50 Random Facts List #136

When the lone male in a group of bluehead wrasse fish dies, the largest female transforms into a male and resumes the male’s duties.

27. Spartacus led his escape from his ludus/slavery by gathering about 70 slaves who seized kitchen utensils to fight their way free. They then seized several wagons of gladiatorial weapons and armor. They defeated legions that chased after them and eventually swelled their numbers to about 70,000.

28. Power lines look like terrifying bursts of light to animals that perceive UV light.

29. If an American citizen intends to visit Canada but in the past has committed an act that could be considered an indictable offense in Canada, they may be classified as criminally inadmissible. This includes driving under the influence. Canadian border force has full access to the FBI criminal database.

30. Euler's work in mathematics and physics touched upon so many fields that he is often the earliest written reference on a given matter. In an effort to avoid naming everything after Euler, some discoveries and theorems are attributed to the first person to have proved them after Euler.

The phrase 'pulling out all the stops', meaning to use all the resources or force at one's disposal, comes from organ-playing, where it means to literally pull out every knob to play all the pipes at once, thereby creating the fullest possible sound.

32. According to bicameral hypothesis, humans have been a self-aware and conscious species for only a few thousand years. It's based on the overwhelming absence of introspection and meditation in very ancient texts.

33. Pickles work as a palate cleanser by sweeping fat away from your taste buds allowing you to taste the food like it was your first bite.

34. In the 1940s the musicians of America went on strike against major recording companies. Eventually, the major labels ran out of a back catalog to release and settled with the musicians, but the years without royalties effectively ended the big band era.

35. Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" was used to train medical professionals to provide the right number of chest compressions per minute while performing CPR, due to its bassline having a tempo close to that recommended by the British Heart Foundation.

On New Year's Eve, paramedics in New Orleans, Louisiana are required to wear Kevlar infused combat helmets for the 15 minutes before and after midnight because of the frequency of falling bullets.

37. There was a plan in the 1920s/30s to dam the Mediterranean Sea, create a series of hydroelectric dams, lower sea levels and make North Africa more fertile. It was imagined by a German who wanted to avoid another world war for resources, land, and energy by providing plentiful resources for Europe.

38. During the 1983 Byford Dolphin diving bell accident, a human error caused a decompression chamber inside an oil rig to go from 9 atmospheres of pressure to 1 in less than a second. Out of the 5 dead, one was ripped apart so violently pieces of him were found over 30 feet away.

39. George R.R. Martin made Game of Thrones show creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff correctly guess the identity of Jon Snow's mother before he allowed them to adapt his novels.

40. There is a freshwater parasite called Naegleria fowleri that can enter your brain through your nasal cavity while swimming in freshwater lakes/poorly sanitized pools. The parasite destroys human brain tissue and is over 97% fatal within days.

Pizza Hut delivered a pizza to the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro, gaining a Guinness World Record for highest altitude pizza.

42. An underwater cave (Cosquer Cave) in southern France has more than 20,000-year-old cave art on its walls, made when sea levels were lower. The art depicts Auks, Bison, wild horses, and more.

43. When you get a sunburn, it's not your skin cells being damaged by the sun's UV rays and dying, it's your skin cells' DNA being damaged by the sun's UV rays making the cells kill themselves to prevent turning into cancer.

44. Russian millionaire Pavel Durov was once so bored at his office that he threw paper airplanes made of money out his window, which caused a brawl outside.

45. Mickey Mouse is based on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Walt Disney created Oswald but rights to the character were taken by Universal Studios. Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse as a replacement for Disney Studios. He made sure all future characters were owned directly by Disney.

A Canadian man named Dr. Norman Bethune served as an army doctor in both the Spanish Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War and invented the first mobile blood transfusion clinic. He is so beloved in China that his eulogy penned by Mao Zedong is required reading in Chinese textbooks.

47. As part of a study, 139 diners were offered an all-you-can-eat buffet at an upscale restaurant for either $4 or $8. Both groups ate exactly the same food and the same amount, but those who paid $8 rated their meal satisfaction an average of 11% higher. The $4 diners were more likely to feel guilty that they had overeaten.

48. During the Great Depression, companies would print colorful patterns onto flour sacks so that women can make dresses out of them.

49. While playing the Wicked Witch of the West, Margaret Hamilton suffered second-degree burns from a pyrotechnics accident. Henceforth she refused to do any more “fireworks” scenes. Later when her stunt double was on a flying broomstick, it exploded between her legs and left her permanently scarred.

50. According to a New York Times article from 1996, Lisa Simpson from 'The Simpsons' was responsible for an increase in young people, especially young women, playing the saxophone.