Sulluzzu
December 29, 2024
This list is inspired by Tom Whitwell’s list of 52 things he learned in 2020. Everything listed here must include a citation or link to a reference source that’s not Wikipedia. It’s interesting that many interesting ‘facts’ stated in media turn out to be false or myths after a little research. Another rule is that I don’t go looking for these, I want to just come across them in my reading or conversation.
Never stop learning!
The Shipping Forecast was first broadcast on the radio on 1 January 1924. From October 1925, it has been broadcast by the BBC.
A study in Scotland found no cases of cervical cancer have been detected in young women who have been fully-vaccinated against HPV.
Closing the toilet lid before flushing does not reduce cross-contamination of bathroom surfaces. Flushing with the toilet lid down results in airborne micro-droplets that are still detectable longer than if one flushed with the lid up.
There are only 22 countries in the world that have not been invaded or occupied by the United Kingdom (or its predecessors) at some point in their history.
In France the Zone Rouge is a 42,000-acre tract of land that is still uninhabitable over 100 years after the First World War. The land is still too physically and environmentally damaged by conflict for human habitation.
The hairspring the drives a mechanical watch has that name because the earliest examples used a hog’s hair.
Shrapnel is named after Henry Shrapnel (1761-1842), the inventor of the spherical case shot, better known as the ‘Shrapnel Shell’.
Britons have 546 words for being drunk. Apparently these are called ‘drunkonyms’.
The voice actor who brought Disney’s Tigger to life in Winnie The Pooh should perhaps be more famous for inventing an artificial heart.
All of the history of the United States has taken place in one year on the planet Pluto. The Plutonian year that started on July 4, 1776 ended this year on June 12, 2024.
Edinburgh Chess Club is the oldest chess club in the UK (founded in 1822), second oldest in the whole world (second only to Zurich - 1809).
Tabby cats were named after a striped silk that was in turn named for its place of origin: a quarter of Baghdad named al-Attābiyya.
In London, the company Cloudfare uses the motion of multiple pendulums to generate random numbers that make Internet transactions more secure.
A small scientific study identified that toddlers smell like flowers while teenagers smell “goat-like”.
In old English a ‘mon’ (man) was a human being irrespective of sex or age and a girl was a child of either sex; a young person.
“Gif wife to swiþe offlowe sio monað gecynd, genim niwe horses tord, lege on hate gleda, læt reocan swiþe betweoh þa þeoh up under þæt hrægl, þæt se mon swæte swiþe.”
(If a woman’s menstruation flows out too much: Take fresh horse manure, put on hot embers, let it smoke profusely between the thighs up under the clothing, so that the person sweats heavily)
Every minute, around 6 children are saved thanks to vaccines. Based on average reading speeds (and a little extra time to look at the pictures), it should take you around 15 minutes to finish this list. That means around 90 children will be saved in that time.
{Spoiler} James Bond’s tombstone is located on Kalsoy in the Faroe Islands. After James Bond dies in Daniel Craig’s final film in the role, locals decided to commemorate the historic moment at the location it took place using locally-sources stone. The stone is carved with words spoken by ‘M’ at the end of the film ― “The proper function of man is to live, not to exist”* (a quote from author Jack London).
The author CJ Sansom who died this year conducted meticulous research to support his Shardlake novels. After writing ’Sovereign’ he published an academic paper about Henry VIII’s royal progress to the North in 1541.
In early Christian tradition there was once an eighth deadly sin Acedie, the vice of sadness, torpor or despair. This was folded into ‘sloth’ in later traditions but is still included in Eastern Christianity.
Under the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War One, pharmaceutical company Bayer was forced to give-up the Aspirin and Heroin trademarks to England, France, US, and Russia.
For four years now, orcas have been ramming and sinking luxury yachts in European waters. Following years of research it turns out, orcas — especially the kids and teens — just want to have fun. The report reveals that a combination of free time, curiosity and natural playfulness has led to young orcas adopting this ‘trend’ of boat-bumping.
A UK research team has discovered that the more CO2 air contains, the longer viruses can stay alive in that air. A CO2 concentration of just 800ppm meant that 10 times as much virus remained infectious after 40 minutes when compared to clean air.
Elephants call each other by name and respond when they hear others call their name.
Comedian and mathematician Matt Parker was so incensed that the UK street signs for sport stadiums show a geometrically impossible ball1 that he created a government petition to have it updated. When that was rejected he designed a football (The Impossiball) that looks like the symbol, but only from certain angles.
