Source: “Back from the Moon, Apollo Astronauts Had to Go Through Customs” — Space.com
random facts
WTF Fun Fact 13089 – The Benefits of Looking at Old Photos
From physical photo albums to scrolling far back in your social media history, there’s something about looking at old photos that tends to make us happy. In fact, research has shown it can be downright relaxing. For those not skilled at meditation, looking at old photos can be even more relaxing than meditating!
Make yourself happy by looking at old photos
Make fun of photo-takers all you’d like (and we’ll join you for the ridiculous Instagram posers), but there’s some serious value in documenting happy moments.
In an article posted about the research on Digital Camera World (cited below), UK behavioral psychologist Jo Hemmings noted that “Taking the time to look back on our treasured memories can be truly beneficial for our wellbeing as it can help to evoke feelings of positivity and happiness. Because of this, and especially at times like this, we should take more time to appreciate and look back on them.”
Reminiscing for stress relief
If you want to crush your stress and boost your well-being, try a few tips that have made people happy during research studies:
- Check out old photos of your friends, family, and pets on your phone. It can trigger feelings of happiness and strengthen these relationships.
- Look at photos when you need a reminder that you’re loved. Reminiscing about happy moments with a photo helps recreate those feelings in our minds and transports us back to a happier place.
- Make an album of funny photos. Silly old photos can cause your body to release endorphins, a natural stress reliever.
- Look back at other people’s happy occasions. When we see our friends and family at significant points in their lives (weddings, graduations, etc.), it can help reduce cortisol and take our anxiety down a notch.
- Hang happy photos in your home. People tend to find the places in their homes that contain photos are the most relaxing. Having copies of real, physical photos around your room, office, or house helps enhance feelings of social bonds.
Source: “It’s official! Looking at old photos is more relaxing than meditating” — Digital Camera World
WTF Fun Fact 13087 – The WLCoWSVoWLT
The WLCoWSVoWLT stands for the World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things. It was created by a woman named Erika Nelson who travels the country looking for roadside marvels that have set a record for “world’s largest.” Then she photographs them and builds her own miniature version.
The marvels of the WLCoWSVoWLT
It’s unclear if creating the world’s smallest version of any world’s largest thing is a full-time job, but her collection has become a museum that she runs. You can visit it in Lucas, Kansas. What you’ll find on the walls are photos of Nelson’s replicas next to their giant inspirations. Often, she’ll have the miniatures displayed as well.
According to Atlas Obscura, “Nelson is an artist, educator, and one of America’s foremost experts and speakers on the World’s Largest Things. In addition to visiting communities with her own unique traveling museum, which acquired a permanent base in 2017, Nelson is a consultant to cities seeking to create their own ‘World’s Largest Thing’ or roadside attraction to increase tourism, marketing, and economic development for their community.”
This is just another testament to how incomplete Career Day at school really is. Just think of the jobs people create for themselves that no one ever dreamed of!
Making the world’s smallest versions of the largest things
Nelson makes the World’s Smallest Versions of The World’s Largest Things from a medley of materials. For example, when replicating the world’s largest ball of rubber bands, she used the miniature rubber bands you’d find at an orthodontist’s office.
Nelson spends most of her time on the road. The museum itself is stationary since it’s found a new building in Lucas, Kansas. It used to be housed in a van. — WTF fun facts
Source: “World’s Largest Collection of Smallest Versions of Largest Things” — Atlas Obscura
WTF Fun Fact 13086 – Newborn Panda Size
Newborns are tiny. That certainly doesn’t come as a surprise. But the relative tininess of some creatures is truly stunning. For example, newborn panda size really made us think about the logistics of things like feeding. These teeny creatures are about the size of a mouse – between three and five OUNCES.
Newborn panda size
For further information on this fun fact and other questions we had about baby pandas, we turned to National Geographic, a trusted source for all things nature (and cited down below).
In 2020, NatGeo wrote about newborn panda size after the birth of a new cub at the zoo in Washington DC. The reason? People wanted to know its sex. But panda cubs are so small that only a genetic test can determine their sex. (It was a boy.)
“That’s not all they’re missing at birth. Newborn giant pandas are almost completely unrecognizable. Rather than sporting their iconic black-and-white markings, pandas emerge from their mothers as pink, wrinkly, blind, squealing creatures roughly the size of a stick of butter,” noted the magazine.
Conservationists who want to save pandas have always had questions about how their size at birth might work for the species, especially since they’re so fragile:
“Pandas are born fragile and underdeveloped. Weighing between three and five ounces, newborn pandas are 1/900th the weight of their mother. This places them among the smallest newborns compared to their mother of any mammal: Human mothers are only about 20 times heavier than their babies, and killer whales are 50 times heavier. Only marsupials emerge smaller‚ and that’s because their babies get to hole up in their mothers’ pouches to finish developing. Red kangaroos, for example, are born at 1/100,000th the weight of their mothers.”
Why are baby pandas so tiny?
We’re still trying to figure out what makes a newborn panda size any kind of advantage. (Then again, pandas are notorious for not doing much to keep their species going on their own.)
