In April 2021, researchers from biotech company Oxitec released bioengineered male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which don’t bite, to mate with the wild female population in the Florida keys. The genetically engineered males will pass a modified gene on that will kill their female offspring as larva. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: First genetically modified mosquitoes released in the United States (nature.com)
There’s a Google Map for Mercury, Venus, Earth’s moon, Mars, Pluto, three out of four of Jupiter’s moons, and all but one of the round Saturnian moons. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: Google Moon Space out with planets in Google Maps (blog.google)
In 1985, a guy programmed his computer to call fundamentalist preacher Jerry Falwell Sr’s toll free prayer line every 30 seconds for 8 months. It clogged up the lines and cost Falwell over $750k in charges. – WTF Fun Facts
A mud volcano is a landform created by the eruption of mud, water and gases. The mud is heated deep below the surface and is forced upwards through a geological fissure due to subterranean pressure imbalances. They can be as large as 700m high and 10 km wide. Their temperatures can reach nearly 100 °C. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: Mud volcano – Wikipedia
In 1967 a Munich resident, Helmut G. Winter, built a catapult to launch potato dumplings at the low-flying, noisy planes flying over his house. For one reason or another, the West German Luftwaffe pilots eventually changed their flight path. – WTF Fun Facts
Pythagoras, of Pythagorean Theorem fame, ran a commune that was forbidden to wear wool, forced to put their right sandal on before their left, and believed that beans could contain the souls of the dead – so even crushing a bean was considered murder. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: Pythagoras’ Belief That Beans Are Human May Have Killed Him | IFLScience
Scientists managed to successfully mix goats with spider genes and now they can produce an extra protein in their milk, which is extracted and spun into spider silk thread. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: The goats with spider genes and silk in their milk – BBC News
The odds of an average golfer making a hole-in-one is: 12,000 to 1.
A hummingbirds wings can beat up to 200 beats per second or 12,000 beats per minute.
There are over 12,000 species of ants.
Bolivia’s La Paz is the highest administrative capital in the world at ~12,000 ft above sea level.
Between 12,000 and 15,000 bicycles are fished from the bottom of Amsterdam’s canals each and every year.
After the battle of Waterloo in 1815, scavengers removed the teeth from tens of thousands of dead soldiers for use in dentures. The so-called “Waterloo teeth” were in demand because they came from relatively healthy young men. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: Battle of Waterloo – Wikipedia