WTF • Fun • Fact    ( /dʌb(ə)lˌju/  /ti/   /ef/ • /fʌn/ • /fækt/ )

     1. noun  A random, interesting, and overall fun fact that makes you scratch your head and think what the...

WTF Fun Fact 13005 – Board Games For The Brain

Fun fact: People who regularly play non-digital games (such as cards and board games) are more likely to score better on memory and thinking tests when they’re in their 70s.
If you’re interested in maintaining your mental acuity over time, board games for the brain may just help you out!

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If you want to stay sharp in your 70s, games are a great way to exercise your brain. But digital games (such as video games and games on your phone) just won’t cut it. The link between mental acuity in later life and games seems to apply only to physical games like board games and playing cards.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh “tested more than 1000 people aged 70 for memory, problem solving, thinking speed and general thinking ability,” according to Science Daily (cited below). “Those who regularly played non-digital games scored better on memory and thinking tests in their 70s, the research found.”

The power of board games for the brain

Interestingly, the study also found that “People who increased game playing during their 70s were more likely to maintain certain thinking skills as they grew older.”

Scientists discovered the connection after testing their subjects every three years, until they reached age 79. They compared test results to how often people reported playing games like cards, chess, bingo, or crossword puzzles.

The team also factored in the scores from the subject’s intelligence tests when they were 11 years old and considered factors like lifestyle, economic status, and activity levels so that they could be reasonably sure that the games were the underlying factor for better memory test scores. (The participants were part of a group called the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936. They were all born in 1936 and have been tracked in a variety of ways throughout their lives.)

They found that: “People who increased game playing in later years were found to have experienced less decline in thinking skills in their seventies — particularly in memory function and thinking speed.”

Protecting cognitive health

Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK, said of the study: “Even though some people’s thinking skills can decline as we get older, this research is further evidence that it doesn’t have to be inevitable. The connection between playing board games and other non-digital games later in life and sharper thinking and memory skills adds to what we know about steps we can take to protect our cognitive health, including not drinking excess alcohol, being active and eating a healthy diet.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “Playing board games may help protect thinking skills in old age” — Science Daily

WTF Fun Fact 13004 – You Are More Likely To Die Around 11am

“Fun” fact: Because of a gene linked to our circadian rhythms, humans are more likely to die around 11am than at any other time of day.

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In 2012, a study published in the Annals of Neurology reported on a gene variant that affects our circadian rhythms. And that variant, it seems, could also predict the time of day you will die. And that time is around 11am.

According to a write-up in The Atlantic (cited below), the study’s authors “realized through their research that there seems to be one DNA sequence that determines, essentially, how each of us relates to time itself. And data analysis — poring through 15 years’ worth of sleep and death patterns collected from subjects in an unrelated sleep study — helped them to make the realization.”

Why do we die around 11am?

A lot of this work has to do with the ways in which we are no longer beholden to a strict social schedule as we age.

Our external environment affects our inner circadian “clocks,” which regulate our bodies’ functions This includes elements like work schedules and daylight exposure. But there’s also a genetic component to the time of day we’re most active and alert.

According to another Atlantic piece on the research that studied the phenomenon: “Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston borrowed data that had been collected 15 years ago from a sleep study at Rush University in Chicago…First, its subjects had worn a device, called an actigraph, that provided detailed information about their sleep-wake patterns. Second, the subjects were all over the age of 65 when the study was originally done. So by the time the Harvard researchers got to them, many had passed away. They had all also agreed to donate their brains to science. Because of this, the researchers knew their precise times of death. Finally, in the course of the many physical and psychological evaluations undergone by the subjects, they had also had their DNA sequenced.”

The researchers compared data from over 500 participants, looking at genetics and the time of death. They found a piece of DNA that was linked to sleeping and waking hours.

People with a more common gene variant tended to die in the late morning, around 11am.

