RE: Fact #11 (Seawater Won’t Hydrate You) – So, I heard that your large intestine can soak up water. That means a saltwater enema could actually hydrate you if you keep it in for long enough. But honestly, even though I heard this, it might not be true that squirting saltwater up your butt is good for anything besides maybe having a little fun right before you die of thirst.
RE: Fact #33 (Babies Learn Salt Late) – So, a cool thing is that studies show if you grow up eating a low-salt diet, you’ll probably end up really liking salty foods later on.
My parents only used salt substitutes until I was a teenager, and I’ve always loved salt. I wonder if that’s why?
RE: Fact #33 (Babies Learn Salt Late) – If I have a baby, I’m giving them so much salt.
That baby’s blood pressure is going to be through the roof at 2 years old.
RE: Fact #20 (The Road Stops At Darien) – There are these man-eating parasites called screwworms that live in the areas south of Panama. They’re kept in check because hundreds of millions of sterilized ones get dropped from planes every year, creating a barrier where they can’t breed anymore. It’s pretty wild to think about how incredibly dangerous the world used to be before we figured out how to get rid of most of the things that could kill us.
That’s absolutely insane! They release 14.7 million sterilized screwworms every week over the rainforest between the two countries, and there’s a plant in Panama working nonstop to raise them. Inspectors even cover huge areas by motorcycle, boat, and horseback just to check for infections on the other side of the border. They have to be so careful, because even a small mistake could ruin everything they’ve already done.
My uncle got bit by one of those when he was a kid, right on his head. This was back in the 80s in Venezuela. He could’ve had it surgically removed, but my grandparents couldn’t afford the operation. So, they shaved his head, put this gum-like chewing tobacco on the worm, and then covered his head with a big chunk of meat. The chew made the worm go crazy trying to get out, so it crawled onto the meat instead. They just threw the meat in a fire, and he’s got a scar on his head from it. Those are some nasty fu*kin’ worms.
RE: Fact #2 (Why Astronauts Cannot Burp) – I’m curious if it’s just that they can’t burp, or if it’s more like a constant feeling of needing to burp that only goes away once they’re back on Earth.
RE: Fact #10 (Gold Fakes Beat Density) – I’ve always wanted a tungsten cube and a gold bar. I guess if I get the tungsten and plate it with gold, I’ll have both, and nobody will ever know!
You can tell pretty quickly with a spoon! If you tap a solid piece and it makes a distinct sound that’s always the same, you can even measure and control it with your phone.
A tungsten core with gold plating is dull and makes no sound. Even a 50/50 mix will make the wrong sound and be flagged as fake. Only 99.9999% pure gold makes that distinct gold sound. You could fake it with other metals, but the size and weight would be way off.
Seriously, why ultrasound? Couldn’t they just tap it with a spoon?
RE: Fact #3 (Iceland’s Strict Name Rules) – That list is super long and just keeps growing each month with new names getting the go-ahead. Icelandic grammar is pretty complex, and they’re trying to make sure names fit those rules. Plus, they want to avoid stuff like “peepeepoopoo.”
RE: Fact #26 (Korean Split, Speech Split) – Put someone from Maine in a room with someone from the bayou.
I bet they’ll both speak French.
Curious how many French speakers are in Maine. I know that Bayou French has changed a lot over time.
RE: Fact #9 (Cast Saws Spare Skin) – Yeah, it’s totally possible. It’s actually part of my job to use one almost every day. That said, the only person I’ve ever cut was myself. I rubbed it on my arm to show a patient it couldn’t cut you. Turns out, it wasn’t even turned on at the time.
Thankfully, the patient never saw it. It was just a tiny nick, and it only started bleeding after I left the room. Everything was fine! And to be clear, I would never use a saw with blood on it on a patient. For starters, it never even touched the patient’s skin, and the cut didn’t bleed until later. I did wipe down the blade with alcohol once I realized I’d nicked myself. I’d never put a patient’s safety at risk.
When they took off my cast, I was totally fine, but let me tell you, you feel the heat. And it’s not just for a second, either. For a whole minute, you feel the heat from a saw, super close to your skin. I was sweating like I was being tortured.
It actually feels a bit itchy for a few minutes after.
It really seems like most folks who get cut are the ones who are super confident it won’t hurt them and end up being a bit careless. If they handled it more carefully, it’d be way safer.
Yeah, you’re right. I always tell my patients to let me know if anything feels too hot so we can stop and let it cool down. I also put a lot of padding in my casts to help stop that from happening.
