Category: Science

Posted on

It Turns Out Kids Who Are Obsessed with Dinosaurs Are Actually Smarter

Do you know a kid who absolutely LOVES dinosaurs? My nephew is obsessed with them, and I was the kind of kid who could describe a paleontologist’s job in great detail back in second grade.

If that describes your kids, that’s great news since a recent study found that kids who are obsessed with dinosaurs are smarter than kids who aren’t.

In the psychology world, this phenomenon is called “intense interests.” Roughly one-third of kids develop an intense interest in their lives but for most the obsession usually fades after the age of six.

Photo Credit: Flickr,Mike Mozart

A study from the University of Indiana and the University of Wisconsin found that an intense interest can “enhance perseverance, improve attention and enhance skills of complex thinking as the processing of information”, especially when the interest demands a conceptual domain.

Intense interests have also been shown to improve linguistic skills and are a good indicator of higher understanding. It’s also been shown that the way children study dinosaurs helps them develop strategies to tackle problems throughout their lives.

Interestingly, kids’ intense interest in dinosaurs develops in the first year of life without encouragement from their parents. As mentioned earlier, most of these obsessions pass and only 20% of kids still have the intense interest when they enter school.

Researchers believe that once kids start school and have to devote time to learning new things, they lose their free time to explore their interests. It is suggested that in order to keep your child’s interest alive as they grow up, parents should teach their kids facts about the subject as opposed to letting them have “pretend adventures.”

Make sure those kids keep learning on their own after they start school, and remember, if your child is obsessed with T-Rex, that’s a good thing!

The post It Turns Out Kids Who Are Obsessed with Dinosaurs Are Actually Smarter appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Sorry, Parents: Your Sleep-Deprivation is Here to Stay At Least Until Your Youngest Hits Kindergarten

Everyone knows that part of being a parent is not getting nearly enough sleep. When you bring a baby into your home you can kiss your regular 8 hours of beauty rest a night goodbye.

While some may think they’ll catch up on sleep eventually like once the baby starts sleeping all night, the science is in and…that’s just not true.

In fact, the science says it will take six whole years before parents get a decent night’s sleep after having a baby.

Image Credit: Pixabay

It seems hard to believe – sure, night feedings end fairly quickly (in retrospect), but kids are sick and they have nightmares and they wake up for no apparent reason and need a drink or to come sleep in your bed. Parenting is 24/7, and we know that, but researchers were still caught a bit off guard.

Study co-author Sakari Lemola, a psychology professor at the University of Warwick, commented in The Guardian:

“We didn’t expect to find that, but we believe that there are certainly many changes in the responsibilities you have.”

Previous research estimated that parents lose about 44 days of sleep during their child’s first year of life, with mothers being hit harder than fathers. That said, more and more fathers are accepting larger parenting roles and, as they often go back to work sooner, have fewer opportunities to nap during the day.

Image Credit: Pixabay

This study tracked the sleep of 2541 moms and 2118 dads over the course of six years. They parents reported births of children, as well as how well they slept on weeknights versus weekends. Women experienced the most lost sleep during baby’s first year, reporting a 1.7 point decline in sleep quality after their first children and another 1 point decline after the birth of each subsequent child. On average, moms lost about 40 minutes of sleep per night in that first year, and in the first three months they lost over an hour. Comparatively, dads lost only 13 minutes of sleep per night during their first year of parenthood.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Regardless of the differences, it took up to 6 years for both men and women to return to their normal sleep schedule after having a child. The results were also similar regardless of income, whether or not both parents worked, and single parenting.

There is a reason that sleep-deprivation is used as a torture device, and more than a few health reasons parents should be concerned – and take care to minimize the effects of a poor night’s sleep on their life and body.

Insufficient sleep is associated with car accidents, poor concentration and performance at work, increased illness, weight gain, and a higher risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it when you’ve got small children; if your little one needs you in the middle of the night you can’t really tell them to go piss up a rope and roll over.

But researchers did make a few suggestions.

“For parents, lifestyle management strategies might include stress management, exercise, enlisting help from family and friends and seeking the guidance of professionals such as therapists or physicians when needed.”

“Families benefit from prioritizing healthy sleep – this can be accomplished through limited caffeine intake, having a consistent and calming evening routine, keeping the bedroom dark, and reducing exposure to bright screens such as cell phones, tablets, and TVs close to bedtime.”

And take heart, mamas and daddies – six years will go by in a flash.

