random facts

WTF Fun Fact 13002 – Keeping Secrets

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Fun Fact: Keeping secrets is a universal phenomenon. Researchers found that approximately 97% of people are keeping a secret at any given time, and the average person is currently keeping around 13 of them (though not all are because of shame or guilt).

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What aren’t you telling us? What are you hiding? Nothing? Ok. Then are you hiding big surprise from someone? Are you pregnant and not telling anyone? Are you buying us a pony for Christmas? No. Darn.

Well, chances are you’re holding onto at least one secret – and you’re more than likely keeping a whole bunch across a handful of different categories. Not all secrets are sinister, and some we’d probably rather people kept to themselves.

Secrets are interesting things, which is why psychologists study them.

The anatomy of a secret

The American Psychological Society (cited below) wrote about the work of some of their members, and it’s fascinating stuff.

First, you may be interested to know that sharing this private information and asking people to keep it from others is burdensome (so maybe you should keep some to yourself). Then again, researchers also found that sharing secrets is a great way to bond with people and show them you trust them.

Dr. Michael Slepian, associate professor of leadership and ethics at Columbia Business School, described his interest in the psychology of secrets:

“For decades, secrecy research focused on the effects of concealment. But I couldn’t find any studies that systematically looked at what secrets people keep, how they keep them or how they experience secrets on a day-to-day basis.” This led him to survey around a thousand people and try to categorize the types of secrets they keep.

Types of secrets

The first step was to define acts of secrecy, which they did broadly, “defining secrecy not just as the moment of actively withholding information, but also having the intention to keep something secret from another person—even when that other person isn’t physically present.”

After categorizing the types of secrets people keep (for example, things related to infidelity, illegal behavior, planned surprises, pregnancy, etc.), he and his colleagues discovered that the things people keep to themselves generally fell into about 38 common categories.

“We all keep the same kinds of secrets,” Slepian told the APA. “About 97% of people have a secret in at least one of those categories, and the average person is currently keeping secrets in 13 of those categories.”

The biggest harm of keeping a secret was a person’s tendency to ruminate on it, which happened far more often with negative secrets. Interestingly, people tend to dwell on things that make them feel ashamed – even more than they ruminate on secrets that make them feel guilty. That’s because shame makes you feel like a bad person and breeds feelings of helplessness or powerlessness.

Divulging secrets

Divulging these previously private things can be a double-edged sword, of course. But talking to people can reduce the shame. Slepian found that “thinking about a secret can create a motivational conflict in which a person’s need to connect with others directly clashes with their desire to keep their secret to themselves.”

After finding 38 categories of secrets among hundreds of people, Slepian’s team also found that “confiding a secret predicted improved well-being, both because the participant received social support and because the act of revealing the secret seemed to minimize the amount of time the person spent thinking about it.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “Exposing the hidden world of secrets” — American Psychological Association

WTF Fun Fact 13001 – Unhappy Monday

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Fun Fact: A 2011 study found that people tend to be so miserable on Mondays that, on average, they don’t crack a smile until 11:16 am. Do you experience an unhappy Monday?

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If you hate Mondays, you’re not alone. People seem to find it a depressing day of the week. In fact, in 2011, the food company Marmite did a study that found people were so depressed on Monday mornings they typically didn’t smile for the first time until 11:16 am. That’s pretty late in the day for something as small as a smile!

The study by Marmite, the British food spread, also found that half of employees will be late to work, and will only log about three-and-a-half hours of productive work time.

Why are we so bummed on Mondays?

Ok, so there’s the obvious reason to hate Mondays if they signal the end of the weekend to you. That’s probably why some studies found Sunday to be pretty depressing as well.

According to HuffPost (cited below): “Yet other studies have found that it’s Sunday, not Monday, that is the most depressing day of the week. In 2009, a study by researchers at the University of Gothenburg and Institute for the Study of Labor found that Sunday is the darkest day of the week in Germany, where individuals reported the lowest level of subjective well-being.”

Americans also found Sunday to be the most depressing day.

Defeating the unhappy Monday

Well, the bad news is that there’s no magical cure for Mondays (short of winning the lottery, quitting your job, and spending the rest of your days at leisure).

The best the Marmite study could suggest was finding time on Monodays to indulge in activities you enjoy, such as shopping, watching TV, planning a trip, or eating a treat.

— WTF fun facts

Source: “Mondays Are More Depressing Than We Thought, Says Study” – HuffPost

WTF Fun Fact 12999 – Nikka The Police Dog

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The Vaughn, New Mexico Police Department has quite a recent history – and we just hope 2012 was the low point. That’s when the police chief and only officer were barred from carrying guns due to their criminal past. As a result, the only certified member of the force was Nikka the police dog.