RE: Fact #6 (You Can Talk Pay) – If a company ever tells you not to talk about your salary with others, it’s usually because they’re screwing you over. That happened to me, they said it wasn’t appropriate to discuss salaries, which really means they were giving more money to their buddies for the same work.
RE: Fact #35 (You Can’t Walk Straight Blind) – So, there was this experiment where a bunch of Egyptian refugees, like a couple million, ended up wandering around the Sinai Peninsula for about forty years.
RE: Fact #28 (Why Beans Cause Gas) – So, it’s the bacteria in your small intestine that break down oligosaccharides and make the gas. You’re basically farting out their burps.
So, the bacteria mostly hang out in our large intestine, and that’s where they break stuff down. Oligosaccharides seem to be a big deal for keeping good bacteria healthy there since they’re like food for them!
RE: Fact #9 (Cast Saws Spare Skin) – That’s not entirely right. While it’s not a circular saw that’ll cut super deep, it can still nick your skin enough to draw blood. I know from experience.
Yeah, that makes sense. It seems like the issue is from moving the entire saw, not from the actual cutting part itself.
I’m a bit confused because that seems to be true for most sharp things. You can push a pretty sharp knife into your hand and probably won’t cut yourself, but it’ll totally slice you the second you slide the blade.
RE: Fact #15 (Popes Cannot Donate Organs) – I just had a thought: if you go by what happens during communion, Jesus is basically the most helpful organ donor the world has ever seen.
RE: Fact #11 (Seawater Won’t Hydrate You) – Did you know that the Baltic Sea has so much fresh water flowing into it that you could actually hydrate yourself by drinking it?
Another Interesting Fact: Northern Pike totally dig living and doing well in that brackish water.
RE: Fact #15 (Popes Cannot Donate Organs) – Who needs a 92-year-old kidney, right?
I wanted some sweet pope liver.
With all that communion wine, I bet it’s at least 50% Jesus by volume.
This makes me think of that scene with the fava beans and the chianti.
Maybe a 92-year-old who doesn’t have a kidney?
If you’re over 90, I’m guessing you’re probably at the bottom of the list for recipients.
RE: Fact #45 (Fire Fails In Zero G) – Anything with its own oxidizer will burn in zero gravity. That’s how the attitude thrusters on small spacecraft work – they burn hydrazine.
RE: Fact #1 (Sponge Sanitizing Myth Busted) – Just a heads-up, most of us don’t actually need to sterilize our sponges for everyday cooking.
Plus, the bacteria you listed that’s found in the biome aren’t the kind that usually cause problems for people. The article even mentions in the conclusion that more research is needed on how these bacteria might cause illness.
So yeah, it’s smart to swap out your sponge now and then. But there’s really no need to freak out about using them.
I just toss them in the dishwasher when I run it, and the smell disappears.
After you’re done with it, give it a really good squeeze, even harder than you think possible. It’s really important to keep it dry, so don’t just leave it there soaking wet.
You really need to make sure your sponge dries out completely every day. That’ll at least help cut down on fungus and bacteria growing.
RE: Fact #13 (LSD Trips Linger Long) – Seems like you get a lot for your money.
RE: Fact #7 (Whiskey You Cannot Buy Locally) – So, it sounds like you can still grab one special bottle?
Hey, I’m not sure if this is still the case, or maybe Jack Daniel’s just doesn’t care anymore, lol. I visited the distillery about six years ago and bought a bunch of whiskey. I ended up with like 6 collector bottles and a Sinatra blend that I had engraved at the gift shop – still got it. All the bottles were already full and sealed when I bought them. There were no empty bottles to fill up at the gift shop, and no limit of one bottle per person. The whole gift shop pretty much felt like a Jack Daniel’s liquor store.
Laws only really matter when they’re actually enforced. The county commissions know they want tourists visiting the distillery as part of their state vacations, so they keep the law on the books to apply to everyone else when they feel like it, but JD gets a permanent pass.
Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing. I went last year and grabbed a bottle of single barrel select, and I definitely wasn’t the only one. They were selling out super fast!
RE: Fact #46 (Parmesan Versus Vomit Confusion) – My grandfather loved limburger cheese when I was a kid. I was curious, like kids are with weird foods, but my parents were sure I’d hate it. So, I had to try it! He put some on a cracker for me, and just as I was about to smell it, he stopped me.
He told me, “Never smell cheese, kid. Just taste it.”
So I tasted it. It was intense and kind of weird, but after a few seconds, I had more and wanted another cracker.
He said, “You like it, huh?” When I nodded, he continued, “Good. Now you can smell it if you want.”
