WTF Fun Fact 12442 – The Power of Forest Bathing

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In Japan, it’s called Shinrin-Yoku. The act of “forest bathing” may have started there, but people around the world are starting to see the benefits of not just spending time in nature, but doing so intentionally (and, importantly, not through the lens of a smartphone).

Forest bathing studies have been shown to have measurable beneficial effects. Much of this research has been conducted by Dr. Qing Li, physician and immunologist at Nippon Medical School Hospital in Tokyo. In his studies, participants are not asked to jog or even kike, but merely practice awareness while out in the woods.

His studies have found forest bathing can decrease stress and blood pressure, slow the heart rate, speed up digestion, help with insomnia, and reduce fatigue. Perhaps more surprisingly are its effects on immunity, particularly NK (or natural killer) cells, which play a role in helping the body fight off the growth of cancerous cells.

Trees release volatile organic compounds known as phytoncides. When we breathe these in, we get more of these beneficial effects.

So next time you find yourself in nature, take a mindful walk, listen to the sounds, notice the colors and textures, and breathe deep amongst the trees. – WTF fun facts 

Source: “Cancer and Canopy: The Healing Power of Forest Bathing” — Spirituality & Health

WTF Fun Fact 12441 – The National Hotel Disease

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Once the poshest hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, the National Hotel was at the center of a nationwide mystery after a disease outbreak among its guests in 1857. According to records from the U.S. House of Representatives, almost three dozen people died and 400 people were sickened by a mystery ailment that continued to plague guests (and lead to their deaths) years after their 1857 stays at the hotel.

Founded in 1827, the National Hotel was located between the White House and the Capitol, catering to Members of Congress. “Apart from the Capitol and the White House, there is no building in this city so historic as this,” remarked theWashington Postin 1930. “For more than half a century the history of the Nation was made there.”

But in 1857, President-Elect James Buchanan was staying at the hotel prior to his inauguration, as were many other politicians due to attend the event. Even he was sickened but made a speedy recovery.

At the time, some reported that the outbreak was actually the result of arsenic poisoning in the water. Buchanan was from Pennsylvania but held so-called “Southern beliefs” at the time when it came to slavery. After sensationalized news stories were published, people suspected a murder plot by radical abolitionists, but there was never a speck of evidence that it was anything other than an infectious disease outbreak.

These days, we understand a lot more about how infectious diseases work, and those who have examined records of the symptoms think it was likely mild cholera or (more likely) dysentery.

Dr. D.H. Storer was a National guest and victim who shared his symptoms with theNational Intelligencer: “A dreadfulnauseahas been, in my case, the very worst and most miserable attendant upon this complaint. I have felt it almost all the time from the first till now. If I were even to-day to take an ounce of beef steak, or that amount of any animal food into my stomach, my experience thus far is that I should suffer for hours from this horrid nausea.”

Most guests were infected in March, around the inauguration. However, that’s when the hotel was most crowded. It disappeared soon after guests from that event went home and never happened again. However, among those whodiedwereRep. John Montgomery of Pennsylvania and Rep. John Quitman of Mississippi.

The hotel continued to operate for years until it could no longer compete with the grander establishments being built around it. The building was demolished in 1924. –WTF fun facts

Source: “The Mysterious National Hotel Disease” — United States House of Representatives Archives

WTF Fun Fact 12440 – Professional Mattress Jumping

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There are hundreds of mattress companies flooding the market today, and many can even be delivered by mail. However, there are still some artisan mattress makers out there and McRoskey Mattress Works in San Fransicso is one of them. Their classic mattress may run you anywhere from $1,600 to $4,500, but you can be sure it’s been tested well – by a pair of human feet, in fact.

The world took an interest in the factory back in 2012 when SFGATE published a story about them and one of their employees, Reuben Reynoso. Reynoso is the man who jumps on the mattresses to ensure they can stand up to everything from child’s play to…well, whatever else it is you do on your mattress.

While a grown man being paid to jump on mattresses for a living might elicit a chuckle, Reynoso wanted people to understand that his job was an important one. “It’s work,” he told SFGATE in 2012. “It’s not for everybody. There is a right way and a wrong way to do it.”

While we didn’t know there was a “right” way to jump on the bed, Reynoso isn’t doing this for fun and games. It’s his job. “This is not a game. Not to me,” he insisted. And we believe him. After all, even if you were living your dream at your job, after a while it all becomes a serious task. But that doesn’t mean we’re not a little jealous of the free and knee-friendly cardio he gets at work.

