50 Random Facts List #149

Tokyo has an incredibly efficient recycling system. All combustible trash is incinerated, the smoke and gasses cleaned before release, and then the leftover ash is used as a replacement for clay in the cement used for construction.

2. A retired United States Marine Corps drill instructor named Donnie Dunagan managed to keep secret - throughout his entire career - that he was a voice actor in the Walt Disney's Bambi film, providing the voice of young Bambi.

3. Stephen Hawking liked "The Theory Of Everything" so much that he allowed the filmmakers to use his trademarked computerized voice on it. He called the film "broadly true" and emailed the filmmakers that there were certain points when he thought he was watching himself, which left him tearful.

4. Fake oil paintings can easily be detected because of nuclear bombs that have been detonated after 1945. This is due to the fact that isotopes such as strontium-90 and cesium-137 can be found in oil that did not exist in nature previously. If a picture contains these isotopes, it is certainly painted after the year 1945.

5. There is an official world record for time traveling. It's held by cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who has spent 803 days total in orbit around the Earth. According to Einstein's theories of relativity, this would mean Sergei effectively has traveled about 0.02 seconds forward in time.

Owen Wilson attempted suicide in 2007, which led to Matthew McConaughey taking his role in the film 'Tropic Thunder.'

7. “He never married” was commonly used by obituary writers in the United Kingdom as a euphemism for the deceased having being homosexual.

8. When Pokemon Go first came out, it increased U.S. activity levels by 144 billion steps in just 30 days.

9. Tug-of-war used to be an Olympic sport. In the 1912 Olympics in Sweden, the host nation took gold, Great Britain took silver, and no one won bronze because only two teams showed up.

10. When American singer Robin Thicke was 11, he was being babysat by Wayne Gretzky while his father was on vacation. During that time, Gretzky learned he had been traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the LA Kings and abruptly had to leave, leaving Robin Thicke home alone.

The night before the Miracle on Ice, American goalie Jim Craig and Soviet star forward Sergei Markov played the arcade game "Centipede" at the Olympic Village. The two could barely speak in each other's language, so they communicated with nods and laughs.

12. In 1999, during an experiment Harvard physicist Lene Hau was able to slow down light to 17 meters per second and in 2001, was able to stop light completely.

13. In 2001, India started building roads that hold together using polymer glues made from shredded plastic wastes. These plastic roads have developed no potholes and cracks after years of use, and they are cheaper to build. As of 2016, there are more than 21,000 miles of plastic roads.

14. Many PBS stations across the US switched to all children's programming after the September 11th attacks in order to "provide children a safe harbor from continuous news coverage of the attacks."

15. The word "procrastinate" comes from Latin meaning "to put off until tomorrow" and there is another word "perendinate" that means "to put off until the day after tomorrow."

The production company behind Shark Tank used to require contestants to give them 5% equity or 2% of the profits from their companies in exchange for appearing on the show. Mark Cuban threatened to quit over this rule, so producers got rid of it.

17. Cobie Smulders who played Robin from How I Met Your Mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer which resulted in having surgeries to remove tumors all the meanwhile shooting season 3 of the show.

18. English king Charles I believed black cats to bring good luck, so he adopted one. On the day it had died, he lamented that his good luck was gone. The next day, he was arrested for high treason and was later executed.

19. A man named Andy George spent $1,500 and 6 months making a single sandwich completely from scratch. He did absolutely everything from making his own cheese to harvesting his own wheat. He made his own salt and made his own oil. He grew sunflowers and collected their seeds to extract fat.

20. The country of Chile is so long that it would stretch from the northernmost point of Norway all the way south to Morocco.

Seagulls can drink salt water, as well as fresh water, as they possess exocrine glands located in supraorbital grooves of the skull by which salt can be excreted through the nostrils to assist the kidneys in maintaining electrolyte balance.

22. Hurricanes used to be named only after women. After feminist groups protested over the implied slur that women alone were tempestuous and unpredictable, men’s names were also used for such weather phenomena beginning in 1979.

23. Not only did camels roam the Arctic, they actually originated in North America.

24. Juggalos are on the FBI’s official “top threat gangs” list, since 2011.

25. Feeding bread to ducks is actually one of the worst things you can feed them. The ducks no longer feel hungry but also receive no nutrients, causing malnutrition.