Vaughn, NM goes to the dogs

In September 2012, the attorney for the town of Vaughn announced the resignation of Chief Ernest “Chris” Armijo.

News stories revealed that Armijo had been carrying a fake gun for months because he was not allowed to carry a real one. First, he was convicted of a felony back in Texas for owing tens of thousands of dollars in delinquent child support payments. But perhaps more concerning is that a few months prior he was also accused of illegally selling someone a police rifle and then keeping the cash for himself.

The town did not release the official reason for Armijo’s departure. But we have some good guesses about why the job didn’t work out for him.

There was another officer in Vaughn’s police force at the time. But he had just pled building to domestic violence charges that prevented him from having a gun. At the very least, CBS News (cited below) implied that if he was still part of the force, he was not a certified officer, and that would not only prevent him from carrying a gun but from making arrests as well.

According to records, that left only one certified member of the police force in good standing. Their drug-sniffing dog, Nikka.

Nikka the police dog gets a promotion

According to CBS News at the time: “Officials in the town of 450 people, about 100 miles east of Albuquerque, are considering whether to hire another police chief or keep the department staffed with just one officer...” It was unclear if the town would be able to keep the police dog since it was in Armijo’s care.

Residents said they were largely unconcerned because Vaughn had always been a quiet town with little crime.

It’s unclear how it all played out for the town or Nikka the police dog. Today the town is listed as having just one full-time sworn officer – and we’re going to assume it’s a human. — WTF fun facts

* Thanks to the reader who sent in this gem!

Source: “Nikka the police dog is only cop in N.M. town after chief resigns” — CBS News

WTF Fun Fact 12998 – The Oldest Recipe In The World

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You know the oldest recipe in the world was going to be for something kind of weird, right? Well, at the very least, it’s a pudding with a kick. The world’s oldest recipe is roughly 8,000 years old and contains instructions for making nettle pudding.

The oldest recipe in the world is for…pudding

Researchers at the University of Wales Institute (Uwic) in Cardiff, led by Dr. Ruth Fairchild, have been studying ancient recipes for years. In fact, they’ve managed to translate the into something you really can cook (though there’s no promise of whether it’ll be palatable or even remotely worthwhile).

If you’re thinking nettle pudding sounds like a bad idea, we’re with you. People have long used nettles in medicines. But there’s a reason we refer to them as “stinging nettles” – they sting!

However, Fairchild assures adventurous cooks that heating up the nettles “takes the sting right out of them. ” Fingers crossed!

In 2007, Dr. Fairchild told BBC Breakfast (cited below) “nettle pudding was made by mixing nettles with ground-down barley and water.” And, here, Americans will note that “pudding” means something completely different to the British.

Antiquity Now says:

“For those of you not familiar with non-dessert puddings, it has the consistency of a dumpling and is often eaten with chunks of bread and the meat it is cooked along side.”

What is nettle pudding?

You may recognize some ingredients in nettle pudding (which is not the gloppy, smooth stuff we eat in America). It includes sorrel, watercress, dandelions, and nettles…you know, weeds.

Antiquity Now also assured readers that “the stinging nettle has long been an important food source and was greatly appreciated by ancient cultures. Its use as food has always been closely tied to its medicinal value. Often it would be ingested during the spring because it was believed to help in circulation and could restore warmth to the body after the cold winter months. Generally, the younger plants were chosen for food because they are less bitter, but more mature leaves can be boiled until they are suitable for ingestion. The Romans boiled nettles along with meat in order to tenderize it. Europeans used it in soups and puddings like the one below. In fact, in 2007, the recipe below was named Britain’s oldest recipe and is believed to be from around 6,000 BCE.”

We had no idea – we had always assumed that giving something a name like “stinging nettle” was a cue not to put it in your mouth under any circumstances.

Antiquity Now also shared the step-by-step recipe:

The Nettle Pudding Recipe

Interested in trying the oldest recipe in the world?

Ingredients

1 bunch of sorrel, 1 bunch of watercress, 1 bunch of dandelion leaves
2 bunches of young nettle leaves
Some chives
1 cup of barley flour
1 teaspoon of salt

Instructions

Chop the herbs finely and mix in the barley flour and salt.
Add enough water to bind it together and place in the center of a linen or muslin cloth.

Tie the cloth securely and add to a pot of simmering venison or wild boar (a pork joint will do just as well). Make sure the string is long enough to pull the pudding from the pot.
Cook the pudding until the meat is done (at least two hours).
Leave the pudding to cool slightly, remove the muslin, then cut the pudding into thick slices with a knife.
Serve the pudding with chunks of barley bread.

