lol

WTF Fun Fact 12943 – A Conspiracy of Lemurs

by

Lemurs are fascinating creatures. They’re also diverse – there are 113 types of lemur, all native to Madagascar. Lemurs are social creatures that are active during the day and live in groups of up to 30. These groups are called a conspiracy of lemurs (or alternately a troop).

Why is it called a conspiracy of lemurs?

According to LiveScience (cited below), “Lemurs’ main predators are fossas (Cryptoprocta ferox) — carnivores that looks a bit like a cat or weasel. Lemurs can also become prey for large snakes, birds, humans and animals humans have introduced to Madagascar, such as domestic cats.”

By living in groups, it’s easier for lemurs to alert each other to dangers. The reason a group of lemurs is also called a “conspiracy” is that they work together (or conspire) to outsmart predators and stay safe.

Unfortunately, they can’t conspire to stop habitat destruction. “In 2020, the IUCN(opens in new tab) announced that 98% of all lemurs are threatened with extinction. The main reasons lemur populations have declined so significantly is because of habitat loss due to deforestation(opens in new tab) and hunting in Madagascar. Their habitat is often destroyed so that it can be used for agriculture, and they are hunted for food,” reports LiveScience.

Lemur mobbing

After conspiring to outsmart the predators they have some control over, lemurs also use a technique called “mobbing” to attack predators all at once.

Lemurs can jump up to six times their body length, so they presumably seem like they come out of nowhere and predators hardly get a chance to know what hit them (literally – conspiracies of lemurs have been known to beat large snakes to death).

Cooperative attacking and harassing (aka mobbing) is not limited to lemurs. Many species use this technique to eliminate the threat of predators.

These furry creatures seem to have quite a few sophisticated anti-predator behaviors. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Lemurs: A diverse group of endangered primates” — LiveScience

WTF Fun Fact 12941 – Jousting is Maryland’s State Sport

by

On June 1, 1962, Maryland became the first U.S. state to adopt an official sport. And you may be totally confused by its choice. That’s because jousting is Maryland’s state sport.

Why on earth is jousting Maryland’s state sport?

For most of us, it seems like an odd choice. But if you explore the Maryland State Archives, you’ll see that “jousting tournaments have been held in Maryland since early colonial times but became increasingly popular after the Civil War.”

And they never really stopped jousting in Maryland. According to The Culture Trip: “The pageantry is not lost in modern-day tournaments. Men (referred to as knights) and women (referred to as maids) are dressed in colorful costumes full of regalia and many of the medieval customs and practices are still utilized. The Maryland State Jousting Championship is held annually and has been sponsored by the Maryland Jousting Tournament Association since its founding in 1950.”

Ok, so we just have to chalk our surprise up to ignorance. But in all fairness, they should really televise that stuff widely.

Making jousting “official”

States that want an official anything – whether it’s a bird, song, flower, or sport – need only propose a bill and have it passed by their state government. Not all states have an official sport, but we’re sure some followed in Maryland’s footsteps (though they didn’t pick jousting).

For Maryland, the whole thing was apparently a no-brainer. In 1962 “Henry J. Fowler, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates from St. Mary’s County, introduced a bill during a session of the Maryland General Assembly to establish jousting as the official state sport. The bill passed both houses and was signed into law by Governor J. Millard Tawes.“

Modern Maryland jousting

Today’s jousting competitions in Maryland are held throughout the state and abide by rules created in 1950. It’s a non-contact sport “where competitors on horseback with lance in hand try to spear hanging rings of various sizes while quickly riding by three arches. Rings, ranging in diameter from one-quarter of an inch to approximately two inches, are hung nearly 7 feet off the ground.”

Tournaments take place between May and October

—WTF fun facts

Source: “Why Jousting Is Maryland’s Official State Sport” — The Culture Trip

WTF Fun Fact 12935 – Pumpkin Spice Taste Mystery

by

Traditionally, pumpkin spice flavorings have not contained pumpkin at all. Of course, pumpkin spice lovers have been mocked for their “fake flavor,” even though there are plenty of flavors that have no real foodstuffs in them. That pumpkin spice taste so many of us like is really just cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc.

Starting around 2015, things changed for Starbucks fans. They actually got pumpkin in their pumpkin spice drinks.

The new pumpkin spice taste

Even though Starbucks’ pumpkin spice drinks are sold in the fall and winter, they are the chain’s most popular offerings, with the pumpkin spice latte (or PSL) maintaining the #1 spot. In fact, Starbucks sells around 20 million of them per year. We don’t drink them, but we can’t deny there’s a certain tastiness there (thanks to lots of sugar and fat and stimulating spices like cinnamon and clove).

