random fact

WTF Fun Fact 13063 – MIT Pirate Certificate

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It’s hard to get into MIT. But if you do, you not only have a chance to earn a great education and get plugged into an enviable alumni network, you also have the chance to earn the MIT Pirate Certificate.

What’s the MIT Pirate Certificate?

According to the MIT Alumni webpage (cited below), the school made a piece of underground culture a formal certification program in 2011.

“…in 2011 the Department of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation (DAPER) began issuingMIT pirate certificatesto students who completed specific requirements. Six students earned the inaugural certificates and, today, 354 MIT students and alumni have received certificates at a spring ritual—Pirate Induction Day.”

Studying swashbuckling

While actor Matt Damon received an honorary pirate certificate from the university, “Only MIT students and alumni can earn the genuine article.”

The biggest part of the pirate challenge is getting into the appropriate courses. They fill up in minutes. That means MIT gives the “distinction” to only around 50 students a year.

The courses you need to pass as an MIT student to get a pirate certificate are: pistol (or rifle), archery, sailing, and fencing.

“Since sailing requirespassing the swim test, successful pirates have wrapped up their PE requirements with a hearty arrr, arrr, arrr,” jokes the website.

Of course, life as an MIT pirate doesn’t mean sailing the high seas in search of booty. The certificate is for entertainment purposes only.

According to the website:

“The certificates, authorized by the ‘swashbuckling’ Institute, are printed on faux parchment and affirm that the named “’salty dog’’ is entitled to a pirate certificate ‘with all its privileges and obligations thereof.'”

So not only can you get a great education at MIT, but you can also put “pirate” on your resume. —WTF fun facts

Source: “Arrrr! MIT Pirates—and Matt Damon—Certified” — MIT Alumni Association

WTF Fun Fact 13062 – Catnip Better Than DEET

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Could catnip be better than DEET at repelling insects? If so, that’s great news for those of us who would like to avoid spraying synthetic compounds all over our bodies.

Research on repelling insects with catnip and DEET

Researchers from Northwestern University and Lund University have been investigating catnip as an insect repellent, particularly for mosquitos. Since mosquitos carry potentially deadly diseases, it’s crucial to find a way to protect vulnerable people during warm weather.

Catnip is part of the mint family and, when dried, is exactly the same substance that you’ll find inside cat toys. However, catnip extract – a more concentrated form – is what you’d need to scare away mosquitos and other insects.

An ancient insect repellent

“Catnip and its active ingredient, Nepetalactone, have been used for millennia to ward off insect pests, at least since the time of Pliny the Elder,” said Marcus C. Stensmyr, associate professor at Lund University. “But why Catnip is so potent on such a broad range of insect species has remained unknown.”

According to Northwestern University’s website on the research “Traditional approaches to mosquito control involved insecticides, but those eliminate other insect species as collateral damage. Modern formulations of insect repellents such as DEET target mosquito odor and taste receptors, rendering the insect incapable of recognizing the chemical cues that signal a human prey.”

Nepetalactone, the active compound in catnip activates a pain receptor found in some insects. It’s still unclear how cats are so attracted to it.

So-author Marco Gallio noted that plant-derived repellants like catnip are also cheaper and more readily available than something like DEET.

In 2001, a paper presented at the American Chemical Society suggested that nepetalactone could be up to 10x more effective than DEET in repelling insects. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Could catnip become the new DEET?” — Northwestern Now

WTF Fun Fact 13061 – The Black Panther Isn’t a Species

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It’s not entirely correct to say that there’s no such thing as a black panther. It’s just that they’re not a specific species.

Instead, Panthera is a genus within the family Felidae (aka cats) that includes tigers, lions, jaguars, and leopards. Panthera refers specifically to a cat’s cranial features.

So, what is a black panther?

A black panther refers to the melanistic (darkly pigmented) version of two different animals – the leopard and the jaguar. So while it doesn’t refer to a separate species, “black panther” is a colloquial term for these dark-colored cats.

While occasionally people may use the term panther to refer to mountain lions, they belong to the Puma genus. An integral part of the Panthera genus is the ability to roar – which mountain lions don’t do. Instead, they emit a higher-pitched scream.

The epihyal bone is integral to the ability to roar. The only species of Panthera that cannot roar is the snow leopard.

Why do we hear so much about black panthers?

