facts

WTF Fun Fact 13248 – The Wind Phone

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Itaru Sasaki’s wind phone (“kaze no denwa” in Japanese) is a telephone booth located on a hill in Otsuchi, Japan. The booth is a way for people to connect with loved ones who passed away in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami devastated the area. The wind phone has become a symbol of hope, healing, and connection for people worldwide.

What’s the story behind the wind phone?

Sasaki was inspired to create the booth after he lost his cousin in a tsunami. He wanted to create a space where people could talk to their loved ones who had passed away. The goal was to help them feel a sense of connection and comfort. Sasaki constructed the phone booth on property which overlooks the Pacific Ocean and installed a disconnected rotary phone inside it.

The phone booth is designed to be a quiet, peaceful space where people can reflect and connect with their loved ones. It is open to the public. The booth has become a popular destination for people from around the world. They come to leave messages for their loved ones and to listen to the wind.

The wind phone has become a symbol of hope and healing for many people. The sound of the wind blowing through the phone is an important element. It creates a sense of connection with the natural world and the spirits of dead loved ones. People who have visited the phone have described feeling a sense of peace and comfort after leaving messages.

The legacy of the phone booth

The phone has also become a symbol of resilience for the people of Otsuchi. The 2011 earthquake and tsunami were among the worst natural disasters in Japan’s history. They caused widespread destruction and loss of life. The phone is a reminder of the power of human connection and the importance of finding ways to heal and move forward after tragedy.

The phone booth has inspired people worldwide to create their own versions of the phone booth. There are installations in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

The wind phone has also been the subject of a documentary titled “The Phone of the Wind: Whispers to Lost Families.” It explores the history and significance of the phone booth. The film includes interviews with Sasaki and people who have visited the phone and left messages for loved ones over the years. — WTF fun facts

Source: My Wind Phone

WTF Fun Fact 13247 – The Fish with a Unicorn Horn

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Scientists in China have discovered a new species of fish with a unicorn horn. Named “Sinocyclocheilus longicornus,” the lives in pitch-black caves, has no scales, tiny eyes that are likely non-functional, and a unicorn-like horn sticking out of its head.

What’s the story behind the fish with the unicorn horn?

Scientists discovered the fish in a remote cave system in Guizhou Province in southwestern China. The discovery was made by a team of scientists led by Dr. Meng Wu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who specialize in studying subterranean life forms.

Sinocyclocheilus longicornus is a type of cave fish, which means it has adapted to living in a dark, aquatic environment without any access to sunlight. Like other cave fish, Sinocyclocheilus longicornus has evolved certain physical traits to help it survive in this challenging habitat. For example, it lacks developed eyes and pigmentation, since these features are not necessary in a pitch-black cave.

However, it’s the “unicorn horn” made of bony tissue that’s stirring up curiosity. Scientists believe the fish use the horn for fighting or as a way to sense their environment.

Why is this discovery important?

The discovery of Sinocyclocheilus longicornus is just one example of the ongoing research into subterranean life forms and the unique adaptations that allow them to thrive in the dark, hidden corners of the world. As scientists continue to study these organisms, we may gain new insights into the evolution of life on Earth and the incredible resilience of living things in the face of extreme environmental conditions.

Furthermore, the discovery of a new species of cave fish is particularly exciting for scientists. It highlights how much we still have to discover about life on Earth. Despite centuries of exploration and research, there are still many corners of the planet that remain largely unexplored. This is particularly true of the deep, dark recesses of the world’s caves and other subterranean environments.

Finally, the discovery of Sinocyclocheilus longicornus serves as a reminder of the importance of protecting these unique and fragile ecosystems. Caves and other subterranean environments are home to a wealth of unique species that are found nowhere else on Earth. Mining, tourism, and other human activities can disrupt the delicate balance of these ecosystems. The result is irreparable harm to the species that live there. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Unicorn-like blind fish discovered in dark waters deep in Chinese cave” — Live Science

WTF Fun Fact 13246 – The Mathematical Roots of the Jungle Gym

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A Princeton University mathematician named Sebastian Hinton invented the jungle gym (and monkey bars). He patented them as the “jungle gym” in 1920. Hinton designed the apparatus as a way to help children develop physical coordination and endurance – and to understand theoretical geometry.

What’s the history behind the jungle gym?

According to Smithsonian Magazine (cited below): Hinton “built a cubic bamboo grid in the family’s backyard to teach [his children] to visualize space in three dimensions as they moved through the structure. But the kids were more drawn to climbing and swinging on the bars.”

Cimbing is a near-universal juvenile activity in humans and other primates. However, the safety of jungle gyms and monkey bars has come into question. Still, child psychologists insist that “risky play” is essential on some level for healthy development.