The post Sorry, Parents: Your Sleep-Deprivation is Here to Stay At Least Until Your Youngest Hits Kindergarten appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Corn Flakes Were Made to Get You to Stop Masturbating (+7 More Weird Facts About Cereal)

We all know that Frosted Flakes are “Grrrrrreat” and that Lucky Charms are “Magically delicious,” but I’m willing to bet that a lot of you have no idea what the real story behind some of your favorite cereals.

#1. Alpha-Bits were a concentrated effort to market cereal to children.

Image Credit: Post Cereals

Post Cereals worker Thomas Quigley, a father of seven, rose to a challenge to design a new cereal to market to kids – that combining fun, education, and sugar would be just the ticket.

He was right, of course, and the tradition of selling sugar to kids and calling it a healthy breakfast was born!

#2. Wheaties were the result of an accident.

Image Credit: Wheaties.com

In 1921, a clinician at a sanitarium accidentally spilled wheat gruel onto a hot stovetop. It dried into flakes and, inspired by the preparation of Corn Flakes, a miller and his employees tried 14 times and 36 varieties of wheat to find the perfect combination of wheat, salt, sugar, and malt syrup.

They became popular due to the first radio commercial jingle.

#3. Cap’n Crunch is designed to make you want more.

Image Credit: Quaker Oats

By the 1960s, some of the best-selling cereals marketed to kids had lots of sugar, and research showed that kids preferred cereal that floated and stayed crunchy (duh), so Quaker came up with a combination of corn and oat cereal that fit the bill.

Flavorist Pamela Low brought the key ingredient to the table, though, with a favorite combination from her childhood: brown sugar and butter sauce over rice. She called it a “want-more-ishness” and people couldn’t get enough – especially kids after the introduction of their seafaring mascot.

#4. The history of Chex is…not very nice.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Chex came from a pet food company called Ralston Purina that was led by one William Danforth and self-help author Webster Edgerly (who was looking to promote whole grains as people food). Edgerly was the founder of a cult-like movement that, in addition to promoting a healthy diet, was into mind control and racial supremacy (he advocated for non-whites to be castrated and believed watermelons were toxic to Caucasians?), but the diet piece made Edgerly interested in creating yummy sources of whole grains to his followers.

Together, the two first came up with Shredded Ralston, which was bite-sized squares of shredded wheat, changing it to “Chex” in 1950 to honor the brand’s checkerboard logo. Danforth continued to make pet food under the name Purina while Chex was sold off to General Mills.

#5. Your Corn Flakes were meant to curb sexual desire.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, who worked as a physician in a Michigan sanitarium, believed (along with the rest of the Seventh-Day-Adentists) that irritating foods (like too much meat at breakfast) led to an increase in sexual desire, and that masturbation could lead to worsening illness.

He experimented until he came up with bland, grain-based breakfast flakes after he left boiled wheat out for too long and then decided what the heck, I’ll toast them and feed them to my patients anyway. Luckily, it worked out for all involved!

#6. Cheerios are the perfect result of over 500 test products.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Puffed cereals made from rice and wheat were all the rage in the 1930s and 1940s, and General Mills wanted to see if it worked with oats. Food science innovator Lester Borchardt and his team tested the oat-based recipe (and a variety of shapes) – over 500 formulas in all – before the winning donut shape won out.

It was originally called CheeriOats but the name was shortened after Quaker Oats filed a lawsuit over the use of the word ‘oats.” It was rebranded in 1945 and has been a top-selling cereal ever since.

#7. Honey Bunches of Oats combines the trifecta of popular cereal ingredients.

Image Credit: Post Cereals

In 1989, long-serving Post employee and cereal lover Vernon J. Herzing took his three favorite cereals – Toasties, Grape-Nuts Flakes, and Sugar Sparkle Flakes – and tried combining the three. Together with his daughter, Kimberly, they combined products until they landed on the perfect mix.

Its success has led to other flake-and-cluster cereals and myriad spinoffs.

#8. Rice Krispies are the product of an experiment and a gun.

Image Credit: Quaker Oats

In 1901, botanist Alexander Pierre Anderson wanted to know what might happen if he heated starch granules – he thought the water inside the granules would turn to steam and result in small puffing explosions (and of course, he was right). He then used a gas pipe and a sledgehammer to form a gun-like device that simplified the process.

He debuted his cool little trick at the 1904 World’s Fair and Quaker Oats snapped it up, marketing it as “food shot from guns.”

Interesting, right? You just never know what you’ll find online!

The post Corn Flakes Were Made to Get You to Stop Masturbating (+7 More Weird Facts About Cereal) appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Massive Hermit Crab Uses a Doll’s Head for Its Shell, and It’s Insanely Creepy

Hermit crabs are fairly common, easy-to-care-for pets that you’ve likely seen in a child’s classroom or at your local pet store. Interestingly, hermit crabs are not actual crabs because they have soft, exposed abdomens that leave them vulnerable to predators. That’s why they’re always looking for a new shell to call home.

