random fact

WTF Fun Fact 12926 – The Zero Star Hotel

In our last fun fact, we mentioned the Null Stern Hotel in Switzerland. Some of those rooms have no walls. But let’s talk about the whole concept of Null Stern, which means “zero star,” as in a zero-star hotel.

A Zero Star Hotel

According to Architectural Digest, their hotel rooms with no walls can be fairly posh, in a way, if they’re situated in the right location:

“Although the hotel lacks many common amenities, guests may find comfort in an on-site butler who will play a ‘central role,’ in the experience, according to [hotierl Daniel] Charbonnier. Null Stern’s slogan, ‘The only star is you,’ is a key philosophy at the alternative accommodations, where the founders strive to put the guests at the center of the stay. At all of the zero real estate suites, a butler provides meals and facilitates other requests from guests during their stay. At the anti-idyllic suite, the butler ‘provides a sense of security and care in an environment of insecurity,’ Charbonnier said.”

The concept was launched back in 2009 but began to make headlines in 2017 when their suite in the Swiss Alps got a reputation for having a waitlist of thousands (it’s up to 6000). And while the only “star” might be the guest in their open-air suites in the Swiss Alps, you can certainly get a good view of the stars.

But it all began as something slightly less glamorous than glamping in the Alps.

The original concept

The first hotel that twin brothers Frank and Patrik Riklin created and named Null Stern was an old 1980s nuclear fallout shelter that they retrofitted.

According to The Guardian (cited below), it’s located in “the small Swiss town of Teufen, in the canton of St Gallen near the Austrian border.”

“Billed as the world’s first zero-star hotel, the Null Stern Hotel occupies the underground space of a nondescript apartment block. The hardened concrete structure and near-two-foot-thick blast doors were designed to take the full brunt of a nuclear or chemical attack. In time of crisis the bunker would have been able to hold more than 200 people.”

We just want to know if this is considered an Instagrammable location.

The original zero star hotel is no longer open since it has been turned into a museum, but you can still grab a room (or sign up for the waiting list at other locations, including in the mountains or at the corner of a busy street outside a gas station). — WTF fun facts

Source: “Switzerland’s Null Stern Hotel: the nuclear option” — The Guardian

WTF Fun Fact 12925 – The Hotel Room with No Walls

Back in 2017, a Swiss hotel room with no walls made the headlines. And it turns out the people who designed it have come up with another version – people are now paying over $300/night to sleep…wait for it…at a gas station!

An “open-air” suite

Do you like the idea of open-air sleep? Do you like sleeping outside for $340/night?

Well, as long as you don’t like fresh air or sleeping peacefully, we might know just the place for you.

For us, the most important part of a hotel room is the ability to get some rest, so we won’t be signing up any time soon for the “room” located at an intersection and entirely without walls. Even if you have that fairly common love for the smell of gasoline, the idea of hearing traffic, noise, and smelling gas all night as you sleep outside a gas station (in a nice bed, though!) may not be the right choice for you either.

According to Architectural Digest (cited below): “Brothers and conceptual artists Frank and Patrik Riklin, who partnered with hotelier Daniel Charbonnier to create this hotel ‘room,’ are perfectly aware that you won’t be sleeping peacefully in their newest hospitality experience—but that is exactly the point. ‘In view of the current world situation, there is no time to sleep,’ the brothers said in a statement.”

But isn’t that why we try to get away?!

AD notes that “The open-air suite—which is located between a gas station and busy intersection and purposefully lacks a door, ceiling, or walls—is designed to keep you up so you have time to contemplate current social, economic, and environmental issues.”

Hard pass.

A room with a view

The designers became famous with a similar concept a few years back – and while it’s still not one we would personally indulge in, at least it seems more fun and relaxing. In fact, the brothers’ first hotel room still has thousands of people on the waitlist after making headlines in 2017:

“This room is another iteration of the founders’ ‘zero real estate suites,’ which they launched back in 2008 as part of their Null Stern Hotel. The first three suites, which include a queen bed on a platform and two nightstands, all make use of the Swiss Alps and breathtaking Saillon landscape to create picturesque overnight stays in a glamping-like experience. Currently, there are over 6,000 guests on the waitlist eager for the opportunity to spend an evening at the non-traditional hotel,” says AD.

