Tell me/ us an interesting fact we might not know. I’ll start.

Dogs can’t look up.

My Patterdale terrier must have a pretty miserable experience if that is true

Shaun called bullshit on that one which is good enough for me

DrP
Full Member
The average number of legs on a human is less than two.

DrP

That one got me thinking, good one.👍

Your bones are wet.

How would we know?

Extrapolation? If you fire a gun, you might not be able to see the bullet but you could work out how far it went.

If I jumped off the hill behind my farm on a hang glider and flew due east without changing altitude, I would eventually crash into the Ural Mountains

the ‘B’ in ‘Benoit B Mandelbrot’

…is for BYOBB.

But that’s a great concept, even if it’s not actually a ‘fact’.

The average number of legs on a human is less than two.

I often use this fact when talking about design, but also political arguments. People are always talking about ‘the average this or that’ when frequently the average doesn’t make sense. We can’t just decide to design things for people with 1.99 legs (or whatever it is) because that won’t work for anyone.

The average person has one fallopian tube.

It’s my birthday today

If I jumped off the hill behind my farm on a hang glider and flew due east without changing altitude, I would eventually crash into the Ural Mountains

Google Earth flight sim is good for testing that. It’s possible (although tricky) to get it to maintain a level straight course and you can leave it running for as long as you want and it’ll eventually crash into the next piece of land at that bearing and altitude. Yesterday I took off from Aberdeen airport, climbed to 10,000ft ish and headed NE in the direction of Norway. I eventually crashed into the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming some time in the small hours of the morning.

The average person has one fallopian tube.

Slightly less than one I’d say. But even then it’s actually inaccurate, that should say ‘on average a person has one fallopian tube’.

on average a person has one fallopian tube

On average a person in the UK has more than one fallopian tube.

On average a person in the world has less than one fallopian tube.

Roman doctors would often put a puppy on the painful part of your body to draw out the pain. Hence man’s best friend.

The last part may not be true ☺️

Because there are always pregnant women, the average number of people wholly in people is never below zero.

Slightly less than one I’d say. But even then it’s actually inaccurate, that should say ‘on average a person has one fallopian tube’.

That’s probably true, because a) there are more women than men worldwide and b) congenital malformations c) because some women have them removed. Presumably that outweighs the number of accessory (extra) fallopian tubes which is itself surprisingly high (4% ish).

The actual quote is from a comedian (Bo Burnham) who may have been more interested in the dynamics of delivery than factual accuracy. Perhaps he meant the arithmetic mean but he shamefully leaves ambiguity.

mrmoofo
Full Member
Shaft drive motorbikes can’t wheelie …

Incorrect, see below.

Although it is true to say that I can’t wheelie a shaft drive motorbike. Or any motorbike really 🙂

On average a person in the UK has more than one fallopian tube.

Just did a back of the envelope calculation on the basis that not all women have fallopian tubes and I don’t think this is true.

Rainbows are actually a circle, you just can’t see the other half because of… well leprechauns or something.

On the subject of rainbows.

When you look at a rainbow you’re seeing a different rainbow to everybody else.

Really?

I don’t know if this counts as interesting but…
You know that roof like accent over the letter ‘o’ in French ( l’accent circonflexe) in words like “hôpital” and “Hôtel” ? Well it indicates words that used to have a letter ‘s’ next to them. Which kind of makes sense – “hôpital” = hospital, Hôtel = hostel.
But then there is the word “tôt” (early). So it would have been ‘tost’ which sounds like ‘toast’. What has that got to do with early?
Well, it is possibly from Latin tot (“very”) + cito (“fast”), but more likely from Vulgar Latin *tostum, from the neuter of Latin tostus (“toasted”), later meaning “hotly, promptly” and so becoming ‘early’.

https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.e4df6cfe7a1a23e5185a194f164a8437?rik=ky3lU3nvMh4tAg&riu=http%3a%2f%2fi.imgur.com%2f1B67Iu8.jpg&ehk=NWkm%2bXLnv%2f5gty8plhN8LByvJ2oPKc6GXSq7n4gTU4U%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0

Can dogs look up?