The Maltese Festa (feast) has been recognised as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. It joins that other sourdough-based Maltese treasure, il-Ftira.
The Germans have a single word for a face that’s badly in need of a fist - “Backpfeifengesicht”.
Matryoshka (Russian dolls) were originally derived from Japanese nesting dolls representing the Seven Lucky gods (七福神, shichifukujin in Japanese). They became popular after being exhibited by Russian artists at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900.
By the way, I hate Matryoshka! They’re so full of themself!
A study of the world’s most, and least, walkable cities found that “The 100 least active cities in the study are all found in North America”.
Brixton prison is now serving afternoon tea to visitors, with a menu including smoked trout and chive crème fraiche followed by macarons with mango crème pat, white chocolate ganache, passionfruit jam, and almond praline. In 2023, the Clink Charity responsible trained 830 students in prisons around the UK, delivered around 550 NVQ catering qualifications and placed half of their students into employment.
This year, the State of Utah has ordered books by 13 authors, 12 of them women, to be removed from every public school, classroom and library.
How did I live to be over 60 and never notice ‘Scotty’ in Star Trek had a missing finger‽
Vera Lynn’s 1939 song We’ll Meet Again was the first pop song to feature an electronic synthesiser.
The day after tomorrow is called ‘overmorrow’.
Genghis Khan and St Francis of Assisi were alive at the same time (1181-1226).
Listening to More or Less on Radio 4 I learned it only takes 5 minutes to turn around a 330 metre oil tanker moving at full speed. There goes another useful metaphor…
The Voyager spacecraft are now so far away (15 billion miles) that there’s only one radio station on earth that can now send commands. DSS-43 built in the 1960s is one of three sites on NASA’s Deep Space Network.
Following a loss of contact in late 2023, DSS-43 played a part in the incredible story of repairing Voyager when a radio signal takes about 22½ hours to reach the craft!
After 85 years the ‘Bronte memorial’ in Westminster Abbey was corrected to add the missing diaereses (dots), becoming the Brontë Memorial.
The north of Ireland is further north than Northern Ireland.
We watched the film The Outrun, set in Orkney, today. The Westray to Papa Westray flight is the shortest scheduled passenger flight in the world. Flights take around one minute.
Just like right- and left-handed humans, adult elephants split into left- or right-trunkers according to their grasping preferences.. The trunk’s pattern of wrinkles shows whether an elephant prefers to scoops objects towards the left or right side of its body.
A single-celled parasite called Toxoplasma Gondii makes mice lose their fear of cats. Toxoplasma can sexually reproduce only in the cat gut, and this ‘reprogramming’ of mice is thought to be an evolutionary adaptation to help the parasite complete its life cycle.
According to Douglas Adams the word ’goosnargh’ means “something left over from preparing or eating a meal, which you store in the fridge despite the fact that you know full well you will never ever use it.”
(This never happens in our house 😉)
AI screening of CVs shows a bias against black and female applicants. The bias was small and less than that demonstrated in human recruiters but AI models often reflect the negative biases that can be inherent in LLM training data.
In 2024 the government of Iraq proposed to lower the age of first marriage for girls to just nine years old!
US airlines have transported passengers over 13,300,000,000,000 miles since the last plane crash. Sometimes, the most important news is when something isn’t happening.
On 30 September 2024, the UK became the first major economy to completely stop generating power by burning coal.
The London Underground has had a unique form of mosquito, Culex pipiens f. Molestus, genetically different from above-ground mosquitos, since at least the 1940s.
People whose ring finger is longer than their index digit tend to drink more alcohol.
There is some evidence that alcohol consumption is influenced by prenatal sex steroids as measured using finger ratio.
Moxie, a company selling $800 robots providing “emotional support” to help children is shutting-down. The robots require internet servers to operate, so they will send out a letter to help parents tell their children “in an age-appropriate way” that their lovable robot friend is going to die.
The first virtual meeting consisted of 5,100 engineers in eight cities across four time zones. This meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers took place on 16 May 1916.
Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport has a “Recombobulation Area” installed just after the two security checkpoints.
A spherical ball must be made-up from hexagons and pentagons. The UK street sign only shows hexagons.↩︎
Previous post Doppelgänger (A Trip into the Mirror World) I really tried to persist with finishing Naomi Klein’s book Doppelgänger, exploring the confusion between herself and Naomi Wolf, in the hope of Next post 2024 in numbers As a family we went to one graduation this year. Daughter no. 1, the Trainee Animator, graduated with a Masters degree and is therefore the Master