random funny fact

WTF Fun Fact 12829 – Orca Attacks

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We’ve all seen orcas (aka Orcinus orca and “killer whales”) in photos, theme parks, or films (Free Willy, for example). They’re big, they’re black and white, and they are generally represented as friendly to humans (despite their name). And, to be fair, despite recent orca attacks, the vast majority of orcas have long been friendly – or at least tolerant – towards humans.

What’s up with the orca attacks?

Two summers ago, in 2020, a group of orcas off the coast of Portugal got agitated and started attacking boats. We don’t know why; we just know that it scared a lot of people to have a humungous animal try to nip at the bottom of their boats to the point of nearly sinking them.

Unfortunately, we can’t get the whales’ side of the story.

But we do know that behavior continued and that boaters of the coasts of both Spain and Portugal have continued to have their boats attacked from below by groups of orcas. And it’s gotten so common and so dangerous that some leisure boaters (the tourists, for the most part) are being asked not to go out into the waters for their own good.

The warnings are generally directed at nighttime boaters, who might sorely want to see the beautiful lights of Porto from the sea on a whimsical sailboat, but who would be putting themselves and rescuers in danger if they needed to be saved from capsizing when it’s dark.

Ok, but they are called “killer whales,” right?

Of course, there’s lots of speculation about why the whales are behaving this way, but most of it is just guessing, which isn’t very helpful (because most of it is uninformed and comes from people who don’t know much about the creatures’ behavior).

Some want to blame humans’ disrespect for the sea. And while you might want to make that case and even have some cold-hard facts to back it up, the whales aren’t down there reading our climate and pollution reports (thankfully). And they have no opinion on yachts or rich people who can afford to go to Portugal and rent a sailboat.

And despite the name “killer whales,” they have no real history of hurting humans (in other words, they don’t eat us). The nickname comes from sailors long ago who saw them preying on other whales and even sharks. After all, they’re pretty enormous (weighing in sometimes at 6 tons – or over 12,000 pounds), and they need big meals.

So-called “killer whales” are apex predators. In other words, nothing preys on them – they’re at the top (or apex) of the food chain. They do kill, they just aren’t known for killing humans.

So, what’s the deal?

In one case, investigators found that two of the orca attacks were “perpetrated” by whales that were injured. Whether or not they were injured by boats and seeking to defend themselves is unclear. It could be the case that they were looking to eradicate what they thought was the source of their pain.

But it doesn’t seem like every orca that has attacked a boat is injured.

In some cases, the whales are also young. So it may be that they have a different and more destructive notion of “play time.”

Whatever the issue is, marine biologists agree that there’s nothing premeditated about the attacks. But they are happening and whatever is going on out there (which is under investigation by professionals), it’s much wiser to cancel the pleasure cruises for now and give them a chance to calm down.

Taking preventative measures is a lot smarter than risking getting rammed by a whale (of any kind). – WTF fun facts

Source: “Orcas Attack So Many Boats Sailors Are Being Told To Stay in Port at Night” — Newsweek

WTF Fun Fact 12828 – Walking Sharks

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You have to be of a certain age to remember Steve Martin’s LAND SHARK! But when we think of walking sharks, this is where our mind goes. Anything else is simply too terrifying.

Of course, you don’t have to worry about a shark walking down the street. They walk underwater. For now…

Are there really walking sharks?

So, yes, there is a shark that can “walk.” But it’s rare, it’s small, and it’s not out to get you. Sorry to ruin the surprise so early in the explanation.

You may have seen the shark on social media since some guy saw one on a trip somewhere in Indonesia, hadn’t watched enough Shark Week, and then posted a video insisting he discovered a new type of shark. Of course, once marine biologists saw the footage they all said “Yeah, duh, that’s so 2006.” They’ve known about these sharks for a while, discovering them in 2006 in the Bird’s Head Seascape of West Papua, Indonesia.

Conservation International’s Mark Erdmann and his team currently study the walking sharks and their evolutionary origin. (Remember, if humans originated in the wet slime and eventually learned to walk on land, seeing a shark evolve to do the same is extra interesting!). And it turns out there are about 9 species of little sharks that can use their fins to both walk and swim.

So, what’s the real deal with these walking sharks?

According to Conservation News (cited below), these bottom-dwelling sharks “walk” using pectoral and pelvic fins. This allows them to traipse around coral reefs and stick their heads under rocks to look for more food.

