fun fact

WTF Fun Fact 12750 – The Corpus of Galen of Pergamon

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Galen of Pergamon was a Greek physician working in the Roman Empire in the second century AD. It’s believed he wrote hundreds of treatises. He was a well-known figure in his own time who treated politicians (including Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius) and gladiators alike.

Galen of Pergamon’s treatises

Galen wrote so many medical treatises during his lifetime that had to distill them later on into at least three treatises. He titled these: “On My Own Books,” “On the Order of My Own Books,” and “On My Own Opinions” (the latter only survives in fragments).

He wrote about anatomy and physiology, ethics, pharmacy, medical instruments, hygiene, and even the philosophy of medicine. Much of his work was based on the Hippocratic Corpus. However, he took issue with many of the ideas in those ancient Greek works.

By writing the organizing treatises, Galen meant to set out a curriculum for aspiring doctors. This would allow them to understand the order in which to read his books and what larger philosophical points to take away from each.

Galen outside of medicine

Galen was so prolific that he even wrote on subjects that typically lie outside medicine, such as linguistics. But many of those works are lost and we only know about them via references in other treatises.

Galen is also considered an ancient philosopher and engaged with matter of logic and the texts of Aristotle, Plato, and the Stoics.

Despite all of his medical experimentation and the scientific nature of his writing, he also claimed to have knowledge of medicine thanks to the ancient Greek healing god Asclepius. He also believed that the human body was such a perfect and divine machine that it was certainly created by a greater being. However, he does not engage directly with other metaphysical questions about what else that god might believe or dictate about the world.

– WTF fun facts

Source: “Galen” — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

WTF Fun Fact 12749 – The Invention of Kidney Dialysis

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The development of kidney dialysis started centuries ago. Even doctors in the ancient world understood the kidneys played an important role in filtering bodily fluids. Galen’s treatise On the Natural Faculties mentioned doctors prior to his time investigating the organ and its function.

But figuring out how to replicate the filtering function of the kidneys didn’t happen until the 1800s when a Scottish chemist named Thomas Graham realized he could create a membrane to act as a filter to “clean” some bodily fluids (though he wasn’t exactly spot on about what he was filtering out).

Despite sometimes being referred to as the “Father of Dialysis,” his discoveries weren’t kidney-related. In fact, for decades, scientists were more concerned with trying to filter blood for trauma patients during surgery. That’s because they didn’t have blood banks, so when someone lost blood, they needed to preserve it for the patient but also needed a way of cleaning it up first.

Blood dialysis was performed on animals in the early 20th century, and the use of blood thinners was already in use to keep it from clotting (which is necessary if you want to put it back in the body!).

In 1924, a German doctor named Georg Haas realized the possibilities of dialysis for kidney patients. Since our kidneys are responsible for filtering out impurities, those in kidney failure need some extra help.

Haas seems to have had around six patients that used his dialysis machine, but it wasn’t quite ready for prime time yet. All of those patients died of kidney failure (possibly as a result of the dialysis not filtering adequately).

The “drum kidney” was introduced in 1945 by a Dutch doctor Willem Kolff, and because materials science was more advanced, the plastics and other materials he had at his disposal made the machine more effective for cleaning bodily fluids (and didn’t leach its own materials into patients either).

Before we get to today’s modern-day dialysis machines, there were many more people involved in the invention of dialysis – including chemists and physicians that improved upon past technology:

– Swedish chemist Nils Alwall designed a machine to both clean and drain blood
– American scientist Belding Scribner had the dialysis process uninterrupted so the body would not be severely lacking in blood during the dialysis treatment
– Michael Brescia and James Cimino found a way to make Scribner’s invention work with needles so patients didn’t need to maintain an open wound that might be prone to infection

And these are just the preliminary steps we took on our way to modern kidney dialysis!

– WTF fun facts

Source: “History of the kidney disease treatment” — St. George’s Kidney Patients Association

WTF Fun Fact 12748 – Koala Bears Have Fingerprints

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Koala bears have fingerprints just like apes and humans. This is surprising since our last common ancestor lived over 100 million years ago.

Nevertheless, koalas have retained their unique fingerprints.