Researchers have found that the bears gestate for just 1 month! They don’t even have fully developed skeletons. Even their bear relatives that are born very tiny emerge with skeletons, whereas pandas are born a bit “undercooked” (that’s the word used by the authors of a study in the Journal of Anatomy).
Our best guess is related to just how poorly suited panda bears are to…well, life.
“The short gestation likely has to do with the bamboo that makes up most of the bear’s diet, says Laurie Thompson, assistant curator of giant pandas at the National Zoo. Bamboo doesn’t have many nutrients. Rather than expend the enormous amounts of energy needed to grow a fetus, female pandas can focus on developing the high-fat milk that will help their cubs grow outside of the womb.” — WTF fun facts
Source: “Born blind, pink, and entirely helpless, here’s how giant pandas grow up” — National Geographic
WTF Fun Fact 13085 – Horatio Magellan Crunch
You think you know someone. All this time, we assumed that Cap’n Crunch was an uncomplicated cartoon cereal mascot. But there’s more to Horatio Magellan Crunch than meets the eye.
Finding Cap’n Crunch
In 2013, the Wall Street Journal turned the cereal world on its head by revealing that an investigation into the origins of Cap’n Crunch had revealed his real name and rank.
Food & Wine Magazine (cited below) noted that the normally serious newspaper revealed a dark secret. That year, the paper wrote that “the legendary cereal icon’s status as a captain has come under fire… Cap’n Crunch only wears the bars of a Navy commander, not those of a captain. In the U.S. Navy, captains wear four bars on their uniforms, while commanders — one rank below captain – have three bars.”
Way to blow our minds.
You can’t handle the truth about Horatio Magellan Crunch
After the controversy broke, Cap’n Crunch went on Twitter to address the allegations.
“All hearsay and misunderstandings!,” @realcapncrunch wrote.”I captain the S.S. Guppy with my crew – which makes an official Cap’n in any book!”
He also insisted that “It’s the Crunch – not the clothes – that make a man.” The Navy would beg to differ.
In a tongue-in-cheek reply, Lt. Commander Chris Servello, director of the U.S. Navy’s news desk at the Pentagon revealed: “We have no Cap’n Crunch in the personnel records – and we checked. We have notified NCIS and we’re looking into whether or not he’s impersonating a naval officer – and that’s a serious offense.”
Then again, the so-called “Cap’n” wears a Napoleonic-era hat. Could he be French?!
He first debuted as a Quaker Oats Co. character in 1963, so it’s a little late to be fighting that battle. His official biography only tells us he was born on Crunch Island, in the Sea of Milk. We’re not sure which flag they fly there.
We do know that he commanded the S.S. Guppy and spent time near Mt. Crunchmore, but that raises more questions than it answers. — WTF fun facts
Source: “Cap’n Crunch’s Real Name Isn’t Cap’n Crunch and Everything You Know Is a Lie” — Food & Wine
WTF Fun Fact 13084 – Moby Duck
You’ve no doubt heard of the book Moby Dick. But have you heard of the incident referred to as Moby Duck? Let’s just say that while it involves an ocean, whales aren’t the main character in this story.
What was Moby Duck?
In 1992, a shipment of children’s bath toys fell into the North Pacific Ocean on its way from China to the U.S. The accident dumped 28,000 rubber ducks into the water, where they were carried far and wide by the currents. They’ve been found on the shores of Alaska and even in Maine (which means they make it all the way to the Atlantic).
More than a decade after the incident, a journalist named Donovan Hohn decided to see if he could track the ducks, enlisting the help of citizen beach-goers and oceanographers alike.
“I figured I’d interview a few oceanographers, talk to a few beachcombers, read up on ocean currents and Arctic geography and then write an account of the incredible journey of the bath toys lost at sea,” he told NPR’s Dave Davies on Fresh Air in 2011 (cited below). “And all this I would do, I hoped, without leaving my desk.”
He detailed the journey in a book called Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them.
An environmental angle
While the idea of tracking the toys sounds cute on some level, Hohn also found out just how much plastic is on our oceans and the effects it has on the environment. Plastic doesn’t biodegrade, so those ducks will be around for centuries. Or at least pieces of them will.
While the ducks may photodegrade (due to sunlight), they simply fall apart into smaller pieces of plastic we can’t see. But that plastic still ends up inside wildlife and ocean garbage patches.
“We know that in the marine food web, there is an alarmingly elevated contaminant burden in species at the top of the food web,” Hohn said. “What role plastic plays in that is an ongoing area of study.” — WTF fun facts
Source: “‘Moby-Duck’: When 28,800 Bath Toys Are Lost At Sea” — NPR
WTF Fun Fact 13083 – A Group of Butterflies
A group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope. We love that! We’ve never actually seen more than one or two butterflies at a time, but now we know what to call them if we do.
You probably know that butterflies don’t start out life as beautiful flying creatures but rather as caterpillars. A group of caterpillars is called an army. It’s quite a biological and linguistic evolution to go through in one lifetime!