If you feel like you’re hearing a lot about black panthers these days, it’s no doubt because of the incredibly popular Marvel movie franchise of the same name. The original Black Panther film made over $1 billion worldwide, and fans were shocked when it’s star – Chadwick Boseman – died of cancer in August of 2020. He had not revealed his diagnosis of stage III colon cancer to anyone but immediate family.

In 2022, the Black Panther sequel Wakanda Forever will be released. Even in the days before it’s release, fans are interested to see how the exceptionally successful movie franchise will survive without its star who played T’Challa, the kind of a fictional African country named Wakanda.

Marvel’s film studio chose not to recast or digitally recreate the character in order to honor Boseman. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Are There Really Black Panthers?” — National Wildlife Federation blog

WTF Fun Fact 13059 – The Minionese “Language”

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Have you seen “Minions,” “Despicable Me,” or “Despicable Me 2”? If so, you may have heard the Minion characters speaking their own language. All Minions are voiced by Pierre Coffin, who also created the language called Minionese.

Minionese and other made-up languages

From Klingon to Elvish, storytellers have been making up their own languages for years. And some fans have ever learned how to speak them.

According to the Motion Picture Association, Minionese is “the lexical version of a hearty stew, made up of words from multiple languages, expressed not only vocally, but through the Minions’ physical comedy. While the creation of Minionese makes narrative sense now that the Minions have a rich backstory…Coffin’s goal was for the audience to understand Minionese without actually knowing the exact verbiage through the Minions huge range of vocal melodies and inflections, as well as their physical actions.”

It takes an interesting mind to create such a dynamic method of communication!

Creating language

Coffin’s first task was creating a backstory for Minions Kevin, Stuart, and Bob. The characters are part of a nomadic tribe in search of a master. In the course of their journey, they’ve taken on bits of different languages they’ve come across. In fact, there are elements of Egyptian, French, and even Transylvanian.

But each character’s intonation means a lot to the language as well. All three Minions have different ways of vocalizing.

According to Coffin:

“You don’t understand their words, you don’t understand their grammar, but you do understand when they’re in a position of conflict, if they’re sad or if they’re happy.”

He actually started building the language while watching silent films. That helped him understand how visual communication would play an integral role in having characters speak something no one had ever heard (but needed to understand if they were going to follow the plot).

When Coffin gets stuck on a line of Minion dialog, he just turns to other languages:

“Every time I got stuck in a sequence or in a shot where I need to express something, I have my Indian or Chinese menu handy. I also know a little bit of Spanish, Italian, Indonesian and Japanese. So I have all these sources of inspiration for their words. I just pick one that doesn’t express something by the meaning, but rather the melody of the words.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “Here’s How They Created Minionese, the Language of the Minions” — Motion Picture Association

WTF Fun Fact 13058 – The History of November’s Birthstone

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Today, gemstones have been officially defined by their chemical properties, and jewelers for over a century have tried to standardize birthstones based on the gems most readily available for customers to buy. But the history of November’s birthstone – the topaz – is a curious one.

What’s a topaz?

Today, you can choose from topaz or citrine (which is more affordable) for your November birthstone. That’s likely because traditional yellow topaz is harder to come by (and it’s a very hard gem, just behind diamonds on the Mohs scale). But did you know that natural topaz doesn’t have any color at all?

It’s the impurities found in the soil around gems that lends them their color. However, gemstone sellers will also use additives to give them a specific glow as well.

According to The Farmer’s Almanac, “…it’s impurities that cause this normally colorless stone to come in a dizzying array of hues. Red and pink shades come from chromium while the classic blue color is an unnatural shade that comes from exposing mined topaz to high-energy radiation. There are also highly prized sherry-colored stones in shades of orange and pink, which are referred to as “imperial topaz” after the 19th-century czars of Russia.”

The history of November’s birthstone

Topaz is so strong and resistant to heat that it’s used in industry as well as in jewelry. The most prolific topaz mines are in Australia, Italy, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, and Utah.

Topaz has been associated with November birthdays since the 15th century at the very least. But it wasn’t until 1912 that the National Association of Jewelers made it an official birthstone.

Farmer’s Almanac also notes that “The name comes from Topazios, the Greek name for what is now known as St. John’s Island, an Egyptian island in the Red Sea. Interestingly, during that era, this was the name given to any yellow stone. In fact, the original ‘topaz’ from which the modern gem gets its name was most likely chrysolite.”