We tend to think of fingerprints as solely a product of our criminal justice system. And yet, those little lines on our fingers actually serve a purpose besides putting us at a crime scene.

The purpose of fingerprints

Our fingerprints help us grab and feel objects, and researchers believe they help our sense of touch. This isn’t so important to us anymore, but it is helpful to animals who can use touch sensations to judge whether leaves, for example, belong to the right tree.

Our fingerprints actually cause little vibrations when we run them over objects. And since koalas really only eat eucalyptus, they like to be sure they’re in the midst of the right kind of buffet before they start chowing down.

Fingerprints are unique

Since you can’t really tell a koala’s fingerprint from a human’s, at least in terms of patterns, they may be the perfect sidekick for a crime scene. There’s no koala bear fingerprint database, so you can pretty much just let them touch everything to upend an investigation (just kidding – don’t try this at home – or anywhere else for that matter).

However, if a koala at a zoo has committed a crime, theoretically, you could fingerprint the residents to figure out whodunnit. We don’t think that’s ever been a necessity, but it sounds like a good premise for a children’s crime novel (if those existed).

Koalas bears have fingerprints and other animals have…

While koala bears have human-like fingerprints, other animals have identifying marks on their paw pads as well.

According to New Scientist (cited below):

Individual cats and dogs, for example, have unique whisker patterns. Zebras have distinct stripe arrangements and individual leopards and spotted dolphins have their own spot patterns. Humpback whales also have unique markings on the underside of their tails.”

Who knew? – WTF fun facts

Source: “Do other animals have fingerprints? And what purpose do they serve?” — New Scientist

WTF Fun Fact 12747 – Flamingos Eat Upside Down

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Because of the way their heads and beaks are built, flamingos eat upside down. Well, at least that’s how their heads are positioned.

Flamingo beaks scoop up water in the areas where they feed. Then, that water is processed through a structure called the lamellae, which acts as a filter. It ensures that water, sand, and other less tasty things are then expelled back into the water while the marine creatures (such as shrimp and brine flies) that flamingos eat are trapped inside. (Another fun fact: this food is also what makes flamingos pink!)

Flamingo anatomy

A flamingo’s tongue is designed to push the water back out through these filtration mechanisms.

According to the San Diego Zoo, “Greater and Chilean flamingos are larger and feed mostly on invertebrates such as brine flies, shrimps, and mollusks. They get these food items from the bottom mud by wading in shallow water. Sometimes they swim to get their food and sometimes by ‘upending’ (tail feathers in the air, head underwater) like ducks.”

It all happens quite fast, but if you take a look at how a flamingo is built, you’ll see that eating upside down is really the only way.

Of course, flamingos breathe air, which means that while they’re attempting to feed, they need to hold their breath – something they can do for up to a few minutes at a time. They need to poke their heads up every now and then to get more oxygen.

Flamingos eat upside down even on a zoo diet

According to the zoo, their flamingos get a special diet with all the nutrients they need. But even in these cases, they still use the same upside down stature to take in their food:

“At the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, the flamingos are fed a special pellet diet that is made for zoo flamingos. This food has all the nutrients the flamingos need and a pigment that helps keep them “in the pink.” To allow the flamingos to eat in their normal way (taking in water and then pumping it back out), a water source just for feeding is near their food so they can get a “beakful” of water and then food—just like they would in the wild.”

Flamingo mysteries

Flamingos are interesting creatures and there are still some habits we can’t explain – such as why they sometimes stand on one foot. No one has definitively explained that behavior yet. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Flamingo” – The San Diego Zoo

WTF Fun Fact 12746 – Owls Don’t Have Eyeballs

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Owls have eyes, of course. But owls don’t have eyeballs.

Instead, owls have eyes shaped like cylinders (with three eyelids!). Because of this shape, owls can’t roll their eyes around while keeping their heads still. That’s why they have to move their heads around too much to look around.

How do owls see without eyeballs?

According to the Office of Science & Society at McGill University: “Since moving their torsos would likely make noise that would alert their prey to their presence, owls have evolved to have necks that can spin up to 270° essentially silently.”

But why would an owl evolve to have eye rods instead of eyeballs? Wouldn’t it just be easier not to have to move your head at all in order to see to the side?