To be fair, the task does sound like it can get tedious. As SFGATE noted in their article:

“Jumping on a mattress is one of the final steps in making a handmade mattress…a machine cannot do what Reynoso and his toes can do, which is to expertly compress no fewer than 28 layers of fluffy cotton batting while seeking to detect pea-size mattress lumps or other imperfections…”

While it’s unclear if Reynoso is still with McRoskey or if they still employ a person to test their mattresses “by foot,” we’d like to think it’s all still going strong. The mattress company sure is. They’ve been in business since 1899, surviving the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 and everything that’s come after. –WTF fun facts

Source: “McRoskey mattress jumping is serious work” — SFGATE

WTF Fun Fact 12439 – Alien Abduction Insurance

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After noticing his homeowners insurance didn’t cover alien abduction, Florida insurance agent Mike St. Lawrence (of the St. Lawrence Agency)decided to offer it. You can purchase limited coverage for $19.95 or comprehensive alien abduction insurance for $24.95.

St. Lawrence has sold over 6000 policies to those who “want to believe.”

According to WFLA News, “Eachpolicy includes $10 millionworthof coverage as well as outpatient psychiatric care,sarcasm coverage,anddoubleidentity coverage.Policyholders can claim to be eligible for double the standard coverage, but that payout would be based on verifiable and extreme circumstances.”

“I take a very opened mind approach to this, whether it’s happening or not. But if you get one of our policies, show you have a sense of humor about it,” said St. Lawrence.

In order to start the process of filing a claim, a person will have to obtain a signature from an “authorized, on-board alien.”

“Some way, you have to be able to prove it, and I have had a couple exceptionswhere they didn’t get a signature,” St. Lawrence told WFLA.

Alas, there’s another downside hidden in the fine print. The payout to you or your beneficiaries comes in the form of $1.00/year for 10 million years.

Believe it or not, St. Lawrence has paid at least two claims. He told WFLA that apolicyholder submitted a Polaroidpicture with alleged aliens as proof.–WTF fun facts

Source: “Don’t sweat alien threat” — SF Gate

WTF Fun Fact 12438 – Rome’s Sacred Chickens

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Ancient Roman priests raised sacred chickens that were used to interpret omens. For example, the chickens were used to predict the outcome of military battles.

Here’s how it worked: The chickens were let loose from their cages and had feed sprinkled in front of them. If they ate their food with gusto, stomping their feet, it was assumed that the gods were telling the naval leaders that it was ok to go to battle because the outcome would be favorable. If the chickens did not eat, the Romans assumed they were being told by the gods that they were destined to lose.

Of course, plenty of generals wanted to undertake battles with the permission of chickens, so one way they got around it was to deprive the chickens of food for a few days leading up to the decision. That way, the chickens would be hungry enough to eat regardless.

It was thought that no soldiers would willingly follow a general into war if the sacred chickens hadn’t given the right omen.

In 246 BCE, naval commander Publius Claudius Pulcher wanted to lead his fleet into battle with the Carthaginians during theFirst Punic War(264–241BCE). However, his sacred chickens didn’t eat their grain. That’s when, according to legend, he made a fatal error in 249 BCE.

Seeming to mock the gods’ obvious omen, Claudius threw the chickens overboard into the sea, proclaiming that if perhaps they weren’t hungry, they were thirsty. A sacrilegious move like this would have likely horrified the troops.

Claudius and his fleet paid the price, suffering the only naval defeat of the entire war at the Battle of Drepanum. And it was a significant loss, with 93 of his 123 vessels destroyed.

Claudius was accused of treason and fined as a result. Variations of the story appear in the works of ancient writers Valerius Maximus, Suetonius, and Cicero. –WTF Fun Facts

Source: “Publius Claudius Pulcher, Roman commander,” — Encyclopedia Britannica

WTF Fact 12437 – The Speed of Snow

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Most snowflakes fall at a speed of 1.5 mph, though some can reach up to 9 mph if they have picked up enough moisture to gain more mass.

Your typical snowflake traveling at a speed of 1.5 mph travels a long way before hitting the ground – 45 minutes to an hour.

Some other fun facts about snow include:

  • Snow is not white, it’s translucent
  • The first ever snowflake photograph was taken in Vermont in 1885
  • Chionophobia is the condition of being afraid of snow (that’s different from simply not liking it, of course)
  • While it can be too warm to snow (of course), it can never be too cold to snow
  • Snow can actually warm you up becase it’s at least 90% trapped air – that’s why animals burrow in the snow for warmth and people can live safely in igloos
  • Each winter in the US, roughly 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (or 1 septillion – that’s 24 zeroes!) fall from the sky

– WTF fun facts 

Source: “10 facts about snow” — Met Office

WTF Fun Fact 12436 – Ocean Depths

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There’s a lot we don’t know about the ocean because humans simply can’t get to the very bottom. In fact, we don’t even know where the deepest spot on the planet lies because we’ve only mapped about 10% of the ocean floor in high resolution.