The Riklins don’t have the only open-air suites in the world – there are other hotel rooms without walls as well, and they’re quite popular.

We say to each their own. It’s just that we like to call that camping. — WTF fun facts

Source: “This Bizarre Hotel Room With No Walls or Doors Is Going for $340 a Night” — Architectural Digest

WTF Fun Fact 12924 – The NASA Artemis I Mission

The NASA Artemis 1 mission is scheduled for September 3, 2022. But even if it’s scrubbed due to weather or technical issues, whenever it does launch it will be history-making.

What’s significant about NASA’s Artemis I mission?

For starters, Artemis I is the most powerful rocket ever built. NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS), as well as the Orion spacecraft (which is also being tested), are integral parts of NASA’s plan to send people back to the Moon and further into space than ever before. If the technology is successful, it will show that we can build a sophisticated spacecraft capable of carrying humans back to the Moon.

And if Artemis I goes out without a hitch, it will carry the first woman and the first person of color to ever set foot on the moon in a few years.

This mission was supposed to happen a few years ago, but politics and the pandemic got in the way.

the NASA Artemis 1 mission is set to last 6 weeks. After reaching orbit, it will perform a trans-lunar injection and deploy 10 satellites plus the Orion spacecraft, which will enter retrograde orbit for 6 days. The hope is that the Orion will return to Earth after its mission and splash down in the Pacific Ocean without burning up on re-entry.

NASA tried to launch the mission on August 17, 2022, but had to scrap it after a series of delays during pre-flight testing. On August 29, the second try was capped after an issue with the core stage. Hopefully, the third time is the charm.

How can you watch the NASA Artemis I launch?

If you’re reading this before Saturday, September 3, 2022, at 2:17 EST, you can watch the launch for free online. NASA’s live streams (and pre-launch briefings are linked here).

According to IFL Science (cited below): “The rocket will launch from the historic Launch Pad 39B (Apollo and Skylab both launched from here) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Saturday, September 3. The launch window opens at 2:17 pm EDT (7:17 pm UTC) and will stay open for two hours, though it’s likely the launch will take place as soon as the window opens.”

If all goes well on the NASA Artemis 1 mission, Artemis 2 is set to carry a crew for a lunar flyby in the future, and Artemis 3 will carry astronauts back to the moon five decades after the last Apollo mission. — WTF fun facts

Source: “NASA’s Artemis I Will Make History This Weekend – Here’s How To Watch Live” — IFL Science

WTF Fun Fact 12923 – Grief After Pet Loss is Profound

If you have a beloved pet, chances are you will suffer the grief of losing them someday. While it’s hard to think about, it’s important to know that studies have shown the grief from pet loss is much like our grief after human death, but the support systems that help us get through it aren’t always there. It’s crucial to our mental health to grieve pet loss properly.

Grieving the loss of unconditional love

We often have and receive feelings of unconditional love from our pets, and that’s something that’s very rare in the human world (and perhaps it should be since it’s important for people to have boundaries). It helps explain why losing a pet is so devastating and why a pet that has passed on is so irreplaceable.

It’s normal to feel guilt over just about every part of the process, and a lost pet that never returns means pet owners don’t even get the closure the rest of us do.

No matter how you lose your pet, the enormous grief you may feel is common and shouldn’t be treated as silly or inappropriate. Studies show that when we bury our grief, it can have effects on our mental and physical health. People have even been diagnosed with “broken heart syndrome” (which mimics the symptoms of a heart attack) after losing a pet.

Support is crucial to grief after pet loss

According to Scientific American (cited below), a support system can be a crucial part of healing, especially when a person feels otherwise alone in their grief. Feeling alone may be common even if many family members were part of a pet’s life because each individual person has their own relationship with an animal.

Without support, “we are not only robbed of invaluable support systems when our pet dies, but our own perceptions of our emotional responses are likely to add an extra layer of distress. We may feel embarrassed and even ashamed about the severity of the heartbreak we feel and, consequently, hesitate to disclose our feelings to our loved ones. That additional shame complicates the process of recovery by making it more lengthy and complex than it should be.”