But this doesn’t mean 11am is a more dangerous time of day. The study participants had largely died of natural causes. So the issue is that their circadian rhythms affected their bodies in a way that late morning was the most common time for them to expire. — WTF fun facts

Source: “You Are Most Likely to Die at 11 a.m.” — The Atlantic

WTF Fun Fact 13003 – The Sean O’Casey Bridge

Fun Fact: “Dublin’s Sean O’Casey Bridge is a pedestrian bridge over the River Liffey built to open up and allow ships to pass. But it was operated by a remote control that got lost in 2010. It was only in 2014, after building a new remote, that the bridge became operational again.”

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Pro tip: If you build a bridge to help pedestrians cross a waterway and the bridge needs to open up in order to allow ships to pass, make sure you create more than one remote control to operate the bridge. Otherwise, a mobile phone-sized remote could get lost for four years. And that can make things very inconvenient for shipping through the waterway. Just ask Dublin – they know all about it.

The Sean O’Casey Bridge

Irish news site TheJournal.ie (cited below) reported in 2014 that the Sean O’Casey Bridge over the River Liffey in Dublin was once again operational after engineers were able to create a new remote to operate the bridge.

Describing the bridge, the news site said, “The design includes two 44-metre-long arms, capable of swinging open when required. That operation is controlled by a hand-held remote device — but, as TheJournal.ie reported last year — that device went missing some years ago, meaning openings were no longer possible.”

The loss presumable occurred when the bureaucrats running the bridge moved offices.

Re-opening the bridge

Years of budget issues prevented a proper engineering review necessary to solve the problem, according to the news site. But in 2014, someone found the money to reprogram a new device.

Financial Advisor to the Authority John Crawley told TheJournal.ie: “Its not like a Sky box remote control.” The bridge remote required more than just an open and close button; it needed to be a secure system that no one could hack. Special engineers were required in order for it to be done right.

“An Irish-based firm carried out the reprogramming, and that aspect of the work cost around €1,800,” Crawley said. — WTF fun facts

Source: “The Celtic Tiger bridge that wouldn’t open because of a lost remote control” — TheJournal.ie

WTF Fun Fact 13002 – Keeping Secrets

Fun Fact: Keeping secrets is a universal phenomenon. Researchers found that approximately 97% of people are keeping a secret at any given time, and the average person is currently keeping around 13 of them (though not all are because of shame or guilt).

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What aren’t you telling us? What are you hiding? Nothing? Ok. Then are you hiding big surprise from someone? Are you pregnant and not telling anyone? Are you buying us a pony for Christmas? No. Darn.

Well, chances are you’re holding onto at least one secret – and you’re more than likely keeping a whole bunch across a handful of different categories. Not all secrets are sinister, and some we’d probably rather people kept to themselves.

Secrets are interesting things, which is why psychologists study them.

The anatomy of a secret

The American Psychological Society (cited below) wrote about the work of some of their members, and it’s fascinating stuff.

First, you may be interested to know that sharing this private information and asking people to keep it from others is burdensome (so maybe you should keep some to yourself). Then again, researchers also found that sharing secrets is a great way to bond with people and show them you trust them.

Dr. Michael Slepian, associate professor of leadership and ethics at Columbia Business School, described his interest in the psychology of secrets:

“For decades, secrecy research focused on the effects of concealment. But I couldn’t find any studies that systematically looked at what secrets people keep, how they keep them or how they experience secrets on a day-to-day basis.” This led him to survey around a thousand people and try to categorize the types of secrets they keep.

Types of secrets

The first step was to define acts of secrecy, which they did broadly, “defining secrecy not just as the moment of actively withholding information, but also having the intention to keep something secret from another person—even when that other person isn’t physically present.”

After categorizing the types of secrets people keep (for example, things related to infidelity, illegal behavior, planned surprises, pregnancy, etc.), he and his colleagues discovered that the things people keep to themselves generally fell into about 38 common categories.