Well, perhaps, but the benefit of having eyes shaped like rods instead of balls is that not only does it allow them to see better in the dark but it’s the optimal shape for an animal with such a small skull.

The benefit of eye rods

As you may have noticed, nocturnal animals tend to have large corneas. That’s so any light can be collected more efficiently, allowing them to see in the dark.

As it turns out, these elongated eye tubes make it even easier for them to see the way they need to, even if they do have to make more movement in order to get a larger field of vision (also called binocular vision). Without moving their heads, their visual field is about 110 degrees (a human’s is 180 degrees, for comparison).

Binocular vision

Binocular vision also lets owls see objects in three dimensions (height, width, and depth). So, it turns out an owl’s eyes are pretty perfectly suited to its lifestyle.

While some believe all of this means that owls can’t see during the day because they’re blinded by too much light, that’s simply not true. Some owls can see even better than humans in the daylight as well, despite the lack of eyeballs.

At least you never have to worry about an owl giving you the side-eye. –WTF fun facts

Source: “Owls Don’t Have Eyeballs” — Office of Science & Society, McGill University

WTF Fun Fact 12743 – Laughter is the Best Medicine

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We’ve always had lots of anecdotal evidence that “laughter is the best medicine” and studies have shown correlations between laughter and happiness and laughter and better life satisfaction. But in 2005, the first study showed some of the physiological effects laughter has on the body’s cardiovascular system.

So when you say “laughter is the best medicine” to someone and they roll their eyes, you can now hit them with some facts (unless you’re at a funeral or something, then wait a few weeks, please).

The first study

The results of the study were first presented at the Scientific Session of the American College of Cardiology, on March 7, 2005 by researchers from the University of Maryland. It kicked off a whole slew of studies backing up the evidence and providing yet more clues that you can laugh your way into old age.

But first, let’s see how this works. The first study used movies to look at the immediate effects of laughter on subjects’ endothelium – the tissue that forms the inner lining of blood vessels and that dilates or expands during blood flow. (And if it’s been a while since you’ve had a biology class, the better blood flows around your body – and to your heart – the more oxygen and other vital molecules get where they need to be.)

The approach

There were two groups of subjects – one watched a movie clip known to cause mental distress (for example, scenes from Saving Private Ryan – a great film, but not exactly a “cinematic joy ride,” aka it’s sad). The other group watched scenes from funny movies (one example was King Pin, which we have never seen, but we’ll trust that the researchers found a good clip).

Ok, so the goal was really just to make one group laugh and the other get kind of mired in sadness and then measure their blood flow. And you can probably see where this is going.

The results

The distressed group’s blood vessels showed an unhealthy physiological response of the blood vessels called vasoconstriction (a narrowing of the vessels that impedes blood flow). That had been suggested by many other studies before – when we’re stressed, our blood vessels constrict. Not good.

On the other hand, those who laughed showed great blood flow. That’s good. But it’s not just good in the moment, it’s good in the long term because the endothelium helps tone our blood vessels, adjust coagulation rates, and secretes chemicals that help heal wounds and respond to infections.

The researcher’s commentary

In an interview about the study, the lead investigator Michael Miller, M.D., director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center said: “The endothelium is the first line in the development of atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries, so, given the results of our study, it is conceivable that laughing may be important to maintain a healthy endothelium, and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. At the very least, laughter offsets the impact of mental stress, which is harmful to the endothelium.”

The impact of laughter was so strong that they compared it to the benefits one may get from exercise (thought warned against trying to replace exercise with laughter).

“The magnitude of change we saw in the endothelium is similar to the benefit we might see with aerobic activity, but without the aches, pains and muscle tension associated with exercise,” Miller said. “We don’t recommend that you laugh and not exercise, but we do recommend that you try to laugh on a regular basis. Thirty minutes of exercise three times a week, and 15 minutes of laughter on a daily basis is probably good for the vascular system.”

Further evidence

Since 2005, there have been many studies that show laughter is good for health, including:

  • A study of older Japanese people which found that those who laughed more had fewer heart attacks and stroked.
  • A 2020 study showing that overall mortality, as well as cardiovascular disease, were significantly higher among subjects with a low frequency of laughter.
  • A review essay noting that “many kinds of studies, using different methods, conclude that happiness has a positive causal effect on longevity and physiological health.”

