wtf fun fact

WTF Fun Fact 13064 – Australia’s Pink Lake Hillier

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Australia’s pink Lake Hillier is located in Western Australia. It lies near the Pacific Ocean, so when viewed from above the fact that the lake is bright pink is even more striking.

Australia’s pink lake

It’s less than a half mile across (600 meters x 250 meters, more specifically), but Australia’s pink Lake Hillier is truly a sight to behold. Unfortunately, you can no longer access it from land.

The good news is that while it’s Australia’s most famous pink lake, it’s not the only one. And there are others in the world as well. Senegal, Mexico, Spain, and Azerbaijan all have pink lakes too.

According to Lake Hillier’s website (cited below):

“The reason of its unique colour is still a topic that is not fully understood by scientists, although most suspect it has to do with the presence of the Dunaliella salina microalgae. The Dunaliella produces carotenoids, a pigment found in carrots as well. But the presence of halophilic bacteria in the salt crusts could be another explanation. A reaction between the salt and the sodium bicarbonate that is found in the water may cause it as well.”

More facts about Lake Hillier

Discovered in 1802 by cartographer Matthew Flinders, the lake is located on Australia’s Middle Island in the Recherche Archipelago. It’s most pink when viewed from above. And, unlike other pink lakes, its water samples appear pink in a glass as well.

While it’s safe to swim in, you can’t actually get near its surface.

“There are Scenic Flight Services departing Esperance Airport several times a day but you cannot land on Middle Island…There are no regular services to set foot on any of the Islands in the Recherche Archipelago with the exception of Woody Island.”

If you try to get to the lake, don’t be fooled by the nearby Pink Lake (aka Lake Spencer) in the town of Esperance. That lake used to be pink but has lost all its color and is now a milky white.

You’ll just have to enjoy Australia’s pink Lake Hillier from above, which is the best way to see its color anyway. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Lake Hillier” — Lake Hillier Official Website

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 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 13056 – Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin

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Did you know a woman was elected to Congress before women in the U.S. even had the right to vote? Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin was elected to represent the state of Montana in 1916. That was four years before the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote.

Who was Jeannette Rankin?

Born in 1880 near Missoula, Montana (then a territory), Rankin was born to a prosperous rancher who had emigrated from Canada.

Jeannette Rankin was educated at what was then called Montana State University in Missoula (now known as the University of Montana). She graduated in 1902 with a biology degree, became a teacher, and then an apprentice to a seamstress.

After a trip to San Francisco in 1904, Rankin started volunteering and developed an interest in social work. She graduated from the New York School of Philanthropy (now called the Columbia University School of Social Work) in 1909. Then she moved to Spokane, Washington to take a job helping children in need.

Rankin served two nonconsecutive terms in the House during World War I and II but was known for voting against America’s entry into those wars. Her platform largely centered around expanding women’s voting rights, ensuring better working conditions for American laborers, and improving access to healthcare for women and children.

In 1917, when she took office, she said, “I may be the first woman member of Congress. But I won’t be the last.”

Jeannette Rankin’s road to Congress

Rankin then traveled around the country, doing everything from organizing immigrant laborers after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory to supporting nationwide suffrage for women.

She played one of the most significant roles in helping women gain the right to vote in Montana and then decided to run for one of Montana’s at-large House seats in 1916. While there was no national right to suffrage for women at the time, many Western states had passed their own laws.

When Rankin ran for office, she was one of many women who ran that year but the only female winner. In Kansas, over 300 women ran for office. In her own state, Rankin’s campaign was entirely ignored by the local press.

According to her webpage on the U.S. House of Representatives website (cited below), she won the Republic primary by more than 7000 votes. “Her platform supported several prominent issues during the Progressive Era—including nationwide suffrage, child welfare legislation, and the prohibition of alcohol.“

“Because Montana was so sparsely populated, election results trickled in over three days. But in early November 1916, news arrived that Rankin had become the first woman in American history to win a seat in Congress. Although she trailed the frontrunner, Democratic Representative John Morgan Evans, by 7,600 votes, Rankin secured the second At-Large seat by topping the third-place candidate—another Democrat—by 6,000 votes.”