Losing a pet disrupts the rhythms of our daily lives, makes our homes feel quiet and lonely and robs us of the healing effects of interacting with an animal. Requests for us to replace our pet too early feel cruel and don’t do any favors to a new “replacement” animal either (since there’s no way they can act exactly like our old pet).

The truth is, we have to feel and process our grief in order to get better, and to do that we need to feel some sense of support around us. That’s why there are now in-person and online support groups for people experiencing pet loss. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Why We Need to Take Pet Loss Seriously” — Scientific American

WTF Fun Fact 12921 – The Airplane “Boneyard” in Tucson

If you like airplanes (or are just mystified by the thought of seeing thousands of them), The Boneyard in Tucson, AZ – known more formally as the 309th AMARG Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base – may be just the place for you.

What is Tucson’s airplane “graveyard”?

According to Arizona Journey, a site for Tucson tourists (cited below): “AMARG is the world’s largest salvage yard, minus the snarling dogs. The aircraft are lined up in rows set up with military precision, stacked so closely together that from above their wings look like they are holding hands with each other, a sharp contrast to their former roles. It’s a starkly beautiful setting as, throughout the day, the silver fuselages reflect changing colors of the Rincon Mountains to the east.”

Since the planes are no longer fully operational, they’re just in permanent outdoor storage in the middle of the desert. The Sonoran Desert is apparently as good a place as any to place what is largely a giant airplane junkyard for defunct military aircraft since the dry air prevents rust.

Why prevent rust on planes that no one technically needs anymore? Well, some can be resurrected and others used for spare parts. In fact: “Despite its moniker, the Boneyard is not a place merely to stockpile airplanes in eternal rest. Some have been mothballed for spare parts and potential future activation. In 2015 a B-52 bomber old enough to qualify for AARP membership was restored and returned to flying condition. Though the Cold War may have ended, the men and women deployed at the Boneyard in Tucson are on constant alert for any future chills in relations between the superpowers.”

Visiting Tucson’s airplane Boneyard

Despite its location on a military base, you can visit the airplane Boneyard in Tucson while touring the adjacent Pima Air & Space Museum.

But security is tight, so don’t expect to climb all over them. You can only catch a glimpse of F-14 fighter planes, for example, since they’re still flown by the Iranian Air Force “which is desperate for spare parts to maintain their fleet.”

Visitors can take a Tram Tour for $8 or Private Walking Tours for $75. — WTF fun facts

Source: “A fun visit to the massive Tucson airplane graveyard AKA “The Boneyard” (over 3000 planes)” — Arizona Journey

WTF Fun Fact 12920 – Art Bell’s Vietnam Rescue

Art Bell was an American broadcaster who hosted a popular paranormal radio show called “Coast to Coast AM,” among others. But while people may know his voice, they likely don’t know about Art Bell’s Vietnam rescue mission while he was an Air Force medic during the Vietnam War.

Who is Art Bell?

Art Bell came from a military family and went on to serve in the US Air Force in the Vietnam War. It was there that took up a childhood passion for radio by operating a pirate station he indulged his childhood passion for radio by operating a pirate station that played anti-war music for American servicemen.

He was also briefly a DJ for an English-language radio station in Okinawa. And it was there that he set a Guinness World Record for broadcasting before moving back to the U.S. to become a paranormal DJ.

According to his NYTs obituary (cited below): “His ‘Coast to Coast’ show was syndicated and broadcast from 1989 to 2003, followed by episodic returns on satellite radio and online with a program called ‘Midnight in the Desert,’ which he canceled in 2015 after he said shots had been fired at his home.”

The obit also notes that “While some critics accused him of laying the foundation for right-wing conspiracists on talk radio, Mr. Bell’s politics were not easily pigeonholed. He described himself as a libertarian, but his passion was directed less at politicians or ideology than at debunking scientific doctrine and preaching apocalyptic prophecy.”

Eventually, he dropped the political angle in favor of paranormal topics.