According to Newsweek (cited below): “On August 30,Starbucksofficially ushered coffee lovers into the fall season with the return of its pumpkin spice latte; however, the return has left some customers feeling disappointed, as they believe the iconic drink tastes different this year than in years past.
Posting to TikTok on Thursday, a purported Starbucks barista named Maria confirmed that the drink does, in fact, taste different this year because the company “changed” its pumpkin spice recipe.The videohas amassed over 860,000 views and more than 1,400 comments.”

How could they change such an iconic flavor?! Well, it turns out that some stores are getting an updated recipe, but pumpkin has been part of it for around 8 years.

Now with real pumpkin (kind of)

The newer Starbucks syrup contains “real pumpkin ingredient” – whatever that means.

While PSL fans on TikTok are insisting there’s something different about the 2022 lattes, Starbucks has maintained that they are using the same recipe as in previous years.

So what is pumpkin spice?

Until Starbucks relented and added some sort of pumpkin-derived flavoring, no pumpkin spice actually contained pumpkin. Even the pumpkin pie spice we buy in stores is simply a blend ofcinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and ginger.

Regardless of whether it’s “real” or not, the flavor is now iconic. In fact, Merriam-Webster added the phrase “pumpkin spice” to their dictionary in 2022. —WTF fun facts

Source: “Why Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Tastes Different This Year: Barista Explains” — Newsweek

WTF Fun Fact 12933 – Two California Tomato Highway Spills

by

It’s never fun to see a highway spill. You just know someone is in big trouble for letting a product spill out of their truck and onto the roadway to snarl traffic. But we couldn’t help but at least stifle a bemused “oops” when hearing about two California highway spills – partly because it just seems so absurd.

Granted, we doubt it was amusing to any of the drivers – or the people in need of tomatoes those days.

The first California highway spill

On August 30, 2022, a truck crash resulted in part of I-80 in Vacaville, California spilling its load of 50,000 pounds (!) of fresh tomatoes all over the highway on a Monday morning, disrupting traffic for hours.

The California Highway Patrol said the truck transporting the tomatoes crashed into another vehicle near an offramp. This caused the truck driver to lose control and hit the center divide and spill hundreds of pounds of tomatoes across the lanes. While drivers tried to maneuver around the mess, they also crashed into each other, creating an even bigger traffic disaster (we’re just guessing – but gawking while driving probably played a role here).

While the driver of the truck and two other people were treated at a local hospital, no major injuries were reported at the time.

The second spill

By sheer coincidence, the same thing happened again a few days later on another California highway. And we can only imagine the California Highway Patrol’s reaction when they got the call. Did they think they were being pranked?

According to Trucker’s News (cited below): “For the second time in a week, a tractor-trailer spilled a large load of tomatoes on a California highway. On Friday, Sept. 2, a load of tomatoes covered the southbound lanes of Interstate 5 in Elk Grove near Sacramento. The California Highway Patrol reported a trailer loaded with tomatoes detached from a truck around 7:45 a.m. PDT. There were no injuries reported.”

The two California highway spills took place about 50 miles away from one another. Considering just how big California is, that’s quite a coincidence.

Playing ketchup

A Sacramento Bee story on the crash by Michael McGough was full of puns on the messy coincidence:

“Running late in morning rush-hour traffic? Time to ketchup.
For the second time this week, a truck carrying tomatoes spilled on a Northern California freeway near Sacramento, painting the roadway red and causing delays.
A trailer carrying the fruit detached from a truck around 7:45 a.m. Friday on southbound Interstate 5, south of Elk Grove Boulevard, according to the California Highway Patrol’s online activity log.“

We’re glad no one was hurt and just hope this doesn’t lead to a BLT shortage in the area. — WTF fun facts

Source: “For 2nd time in a week, large load of tomatoes spilled in California” — Trucker’s News

WTF Fun Fact 12932 – Nigel Richards, French Scrabble Champion

by

Nigel Richards is from New Zealand. He’s a worldwide Scrabble champion, but his most impressive feat may just be winning the French-language Scrabble World Championship without actually knowing how to speak French.

Memorizing vs learning

If you’ve ever tried to learn a language, you know that there are two parts to success – grammar and vocabulary. You can be great at grammar, but if you can’t memorize new words then it doesn’t do you much good. Equally, you can know lots of vocabulary words, but if you can’t put them together in a sentence (or even pronounce them), you can’t actually speak the language.