Another cool fact about the sharks is that shark geneticists (which is definitely not a job we ever heard about during Career Day) have used genetic samples from shark fins to look at the genomes of these sharks, comparing them to older species to see when each branched off into a new species. In case you didn’t know, sharks are actually older than dinosaurs by about 200 million years. But according to these genetic analyses, walking sharks are only about 9 million years old.

If you’re still more freaked out than fascinated, just not that all 9 species “are found exclusively in a ring around Northern Australia, New Guinea and the satellite islands of Raja Ampat, Aru, and Halmahera in Indonesia.”

If you want to see the walking shark in all its glory, check out the video below:

–WTF fun facts

Source: “Discovery afoot: New study cracks mystery of how ‘walking’ sharks split” — Conservation.org

WTF Fun Fact 12827 – The Urge to Cancel Plans

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The pandemic might have made us feel more FOMO, but when it comes to actually following up on getting out and about, we’re more eager than ever to cancel plans.

Canceling plans and dread

Doesn’t it seem like there was once a “Golden Age” of making plans with friends and following up on them with no drama? Well, these so-called golden ages tend to be overrated and misremembered. But even if it wasn’t and you’re the life of the party (or co-dependent), you’ve probably felt some dread as plans crept up at least once or twice.

Sometimes we agree to plans we didn’t really want to follow through on in the first place (like a play date for our kid whose parents we just can’t stand but have to make small talk with for a few hours, or a golf buddy who gets a bit too loud every time you hang out for a beer). We say “yes” just to be polite and keep the wheels of friendship moving.

Other times, the plans seem like a great idea in the moment (like hanging out with girlfriends, having one too many glasses of champagne, and deciding to take a road trip over Labor Day weekend). But when it’s time to follow through, it feels like more of a chore than a good time.

That dread can creep up slowly, making the plans seem more miserable to execute with each passing day or they can hit you on the day of the outing. All of a sudden you feel like your home is so comfy, your snacks are so good, you have a line-up of bad TV to watch or a great book to read, and going to bed early sounds like far more of a luxury than getting yourself together to spend time with friends or family.

I don’t wanna go

If you’ve felt this way, you’re not alone – over 30% of people want to cancel plans they’ve made. If you haven’t felt this way, it’s worth noting that a lot of people do, so you should probably high-five your friends when they do show up.

The totally unsurprising news comes not just from our personal experience but an actual YouGov survey (cited below) that found “one-third of Americans say they often agree to plans in advance only to realize closer to the date that they don’t want to participate, with 11% saying this happens to them very often.”

Frankly, we’re surprised it’s only 11%. Maybe people who participate in YouGov survey are very outgoing. (Or maybe we’re just lame.)

Interestingly, it’s the young folks who say this happens most often. According to YouGov:

“Americans under 30 are most likely to say this happens to them somewhat often or very often: 56% say so. About half of 30- to 44-year-olds (49%) say the same, as do just 31% of 45- to 64-year-olds (31%) and 12% of Americans 65 and older.”

All we can say is apparently this gets better with time. When you’re 65, you’ll finally be ready for that night on the town with your besties!

–WTF fun facts

Source: “Ever agree to plans and later wish you hadn’t? According to this poll, you’re far from alone” — YouGov America

WTF Fun Fact 12826 – The Problem With Preferring Trees Over Grasslands

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Apparently, we’re tree snobs. Unfortunately, preferring trees over grasslands actually ends up hurting the environment because grasslands are complex and much-needed ecosystems.

Still, we have to admit we love trees.

Why do we love forests?

In a recent article for The Atlantic, writer Julia Rosen pointed out a painful truth:

“Grasslands rank among the most imperiled and least protected biomes on Earth. They are disappearing even faster than forests, and much of what remains has suffered varying degrees of damage. Their decline threatens a huge chunk of the planet’s biodiversity, the livelihoods of roughly 1 billion people, and countless ecological services such as carbon and water storage. Yet these losses don’t register with the same force as deforestation. Perhaps because we do not notice, or perhaps because we do not care.”

We had no idea. Still, we find ourselves thinking that trees are just more helpful – but apparently, that’s wrong (or at least misguided).

Preferring trees over grasslands is “arboreal chauvinism”

Ok, we’re not fond of the term, but it does some interesting linguistic work when you think about it. A lot of us really do think of grasslands as flat and boring and…beige.

Of course, no one who is advocating for grasslands, such as prairies, is against trees. They’re just trying to raise our awareness and change our perspective so we can appreciate the need to value and conserve them.

In other words, it’s time to stop looking at prairie land as “deforested” area or proto-forests that simply aren’t fertile enough to grow trees – in fact, grasslands are their own special thing.