Hinton’s patent document describes a “climbing structure.” It consists of a series of metal bars arranged in a vertical or diagonal configuration supported by a frame. The bars are spaced apart at a distance requiring the user to stretch and grasp the next bar to continue.

The document includes detailed illustrations and specifications for the construction and installation of the climbing structure.

Playground mathematics

Hinton’s math background played a complex role in the creation of the equipment.

Living in Japan at the time, Hinton built the bamboo framework in his backyard for his children. One of his goals was to get kids moving in three-dimensional space. Without this experience, he didn’t think humans could properly grasp the mathematical concept of a fourth dimension. The fourth dimension can be used to help explain the geometry and topology of three-dimensional objects.

For example, a jungle gym can be thought of as a set of interconnected vertices, edges, and faces that define its shape and structure. This idea is related to the concept of a “graph” in mathematics, which is a set of vertices that are connected by edges.

In some cases, the topology of a three-dimensional object can also be related to a four-dimensional object. For example, a hypercube or tesseract is an extension of the three-dimensional cube into a fourth dimension.

While this is a highly abstract concept, Hinton designed the jungle gym/monkey bars with this in mind.

— WTF fun facts

Source: “The Surprisingly Scientific Roots of Monkey Bars” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 13245 – The First NBA All-Star Game

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NBA players played the first All-Star Game in Boston in 1951. That’s when Boston Celtics owner Walter A. Brown proposed the exhibition game after a college basketball gambling scandal damaged the reputation of the sport. As a result, Brown hoped the game would help restore public confidence in professional basketball.

What’s the story behind the first NBA All-Star game?

The first NBA All-Star Game was played on March 2, 1951, at the Boston Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. Boston Celtics owner Walter A. Brown proposed the idea in the aftermath of a point-shaving scandal that had rocked the college basketball world.

The point-shaving scandal affected college basketball in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This involved players from several high-profile college basketball teams. The players were paid to manipulate the outcomes. They did so by deliberately missing shots or committing fouls to keep the final score within a certain point spread. (The point spread is the predicted margin of victory determined by oddsmakers in Las Vegas. Bettors place wagers on the final score of the game based on this spread.)

In 1951, authorities arrested several players from the City College of New York and charged them with accepting bribes to fix games. That’s what brought the scandal to light. Eventually, players from New York University, Long Island University, and the University of Kentucky also admitted involvement.

The scandal had a significant impact on the sport, damaging the reputation of college basketball and hurting attendance at games. It also led to a crackdown on gambling and corruption in sports and resulted in changes to NCAA rules and regulations to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.

How the game has changed

The NBA All-Star Game has changed significantly over the years, evolving from a simple exhibition game to a weekend-long event with multiple events and activities.

The All-Star Game originally featured two teams, the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference, competing against each other. However, in 2018, the NBA changed the format to a playground-style draft, with team captains selecting their rosters from the pool of All-Star players.

In the early years of the All-Star Game, the players were selected solely by the coaches of the respective teams. However, in 1974, the NBA began allowing fans to vote for the starting lineups, and today, fans make up 50% of the vote, with players and media members each making up 25%.

In addition to the All-Star Game itself, the weekend now includes a number of skills competitions, such as the Slam Dunk Contest, the Three-Point Contest, a Skills Challenge, a celebrity game, and a Rising Stars Challenge featuring the best young players in the league.

In recent years, the All-Star Game began including a charitable component, with the NBA and its players donating funds to various causes and organizations in the host city. — WTF fun facts

Source: “1951 NBA All-Star Game” — Wikipedia

WTF Fun Fact 13243 – Missing Dog Returns To Shelter

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A dog that went missing from its new home in Texas walked 10 miles to her former shelter and rang the doorbell. The story was reported by the Animal Rescue League of El Paso. The shelter has doorbell camera footage of the dog named Bailey returning to the shelter two days after she went missing in late January 2023.

Missing dog returns “home”

Loretta Hyde, founder of Animal Rescue League of El Paso, told USA Today (cited below) that “A family had adopted the friendly husky mix from the Animal Rescue League of El Paso last month. At some point soon after, Bailey got loose and ended up running away.”

The shelter put the call out on Facebook for local residents to keep an eye out for Bailey. While there were a few sightings, no one was able to catch her.

Luckily, Bailey knew the way back to safety. She just didn’t seem to know the way back to her new home.

After spending two days missing, the El Paso shelter doorbell camera activated and alerted workers to a 1am visitor on January 31. It was Bailey – and she had walked 10 miles to get to where she thought was “home.”

She was safe and unharmed, but very hungry after going a few days without food.