A kaleidoscope of butterflies
Of course, one may also call them a “swarm,” but that’s a lot less fun and it’s not really the official name. And no one really likes swarms of things.
Now, unless you go to a butterfly sanctuary, you may not have a great chance of running into a kaleidoscope of butterflies. They’re fairly solitary creatures. They even tend to migrate alone. If you’re near a source of food, that’s your best chance of seeing a kaleidoscope in the wild. Even though butterflies must come together to reproduce, they still don’t do this in groups. But they do use pheramones to attract one another as well as the colorful (dare we say, keleidiscopic) displays on their wings.
However, as far as monarch butterflies go, they do have a habit of clustering in trees at night. And those clusters are called a “roost.”
You may spot a roost in trees during migration if the weather gets cold or if predators are around.
Other butterfly facts
According to the experts at A – Z Animals (cited below), “There are around 17,500 species of butterfly in the world, scattered across all continents except Antarctica. In the United States, there are around 750 species of butterflies.”
As you may know, sadly, the migratory monarch butterfly (which is one of the most recognizable butterflies in the U.S.) is now endangered. — WTF fun facts
Source: “What’s a group of butterflies called?” — A – Z Animals
WTF Fun Fact 13082 – Robin Williams’ Lewy Body Dementia
After comedian Robin Williams took his life in 2014, his autopsy revealed that he had one of the most severe cases of Lewy body dementia doctors had ever seen. Nearly every brain cell examined contains abnormal deposits of a protein called alpha-synuclein (aka Lewy bodies), which can lead to problems with thinking, behavior, and mood.
Robin Williams’ struggle with Lewy Body Dementia
Most of the world learned of the comedian’s health struggle after his wife, Susan Schneider wrote an article (cited below) in the academic journal Neurology published in 2016.
She began…
“As you may know, my husband Robin Williams had the little-known but deadly Lewy body disease (LBD). He died from suicide in 2014 at the end of an intense, confusing, and relatively swift persecution at the hand of this disease’s symptoms and pathology. He was not alone in his traumatic experience with this neurologic disease. As you may know, almost 1.5 million nationwide are suffering similarly right now.”
She went on to explain that Robin Williams’ Lewy Body Dementia was an extreme case.
“Not until the coroner’s report, 3 months after his death, would I learn that it was diffuse LBD that took him. All 4 of the doctors I met with afterwards and who had reviewed his records indicated his was one of the worst pathologies they had seen. He had about 40% loss of dopamine neurons and almost no neurons were free of Lewy bodies throughout the entire brain and brainstem.”
The comedian’s struggle
Before his death, Williams had huge spikes in anxiety that led his wife to wonder if he might be a hypochondriac. But only later did she learn these were symptoms of the disease. “Not until after Robin left us would I discover that a sudden and prolonged spike in fear and anxiety can be an early indication of LBD,” she explained.
The winter before his death, he was suffering from other symptoms such as “paranoia, delusions and looping, insomnia, memory, and high cortisol levels.” None of the psychotherapy he received could ease his pain. Like many people with LBD, antianxiety medication and other psychiatric drugs may have made his symptoms worse.
After his suicide, Robin Williams’ wife got her answers.
“Once the coroner’s report was reviewed, a doctor was able to point out to me that there was a high concentration of Lewy bodies within the amygdala. This likely caused the acute paranoia and out-of-character emotional responses he was having. How I wish he could have known why he was struggling, that it was not a weakness in his heart, spirit, or character.” — WTF fun facts
Source: “The terrorist inside my husband’s brain” — Neurology
WTF Fun Fact 13081 – Dogs Fake Sneeze
Did you know that dogs fake sneeze? We know our fluffy buddies can manipulate their environment to get more attention, but fake sneezing actually has a few different uses that we found interesting.
Why do dogs fake sneeze?
According to the American Kennel Club (cited below), dogs will fake a sneeze for play and communication purposes.
“Many dogs like to sneeze when they play with other dogs or humans. This ‘play sneezing’ is normal and something dogs use to show that they are excited and having a good time. Dogs will also use play sneezing to show that their behavior is only playful.”
When dogs play sneeze, they tend to curl their lips and create a wrinkle in their nose. These sneeze sound more like a short “snort” than a sneeze, since the air comes from the nose and not the lungs.
Attention-getters
Your pup is watching you closely for signs of what will make you more empathetic and playful.
According to the AKC, “When a dog fake sneezes, they tend to watch you as they sneeze to make sure they’ve got your attention. They may even move closer and sneeze on or near you so you can’t ignore them.”
And dogs will even sneeze to communicate with one another. Sometimes, they’ll use it as a calming signal to let those around them know things are getting out of hand.
Pay attention to dog sneezes
Of course, dogs can sneeze due to illness and allergies as well. So it’s important not to assume your dog is sneezing just because it wants to play. And dogs with compressed nasal passages, like pugs, will sneeze more often simply because of their physiology. This may require attention if it starts to happen more often since it can be indicative of breathing issues. — WTF fun facts