What’s the big deal with grasslands?

Well, for starters, the problem with disregarding grasslands in favor of trees and forests keeps prairie, savannah, and other grassland plants and animals off of conservation lists and open to extinction.

Check out this not-so-fun fact from The Atlantic: “Just 1 percent of Texas’s prairies remain intact. (Nationally, about half of native grasslands have already been converted to cropland or consumed by development, and millions more acres are lost each year.)”

To appreciate just some of what grasslands have to offer, consider this:

“Despite their apparent simplicity, grasslands are bastions of biodiversity. They support everything from large, charismatic megafauna (think lions and elephants) to humble pollinators and rare wildflowers. The Cerrado, for instance, is home to more than 12,000 plant species, a third of which occur nowhere else on Earth. And a mountain grassland in Argentina holds the world record for the most plant species found within a square meter of land: 89.”

That’s a lot of biodiversity to give up if we don’t remember that forests aren’t the only type of ecosystems we need to preserve.

–WTF fun facts

Source: “Trees Are Overrated” — The Atlantic

WTF Fun Fact 12825 – Cows With Names Are More Productive

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Well, it may not be a big difference, but it is one worth mentioning. It turns out cows with names produce more milk. But they need more than a name – they also like a little one-on-one attention.

Researching cows with names

According to LiveScience (cited below), a UK study of 516 dairy cows conducted by researchers Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University found that “on farms where each cow was called by her name the overallmilkyield was higher than on farms where the cattle were herded as a group.” But it was just 3.4% higher.

We don’t really know how cows feel about their names, but it’s the personal touch that seems to do the trick.

Happy cows

LiveScience quotes one of the researchers (Douglas) as saying: “Just as people respond better to the personal touch, cows also feel happier and more relaxed if they are given a bit more one-to-one attention. By placing more importance on the individual, such as calling a cow by her name or interacting with the animal more as it grows up, we can not only improve the animal’s welfare and her perception of humans, but also increase milk production.”

Frankly, we think that makes perfect sense. Animals seem to know when their well-being is a priority. And it may even be the case that the farmers who name their cows tend to spend more time caring for them or even value them more (though the study didn’t explore that).

Other things to know about the study include:

  • 46% of farmers in the study called their cows by name.
  • 66% said they “knew all the cows in the herd.”
  • 48% said they believed human contact was more likely to produce cows with a “good milking temperament.”
  • Fewer than 10% of farmers felt that cows who fear humans had poor milking temperaments.

–WTF fun facts

Source: “Cows with Names Make More Milk” — LiveScience

WTF Fun Fact 12823 – Rats are Ticklish

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We never really thought about tickling a rat, but apparently, it makes them pretty happy. And other than primates, they’re the only other creatures that seem to be able to be tickled.

Rat tickling

Some people hate to be tickled but rats seem to enjoy it to some extent.

According to Smithsonian Magazine (cited below), the little creatures “…break down in supersonic ‘giggles’ and ‘joy jumps’ when you gently ruffle their fur—but only if they’re in the mood.”

Now, you probably want to know how we know this. Here’s how:

“For a new study published today in the journal Science, a group of German scientists had the pleasure of tickling some rats to find out that—like humans—these rodents’ responses to tickles are mood-dependent. Stressful situations stifled the rats’ otherwise impulsive laughter, while a more relaxed atmosphere made for uninhibited giggles. The new research, led by animal physiologist Shimpei Ishiyama at Humboldt University in Berlin, offers a new insight into where exactly in the brain this ticklish laughter appears to come from.”

If rats are ticklish, why don’t we hear them laugh?

It turns out that few of us will ever get the pleasure of hearing a rat laugh.

Smithsonian notes that “Tickled rats emit high-pitched chirping and squeaking sounds, which are only audible through a special microphone. Researchers were able to observe this laughter by using the microphones, as well as by measuring behavior and neuron activity of rats that they tickled and gently touched in various regions of the body, including the back and belly.”

It sounds like you’re going to need some specialized equipment.

And if you’re wondering where to tickle a rat in order to make it happy – the answer is the belly. – WTF fun facts

Source: “What Tickling Giggly Rats Can Tell Us About the Brain” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12822 – How Do Lobsters Communicate?

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Apparently, thousands of people look up “how to lobsters communicate” – and we’re guessing it’s because they’ve heard the truth and it’s hard to believe.

When we heard that lobsters communicate with their bladders and that they can make things known to other lobsters by urinating at them, we thought it was a grossly creative form of expression. But it gets even better.

