Random #290 – 50 Fascinating Random Facts

Stanford researchers have shown that mealworms can safely consume various types of plastics including toxic additive-containing plastic such as polystyrene with no ill effects. The worms can then be used as a safe, protein-rich feed supplement.

27. Nazis left behind so many of their Karabiner 98k rifles at the end of World War 2 that they ended up being used for the rest of the 20th century all over the world, and some were even used in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. Somewhere out there, an 80-year-old Nazi rifle is still used in warfare.

28. Popcorn, being relatively inexpensive, became popular during the Great Depression. It became a source of income for many struggling farmers, including the Redenbacher family. In fact, when sugar was rationed during World War 2, Americans ate three times as much popcorn as they had before.

29. The Latin name of a ferret is Mustelidae putorius furo, which translates to “stinky mouse thief.”

30. Famed children’s author and cartoonist Shel Silverstein was also a successful country music songwriter. Among his credits was Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue,” which went on to win the Grammy for Best Country Song.

The tumbleweed, an icon of the American West, is an invasive species that was imported in contaminated flaxseed from Russia, where they are a native species.

32. David Dunbar Buick was a plumber who invented the process for adhering enamel to cast iron, clearing the way for cast iron bathtubs in homes. He would later start the Buick Motor Company

33. The world’s rarest autograph belongs to William Shakespeare’s, of which only six are known to exist on 4 documents, all of which are currently in museums.

34. Pronoia is the opposite of paranoia. A paranoid person thinks everyone is conspiring against him or her, whereas a pronoid person thinks everything is secretly conspiring to help him or her.

35. The proposed Titles of Nobility Amendment to the US Constitution has been pending for 210 years. The Amendment would strip US citizenship from any citizen who accepts a title of nobility from a foreign country.

There is no actual difference between frogs and toads, with the popular comparison being used only informally with no taxonomic or evolutionary history. All toads are frogs and toads are just species or families of bumpy frogs.

37. Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels had severe depression and mourned his birthday by wearing black clothes.

38. Leonardo DiCaprio used to be a breakdancer before he made it big as an actor. According to him, he thinks he kept getting rejected by agents because he was a breakdancer at the time and had crazy haircuts.

39. Popeye was not the main character of his comic strip until he became insanely popular, Olive Oyl was. The strip was called Thimble Theatre and Popeye debuted 10 years after it started.

40. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crashed in 1972 after the entire cockpit crew became preoccupied with changing a light bulb.

Before Harry Houdini died, he and his wife agreed that if Houdini found it possible to communicate after death, he would communicate the message "Rosabelle believe", a secret code which they agreed to use. Rosabelle was their favorite song.

42. "The Singing Revolution" happened between 1987 and 1991 in Estonia when people gathered in public places to sing national songs together despite the ban. This and the "human chain" from Estonia to Lithuania were among the events that led to the independence of Baltic states.

43. There is a lake in Russia that’s been nicknamed the “Siberian Maldives.” A lot of Russians pose there for their Instagram photos due to its bright turquoise color. This isn’t its natural color. It is turquoise due to toxic waste runoff from a local power plant and the lake is very hazardous.

44. In 1964, Elvis Presley bought President Franklin D Roosevelt's yacht, USS Potomac (AG-25) for $55,000. He later gave it to St Jude's Children Hospital for a fundraiser, and that hospital sold it for $65,000.

45. One second of the sun’s energy output is enough to supply the earth’s current energy consumption for 300,000 years.

An electric eel can remotely control its prey's movements, with electrical impulses acting on the prey’s motor neurons. It can make hidden prey twitch to reveal itself, and then freeze so that it doesn’t escape.

47. In the 1880s, the Old Faithful geyser was used to launder clothes. Dirty clothes would be placed in the crater and after an eruption they were “ejected thoroughly washed.”

48. Saturn's rings are estimated to only be 10-100 million years old. Saturn likely did not have rings when the dinosaurs were alive.

49. Pro wrestler Dave Bautista decided to get into wrestling after realizing he had squandered his 20s and was living in poverty to the point that he had to borrow money to buy Christmas presents for his kids.

50. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) accounts for one-third of infant deaths in America. It occurs more often on weekends and 33% more on New Year’s Day. Infants whose caretakers drink alcohol are twice as likely to die from SIDS.