Did You Know ?

[shyvas]

Did you know that Irena Sendler was a Polish social worker who, during World War II, helped to rescue 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto? She is often called the female Schindler!

Irena Sendler

Irena Sendler was a Polish social worker who during World War II helped to rescue 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto.

www.biography.com

 

[shyvas]

Did You Know When DNA Testing was Used to Nail a Murderer?

1986 in the UK

Killer breakthrough – the day DNA evidence first nailed a murderer

Colin Pitchfork - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[shyvas]

Did you know that Athens has one of the lowest crime rates in all of Europe’s major cities, making it one of the safest options for travel.

whenonearth.

 

[shyvas]

Do you know what the Paris Syndrome is?

Because of the way the city is represented in the media, a lot of people fall prey to the misconception that Paris is a quaint, friendly little place that is bohemian heaven on earth. When tourists realise that in reality, the city is not what they had built it up to be in their minds, they are gripped with anxiety, a combination of physical and psychological symptoms that aren’t very pleasant to deal with. Psychologists have labeled this phenomenon as the Paris Syndrome.

 

[KLS52]

I’m watching My Lottery Dream Home.

Did you know that WEBSTER LAKE IS A BEAUTIFUL New England vacation spot, replete with trees and gently lapping shorelines, summer cottages that dot the lakefront, and children splashing in the shallow water. Webster Lake is also a lie.

That’s because “Webster Lake” is actually named Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. That’s not a typo (or it might be, but who could honestly tell?). The third longest single word place name in the world, and number one in the United States, Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg actually has more g’s (15) than average feet of depth (13).

 

[KLS52]

Wow that lake is less than 90 minutes from me!

 

[Tom L.]

@KLS52 You could almost drive there faster than it would take someone to say its name.

 

[KLS52]

It’s illegal to mow the lawn on Sunday in Luxembourg.

#househuntersinternational

 

[KLS52]

#househuntersinternational

Wombat poo is square! The wombat is a native nocturnal animal of Australia. They live in burrows under the ground and have incredibly bad eyesight. A wombat will leave on average between 80 and 100 square poops around its territory in an evening. They also use this poo to find new potential mates. At each stop it will usually leave 4 to 8 of these droppings, otherwise known as wombat scat, and each poo is on average 2 centimetres (3/4 inch) wide. You may be thinking that they have square leavings so must have a square anus. A wombat has a round anus, which must make it uncomfortable trying to pass a square block through a round hole. No one knows for certain why a wombat does square poos. There are several theories why it is square. One theory suggests it is the length of time it takes to digest its food, which can take up to a week. Another is that the poop is amongst the driest of all mammals, so takes its square shape from inside and doesn’t reshape on the way out.

 

[StrangeOtter]

Did you know that whiskers are a lot more than mere thick strands of hair? Vibrissae are extremely important for animals when it comes to observing their surroundings, especially in water.
Vibrissae comes from Latin and means to vibrate. The most important attributes of the whiskers are to determine shapes of objects, perceive space, move in water and hunt. It also has important role in proprioception. All complicated mechanisms in the whiskers together detect the vibrations in air and water and serves almost as a sixth sense.
Every whisker has an follicle-sinus complex or F-SC and each F-SC has a deep vibrissal nerve. This nerve consists of axons. Aquatic mammals such as Enhydra lutris, the Sea otter has about 1340 axons per whisker and semi-aquatic mammals such as Lutra lutra, the Eurasian otter, has about 500 axons per whisker.
Aquatic mammals also have longer whiskers compared to terrestrial mammals.

 

[StrangeOtter]

Did you know that otters might be able to smell under water? They blow out air bubbles and then breath them back in. As the otter blows out the air bubbles, the scent particles in the water attaches themselves into the bubble and that's how the otter can safely smell under the water.
I don't know in what situation they'd use this technique, but it sure blew my mind. I'd like to know more.

The Scent of Water - bioGraphic

Most mammals can’t smell underwater, but Eurasian otters may have a way of sniffing out prey even while swimming.

www.biographic.com

 

[shyvas]

This definitely does ring a bell. It's a shame that he gave out specific instructions concerning his brain after his death, and that they were not honoured. This also reminds me of a true story where a man left his body to medical research after his death and the family couldn't allocate the body for burial.
I wonder what they discovered further to the research of his brain ?

I've also heard many of these kind of stories. Apparently the bodies are experimented on by various students/departments and sometimes just cannot be reallocated for their funeral.

 

[FlandersOD]

This definitely does ring a bell. It's a shame that he gave out specific instructions concerning his brain after his death, and that they were not honoured. This also reminds me of a true story where a man left his body to medical research after his death and the family couldn't allocate the body for burial.
I wonder what they discovered further to the research of his brain ?

If I recall correct it contributed more to pseudoscience.
Also living brains contained in healthy bodies, with central and peripheral nervous system still attached; are more useful to actual science then dead brains.

 

[Lou]

If I recall correct it contributed more to pseudoscience.
Also living brains contained in healthy bodies, with central and peripheral nervous system still attached; are more useful to actual science then dead brains.

Sometimes autopsies are performed on people (especially former football players) that have contributed to our understanding of the effects of Traumatic Brain injuries.

Also research on the brains of still born infants provided more evidence that vaccines don't cause autism.

 

[shyvas]

Do you know why we eat popcorn at the movies/cinema?

''Depression. In the mid-1930s, the movie theater business started to go under. "But those that began serving popcorn and other snacks," Smith explains, "survived." Take, for example, a Dallas movie theater chain that installed popcorn machines in 80 theaters, but refused to install machines in their five best theaters, which they considered too high class to sell popcorn.

In two years, the theaters with popcorn saw their profits soar; the five theaters without popcorn watched their profits go into the red.

Eventually, movie theater owners came to understand that concessions were their ticket to higher profits, and installed concession stands in their theaters.''

Why Do We Eat Popcorn at the Movies?

The movie theater's most popular concession wasn't always associated with the movies—in fact, it used to be explicitly banned

www.smithsonianmag.com