Defining topaz

In 1737, the first modern piece of topaz that would set the definition from there on out was found in Germany. But since these modern pieces tended to be hard and colorless, many miners assumed they were diamonds. The Portuguese crown was filled with topaz assumed to be diamonds in the 18th century.

We often associate gemstones with certain “powers.” For topaz, this tends to be protection from greed and a balanced emotional state.

Over the centuries, people have thought topaz had the power to cool water, cure fevers, direct dreams, grant intelligence, and even cure weak vision. — WTF fun facts

Source: “November Birthstone – All About Topaz” — Farmer’s Almanac

WTF Fun Fact 13057 – The Pope & Doc Martens

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Did you know Pope John Paul II wore Doc Martens boots? Not only that, but he ordered dozens of pairs of the boots in white for himself and his staff!

The Pope gets stylish with Doc Martens

In a now-archived story from 1996 (cited below), the Associated Press (AP) reported that Doc Martens’ military-style kickers had a new fan – Pope JP2.

They noted that “The Pontiff has ordered 100 pairs of the cushion-soled boots for his Vatican staff, including a pair of white brogues in his own size.”

In fact, he wasn’t the only religious leader to own a pair, the AP reported that the Dalai Lama owned a pair as well.

The boots, originally sold as solid and practical work boots, have long been seen on style icons. But with the Pope’s clothing so formal, we never really would have seen that coming. And most of the time, they would have been hidden by his robes.

Still, sometimes you just need solid footwear to get the job done, no matter what that job is.

Vatican fashion

If you look back at photos of Pope John Paul II, you’ll often see him in some practical-yet-colorful blue slip-on (blue suede shoes, if you will). Yet, because part of the Vatican’s Doc Martens order included a special set in the pope’s size (size 9), it seemed clear that he was reserving the right to stomp around in them occasionally as well.

“The holy order includes a pair of the classic eight-eyelet bovver boots (quite frequently worn by skinheads) and three pairs of brogues in black, blue and white,” noted the AP.

The AP reported that “Among the first to try out the new Doc Martens boots in the Vatican will be the Pope’s Swiss guards.” That we’re less surprised about – because have you seen those uniforms? The boots would be the most practical aspect.

The original Doc Martens were manufactured in Northampton, England, though they were sold worldwide. If you’re a Gen X-er, you may remember lacing up a pair while popping in Nirvana’s “Nevermind” CD (or cassette!). They were big with the grunge crowd.

The receipts

This story wasn’t something assumed based on rumor alone. Doc Marten’s spokesperson Louise Hurren told the AP:

“Well the order was placed by the Vatican and they have asked us to supply a number of styles including the most famous eight eyelet boot in black, white and navy leather and also some three eyelet shoes”.

Stylish! —WTF fun facts

Source: “ITALY/UK: POPE JOINS FASHION CONSCIOUS IN CHOICE OF FOOTWEAR” –Associated Press Archive

WTF Fun Fact 13053 – The Mere Exposure Effect

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We tend to find things more pleasant and attractive the more we see them. When it comes to people, we tend to find their faces more attractive the more familiar we are with them. This is called the “mere exposure effect” (or “familiarity principle”).

The mere exposure principle

By merely exposing our brains to the sight of a person, we can build pathways that make them seem more attractive to us over time. The familiarity alone is enough to make us feel better about them. (Of course, this isn’t always the case, especially when there’s bad behavior involved.)

Research on this effect goes back to the early 19th century when German Gustav philosopher and experimental psychologist Gustav Fechner and Edward B. Titchener, who studied the structure of the mind. However, early hypotheses were eventually rejected, and it wasn’t until the 1960s that they were revived.

In the 60s, Polish social psychologist Robert Zajonc found that the brain’s exposure to novel stimuli elicited a fear or avoidance response. In other words, new things make us nervous. The same is true in both humans and animals.

But he found that each time a person viewed that stimulus again, there was less fear and more interest in the object. And after repeated looks, the observing person or animal will begin to act more fondly towards the object that was once new.