So I did. It smelled awful.
I asked him, “How can something taste good but stink so bad?”
He just shrugged and said, “That’s life. Nothing’s perfect. If you want the good stuff, you gotta take some bad with it.”
RE: Fact #7 (Whiskey You Cannot Buy Locally) – My old coworker used to live around there and told me the distillery has a museum with a shop. You can buy these “collector bottles” that are empty, and they’ll fill them up with bourbon for free as a gift. 😉
Yeah, they charge you about $25 for a bottle and fill it with JD whiskey for free.
I was there last April, and yep, you can totally buy it in collector bottles at the shop. They can’t serve drinks there, but if you do the tour, they give you a flight of shots at the end and teach you all about the different whiskeys. It’s set up like a classroom!
We’re not drinking, we’re educating ourselves, officer!
RE: Fact #11 (Seawater Won’t Hydrate You) – So, cat kidneys are better than ours because they can handle seawater. The idea is to get some cat kidneys to be able to drink seawater ourselves.
Lots of older kitties also pass away from kidney problems.
RE: Fact #49 (Michelin Inspectors Stay Anonymous) – So it’s like being a secret agent, but your mission is to travel and eat amazing food?
They have to do at least 275 inspections a year. I bet the first 100 luxury meals are amazing, but having to eat like that almost every day might get old after a bit.
I’m guessing they get paid for it, so it’s like a job to be an inspector. A job eating food wouldn’t be too bad! Also, Michelin doesn’t just look at fancy, formal restaurants. Those usually get stars the most, but any place can be inspected if people are talking about it. And it’s probably not just for dinner. So, three meals a day, 365 days a year, that’s 1095 meals. That means only about a quarter of your meals would be for inspecting restaurants.
All in all, not a terrible gig.
Yeah, I gotta eat pretty much every day too, and I gotta say, I’ve never felt more alive.
Yeah, pretty much. But a Michelin reviewer isn’t just checking out the food. It’s a whole lot more to it, like the decor, service, and cleanliness. I also think they don’t write anything down during the meal. They probably memorize everything so they can write their review back at the hotel.
So, from what I remember a restaurant owner telling me, the unspoken rule among food writers (not the secret Michelin inspectors, but the ones who write for magazines and newspapers) is that if you recognize one of them at your place, you give them decent service, but you make sure everyone else gets the absolute best treatment.
So, I just cruise around my neighborhood and leave Yelp reviews. If that’s how you wanna see it, then whatever.
RE: Fact #4 (The Immovable Jerusalem Ladder) – Imagine if a gust of wind just blew it over. That would be total chaos.
It’s like an act of God, so they’d just have to roll with whatever happened.
No one can explain acts of God.
Even if God himself showed up and said everyone’s welcome in heaven, people would probably still argue about what “everyone” actually means.
Fly a drone with a hook over it and see what happens.
Flying weird drones near holy places in Jerusalem sounds like a recipe for trouble. You can hear the IDF sirens in the background.
Hey, just a heads-up, try not to fly drones in Jerusalem.
Seriously, how has that never happened? You’d think a storm big enough to knock it over would have come along sometime in the last few hundred years.
Yeah, the ladder has been stolen before, and there’s been all sorts of funny business with it.
RE: Fact #48 (Champagne Name Ban In Switzerland) – So about that deal? It’s basically the Swiss national airline getting permission to make stops at EU airports. Seems like some serious lobbying went into making that happen.
Switzerland’s deals with the EU are super complex, and there’s this “guillotine clause” – if they ditch one treaty, it cancels all of them. That probably changes how they think about each individual agreement.
Honestly, I still can’t figure out when it would make more sense for them to just join the EEA.
So, I just learned something pretty interesting! Apparently, the US doesn’t have the same kind of agreement for labeling. That’s why you can find “champagne” made right there in the US. But, if that same “champagne” were to be brought into the EU, it wouldn’t be allowed to be called champagne.
RE: Fact #22 (Why We Rarely Exceed 120) – Hey, just a heads-up, there’s a verse in Genesis 6:3 that says something like, “The Lord said, ‘My spirit will not always struggle with humans, because they too are flesh. Their days will be a hundred and twenty years.'” Just wanted to share that.
RE: Fact #32 (Bass You Cannot Locate) – Also, they go further than high frequency waves.
RE: Fact #25 (Problems You Cannot Finalize) – Figuring out what a wicked problem is, exactly, is a wicked problem in itself.
RE: Fact #40 (Scares You Cannot Hear) – Yeah, the theater blasts the AC so much it makes me shiver.