They move in and out of shells – usually sea snail shells – as they grow.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

The coconut crab differs from a regular hermit crab in two important ways: first, it’s quite large – it can grow up to three feet long and weigh nine pounds – and second, when it outgrows the largest shell it can find, it grows a shell of its own.

Isn’t nature weird?

Image Credit: Wikipedia

One particular coconut crab, though, isn’t going to be growing his own shell anytime soon, since he found a lovely (meaning totally creepy) discarded doll’s head to live in instead of a shell.

A redditor shared a photo of the crab found on Henderson Island. Part of the Pitcairn Islands, the remote Pacific spot is vulnerable to human litter (obviously).

Image Credit: Reddit

There’s just something about dolls that creep some people out (including me), but I suppose the crab is perfectly happy living inside one – maybe he even considers the eyes cool little peepholes?

Image Credit: Reddit

I have no idea what I’m talking about, but hey, there’s got to be some reason he likes it.

The photo is also making people recall the mutant Toy Story toy that was a doll’s head on top of a crab’s body. A strange coincidence to be sure.

Image Credit: Disney

Not as strange as reality, but close.

The post Massive Hermit Crab Uses a Doll’s Head for Its Shell, and It’s Insanely Creepy appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

6 Incredible Ancient Finds Discovered by Workers Expanding the London Underground

The funny thing about people is that we’re kind of lazy. Instead of making entirely new cities out of scratch, we’re just like “Hey, why not just build right on top of this existing city? Way easier, amirite guys?”

As a result, digging around in cities can reveal all kinds of interesting things from the past. That’s what happened during the 2009-2018 expansion of the London Underground. Here are six totally neat things that came out of England’s latest modernization.

#1. A rare Roman medallion

Image Credit: Crossrail

Archaeologists who excavated Crossrail’s Liverpool Street uncovered more than 100 copper Roman coins and a bit of silver currency that ranged from 43 CE to 348 CE.

There was also a rare bronze medallion issued to mark the new year 245 CE. It was presented by Emperor Phillip I to a high-ranking government official and is the only one of its kind to date.

#2. A 55-million-year-old piece of amber

Image Credit: Crossrail

Engineers found the piece of amber from 50 feet below the dock bed beneath Canary Wharf before construction officially began – it’s the oldest amber ever to be found in London.

Don’t worry, no one has reported a mosquito containing dinosaur blood (yet). It did contain bubbles of trapped gasses that could yield new scientific insights about climate change.

#3. Victims of the Black Death

Image Credit: Crossrail Site

Archaeologists unearthed dozens of Black Death-related skeletons beneath London’s Charterhouse Square back in 2013 – the remains indicated that the people died during 14th and 15th century pandemics. Their teeth contained DNA traces of Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that caused the bubonic plague, and carbon dating indicated the burial ground had been used from 1348-1350 and again during the 1430s.

Not all of the skeletons were plague victims, however, suggesting the burial ground was for dead in general.

#4. A humorous Victorian chamber pot

Image Credit: Crossrail

When you’re poo-ing in something that has to be dumped manually, a sense of humor seems to be a no-brainer – and this chamber pot found during Stepney Green Station in East London verifies my assumption. It was found in a 19th-century cesspit filled with tobacco pipes and fragments of pots like this chamber pot that contains a cartoon of a grimacing man and the phrase “Oh what I see/I will not tell. …when you in it want to p*ss/remember they who gave you this.”

Ha!

#5. A cluster of Roman skulls

Image Credit: Crossrail

In 2013, workers at the Liverpool Street station site dug up Roman pottery and around 20 Roman skulls. Similar skulls have been found in the area, and some archaeologists suspect they belonged to rebels led by the Iceni warrior-queen Boudicca, who revolted against the Empire during the 1st Century CE.

These skulls, however, appear to date after the uprising, and likely washed out of a Roman cemetery long ago.

#6. An 8,000-year-old tool

Image Credit: Crossrail Site

At North Woolrich, in southeast London, scientists discovered a Mesolithic-era site near the Thames where early humans crafted tools 8500-6000 years ago. There were traces of campfires, flint pieces, and an 8,000-year-old stone tool.

The find is only one of a handful that confirms humans lived in the Thames valley after an Ice Age hiatus.

I’m all for progress if it means finding more delightful things like these!