Nigel Richards memorizes the dictionary

Before trying his hand with French, New Zealander Nigel Richards won a couple of English-language Scrabble championships. But that clearly wasn’t enough of a challenge. That’s when he decided to tackle French.

But when you’re playing Scrabble, grammar doesn’t matter, only the words in the dictionary do. So Richards decided to try and memorize as many words as possible from the French dictionary.

Clearly, he did a great job, because he beat all of the actual French speakers in a 2015 tournament.

According to NPR (cited below): “It was only in late May [of 2014] that Richards began his quest to win the French world title, according to theFrench Scrabble Federation. That’s when he set about memorizing the French Scrabble dictionary.”

Richards obviously has an impeccable memory. After all, there are 386,000 words in French Scrabble and only 187,000 in North American Scrabble.

Scrabble expert Stefan Fatsis told NPR: “Basically, what he does is, he looks at word lists and looks at dictionary pages… he can conjure up the image of what he has seen. He told me that if he actually hears a word, it doesn’t stick in his brain. But if he sees it once, that’s enough for him to recall the image of it. I don’t know if that’s a photographic memory; I just think it’s something that his brain chemistry allows him to do.” —WTF fun facts

Source: “Winner Of French Scrabble Title Does Not Speak French” — NPR

WTF Fun Fact 12930 – Koala Bears Sleep 22 Hours a Day

by

Koalas bears might be cute, but they’re some of the least energetic animals on Earth. In fact, koala bears sleep 22 hours a day (or at least from 18-22 hours). The rest of the time they spend wanding around looking for food or mates.

Koala bear facts

The koala is a marsupial (not a bear) native to Australia. They live in the eucalyptus forests in south and east Australia, which is where they find their food – it’s like sleeping at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Considering how brutal competition can be among the world’s creatures, it’s a wonder that koalas still exist. They only eat one thing (eucalyptus), that thing is toxic, and it doesn’t reall have many nutrients. Nevertheless, they eat about 1 pound of eucalyptus a day, which is also where they get most of their water.

Their little bodies can break down the toxins in ways other animals can’t, however, while they manage to extract enough nutrients to stay alive, their diet doesn’t really provide them with any extra energy. Hence all the sleeping.

Koala bears sleep most of their lives

Beacuse eucalyptus doesn’t provide them with enough nutrients for a high-energy diet, koala bears sleep for the vast majority of the day – from 18-22 hours. During this time, their bodies need much of the energy they take in to break down the eucalyptus.

The rest of their time is dedicated to survival – eating and mating to be exact.

Koala bear survival

Between poaching and habitat destruction, koala populations have plummeted. According to National Geographic (cited below): “Land clearing, logging, and bushfires—especially the devastating 2019-2020 season—have destroyed much of the forest they live in. Koalas need a lot of space—about a hundred trees per animal—a pressing problem as Australia’s woodlands continue to shrink.”

Koalas are now on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s list of the 10 most vulnerable animals to climate change. And NatGeo notes that “Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is decreasing the nutritional quality of eucalyptus leaves (which is already quite low) and causing longer, more intense droughts and wildfires.”

Droughts also force koalas to go in search for water, which means they have to leave their eucalyptus trees “spending precious energy and putting them at a higher risk of predation. Predators include dingoes and large owls. They’re also at risk of getting hit by cars and attacked by dogs.”

Chlamydia is also very common among pockets of koala bear populations and causes many of the animals to be blind and infertile.

—WTF fun facts

Source: “Koalas 101” – National Geographic

WTF Fun Fact 12917 – The Science of Batman

by

A course called The Science of Batman was proposed at the University of Victoria in Canada back in 2012, and was offered for the first time a few years later in 2016.

The science of Batman

According to HuffPost (cited below) “the course will examine how the human body can be adapted and improved based on the metaphor of the caped crusader himself” and “Offered in “alternate years” the course would make up only part of a degree and is run by the School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education.”

EPHE 156 is described in the course catalog as such:

“The extreme range of adaptability of the human body
explored through the life of the Caped Crusader; examines
human potential using Batman as a metaphor for the
ultimate in human conditioning; evaluates the concepts of
adaptation to exercise and injury from the perspective of
science and exercise training; examines the multiple
sciences behind exercise adaptation, musculoskeletal injury
and concussion, and limitations of the human body and
mind.”

Frankly, it sounds pretty awesome. Just like Batman.