While it might not be the most exact description of what’s happening, no less an institution than the New England Aquarium has informed lobster learners that the creatures actually “pee out of their faces.”

Say what?

Ok, so let’s break this down a bit. First of all, lobsters use scent to communicate (as do humans, to be fair). You’ve heard of pheromones, right? The scented hormone we secrete?

Because this factoid ran rampant around the internet with such gusto, Snopes to it upon themselves to get the details (gotta love those professional fact-checkers!). They describe the scented face-peeing this way:

“Found within a lobster’s pee are a fair number of pheromones, which they disperse through theirnephropore rosette glands. The bladder of a lobster is located under its brain, and the rosette glands are connected to the urinary tract.”

Ok, so the key here seems to be the anatomy – the bladder is right under their brain. There’s only so much room in a lobster, and those of us who have eaten them should probably be grateful that we don’t have to pick their bladders out of their tails.

As for the urine stream comes out of their face, Snopes explains further:

“Once these pheromones are produced, they are introduced into the urine stream. In the case of the American lobster, scientific name Homarus americanus, this pheromone-rich pee is released from nephropores at the base of the lobster’s large antennae and then injected into its gill current. According to the NEAQ, it has been determined that this urine stream can reach a length of seven times the lobster’s body.”

Wait, so how do lobsters communicate this way?

You probably still have some questions. Like, what’s a gill current? Well, according to The American Lobster:

“Water passes up through openings between the lobster’s legs, over the gills, and up towards the head.Every few minutes this current of water is reversed the other way so that debris can be flushed out of the chambers.An important part of this “gill current” is that when it is flowing forward towards the head, it can project urine forward.It is thought that the urine of the lobster contains important information about the sex of the lobster and its physiological state.”

Now that we know how lobsters pee out of their faces, we still need to know how and why it works this way. So, back to Snopes (which is cited below and which also has further reading at the bottom of the page for all your legit lobster urine research needs).

When male lobsters want to attract a mate, the females tend to come to him. But he needs to be in a defensive position. As Snopes says: “Their claws are located at the front, which enables the lobster to back into a shelter and face outward toward the entrance, setting up a first line of defense — and attracting a mate.”

Territorial lobster communication

Snopes also cites the conservation organization Oceana, which reports that a male lobster tends to dominate one piece of territory and females wait outside the den to mate with him. To let him know they’re out there, they pee in his direction out of the nozzles on their face.

Hey, who are we to judge?

Of course, the urine contains the pheromones that signal she’s ready to reproduce. So – and here’s another fun fact – she takes off her exoskeleton (basically stripping naked) once she gets into his den to mate. We are seriously not making this up.

Other lobster communication-by-urine tactics

Ok, so there’s one mating ritual out of the way. But females aren’t the only ones who urinate out of their faces to send a message. When males fight, the winner will do the same to signal to any nearby females that he’s the winner and ready to pass on his superior genes to any females nearby. “It’s thought that the winner of a match will also contain more serotonin and happy hormones, making him even more attractive to a would-be match.”

Snopes caps us off with yet another fun fact:

“How does a female return the favor? By peeing in his face, of course. Pheromones released in a female’s urine are thought to reduce the aggression of an embattled male and he’ll often allow the female to enter his burrow, where she might stay for up to two weeks. While the two shack up, the cohabitating female will also be urinating to ward off other ladies in the area — until it’s their turn.”

Lobsters – they’re just like us! – WTF fun facts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnmnVqiy4-s

Source: “Lobsters ‘Pee’ Out of Their Faces. Here’s Why …” — Snopes

WTF Fun Fact 12821 – Lemmings Don’t Commit Mass Suicide

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We often use “lemming” as an insult towards people who seem to just go with the flow, even if that means following everyone off the edge of a cliff. It comes from the myth that lemmings commit mass suicide in some unthinking way.

And that’s a load of bunk.

Why do we think lemmings jump off cliffs?

There are a lot of weird myths about lemmings (such as the myth that they explode when angry). But the most popular myth is the one that lemmings will follow each other off the side of a cliff.

And we tend to believe this because it comes with the explanation that people have seen piles of dead lemming bodies.

But it’s just not true.

The lemming legend

According to Britannica (and science, in general): “…one myth that has held on tenaciously: Every few years, herds of lemmings commit mass suicide by jumping off seaside cliffs. Instinct, it is said, drives them to kill themselves whenever their population becomes unsustainably large.”