The post 6 Incredible Ancient Finds Discovered by Workers Expanding the London Underground appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

This Poor Gentleman’s Ginormous Poop Nearly Killed Him (Seriously)

You might be proud of your ability to “hold it” until you get home, until after the kids go to bed, until a more convenient time, but take heed, people – holding in your poo for too long can literally kill you.

Proof? This 53-year-old Australian man went to the emergency room with severe abdominal pain, swelling, nausea, and a sudden inability to feel or move his right leg. Doctors confirmed the leg was paralyzed – it also had no palpable pulse and was cold to the touch.

At first, physicians were stumped. The man had no history of drug abuse, no risk of vascular disease, and really no significant or out-of-the-ordinary medical history at all.

What he did have was a really, really big poo.

Image Credit: BMJ Case Report

Holy sh*t.

A rectal examination and abdominal scans revealed massive fecal compaction that was putting life-threatening pressure on his abdominal organs. There was so much of it that it had distended his large intestine and put pressure on his right iliac artery, which is what caused the pain and paralysis in his leg.

The case was serious – he was showing signs of renal impairment and metabolic acidosis – the man required surgery to remove the backlog of poo and relieve the building pressure. The team wrote a case report, which expanded on their findings.

“Significant faecal disimpaction was performed manually under general anaesthesia with approximately 2 liters of feces removed.”

Image Credit: BMJ Case Report

2 liters, y’all. How long had it been since he’d gone?!

He was given constipation relief during recovery and left the hospital after four days. He finally walked again after 13 days.

Doctors are unsure what caused the massive build-up, but there’s no doubt that not being able to (or choosing not to) poop for a long period of time is incredibly dangerous. A teenage girl with a toilet phobia actually died in 2015 after holding it for 8 weeks, and this guy would have suffered the same fate had he not visited the doctors when he did.

Like my grandfather always said, better out than in. Never go against your body when death is on the line, my friends. You’ll come out on the losing end.

The post This Poor Gentleman’s Ginormous Poop Nearly Killed Him (Seriously) appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Tumblr User Blows Everyone’s Mind with Post About a Horse’s Ass

What do a horse’s ass and a spaceship have in common? It’s definitely a question I’ve never once considered until today, because you wouldn’t tend to think they have anything in common.

But, it turns out I couldn’t be more wrong. Just follow along now.

It starts out simple enough…

Photo Credit: themattbusbyway

Indeed. Why WAS that gauge used? You’re about to find out…

Photo Credit: themattbusbyway

Get ready! You’re about to learn the wonders of wheel ruts!

Photo Credit: themattbusbyway

Of course the Romans were involved. Because they ran things back in the day.

Photo Credit: themattbusbyway

Now, the horses come in and it’s glorious…

Photo Credit: themattbusbyway

Trains and tunnels and rockets! Oh my!

Photo Credit: themattbusbyway

Well, my ass is officially astounded!

Photo Credit: themattbusbyway

Boom! Mind blown! 🤯

The post Tumblr User Blows Everyone’s Mind with Post About a Horse’s Ass appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Sorry, Night Owls: Your Brain Chemistry Could be Sabotaging Your 9-5 Schedule

I believe humanity can be divided into two basic categories: the morning people who are just bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the minute the sun comes up, and the night owls who hit their stride when the sun goes down.

While there’s nothing wrong with being one or the other, day people definitely have an advantage, since the world tends to operate on a 9-5 schedule.

“A huge number of people struggle to deliver their best performance during work or school hours they are not naturally suited to,” said lead researcher Dr. Elise Facer-Childs. “There is a critical need to increase our understanding of these issues in order to minimise health risks in society, as well as maximise productivity.”

Roughly 50% of people identify as a night owl, which for the purpose of the study meant going to bed “late” and rising after 8:20am.

Image Credit: Pixabay

If that’s the half of the world you fall into, this new study published in the journal Sleep proves it’s not just something you can up and change – your brain is physically and chemically different from those who leap out of bed in the morning.

The international team of scientists, led by the University of Birmingham in the UK, found that night owls have lower connectivity in the areas of the brain linked to consciousness. That means that during “normal” working hours, night people are affected by sleepiness, a lack of attention, and slower reaction times.

“This mismatch between a person’s biological time and social time – which most of us have experienced in the form of jet lag – is a common issue for night owls trying to follow a normal working day. Our study is the first to show a potential intrinsic neuronal mechanism behind why ‘night owls’ may face cognitive disadvantages when being forced to fit into these constraints,” explains Facer-Childs.

Image Credit: Pixabay

38 volunteers completed questionnaires and underwent MRI scans at various points of the day, all the while reporting how sleepy they felt.