“We all keep the same kinds of secrets,” Slepian told the APA. “About 97% of people have a secret in at least one of those categories, and the average person is currently keeping secrets in 13 of those categories.”

The biggest harm of keeping a secret was a person’s tendency to ruminate on it, which happened far more often with negative secrets. Interestingly, people tend to dwell on things that make them feel ashamed – even more than they ruminate on secrets that make them feel guilty. That’s because shame makes you feel like a bad person and breeds feelings of helplessness or powerlessness.

Divulging secrets

Divulging these previously private things can be a double-edged sword, of course. But talking to people can reduce the shame. Slepian found that “thinking about a secret can create a motivational conflict in which a person’s need to connect with others directly clashes with their desire to keep their secret to themselves.”

After finding 38 categories of secrets among hundreds of people, Slepian’s team also found that “confiding a secret predicted improved well-being, both because the participant received social support and because the act of revealing the secret seemed to minimize the amount of time the person spent thinking about it.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “Exposing the hidden world of secrets” — American Psychological Association

WTF Fun Fact 13001 – Unhappy Monday

Fun Fact: A 2011 study found that people tend to be so miserable on Mondays that, on average, they don’t crack a smile until 11:16 am. Do you experience an unhappy Monday?

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If you hate Mondays, you’re not alone. People seem to find it a depressing day of the week. In fact, in 2011, the food company Marmite did a study that found people were so depressed on Monday mornings they typically didn’t smile for the first time until 11:16 am. That’s pretty late in the day for something as small as a smile!

The study by Marmite, the British food spread, also found that half of employees will be late to work, and will only log about three-and-a-half hours of productive work time.

Why are we so bummed on Mondays?

Ok, so there’s the obvious reason to hate Mondays if they signal the end of the weekend to you. That’s probably why some studies found Sunday to be pretty depressing as well.

According to HuffPost (cited below): “Yet other studies have found that it’s Sunday, not Monday, that is the most depressing day of the week. In 2009, a study by researchers at the University of Gothenburg and Institute for the Study of Labor found that Sunday is the darkest day of the week in Germany, where individuals reported the lowest level of subjective well-being.”

Americans also found Sunday to be the most depressing day.

Defeating the unhappy Monday

Well, the bad news is that there’s no magical cure for Mondays (short of winning the lottery, quitting your job, and spending the rest of your days at leisure).

The best the Marmite study could suggest was finding time on Monodays to indulge in activities you enjoy, such as shopping, watching TV, planning a trip, or eating a treat.

— WTF fun facts

Source: “Mondays Are More Depressing Than We Thought, Says Study” – HuffPost

WTF Fun Fact 13000 – Valentine’s Day Gifts for Pets

Fun Fact: U.S. consumers spend over $1 billion annually on Valentine’s Day gifts for pets. In 2020, 27% of people said they were planning on buying Valentine’s Day gifts for their pets.

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It makes sense that you’d want to give a gift to the creature that loves you unconditionally on a holiday meant to celebrate love. But since animals don’t know it’s a holiday, it’s still pretty interesting that 27% of Valentine’s shoppers choose to pick up a gift for their furry (or feathered or scaly) friends. This represented a 10% increase over the last decade.

Why do we buy Valentine’s Day gifts for pets?

“Much of the growth in Valentine’s Day spending over the last decade has been fueled by consumers’ interest in celebrating the other important relationships in their lives — friends, co-workers and, increasingly, pets” This is according to the National Retail Federation (NRF), a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. that conducts these surveys with and Prosper Insights & Analytics.

According to FOX13 news in early 2022:

In 2020, $103.6 billion was spent on our pets in the U.S., according to National Pet Owners Survey Statistics — and 70 percent of U.S. households own a pet.”

That’s due in part to the COVID pandemic.

“One in five households acquired a cat or dog at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) said in a survey published last year, on May 21, 2021.”