So, ask your doctor today about what a funny movie or a night out with fun friends can do for you. And if they look at you funny, just tell them you read that laughter is the best medicine on the internet. They love hearing that. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Laughter Helps Blood Vessels Function Better” — Science Daily

WTF Fun Fact 12741 – The Force of Teeth Grinding in Humans

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Have you ever woken up feeling like someone punched you in the jaw? Or how about with unexplained headaches or even a loose tooth? You might be grinding your teeth.

Well, first, make sure your partner isn’t exhibiting some REM behavior disorder that makes them flail wildly in their sleep. If not, you might want to ask your dentist about bruxism because it can wreak havoc on more than just your teeth.

Bruxism

We all clench our teeth sometimes (like when we’re tense, for example, and it can even be subconscious). While this doesn’t typically do much harm, habitual teeth grinding can affect your jaw and all the muscles around it, leading to neck and head pain and dental issues.

Bruxism, as the teeth grinding condition is called, can also lead to facial changes (it can even change your facial profile) as you lose, chip, or wear down teeth. It can even cause your cheekbones to drop, making your face look droopy and prematurely aged.

Why we grind

According to The Cleveland Clinic, “Men and women get bruxism at roughly the same rate. If you have a family history of teeth grinding, you may face a higher risk. Other risk factors include:

  • Personality type, as people who are very driven may be more prone to teeth grinding.
  • Stress.
  • Cigarette smoking and caffeine use.
  • Certain anti-anxiety medications.”

As you might imagine, bruxism also affects getting a good night’s sleep. So if nothing else, it’s useful to solve the problem so sleep issues don’t cause other problems in your life.

Young children can have bruxism too, and the way they grind teeth it can be caused by anything from allergies to genetics. Often, they outgrow it as their jaws change.

Treatment usually consists of a nightguard, but if you habitually grind your teeth while awake, you may need to train yourself to stop and notice the habit and practice some stress relief techniques.

Two hundred and fifty pounds is a lot of force for a human jaw (most of the time, our molars have about 70 pounds of force, and a strong jaw tops out at about 160 if you’re really trying).

According to the New York Times, “By way of comparison, a well-publicized 1996 study of the tyrannosaurus, done at Stanford, estimated its bite strength ranged from 1,440 to 3,011 pounds, noting that this was fairly close to the power of an alligator’s jaws.”

Now just imagine being a T-rex with bruxism! Ouch. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Bruxism (Teeth Grinding)” — The Cleveland Clinic

WTF Fun Fact 12740 – The Master Switch of Life

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The Master Switch of Life is a phrase coined by Swedish researcher Per Scholander in the 1960s.

His research took place in the U.S. the United States where he studied just how being underwater would affect humans. He had already studied Weddell seals and found that the creatures seemed to gain more oxygen the longer they were underwater.

The water tank trials

To see if the effect might be the same in humans, he put volunteers in a water tank and monitored their heart rates as they dove to the bottom of the tank. Immediately, the volunteers’ heart rates decreased.

Then he asked them to do some exercise at the bottom of the tank to try and raise their heart rates but to no avail. Being underwater continued to lower everyone’s heart rate, meaning they also needed less oxygen (the opposite of what happens on land when we exercise). In addition, when the volunteers were underwater, their blood began flowing away from limbs and towards vital organs (which also happens in seals).

When blood flows to the heart and brain, they stay oxygenated longer, meaning we need less overall oxygen for our bodies to continue to function.

The mystery of water

That’s when he wondered why water has such an unexpected effect on us.

It turns out that the more we dive, the more blood can penetrate the cell walls of our organs to counteract external pressure.

And here’s the really cool part, according to TED:

“Scholander found that a person need submerge only his face in water to activate these life-lengthening (and lifesaving) reflexes. Other researchers tried sticking a hand or a leg in the water in an attempt to trigger the reflex, but to no avail. One researcher even put volunteers into a compression chamber to see if pressure alone would trigger a similar diving reflex. No dice. Only water could trigger these reflexes, and the water had to be cooler than the surrounding air.”