Research concluded that morning people were less sleepy and had faster reaction times in the early morning working hours, while night owls hit their stride around 8 in the evening and struggled after rolling out of bed. Night owls did not, however, perform significantly better than morning people at 8pm, which could mean that society’s business hours could have a detrimental effect on those whose natural body rhythms encourage them to wake up later.

Facer-Childs explains how this can be applied to the real world:

“To manage this, we need to get better at taking an individual’s personal body clock into account – particularly in the world of work. A typical day might last from 9am-5pm, but for a night owl, this could result in diminished performance during the morning, lower brain connectivity in regions linked to consciousness and increased daytime sleepiness. If, as a society, we could be more flexible about how we manage time we could go a long way toward maximising productivity and minimising health risks.”

Which is to say, you just might have an argument if you want to lobby your boss for flexible work hours.

The post Sorry, Night Owls: Your Brain Chemistry Could be Sabotaging Your 9-5 Schedule appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Mysterious Skeleton of Powerful Viking Warrior Confirmed to be Female

Back in 1878, archaeologists came across a Viking burial chamber in an important trade center known as Birka. Judging by the way the body had bee placed into the grave, they assessed that it must have belonged to a prominent Viking warrior.

The body was found buried with their weapons, fancy clothes, and two horses. The assumption at the time was that the remains must have been those of a man,but a DNA study concluded that the remains were biologically female.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Critics of the findings argued that the weapons could have belonged to her husband or that there could have been two skeletons in the grave and the analysis was done on the wrong one. They argued that thinking that women were Viking warriors is wishful thinking and that we don’t have enough historical evidence to support the claim.

Researchers, though, are defending their findings in the journal Antiquity, saying the remains buried in the chamber are “unassailably female.” They confirm that there was only one skeleton in the grave, so they couldn’t have mixed up the remains, and asserted that all documentation was correct.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

“Grave Bj.581 had only one human occupant,” confirms Professor Neil Price to IFLScience. “An extra thigh-bone in the Bj.581 museum storage box – much hyped by our online critics – is clearly labeled as coming from another grave and had just been misplaced in the wrong box (the possibility of which is why bones are labeled to begin with!).”

He also continues to make an even finer point:

“To those who do take issue, we suggest that it is not supportable to react only now, when the individual has been shown to be female, without explaining why neither the warrior interpretations nor any supposed source-critical factors were a problem when the person in Bj.581 was believed to be male.”

Ideas about gender, of course, are not set in stone and vary between cultures, so it’s fair to say the skeleton could belong to a person who was both a female and a warrior, and also to accept the fact that being a woman might not have meant the same thing in that culture as it does in ours today.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Professor Price agrees.

“The body’s XX chromosomes revealed in the genomic study provide an unambiguously female sex determination, but the gender of the Bj.581 individual is a different matter. There is, of course, a broad spectrum of possibilities, many of them involving contested contemporary terminologies that can also be problematic to apply to people of the past.”

The archaeologists on the study expect that, in the future, we’ll probably find more and more Viking Age female warriors, whether they’re new finds or reassessments of remains already catalogued.

The future – and the past – is female, it would seem.

The post Mysterious Skeleton of Powerful Viking Warrior Confirmed to be Female appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

This Guy Made a “Glitter Bomb” that Blows Up in Amazon Thieves’ Faces

YouTuber Mark Rober has a pretty impressive engineering background, having worked on the Mars Rover for NASA. Needless to say, when you steal a package from a guy like that, he’s going to start finding creative solutions to the problem. Guys like Mark aren’t content with just calling the cops and getting just regular old revenge against them. Nope, he spent six months building a glitter bomb that would self-detonate when the thieves opened the package.

To be fair, Mark had no choice! The local police told him they didn’t have time to investigate the robberies, even though Mark had captured the whole thing on his home surveillance camera.

Photo Credit: YouTube, Mark Rober

“I just felt like something needs to be done to take a stand against dishonest punks like this,” Mark explained.

“If anyone was going to make a revenge bait package and over-engineer the crap out of it, it was going to be me.”

The glitter bomb also included four cameras to capture the thieves’ reactions, which took a good deal of ingenuity. There was also fart spray!

As a hint to any would-be thieves, Mark wrote a fake return address using the names and location of Home Alone. Luckily for viewers at home, it didn’t deter the thieves.

The glitter bomb package completely worked, as you can see in the video below.

Thankfully, the same bait package can be retrieved and used more than once. Genius.

The post This Guy Made a “Glitter Bomb” that Blows Up in Amazon Thieves’ Faces appeared first on UberFacts.