Bon appetit! — WTF fun facts

Source: “When nettles were dish of the day” — BBC

WTF Fun Fact 12997 – A Bristlecone Pine Is The Oldest Tree In The World

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We’re not sure what kind of tree we expected to be the oldest in the world. Maybe a redwood or an olive tree, perhaps? But, in fact, a bristlecone pine is the oldest tree in the world (at least the oldest to be confirmed). Its name is Methuselah, and it’s likely over 4,800 years old.

Like the tallest and largest (by volume) trees in the world, the oldest is also located in the U.S. state of California. Luckily, it’s off the beaten path, which is no doubt one of the reason’s it’s managed to survive this long.

Methuselah, the bristlecone pine

Researchers put Methuselah at an amazing 4,854-year-old. Its species is the Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva), and it’s named after the biblical elder Methuselah, who was said to be 969 years old and whose name is now often used for things of advanced age.

The tree Methuselah is located in the White Mountains in eastern California. It lies in “Methuselah Grove” of the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest tucked inside Inyo National Forest.

And while its precise location has remained a secret for many years, it (along with the location of other majestic California trees under protection) has been leaked to the public, putting it in danger.

What is the oldest tree in the world older than?

That a bristlecone pine is the oldest tree in the world is already remarkable. But the fact that Methuselah is older than the Egyptian pyramids and is thousands of years older than written language is pretty mind-blowing.

Of course, there are constant challenges from people claiming to find older trees. In fact, there may be another tree nearby that’s older (some claim there is). But right now, Methuselah is the confirmed “winner” (if that’s considered a win).

Even if another tree overtakes it, it hardly matters. In fact, that might only serve to protect the tree that’s older than most civilizations that even ancient historians study (since it predates anything they could have written about themselves). You’d have to go back to cave paintings to find older ones.

The bristlecone pine is the oldest tree in the world

According to the NYT (cited below), “For decades, giant sequoias were believed to be the world’s oldest trees…” In fact, California is home to the tallest, largest (by volume), and oldest trees in the world: a redwood named Hyperion, a giant sequoia named General Sherman, and Methuselah.

Simply googling it will give you a better photo than we have permission to share. — WTF fun facts

Source: “In California, Where Trees Are King, One Hardy Pine Has Survived for 4,800 Years” — The New York Times

WTF Fun Fact 12996 – Swami Vivekananda

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Anyone who practices yoga in the West today does so because a Hindu monk named Swami Vivekananda traveled to Chicago from India in 1893 to crash the World’s Columbian Exposition.

This world’s fair was held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World but gave him an enormous audience at its Parliament of Religions, which was originally meant to celebrate the glories of Protestantism.

Who was Swami Vivekananda?

According to Smithsonian Magazine (cited below), things didn’t get off to a great start for Swami Vivekananda since he hadn’t actually been invited to speak at the event:

“One morning in September 1893, a 30-year-old Indian man sat on a curb on Chicago’s Dearborn Street wearing an orange turban and a rumpled scarlet robe. He had come to the United States to speak at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, part of the famous World Columbian Exposition. The trouble was, he hadn’t actually been invited. Now he was spending nights in a boxcar and days wandering around a foreign city. Unknown in America, the young Hindu man, named Vivekananda, was a revered spiritual teacher back home. By the time he left Chicago, he had accomplished his mission: to present Indian culture as broader, deeper and more sophisticated than anyone in the U.S. realized.”

Recognizing Indian culture

No one at the time thought of India as a vibrant-yet-ancient culture. It was a conquered place, considered backward and largely irrelevant from a cultural standpoint. “So the audience was astonished when Vivekananda, a representative of the world’s oldest religion, seemed anything but primitive—the highly educated son of an attorney in Calcutta’s high court who spoke elegant English. He presented a paternal, all-inclusive vision of India that made America seem young and provincial.”

It turns out Swami Vivekananda was the perfect person to bring Indian culture, including the practice of yoga (which looked quite different at the time), to America. He had attended Christian schools and knew the Bible and was an expert in European philosophy.

While Swami Vivekananda died early, at age 39, he traveled to major cities in the U.S. and shared Indian culture and knowledge about the Hindu religion, opening the door to the practice of yoga (as a spiritual practice at the time) in America. — WTF fun facts

Source: “The Indian Guru Who Brought Eastern Spirituality to the West” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12994 – The First Use of OMG

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Have you typed or texted OMG in surprise? While you may feel a bit too old and mature for that, it might surprise you to know it’s not a millennial phenomenon – at least not originally. The first use of OMG to mean “oh my God” was in 1917.

