In this bonus episode recorded in the BBC’s The One Show studios, Dan, James, Anna and Andy discuss huge holes, criminal kestrels and how to park a van on Pluto.
FDR founded an organization to find a cure for polio, and believed…
FDR founded an organization to find a cure for polio, and believed that if every American gave only a dime, polio would be eradicated. Because of this motto, after his death in 1945, FDR’s face was put on the dime, and his organization was renamed “The March of Dimes.”
All steel produced after 1945 is contaminated with background…
All steel produced after 1945 is contaminated with background radiation because of the use of nuclear weapons. Such steel is unusable for many scientific and medical applications and steel made before 1945, often taken from sunken battleships, must be used instead.
There is a “Buy Nothing Day” (BND), an international day of protest…
There is a “Buy Nothing Day” (BND), an international day of protest against consumerism. The first BND was organized in Canada in 1992 “as a day for society to examine the issue of over-consumption.”
A person who picked on Eminem in school sued him for his 1999…
A person who picked on Eminem in school sued him for his 1999 song ‘Brain Damage’. The judge dismissed the case and delivered the verdict as a rap.
The painter Raphael snuck into the Sistine Chapel to look…
The painter Raphael snuck into the Sistine Chapel to look at the unfinished work while Michelangelo was gone, and upon seeing the paintings, went back to a completed painting of his own at the Church of Sant’Agostino, scraped it off the wall, and started completely over.
Nepal airlines, having one of the worst safety records in the world…
Nepal airlines, having one of the worst safety records in the world, once sacrificed goats to fix technical problems with one of their aircraft.
Kåre Rodahl, a Norwegian physician and physiologist, a research…
Kåre Rodahl, a Norwegian physician and physiologist, a research fellow in Arctic physiology and medicine in the United States, met his future wife for the first time when he was parachuting, coincidentally landing beside her while she was milking a cow.
In 1973, three astronauts on the Skylab 4 space station…
In 1973, three astronauts on the Skylab 4 space station went on strike after being over worked, demanding more time for contemplating the universe and in Pogue’s words “studying the, the Earth below, and ourselves”: the first strike in space.
Our walking speed is affected by whom we’re with…
Our walking speed is affected by whom we’re with: men’s pace slows down by an average of 7% when walking with female partners they’re interested in; women walking together move the slowest; and men walking with male friends moved at speeds faster than either man’s preferred walking speed.