Why teach about superheroes?

It’s hard to get students interested in courses, so sometimes professors (or their administrators) resort to gimmicks. And while they might sound silly, there’s really nothing wrong with it if it helps students learn valuable concepts or skills. The Science of Batman wasn’t about taking away tuition dollars for something mindless, in fact, it was a course about how the human body could be improved.

In some ways, The Science of Batman was ahead of its time. People are only more and more interested in things like “biohacking” and adapting the human body to extreme conditions (like space). Physiology experts travel to high-altitude locations to study these sorts of things all the time. It may even help us improve our health and live longer. So if you have to lure in students with the promise of Batman, so what?

Parents, teachers, and, yes, even executives use references to things people are interested in all the time to explain tough concepts or motivate people.

—WTF fun facts

Source: “Science Of Batman: Canadian University Offers Physical Education Class In The Dark Knight” — HuffPost

WTF Fun Fact 12893 – Scottish Words for Snow

by

The Scottish are really giving the Inuit a run for their money when it comes to piling up snow-related words. A few years ago, academics reported that they had found over 400 Scottish words for snow – 421, to be exact.

Why are there so many words for snow?

If you live in a snowy place, you know that there are different kinds of snow – wet snow, powdery snow, heavy snow, snow that makes good snowmen, lake effect snow, etc.

After spending years working through historical documents written in the Scots language, it turns out the people of Scotland really got descriptive! Academics at the University of Glasgow organized the Historical Thesaurus of Scots into some interesting categories, including (but not limited to):

  • types of snow
  • actions that involve throwing snow
  • pre-snow weather conditions
  • snowstorms
  • snow accessories
  • snow words related to sheep

What are some Scottish words for snow?

According to the BBC (cited below), the words that will go into the thesaurus include:

  • snaw – snow (viewed either as falling flakes, or as the layer of these formed on the ground)
  • feefle – to swirl
  • flindrikin – a slight snow shower
  • sneesl – to begin to rain or snow
  • snaw-pouther – fine driving snow
  • spitters – small drops or flakes of wind-driven rain or snow
  • unbrak – the beginning of a thaw
  • skelf – a large snowflake

But our favorites are “Katty-clean-doors,” which is a child’s name for snow, and “smirr,” which refers to a fine rain, drizzle, or of sleet or snow.”

The Scots thesaurus

Of course, we all have lots of words that mean roughly the same thing – there are thesauruses for nearly every language. But we’re still impressed by just how diverse the Scots language is.

The Scots thesaurus also includes a category on sport and believe it or not, the game of marbles has the most words associated with it at 369. –WTF fun facts

Source: “Scots ‘have 421 words‘ for snow” — BBC

WTF Fun Fact 12892 – McDonald’s Bubblegum-Flavored Broccoli

by

People long looked for ways to make broccoli easier to eat, but we’re stumped by McDonald’s attempt to make bubblegum flavored broccoli.

I suppose it’s better than broccoli-flavored bubblegum though.

When and why did McDonald’s make bubblegum broccoli?

In light of ever-more-disturbing news about the effects of the American obesity crisis, McDonald’s has long been asked how they’re trying to help. In 2014, McDonald’s CEO Donald Thompson revealed the fast-food chain had tried out some interesting options to help children eat healthier.

The attempt to sneak veggies into children’s diets came to light in 2014 when, according to Mental Floss (cited below), “Thompson was asked what the fast food giant was doing to provide healthier food options for children.”

As it turns out, “Three years earlier, the chain had already revamped its Happy Meal by cutting the amount of French fries in half and offering fruit as a side option. But Thompson said they had also experimented with some unconventional methods of enticing children to eat healthier.”

One of those possibilities was bubble gum-flavored broccoli. They made it, but they never sold it.

What happened to this culinary curiosity?

It probably comes as no surprise that it never quite made it past the company’s focus groups. Kids were confused and not delighted enough to make up for any skepticism.

Mental Floss notes that “the vegetable creation didn’t exactly surprise or delight its intended audience…And even the powers-that-be were unimpressed.”

“It wasn’t all that,” Thompson said.

It appears that the item may have been planned as a Happy Meal option (one that was eventually replaced by fruit slices and yogurt).

Franky, we’re surprised no one revived the idea during the era when “Millennial pink” was the color of the moment. Sure, it would have gotten some bad press, but it certainly would have been a big seller for those Instagram food photos! – WTF fun facts

Source: “When McDonald’s Invented Bubble Gum-Flavored Broccoli” — Mental Floss