fact
300 million years ago insects could get really big. Millipedes and centipedes could get larger than humans, dragonflies as big as eagles, beatles the size of a large dog.The leading theory is that ancient bugs got big because they benefited from a surplus of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere. And the leading theory on why there […]
The US Air Force seriously considered and researched nuking the Moon as a show of force after Russia launched Sputnik, but scrapped it at the last minute as they felt landing on it would be better received by the public. 00
Le Bateau (“The Boat”) by Henri Matisse, caused a minor stir when the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which housed it, hung the work upside-down for 47 days in 1961 until Genevieve Habert, a stockbroker, noticed the mistake and notified a guard. 00
Japanese airline, All Nippon Airways in an effort to save costs asked passengers to visit the lavatory before boarding because empty bladders means less weight carried. 00
In 2009 California milk processors funded a 22-minute rock opera titled “Battle for Milkquarious.” It was marketed as “The most amazing rock opera ever made about milk.” 00
“Shoeless” Joe Jackson was illiterate. In restaurants, rather than ask someone to read the menu to him, he would wait until his teammates ordered and then order one of the items that he heard. 00
To deflect flight noises from the Amsterdam Airport, an 80-acre park in the shape of perfectly aligned furrows with high ridges in between (inspired by old farming techniques and Chladni patterns), was built. Finished in October 2013, the park cut the noise level in half almost immediately. 00
Students at Oberlin College can rent original paintings by Picasso, Monet, and Dalí (among others) to hang in their dorm rooms for $5 per semester. On top of the $5 each student has to cough up, only a minimal liability agreement is signed, although the full consequences for damaging a work are unknown to the […]
Korean college students once protested against the amount of air in potato chip packets by building a raft out of them and sailing across a river. 00
The two founders of Pizza Hut sold the business to Pepsi in 1977, and one of the founders then became a prolific Papa John’s franchisee, owning 133 locations by the year 2001. During legal struggles with Pizza Hut in the late 1990s, Papa John’s ran commercial advertisements highlighting the fact, including a dramatization showing Frank […]