Why we believe, Part 1 – The behavior of some lemmings

Ok, so lemmings do not have any suicidal behavior, They do not follow each other off cliffs or commit any other act of mass suicide. But it may be the case that the myth originates with a few dead lemmings.

The creatures often have population booms. This is bad because too many lemmings in one place means there’s less food and other resources for everyone. As a result, lemmings tend to separate, with a large group heading off to find a better environment.

Of course, they don’t always make it. And while they can swim, crossing bodies of water can be deadly for any group of animals. Seeing some dead lemmings in the water (just because a handful out of hundreds drown) may have led people to believe in the suicide myth.

Why we believe, Part 2

We know a lot about animal behavior, so that raises the question: why do we still believe this even though we could easily look it up and find out it’s not true?

Well, that’s because we find it too believable to question. Or, as Britannica notes: “…it provides an irresistible metaphor for human behavior. Someone who blindly follows a crowd—maybe even toward catastrophe—is called a lemming. Over the past century, the myth has been invoked to express modern anxieties about how individuality could be submerged and destroyed by mass phenomena, such as political movements or consumer culture.”

In other words, we want to believe. It’s too good of an insult to pass up.

Why we believe, Part 3 – The lemming lie

Let’s give ourselves some credit here though. If this myth hadn’t been repeated as fact so many times in so many places, more of us may have questioned it. It’s not a great excuse, but there is some truth to it.

And, apparently, the big lie about lemmings comes from a Disney nature film.

The worst part is that a giant lemming suicide was staged in order to provide fodder for the 1958 Disney film White Wilderness, when “filmmakers eager for dramatic footage staged a lemming death plunge, pushing dozens of lemmings off a cliff while cameras were rolling.”

This fraud led thousands of people who saw the film to say they had seen such a moment in what they thought was a documentary. But it was all a lie. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Do Lemmings Really Commit Mass Suicide?” — Britannica

WTF Fun Fact 12820 – Do We Only Use 10% of Our Brains? No.

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For some reason, Hollywood writers and purveyors of pseudoscience really love to say humans only use 10% of their brains. Why? Well, because it opens the door to making us think there’s a wealth of unlocked potential if only we could [insert Hollywood storyline] or buy some junk supplement to unlock the rest.

But it’s just not true. What an evolutionary waste that would be if it had any basis in fact!

Myth becomes “fact”

According to Britannica (and many, many scientific sources and fact-checking websites): “It’s one of Hollywood’s favorite bits of pseudoscience: human beings use only 10 percent of their brain, and awakening the remaining 90 percent—supposedly dormant—allows otherwise ordinary human beings to display extraordinary mental abilities. In Phenomenon (1996), John Travolta gains the ability to predict earthquakes and instantly learns foreign languages. Scarlett Johansson becomes a superpowered martial-arts master in Lucy (2014). And in Limitless (2011) Bradley Cooper writes a novel overnight.”

We don’t blame Hollywood – they make stuff up to sell movies all the time. It’s the fact that we started believing the plots of films that’s truly disturbing. In fact, Britannica reports that “65 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, ‘People only use 10 percent of their brain on a daily basis.'”

Yikes.

Why do we believe we only use 10% of our brains?

Let’s not look to place blame on anyone but ourselves. Most of us repeat interesting things we hear without ever investigating whether or not they’re true.

But next time you hear someone spout off this garbage “fun fact,” you can hit back with some actual science.

For starters:

  • If only 10% of our brains were functional, why does nearly every brain injury affect our lives in some way? If we only used 10%, we could damage the rest with no repercussions.
  • Why would humans have evolved our most unique characteristic – the very thing that makes us human – to be 90% useless? It makes no evolutionary sense. That space could be used for more useful things if it were just empty grey matter.
  • Positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans show that there is activity in far more than 10% of our brain. In fact, there is no part of the brain that lacks some sort of electrical activity (even if we don’t yet know precisely what it does).

The origins of the 10% myth

So, the 10% myth is just complete bull. But It likely has its origins in the American self-help industry.

People like to blame 19th-century psychologist William James (or even Albert Einstein) for implying that there is unlocked potential in the human brain. And while they may be true, that doesn’t indicate inactive brain matter. It just means we could think harder if we really tried.

Britannica also states that one early claim that the self-help industry glommed onto appeared in the preface to Dale Carnegie’s 1936 book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Since then, “The idea that we have harnessed only a fraction of our brain’s full potential has been a staple for motivational gurus, New Age hucksters, and uninspired screenwriters ever since.”

But it’s a load of bologna. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Do We Really Use Only 10 Percent of Our Brain?” — Britannica