The Valentine’s Day gift survey

The NRF conducted the survey of 7,728 U.S. adult consumers from January 3-11, 2022, and also found that spending for the holiday increased overall, with people in the U.S. expected to spend $23.9 billion in 2022 (up from $21.8 billion in 2021). 

“Shoppers expect to spend an average of $175.41 per person (per human, that is) on Valentine’s Day gifts, which is up from $164.76 in 2021,” the NRF said.

When it comes to human gifts, people are sticking to tradition. “Candy (56 percent), greeting cards (40 percent), and flowers (37 percent) remain the most popular gift items…“

— WTF fun facts

Source: “Valentine’s Day 2022 pet spending: You won’t believe what we’ll shell out for our dogs and cats” — FOX13 News

WTF Fun Fact 12999 – Nikka The Police Dog

The Vaughn, New Mexico Police Department has quite a recent history – and we just hope 2012 was the low point. That’s when the police chief and only officer were barred from carrying guns due to their criminal past. As a result, the only certified member of the force was Nikka the police dog.

Vaughn, NM goes to the dogs

In September 2012, the attorney for the town of Vaughn announced the resignation of Chief Ernest “Chris” Armijo.

News stories revealed that Armijo had been carrying a fake gun for months because he was not allowed to carry a real one. First, he was convicted of a felony back in Texas for owing tens of thousands of dollars in delinquent child support payments. But perhaps more concerning is that a few months prior he was also accused of illegally selling someone a police rifle and then keeping the cash for himself.

The town did not release the official reason for Armijo’s departure. But we have some good guesses about why the job didn’t work out for him.

There was another officer in Vaughn’s police force at the time. But he had just pled building to domestic violence charges that prevented him from having a gun. At the very least, CBS News (cited below) implied that if he was still part of the force, he was not a certified officer, and that would not only prevent him from carrying a gun but from making arrests as well.

According to records, that left only one certified member of the police force in good standing. Their drug-sniffing dog, Nikka.

Nikka the police dog gets a promotion

According to CBS News at the time: “Officials in the town of 450 people, about 100 miles east of Albuquerque, are considering whether to hire another police chief or keep the department staffed with just one officer...” It was unclear if the town would be able to keep the police dog since it was in Armijo’s care.

Residents said they were largely unconcerned because Vaughn had always been a quiet town with little crime.

It’s unclear how it all played out for the town or Nikka the police dog. Today the town is listed as having just one full-time sworn officer – and we’re going to assume it’s a human. — WTF fun facts

* Thanks to the reader who sent in this gem!

Source: “Nikka the police dog is only cop in N.M. town after chief resigns” — CBS News

WTF Fun Fact 12998 – The Oldest Recipe In The World

You know the oldest recipe in the world was going to be for something kind of weird, right? Well, at the very least, it’s a pudding with a kick. The world’s oldest recipe is roughly 8,000 years old and contains instructions for making nettle pudding.

The oldest recipe in the world is for…pudding

Researchers at the University of Wales Institute (Uwic) in Cardiff, led by Dr. Ruth Fairchild, have been studying ancient recipes for years. In fact, they’ve managed to translate the into something you really can cook (though there’s no promise of whether it’ll be palatable or even remotely worthwhile).

If you’re thinking nettle pudding sounds like a bad idea, we’re with you. People have long used nettles in medicines. But there’s a reason we refer to them as “stinging nettles” – they sting!

However, Fairchild assures adventurous cooks that heating up the nettles “takes the sting right out of them. ” Fingers crossed!

In 2007, Dr. Fairchild told BBC Breakfast (cited below) “nettle pudding was made by mixing nettles with ground-down barley and water.” And, here, Americans will note that “pudding” means something completely different to the British.

Antiquity Now says:

“For those of you not familiar with non-dessert puddings, it has the consistency of a dumpling and is often eaten with chunks of bread and the meat it is cooked along side.”

What is nettle pudding?

You may recognize some ingredients in nettle pudding (which is not the gloppy, smooth stuff we eat in America). It includes sorrel, watercress, dandelions, and nettles…you know, weeds.