Art Bell’s Vietnam rescue mission

While the proof is unclear and Art Bell’s Vietnam rescue mission is often referred to as something he simply told people about, it has come to be accepted (and it is likely provable if someone wanted to look into it) that he set his broadcasting marathon record in order to raise money for war orphans in Vietnam.

Over 100 children had been rendered orphans by the war with no one to care for them. Bell chartered a plane with the money and brought them to the U.S., where it’s said they were adopted by American families. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Art Bell, Radio Host Who Tuned In to the Dark Side, Dies at 72” — The New York Times

WTF Fun Fact 12918 – The First Dental Filling

You’ve probably always wondered when dental fillings started to be a thing. Because everyone loves to think about the dentist, right?

Interestingly, some people have called dentistry “the oldest profession” since archeological evidence shows people trying to treat cavities many thousands of years ago. We’re not sure about that label, but it does make us wonder why humans weren’t built with better teeth.

Dental archaeology and the first filling

The oldest dental filling dates back to at least the Neolithic period. An international team of researchers largely based in Italy published a paper in 2012 noting that they found evidence of prehistoric dentistry in the form of a 6500-year-old mandible in Slovenia with a crown made of beeswax.

Whoever this poor chap was, he was clearly in enough pain to try and find a way to lessen it by getting his chipped enamel treated.

The researchers described how they assessed the mandible (in a paper cited below): “The use of different analytical techniques, including synchrotron radiation computed micro-tomography (micro-CT), Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating, Infrared (IR) Spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), has shown that the exposed area of dentine resulting from occlusal wear and the upper part of a vertical crack affecting enamel and dentin tissues were filled with beeswax shortly before or after the individual’s death.”

Ok, but the next question is, is it really a filling if you’re already dead? We don’t have an answer to that or a way of knowing if the person was dead or alive when it was inserted.

The researchers noted that “If the filling was done when the person was still alive, the intervention was likely aimed to relieve tooth sensitivity derived from either exposed dentine and/or the pain resulting from chewing on a cracked tooth: this would provide the earliest known direct evidence of therapeutic-palliative dental filling.”

Is dentistry the oldest profession?

Dentistry is certainly one of the oldest medical professions (even though the first dental school in the world was opened in the 1820s in Ohio) and the first formal dental text was written in the 1500s. There’s plenty of evidence (written and archaeological) to show that fixing teeth goes back a very long way.

Whether or not it’s the oldest profession (instead of, say, what we normally think of as holding that title) is something we’ll never know. But we kind of doubt it. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Beeswax as Dental Filling on a Neolithic Human Tooth” — PLoS One

WTF Fun Fact 12917 – The Science of Batman

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 12916 – Princess of Netherlands Born in Canada

It may not seem like a big deal for a princess to be born in another country, but some royal families (any families, really) find it important for their children to be citizens of just one country. So when Princess Magriet of the Netherlands was born in Ottowa in 1943 after her family fled from the Nazis, a Canadian hospital did something remarkable.

The Netherlands in Canada

Crown Princess Juliana was going to give birth to her child in Canada regardless since she couldn’t go back to the Netherlands during the war. If she had a boy, he would have been next in line for the Dutch throne after his mother, making it very important that he be a Dutch citizen. Being born in Canada meant that the child could be considered a British subject (since it’s part of the British Commonwealth).

To avoid any controversy, the maternity ward was temporarily declared extraterritorial by the Canadian government so the child would not be a sole Canadian citizen. This was the case even though the baby happened to be a girl – Princess Magriet.

The Canadian tulip tradition of Princess Margriet

Princess Margriet is indeed a citizen of the Netherlands thanks to Canada’s gesture, and the family remains grateful to the country as a result. When they returned to their home after the war in 1945, the royal family send 100,000 tulip bulbs to the Canadian people. This is the origin of Ottawa’s annual Tulip Festival.

To this day, the Netherlands sends 10,000 tulip bulbs to Canada every year in thanks.

Princess Magriet has returned to Canada many times over. the years and has also attended the tulip festival in Ottawa.

Another fun fact: There is a reference to Magriet’s mother Queen Juliana being pregnant in the Diary of Anne Frank. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Princess of Netherlands Born in Canada” — The Canadian Encyclopedia