50 Random Facts List #78

Modern cruise control was developed by an engineer frustrated by his lawyer who kept speeding up and slowing down the car as he talked.

2. One person in four is a 'supertaster', who experience the sensation of tasting more intensely. Supertasters have a high density of taste cells on their tongue but are likely to have a distaste for beer.

3. A dolphin at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies was given a reward of fish for turning in the trash that had fallen in the pool to the trainers, including dead seagulls. She began hiding fish under a rock to lure seagulls, which she would catch to get even more fish.

4. The lion roar sound effects used in The Lion King are not actual lions, but voice actor Frank Welker growling and screaming into a metal trash can.

5. Barnum's American Museum had crowds that would linger inside too long. To make way for new paying guests, signs saying "This Way to the Egress" were put up. Not knowing Egress was another word for Exit, people followed the signs to what they assumed was a fascinating exhibit but ended up outside.

No alarms went off on the day of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion because they had been disabled to spare workers from being woken up by false alarms.

7. The cafeteria scene in Spider-Man where Tobey Maguire catches falling food on a tray is actually real with no CGI involved. It took Tobey 156 takes to nail the shot.

8. John Rhys-Davies, who plays Gimli in ‘Lord of the Rings,’ lost the top of his middle finger as a kid and had special prosthetic made. He played a prank on Peter Jackson where he cut off the tip of the prosthetic, covered it with blood, walked up to Peter and said, “Boss, I had an accident.”

9. 85-90% of passengers that fall overboard on cruise ships perish.

10. Lobster’s brain is located in its throat, nervous system in the abdomen, teeth in stomach and kidneys in the head, hears using its legs, tastes with its feet, and tends to favor one front limb meaning they can be right-clawed or left-clawed.

The largest pyramid north of Mesoamerica (Monks Mound) is located in Illinois. Covering 13 acres, its footprint is comparable in size to that of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

12. There was a tree found at ground zero a month after 9/11 in the rubble with burned and cracked roots and branches nearly dead. New York Parks and Recreation nursed it back to health and planted it where the towers stood in 2010. Today it marks survival, resilience, and rebirth.

13. In 2011, a 134-hour documentary showing a cruise ship (MS Nordnorge) on its voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes was transmitted live and non-stop on Norwegian television. Approximately half the population of Norway tuned in to watch.

14. Uraba lugens, the mad hatterpillar, is a caterpillar that goes around with its old shedded heads stacked on as hats.

15. In 2003, a woman had a heart attack during a flight. The attendant asked for any doctor on board, and 15 expert cardiologists appeared, saving her life. They were all heading to a cardiology conference.

All mountains on Titan are named after locations from J.R.R Tolkien's Middle Earth.

17. President Ulysses S. Grant gargled red wine laced with cocaine to relieve pain from throat cancer.

18. The demon core was a palm-sized orb of plutonium responsible for the death of scientists on two separate occasions. Both incidents included a slip of the wrist, resulting in a millisecond long burst of radiation. The blue light was emitted in the second incident.

19. Boris Yeltsin abandoned communism partly due to a visit to Randall's Grocery store in Clear Lake, Texas.

20. In April 2013, Charlie Sheen claimed that in 2011 he had laughed so hard while watching a Chappelle's Show episode that he experienced a ruptured hernia, and was rushed to a hospital.

Amercian game show host Bob Barker is part Sioux and spent most of his childhood living on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

22. Lays marketed a low calorie "WOW" brand of chips that made consumers crap their pants. The main ingredient, Olestra, is a fat substitute which allows for frying without calories being added. The problem is your body can't absorb it. Consumers suffered from cramping, diarrhea, and anal leakage.

23. Physical exercise during pregnancy has been found to have a positive impact on the cognitive development of the child, as measured using EEG a few days after birth.

24. A US couple named Peter Petrasek and Joan Petrasek willed $847,215.57 to the U.S. government as a "thank you" for the freedom of living in the U.S. after escaping Nazi-controlled territory in World War 2.

25. Vietnam vets have told William Shatner that they kept themselves sane while in POW camps by re-enacting Star Trek episodes.