Antiquity Now also assured readers that “the stinging nettle has long been an important food source and was greatly appreciated by ancient cultures. Its use as food has always been closely tied to its medicinal value. Often it would be ingested during the spring because it was believed to help in circulation and could restore warmth to the body after the cold winter months. Generally, the younger plants were chosen for food because they are less bitter, but more mature leaves can be boiled until they are suitable for ingestion. The Romans boiled nettles along with meat in order to tenderize it. Europeans used it in soups and puddings like the one below. In fact, in 2007, the recipe below was named Britain’s oldest recipe and is believed to be from around 6,000 BCE.”

We had no idea – we had always assumed that giving something a name like “stinging nettle” was a cue not to put it in your mouth under any circumstances.

Antiquity Now also shared the step-by-step recipe:

The Nettle Pudding Recipe

Interested in trying the oldest recipe in the world?

Ingredients

1 bunch of sorrel, 1 bunch of watercress, 1 bunch of dandelion leaves
2 bunches of young nettle leaves
Some chives
1 cup of barley flour
1 teaspoon of salt

Instructions

Chop the herbs finely and mix in the barley flour and salt.
Add enough water to bind it together and place in the center of a linen or muslin cloth.

Tie the cloth securely and add to a pot of simmering venison or wild boar (a pork joint will do just as well). Make sure the string is long enough to pull the pudding from the pot.
Cook the pudding until the meat is done (at least two hours).
Leave the pudding to cool slightly, remove the muslin, then cut the pudding into thick slices with a knife.
Serve the pudding with chunks of barley bread.

Bon appetit! — WTF fun facts

Source: “When nettles were dish of the day” — BBC

WTF Fun Fact 12997 – A Bristlecone Pine Is The Oldest Tree In The World

We’re not sure what kind of tree we expected to be the oldest in the world. Maybe a redwood or an olive tree, perhaps? But, in fact, a bristlecone pine is the oldest tree in the world (at least the oldest to be confirmed). Its name is Methuselah, and it’s likely over 4,800 years old.

Like the tallest and largest (by volume) trees in the world, the oldest is also located in the U.S. state of California. Luckily, it’s off the beaten path, which is no doubt one of the reason’s it’s managed to survive this long.

Methuselah, the bristlecone pine

Researchers put Methuselah at an amazing 4,854-year-old. Its species is the Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva), and it’s named after the biblical elder Methuselah, who was said to be 969 years old and whose name is now often used for things of advanced age.

The tree Methuselah is located in the White Mountains in eastern California. It lies in “Methuselah Grove” of the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest tucked inside Inyo National Forest.

And while its precise location has remained a secret for many years, it (along with the location of other majestic California trees under protection) has been leaked to the public, putting it in danger.

What is the oldest tree in the world older than?

That a bristlecone pine is the oldest tree in the world is already remarkable. But the fact that Methuselah is older than the Egyptian pyramids and is thousands of years older than written language is pretty mind-blowing.

Of course, there are constant challenges from people claiming to find older trees. In fact, there may be another tree nearby that’s older (some claim there is). But right now, Methuselah is the confirmed “winner” (if that’s considered a win).

Even if another tree overtakes it, it hardly matters. In fact, that might only serve to protect the tree that’s older than most civilizations that even ancient historians study (since it predates anything they could have written about themselves). You’d have to go back to cave paintings to find older ones.

The bristlecone pine is the oldest tree in the world

According to the NYT (cited below), “For decades, giant sequoias were believed to be the world’s oldest trees…” In fact, California is home to the tallest, largest (by volume), and oldest trees in the world: a redwood named Hyperion, a giant sequoia named General Sherman, and Methuselah.

Simply googling it will give you a better photo than we have permission to share. — WTF fun facts

Source: “In California, Where Trees Are King, One Hardy Pine Has Survived for 4,800 Years” — The New York Times