The black bag experiment

Wikipedia sums up a critical experiment in 1968 best:

“Charles Goetzinger conducted an experiment using the mere-exposure effect on his class at Oregon State University. Goetzinger had a student come to class in a large black bag with only his feet visible. The black bag sat on a table in the back of the classroom. Goetzinger’s experiment was to observe if the students would treat the black bag in accordance to Zajonc’s mere-exposure effect. His hypothesis was confirmed. The students in the class first treated the black bag with hostility, which over time turned into curiosity, and eventually friendship. This experiment confirms Zajonc’s mere-exposure effect, by simply presenting the black bag over and over again to the students their attitudes were changed, or as Zajonc states “mere repeated exposure of the individual to a stimulus is a sufficient condition for the enhancement of his attitude toward it.”

This may have to do with perceptual fluency. In other words, our brain just have an easier time processing objects that they’ve already processed in the past.

However, when marketers try to use this to increase our familiarity (and propensity to buy something) by sticking it in our faces constantly, it doesn’t always work. In some cases, familiarity can breed hostility. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Mere-exposure effect” — Wikipedia

WTF Fun Fact 13052 – Fatbergs

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“Fatbergs” are clogging sewers around the world. They are giant masses of oil and grease poured down drains that congeal around flushed waste like baby wipes. “Flushable” wipes and cooking grease are the biggest culprits.

The trouble with fatbergs

These solid masses in sewer systems can cause big problems. In fact, the largest fatberg found so far (in London) weighed 130 TONS! That’s similar to 11 double-decked busses – and once they congeal, they’re as hard as concrete.

London in particular has a problem with these masses because their narrow Victorian sewer systems have yet to be updated. But fatbergs are a problem everywhere that people wash grease down the sink and flush non-biological matter like wipes and tampons.

According to Newsweek, “Fatbergs are placing an increasing financial burden in cities throughout the world. Clearing “grease backups” costs New York City more than $4.65 million a year. The U.K. spends about $130 million annually clearing roughly 300,000 fatbergs from city sewers. Even a smaller city like Fort Wayne, Indiana, shells out $500,00 annually to get grease deposits out of sewers. And the cost is usually passed along to customers through their water bills.”

The price we pay

Fatbergs raise the price of our water bills and taxes. But if they’re not treated, they’ll back up sewage into the streets.

There are professionals who remove these globs for a living, but they’re not terribly well-compensated for such an important-yet-dirty job.

The best way to stop the creation of fatbergs is to stop putting things in sewers that don’t belong there. And as for the greasy blobs that already exist, we have found some use for them. According to Newsweek, “…a good use was found for the debris, which was once London’s biggest fatberg—it was chopped up and converted into nearly 2,700 gallons of biodiesel.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “What is a Fatberg? The Gross Grease Giants Threatening Cities” — Newsweek

WTF Fun Fact 13051 – Pairing Cheetahs and Dogs

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Zoos are pairing their male cheetahs with emotional support dogs so that they have companions. It turns out that pairing cheetahs and dogs is a great idea for both animals.

Why pairing cheetahs with dogs works

Cheetahs are very nervous animals. Their “fight or flight” response is largely set to flight. That means they’re always looking out for predators. But in a zoo, they don’t have any. Nevertheless, it’s an instinct, so all the nervous energy builds up inside them. Needless to say, no one wants a stressed-out cheetah.

While the San Diego Zoo was one of the first places to try pairing cheetahs with companions, the idea originated elsewhere.

According to Atlas Obscura (cited below), it all began in Oregon. “In 1976, research scientist and conservation biologist Laurie Marker was living in Winston, a town of about 3,000 people. As the curator of a cheetah-breeding program at Wildlife Safari, she found herself hand-rearing a lonely cheetah cub named Khayam.”

Marker didn’t have a littermate to entertain Khayam, so she turned to man’s best friend. More specifically, she enlisted the help of a Lab-mix named Shesho.

Fast friends

Khayam and Shesho grew up together and acted as surrogate siblings for one another. The experiment was a success and the dog chilled out the cheetah. “Now, when a cub that’s abandoned or orphaned ends up in human care, many zoos pair the cat with a dog as a substitute sibling,” noted Atlas Obscura.

Marker provided the San Diego Zoo with a cheetah named Arusha a few years later and recommended they raise him with a dog. That was when the pairing hit the news. Who doesn’t love an interspecies friendship story?

Cheetah moms will often forsake single cubs, so finding a way to make captive cubs happy (or save them from death by neglect in the wild) was an important move for those trying to save cheetahs from extinction. — WTF fun facts

Source: “An Emotional Support Dog Is the Only Thing That Chills Out a Cheetah” — Atlas Obscura