A splash of cold water

All we need to do is splash some cold water on our faces to flip what he called this “Master Switch of Life.” Cool water basically makes us more amphibious and produces a physical change in our heart rates. That certainly explains why cold water feels so refreshing!

–WTF fun facts

Source: “Your body’s amazing reaction to water” — TED Ideas

WTF Fun Fact 12739 – The Dreams of Men

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Multiple studies have shown tend to have more male characters in their dreams.

We have very little control over what we dream about, even though many of us try to direct our dreams. (I know I do – if I could spend all night dreaming about being a wealthy villa owner on an abandoned tropical coast instead of reliving a made-up scenario about missing a vital exam and never graduating high school, I would!)

Studying dreams

Anyway, there are hundreds of studies on dreams. Most of them involve having people use dream journals where they write down the contents of their dreams any time they awaken. The journals are then processed by a researchers who looks for certain characteristics without knowing anything about the person the journals belong to (that’s why they’re called a “blind judge” in many research papers).

Researchers usually start with common themes and types of characters and count mentions of them. And a lot of the research has backed up the data we’ve collected over time. (However, there are some differences between cultures as to what we dream about.)

Demhoff’s dream research

For example, G. William Domhoff wrote one of the most widely-cited papers on the genders we dream about (nearly two decades ago, before talking about more than two genders was a cultural priority). It’s called “The Dreams of Men and Women: Patterns of Gender Similarity and Difference,” and it was published in 2005.

In the paper, Domhoff is very clear that “The study of gender similarities and differences in dream content has proven to be a dangerous mine field for dream researchers.” That’s because this kind of information has the “potential to stir up all the tensions that inevitably accompany any discussion of gender in a world where gender discrimination–and conflicts between men and women on many personal issues–are pervasive.”

Limited interpretations

In other words, it’s likely that a large number of people will dislike this “fun fact” because they somehow feel judged by it or don’t like whatever they think it implies (which is largely nothing).

Demhoff was also careful to not that variations across cultures and across genders make generalizations difficult. He’s just reporting on one characteristic that he found to be statistically significant – the gender of the characters in people’s dreams.

Demhoff concentrated on American subjects since he was most familiar with the cultural characteristics of Americans. But other researchers have studied other cultures and found some key differences.

To make sure everyone is categorizing things in a roughly similar way, Demhoff used a coding system developed in 1966 called the Hall/Van de Castle system, where most things fall into pretty simple categories like: men/women; indoor setting/outdoor setting, etc. But that system was created based on the dream journals of white, middle-class college students at Case Western in the 1950s and 60s. In general, other studies have found these categories useful too.

So, on to the results (because results don’t mean much without some context first!).

What men dream of

Demhoff asked what percentage of dreams had a negative element “such as aggressions, misfortunes, failures, and negative emotions (anger, apprehension, confusion, and sadness)…” And the results were that “men and women are similar in that 80% of men’s dreams and 77% of women’s have at least one of these negative elements.”

When it comes to positive aspects, “such as friendly interactions, good fortune, success, and happiness, 53% of dreams for both men and women have at least one of those elements. Men and women also have an equal number of dreams in which food or eating is mentioned–about 17%.”

In addition, “Both men and women are more often victims than aggressors in the aggressive interactions in their dreams, and they face the same attackers, namely, men who are not known to them (“male strangers”) and animals. On a more positive note, both men and women are equally likely to befriend another character in their dreams.”

But we started with the most reported-on finding, which is that “men dream twice as often about other men as they do about women (67% vs. 33%), and women dream equally about both sexes (48% men, 52% women).”

What’s implied by the dreams of men? Not much

And here’s where people get offended. No one is implying that men fantasize about other men. They can be someone you fight on the street, your 5th grade math teacher, your dad…whatever.

Women may also have more of a character gender balance because their dreams tend to have more characters overall. This may be a result of women’s dreams being longer overall than men’s.

But Demhoff points out that this in not universal. Even among Black Americans, men and women tended to have an equal gender breakdown in dreams. Studies of Mexican and Peruvian teens as well as German college students also showed more of a gender balance. However, in each case there were slightly more men than women in everyone’s dreams.

–WTF fun facts

Source: “The Dreams of Men and Women: Patterns of Gender Similarity and Difference” — G. William Domhoff