Who was the first person to use OMG?

According to Smithsonian Magazine (cited below), Lord John Fisher was a British Navy Admiral “who began World War I as First Sea Lord but resigned in 1915” first used the abbreviation in a letter to none other than Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

The 1917 letter reads:

My Dear Winston,

I am here for a few days longer before rejoining my “Wise men” at Victory House-

“The World forgetting,
By the World forgot!”

but some Headlines in the newspapers have utterly upset me! Terrible!!
“The German Fleet to assist the Land operations in the Baltic.
“Landing the German Army South of Reval.”
We are five times stronger at Sea than our enemies and here is a small Fleet that we could gobble up in a few minutes playing the great vital Sea part of landing an Army in the enemy’s rear and probably capturing the Russian Capital by Sea!
This is “Holding the ring” with a vengeance!
Are we really incapable of a big Enterprise?
I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis: — O.M.G (Oh! My! God!)– Shower it on the Admiralty.

Yours,
Fisher
9/9/17

The first use of OMG was one of utter surprise, which seems fitting! But let’s not overlook the hilarious phrase “Shower it on the Admiralty” either – that one has to come in handy at some point, right?

—WTF fun facts

Source: “The First Use of OMG Was in a 1917 Letter to Winston Churchill” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12993 – Point Nemo

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Point Nemo is a cemetery you can’t visit. It lies in the ocean’s “point of inaccessibility” because it lies over 1,600 miles from any land mass. In fact, it’s the furthest point from any land mass on Earth, which is a “fun fact” in itself. But our point is that Point Nemo is a special kind of burial ground – it’s a space cemetery under the sea.

Point Nemo the space cemetery

At the end of the journies to the farthest reaches of space, satellites, rockets, space stations, and the “junk” that comes down with them end up in this lonely spot deep in the Pacific Ocean.

It’s named not for Disney’s fishy character but for a more distinguished fictional Nemo – the submarine captain in Jules Verne’s classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Someday, when it’s no longer a bastion of the latest space technology, it is where the International Space Station will be laid to rest.

The land of “space junk”

According to The Guardian (cited below): “When spacecraft die, they become a danger to everything else in orbit. Space debris is rapidly clogging up space, and at orbital speeds of up to 17,500km/h even tiny flecks of paint can cause serious damage to other spacecraft.”

According to science writer Jessica Baron the ISS itself is in danger from “space junk”, noting that “Even as far back as 2013, NASA reported that it was monitoring over 500,000 pieces of debris, 20,000 of which were larger than a softball. Because the “space junk” can travel at speeds of up to 17,500mph, even a small piece can pose a major collision risk for future missions and the ISS.”

This possibility is called the ‘Kessler Effect,” and The Guardian says “The Kessler Effect, or Kessler Syndrome, is the potential for the amount of debris in orbit to reach a critical mass where each collision creates more pieces of debris in a cascading way, to the point where the orbit is no longer usable.”

While some have considered building a giant space harpoon to catch this trash, most pieces are too small, so “To prevent such a disaster, anyone launching something into orbit these days has to have a plan to either send it into a graveyard orbit, or send it back down to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere,” NASA says.

And that’s where Point Nemo comes in. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Thousands of kilometres from anywhere lies Point Nemo, a watery grave where space stations go to die” — The Guardian

WTF Fun Fact 12992 – The Burj Khalifa Double Sunset

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The Burj Khalifa is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It has a total height of 2,722 feet (or a little over a half mile), excluding the antenna/spire. It serves as the centerpiece of downtown Dubai and is named after the former president of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. While it holds several world records, one of the coolest things about the building is the Burj Khalifa double sunset.

What is the Burj Khalifa Double Sunset?

According to Gizmodo (cited below), the building “is so large that you would be able to watch the sunset from the base of the building, take a lift right to the top and watch the sunset all over again. In fact, if you are a Muslim living on top of the Burj Khalifa, you will have to fast longer during Ramadan because of this time difference: about three minutes between the time of the sunset on the ground and the sunset on the top.”

Technically, you can experience this phenomenon from lots of very tall structures, but you need to be able to reach the top quickly enough to catch the second sunset.

“The taller the structure and the faster you can get to the top, the longer you will be able to enjoy the second sunset. This happens because the Earth is curved, and by sticking out perpendicular to its curvature, you’ll be able to see more of what lies behind the horizon.”

The Burj Khalifa is one of the best places to see a double sunset because it has two observation decks and an ultra-fast elevator designed to get you to the top (while peering out of the building) in order to get optimal viewing time. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Did You Know The Burj Khalifa Is So Tall You Can Watch Two Sunsets On the Same Day?” — Gizmodo