“I’ll be darn, at 1:42 in the morning she’s ringing the doorbell like, ‘I’m home,‘” Hyde told USA Today. “The Ring camera kept going off and off and off … and you’ll see in the video that she’s running out there, sitting, waiting for somebody to come.”

One one of the shelter’s workers was able to talk to the dog through the camera. She called Bailey’s name and the pup “booped” the camera.

Return to sender

Bailey took a day to sleep off her big adventure and make up for lost calories at the shelter.

It appears Bailey went missing under innocent circumstances. Her new owner had been up for days searching for her and had even stayed out all night when she first went missing. They contacted the shelter immediately for help.

Bailey was happily reunited with her new family after getting a checkup, and everyone was grateful for the happy ending. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Animal Rescue League of El Paso” — Facebook
“Bailey the dog was lost in El Paso. Then she found her old shelter and rang the bell” — USA Today

WTF Fun Fact 13240 – ChatGPT Medical Exam

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There’s been a lot of speculation and panic around what the AI tool ChatGPT can and can’t do and whether it’s going to replace/destroy us all. But it looks like it’s not going to be replacing doctors any time soon, even though it may be a semi-reliable source for those studying for the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE).

Did ChatGPT pass a medical licensing exam?

In a word, no. ChatGPT did not “pass” a medical licensing exam, though there will probably be some sensational headlines to the contrary.

A study published February 9, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS Digital Health by Tiffany Kung, Victor Tseng, and others at AnsibleHealth found that:

“ChatGPT can score at or around the approximately 60 percent passing threshold for the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), with responses that make coherent, internal sense and contain frequent insights…”

In other words, ChatGPT can generate human-like responses to certain types of questions on the exam.

According to a press release about the study:

“Kung and colleagues tested ChatGPT’s performance on the USMLE, a highly standardized and regulated series of three exams (Steps 1, 2CK, and 3) required for medical licensure in the United States. Taken by medical students and physicians-in-training, the USMLE assesses knowledge spanning most medical disciplines, ranging from biochemistry, to diagnostic reasoning, to bioethics.”

However, they had to remove all image-based questions, so the AI could only attempt 350 of the 376 questions (that are available for public viewing) that appeared on the June 2022 exam.

How well did AI do on the medical exam?

There’s a joke people tell that goes a little something like this:
What do you call the person who graduates first in their medical class?
Answer: Doctor.
What do you call the person who graduates last in their medical class?
Answer: Doctor.

In other words, you’re never going to know if your doctor aced their exam or barely passed.

But if ChatGPT is your doctor, you will know it’s incapable of doing really well on the exam (though in some cases, it did pass). After the researchers removed all “indeterminate responses,” “ChatGPT scored between 52.4% and 75.0% across the three USMLE exams. The passing threshold each year is approximately 60%.”

It was good at producing novel and clinically significant insights the vast majority of the time, however. But if you can’t pass, that doesn’t really mean much.

What’s also interesting is that “ChatGPT exceeded the performance of PubMedGPT, a counterpart model trained exclusively on biomedical domain literature, which scored 50.8% on an older dataset of USMLE-style questions.”

But all that means is that ChatGPT is a really good AI language model. It doesn’t mean it’ll be replacing your doctor any time soon. And since it’s not always good at producing correct information, you may not want to use it to get medical advice.

What ChatGPT can be used for is helping to distill jargon-heavy medical writing into language that non-experts can understand. So if there’s a scientific study you’d like to know more about, you can plug that into ChatGPT and get a fairly reliable summary. — WTF fun facts

Source: “ChatGPT can (almost) pass the US Medical Licensing Exam” — EurekAlert

WTF Fun Fact 13239 – Indoor Air is More Polluted

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More and more people are worried about air quality. But hiding indoors doesn’t appear to be an option for some people if their indoor air is more polluted. And that appears to be the case for a lot of people.

How can you know if your indoor air is more polluted than outdoors?

You can typically get readings for outdoor air quality with the weather report these days. Air pollution can come from natural sources like pollen or unnatural sources like factories, cars, and other machinery.

Testing your indoor air is another matter. But there are a few ways to get a clue about your indoor air quality. For example, if you experience frequent allergies or asthma indoors, you may have compromised air quality. If you can see or smell mold, mildew, or chemicals from cleaning supplies, your air is compromised.

If you walk into your home and experience irritation of the nose, eyes, or throat, experience skin rashes even when staying home for extended periods, or tend to experience dry skin, unexplained coughing, fatigue, dizziness, or headaches, it may be time to check your indoor air quality. (Of course, these can be symptoms of other issues as well.)

Sources of “bad air”

Indoor air pollution can come from some unlikely places. Obviously, bad air can seep into your home from outside or be tracked in on your clothing, hands, or shoes.