What we do know is that among the areas we’ve measured, the average depth of the ocean is 12,080 feet. For those who prefer different units of measure, that’s 3,682 meters, or 3.7 kilometers, or 2.3 miles – or, you know, 8 Empire State Buildings.

These measurements are taken from data gathered in 2010 and only provide an estimate.

Did you know there are different names for deep ocean zones?
– Littoral zone (from the shore to about 200 feet deep) tends to be shallow and has no formal definition.
– Bathyal (3,300 to 13,100ft)
– Abyssal (10,000 and 20,000 ft)
– Hadal zone (20,000 to 36,000 ft): This is the deepest part of the ocean, and you have to make your way into trenches created by tectonic plate shifts in order to reach them.

The ocean’s deepest known point is Challenger Deep, in the western Pacific’s Mariana Trench. It’s deeper than Mt. Everest is tall. –WTF fun facts

Source: “How deep is the ocean?” — Natural History Museum

WTF Fun Fact 12435 – Our Messy Garages

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A 2015 survey from Gladiator® GarageWorks found that a significant number of Americans were using their garages for things other than storing their cars.

A press release announcing their results states:

“For approximately one out of four Americans, the garage is so unorganized it can’t even fit one car, according to an April 2015 homeowner survey from Gladiator® GarageWorks…And with an average cost of a new car just above $30,000, the inability to house and protect this investment in your own garage can be an issue.”

Even those of us with tidy homes are likely to have at least a mildly embarrassing situation going on in the garage. Gladiator®  goes on to state that “While 92 percent of homeowners surveyed described their home as somewhat or very organized, one-fourth of them admitted embarrassment with the garage and nearly one third said they keep their garage door shut so others won’t see the mess.”

The survey also found that 1 in 5 homeowners have argued with their spouse over the state of their garage. That’s not surprising, especially if you live in an area where there’s snow, and you have to clean your car off each morning due to clutter in the garage.

Here are some other “fun facts” the survey revealed:
– 27% of people use the garage for hobbies
– 23% use it to work on cars
– 19% of Americans use their garage to do projects such as woodworking or carpentry
– 13% use it as an area for exercise or sports

If you do work up the motivation to clean out your garage, keep in mind that it’s crucial to dispose of items properly – especially things like old paint and household chemicals. Check with your county about ways to dispose of these items. And if you don’t think you need to worry about that, consider that that survey also found that one-third of homeowners don’t even know what’s stored in their garage at the moment! – WTF fun facts 

Source: “Almost 1 in 4 Americans Say Their Garage is Too Cluttered to Fit Their Car” — PR Newswire

WTF Fun Fact 12434 – The Kitchen Toe Kick

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It’s always interesting to find out there’s a reason behind something you’ve totally taken for granted. Unless you’re remodeled your kitchen or are a contractor, you may not have thought much about the design of kitchen cabinets (beyond daydreaming about new ones).

Even those of us who have imagined getting a whole new kitchen rarely look closely at that space between the cabinet and floor and wonder why it’s there. (It’s likely the case in your bathroom as well.)

Between the floor and the cabinet base is something called the toe kick, and it’s meant to do pretty much the opposite of what it sounds like. It keeps us from kicking the bottom of the cabinets with our toes.

The goal of the toe kick is mainly ergonomic – that is, it makes life more comfortable, enabling us to stand for longer without getting fatigued or developing a backache from leaning). And it’s a safety issue as well. Have you ever tried to lean over a surface while using a knife? It’s not so stable. (Trust me, I just tried it, so you don’t have to.)

We’ve always taken our toe kick for granted, and since most of us have a backache most of the time, maybe it doesn’t seem that important. But not having one would only make things worse.

There are no legal requirements or codes for building toe kicks, so you may see super-retro kitchens or hyper-modern ones without this feature. But it’s generally the case that experienced carpenters just know the ideal dimensions and build one into your kitchen.

The standard depth for a toe kick is 3 inches, while the height is 3.5 inches. Most cabinets conform to these measurements (certainly any you buy from the hardware store). However, if you’re having your kitchen remodeled and are very tall or have otherwise larger-than-normal feet, you can always ask your contractor to give you a little extra room down there.
– WTF fun facts 

Source: “Ideal Toe Kick Dimensions and Height for Cabinets” — ThoughtCo