Dammit – ‘dog’s can look up’ gif fail.

Dogs CAN look up.

When referring to someone as a ‘Berk’, it derives from the Rhyming slang ‘Berkshire Hunt’

The interrobang
There is a punctuation mark that combines the question mark and exclamation point. It is called the interrobang, and it looks like this: ‽

Also, Dolphin Friendly Tuna is a myth. Ive never seen a dolphin open a can, even the small tins with ring pulls. In fact I heard a dolphin say that these cans were actually flipper unfriendly. Or, I think thats what the dolphin said.

IPA was named after iso-propyl alcohol, which was used instead of ethyl alcohol because of its lower vapour pressure, which meant it retained its strength on the long sea voyage to India.

Dogs poop facing North

Mine must be faulty.

When referring to someone as a ‘Berk’, it derives from the Rhyming slang ‘Berkshire Hunt’

IPA was named after iso-propyl alcohol, which was used instead of ethyl alcohol because of its lower vapour pressure, which meant it retained its strength on the long sea voyage to India.

I’m going to say……..bollocks

Mine must be faulty.

Perhaps he’s a Christian.

See also château = castle.

Tost in Welsh means ‘ill’. So no link there despite Welsh being latin-influenced.

This one felt unbelievable:

The air within the Eifel Tower weighs as much as the steel it’s built with.

But it too is sort of correct. Apparently to be properly accurate, the statement is the mass of air contained within a cylinder large enough to contain the Eifel tower but that’s a bit wordy.

OK, so basically the original statement is complete bollox.

In music, a song nearly always ends on the root note of the key it’s in (e.g. a song in C major ends on a C). If it doesn’t, it sounds really odd. You can demonstrate this by singing a well known tune or nursery rhyme and replacing the last note with something else. I think this has been the case for hundreds of years across Western genres.

There are still a few songs that don’t do this though – The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite by R.E.M. is one example, also Man on the Moon.

Just did a back of the envelope calculation on the basis that not all women have fallopian tubes and I don’t think this is true.

Show your working!

You’re probably right actually, that hadn’t occurred to me. The numbers are already close so there’s likely little in it either way.

I’m going to say……..bollocks

It is bollocks, though the reasoning is sound. IPA is India Pale Ale, a beer characterised by an higher than normal amount of hops which act as a preservative for the journey.

I’d have to look it up, but I think “berk” is true.

Once, as I exited a bakers, I was asked by some big tough looking lads to hand over all my pocket money,as I had spent it on treats for my family I was skint. When they discovered that there was no cash,they let me Continue with Recommended Cookies 🤣🤣🙃

The only part of your body you can tickle yourself, is the roof of your mouth…

and… You could fit the entire human race in the volume of a sugar cube, this is because atoms are 99.9999999999999% empty space. If you could squeeze all the empty space out of all the atoms in all the 7 billion people in the world, you could indeed fit them in the volume of a sugar cube.

or.. You are 95% alien, 95% of the cells in your body do not belong to you. They are microorganisms hitching a ride. Many are essential like the gut bacteria that help you digest your food. You get all the alien microorganism only after you are born – from your mother’s milk and the environment. You are born 100% human but die 95% alien!

… I did look it up, it’s Berkley not Berkshire.

The only part of your body you can tickle yourself, is the roof of your mouth…

Based on a sample case of “one” – ie, me – that’s demonstrably untrue.

I’m going to say……..bollocks

https://frontiersinzoology.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/1742-9994-10-80.pdf

Dogs poop facing North

Yes and no. A dog in unfamiliar territory will face north when having a crap. When in familiar territory they aren’t as fussy. The explanation as I understand it is that the North facing thing is to orientate the dog to its surroundings.

I find the fact dogs have a poop compass absolutely intriguing, but I now need to know if this is true for cats. Anyone?