Other sources of indoor air pollution are:

  • Consumer products (like TVs, furniture, or things made of plastic) that tend to emit the chemicals Polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) or Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB).
  • Wood cleaners or sealants and mattresses that contain polyurethane.
  • Carpeting, plywood, and upholstery that can emit formaldehyde.
  • Cigarette smoke.
  • Mold and mildew growing in damp areas of your home.
  • Scent diffusers and candles.
  • Pesticide residue or pollen from your shoes.
  • Dust mites and roach droppings.
  • Fireplaces that emit combustion byproducts such as carbon monoxide.
  • Pets (And there is no such thing as a hypoallergenic, dander-free pet!)

The list goes on, but these are major sources that can sometimes be remediated with air purifiers. If your house has poor ventilation, you may feel the effects of indoor air pollutants more acutely.

Getting rid of your floors and furniture certainly isn’t an option for most people. However, you can prohibit smoking indoors and cut down on your use of chemical cleaners. This is especially important if someone in your home has asthma or allergies. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Indoor Air Quality” — Environmental Protection Agency

WTF Fun Fact 13237 – A Vibrating Pill for Constipation

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Constipation is common, but one company has come up with an uncommon solution for it – a vibrating pill for constipation. The pill is called Vibrant.

Vibrant – the vibrating pill for constipation

Don’t like the thought of taking pharmaceuticals for your constipation? No worries – there are no active ingredients in this little pill.

The vibrating pill is designed to stimulate the muscles in the digestive tract to help move stool through the intestines, promoting regular bowel movements and relieving constipation symptoms. The product is marketed by Vibrant Gastro and the information is available on their press releases and news section of their website.

According to HealthNews (cited below), the pill was announced on February 8, 2022. It was cleared by the FDA (which is different from approval, which means the pill is similar to an already-marketed device.

How does it work?

According to Vibrant’s press release:

“The idea behind the treatment is that a single vibrant pill is taken around bedtime every day. It then travels the same route as food does, through the stomach and small intestine, finally reaching the large intestine about 14 hours later. Then, it goes to work.

The pills stimulate specialized nerve cells in the gut called mechanosensory cells. These help trigger peristalsis, the undulating muscle contractions that help squeeze food through the gut.“

The vibrations run for three seconds, then stop for three seconds. Before swallowing the pill, it must be activated in a small pod. The pill is then active for two hours, then off for six hours before activating again for two hours.

The idea is that you will eventually poop them out and they will clean out and loosen stool along the way. They are not considered a cure, but a maintenance treatment that people with constipation would take regularly. Each pill gets flushed, so treatment requires a new pill each time (thankfully!).

Constipation is generally defined as having fewer than three bowel movements in a week and affects 10 to 20% of Americans.

In the clinical trial, only a small number of participants could feel the pill vibrating. 40% of those taking Vibrant reported having at least one extra bowel movement a week and felt they were able to more completely empty their bowels. Only 23% of those in the placebo group reported an extra bowel movement.

23% of the participants given Vibrant reported two or more additional bowel movements a week.

That’s progress! — WTF fun facts

Source: “Drug-Free Vibrating Pill for Constipation Now Available by Prescription” — HealthNews

WTF Fun Fact 13236 – Health Benefits of Holding Hands

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Studies have shown the health benefits of holding hands with someone you love. This can reduce stress and anxiety. That’s because the physical act of holding hands releases oxytocin, a hormone associated with feelings of love, trust, and comfort.

The other health benefits of holding hands

In addition, holding hands with someone you love can also lower blood pressure and reduce physical pain, making it an effective way to promote overall well-being and improve mental and physical health.

Holding hands can also boost self-esteem and confidence, making it a helpful tool for managing feelings of insecurity or low self-worth. It can even encourage communication, which helps to facilitate deeper connections and understanding between individuals.

Studies have also shown that holding hands can help to improve memory recall and enhance cognitive function.

Oxytocin: The “love drug”

Oxytocin is often referred to as the “love hormone” for its positive effects on physical and mental health. For example, studies have shown that the release of oxytocin can help to lower blood pressure. This, in turn, can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke.

It can also have pain-relieving effects that can help treat a variety of painful conditions like migraines, menstrual cramps, and arthritis.

The “love hormone” is also a mood booster. Oxytocin can reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety in some people.

Finally, doing things that release oxytocin can help you strengthen your relationships. It helps promote feelings of love, trust, and comfort. This helps you form both personal and social bonds with those around you.

Reach out and touch…

There are many studies that demonstrate the cognitive benefits of touch. Yet it’s a sense that we don’t fully appreciate. Nevertheless, it helps us form both bonds and memories.

So, next time you’re feeling stressed or anxious, try reaching for your loved one’s hand. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Holding Hands May Reduce Stress” — WebMD