RE: Fact #2 (Why Astronauts Cannot Burp) – Can they actually fart? That’d be the ultimate Dutch oven situation.
Seriously, I’m curious how they manage to fly around up there!
Yeah, it’s wild how they have to be careful when sleeping in space. With the low gravity and air circulation, CO2 can build up around their faces and cause issues. A fart could totally do the same thing! Basically, it’s like giving yourself a space gas diaper while also messing with your crewmates’ air quality.
RE: Fact #6 (You Can Talk Pay) – When I’m in the military, people basically just talk about how much I get paid.
My old boss was great and paid everyone at level X exactly $Y. They put all the pay information out there for everyone to see, so we all knew what we’d get if we got promoted and what level everyone was at. Year-end bonuses were also clearly laid out. It was a really demanding workplace, but I really liked how open they were about everything.
RE: Fact #18 (Same Signs, Different Languages) – Yeah, there are different sign languages, but honestly, every deaf person I’ve met, no matter where they’re from, is amazing at charades. I’ve never met one who couldn’t get their point across, no matter the language.
Yeah, I sign Swedish Sign Language, and it’s definitely a lot of improvised charades to get your point across.
It’s actually called International Sign when two Deaf people who use different sign languages do it. It’s a bit like charades, but way more complicated!
RE: Fact #38 (The 35C Wet Bulb Limit) – So, a wet-bulb temperature of over 35 °C, where the humidity is 100%, would probably be deadly even for people who are in great shape and healthy. This is because at that temperature, our bodies start to absorb heat from the environment instead of being able to release their own heat. Basically, 35 °C is the point where our bodies can’t cool themselves down properly anymore.
It was 35 degrees Celsius with 100% humidity, which is pretty rough. I’ve experienced 42 degrees Celsius before, though I didn’t know the humidity then. Weirdly, it didn’t feel any hotter than the 35 degrees.
When it’s less humid, your sweat evaporates and cools you down. But if it’s super humid, sweat can’t evaporate, and you basically overheat from your own body heat.
RE: Fact #29 (You Cannot Sell Oscars) – This is totally unenforceable. Someone could just claim they were under duress, and honestly, I can’t think of a better example.
RE: Fact #22 (Why We Rarely Exceed 120) – Seriously, the oldest person ever lived to be 122?
Yeah, it’s wild. She was actually dead for two years before the actual passing happened.
RE: Fact #44 (Potassium vs Sodium Clash) – Basically, they took info on food nutrients and used a program to try and balance out recommended minimums for calories, fat, protein, vitamins, minerals, etc. They also aimed to stay under the max sodium limits and keep the sodium-to-potassium ratio right. Even with a 10% handicap, it couldn’t find a way to meet all the requirements.
RE: Fact #1 (Sponge Sanitizing Myth Busted) – As a microbiologist, I can tell you that effectively sterilizing anything is really only possible in a lab.
It’s funny when daytime talk shows swab bags and surfaces, then freak out about the germ counts. It’s like, yeah, we’re basically living in a germ soup. It’s always been that way.
It’s the same when people whip out a Geiger counter and freak out about radiation. Yeah, everything’s giving off radioactivity, including that big ol’ light source in the sky that lets us see anything.
You forgot to mention how they found less on the toilets than anywhere else they cleaned in the house, and they used some pretty intense stuff to scrub those toilets.
Saying “we wiped [thing] on a Petri dish and it grew bacteria!” is pretty silly. Unless you used an alcohol wipe on the dish, it’s going to start growing colonies anyway.
RE: Fact #12 (Stilton Not From Stilton) – You can technically “make” it anywhere, but you can only legally sell it as “Stilton” if it’s produced in the specific approved regions.
It’s just fancy cheese.
RE: Fact #23 (Devil’s Breath Steals Will) – Hey, if you get sea-sick, your doctor can write you a prescription for it. I used to work on research boats and lots of people there used scopolamine patches. They’re a really low dose, but some folks are super sensitive and can get pretty out there. Also, some people think they’re clever and put on more than one patch at a time. I’ve heard it’s a pretty wild experience. I bet it’s still way less intense than the street stuff, though.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. A tiny amount in a patch can actually help with motion sickness. Pretty much any psychoactive drug can be useful if you use it in the right amount.
RE: Fact #19 (Why Jets Avoid Tibet) – A couple years ago, I was there and the sky was so clear and free of trails, it was amazing. It really makes you think.
The skies around DC were like that during lockdown, it was kind of eerie.