Not surprisingly, as the first female member of Congress, she was held to different standards, often being asked about her clothing more often than her politics.

But when she was sworn into office, she was greeted with loud applause.

Rankin’s political career

As a pacifist, she was criticized often, despite correspondence from her constituents leaning in favor of the U.S. staying out of WWI. But once the U.S. entered the war, she turned her attention to ensuring troops had what they needed while continuing to fight for national suffrage and workers’ rights in factories.

Redistricting eliminated her at-large House seat in 1917, so she ran for Senate in 1918. However, she lost by 2000 votes.

She continued her service work outside of Congress until 1940, when she challenged an anti-Semitic House Representative for Montana’s western district. She won the primary and then the election, returning to the House with 54% of the vote.

When Jeannette Rankin returned to Congress decades after her first stint, she sat alongside six other women.

However, her second stint was less successful since her pacifism was even less popular during WWII. She did not run for re-election in 1942. At the time of her death in 1973, however, she was considering another House campaign to protest the war in Vietnam. — WTF fun facts

Source: “RANKIN, Jeannette” — U.S. House of Representatives

WTF Fun Fact 13055 – The Original Thanksgiving

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America celebrates Thanksgiving each year on the 4th Thursday of November. And while most of us learn a similar origin story for the holiday in elementary school, that version was largely manufactured for children. The original Thanksgiving in America was a religious holy day. And Puritan immigrants commemorated it by fasting rather than feasting.

The story of the original Thanksgiving

Here’s the gist of what many (but not all) Americans learn as children regarding Thanksgiving: The Pilgrims were persecuted in England and sailed to America to find religious freedom. They were sick and hungry when they landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts. The local Native American Wampanoag tribe helped the Pilgrims plant corn and hunt turkey. To celebrate a successful harvest, they shared a communal meal.

Thanksgiving is also considered a secular holiday in America. While the Pilgrims immigrated for religious reasons, those aren’t really part of the Thanksgiving story (other than the occasional mention that they all said a prayer before their meal).

The real story of Thanksgiving

For some more context into Thanksgiving, it’s important to know that the Pilgrims were a splinter group of Puritans. They were called Separatists and followed the teachings of John Calvin. Calvin taught that Scripture was the only guide to life. The Separatists first tried to go to Holland after leaving England but eventually decided to leave Europe altogether and set out for what Europeans called “the New World.”

On the way to their ship from Holland, the Separatists stopped in Plymouth, England, for supplies. The Mayflower carried them to the shores of North America, where they did struggle to survive on what they called Plimoth Plantation.

There were multiple small groups of Separatist immigrants, and each established its own church with its own pastor. Only one church has records of any harvest-time feast in 1636. We don’t have any other records from these early immigrants, so the story of Thanksgiving is entirely concocted from later stories.

Even 100 years later, there are some vague references to harvest-time feasts to celebrate American military battles. But none that refer to Native Americans.

A religious holiday of fasting and repentance

The Puritans would practice “public days” in response to things like droughts or other meaningful events. But these days involved reading Scripture, attending church services, and fasting to repent for their sins.

If there were formal 17th-century “Thanksgiving” celebrations, they would have originated from these public days and would not have involved feasting. Public atonement would have been highly religious in nature as well, not a secular holiday.

The Boston Globe (cited below) describes one such public day. In the archives was a record of a January 1697 public day of atonement for the Salem Witch Trials and the execution of innocent women.

If Thanksgiving stemmed from an early Puritan settler tradition, it was likely days like these.

The Boston Globe states, “It may be hard to see a connection between such earnest supplications and our modern Thanksgiving, but it was that Colonial holiday that America’s founders had in mind when they declared national days of thanksgiving.”

The first – but not original – Thanksgiving

In 1777, the Continental Congress announced the first national day of thanksgiving (not yet a formal holiday, so with a lowercase “t”). They instructed the public to give thanks and offer “penitent Confession of their manifold Sins.” It had nothing to do with a meal.

President George Washington declared a national day of thanksgiving on November 26 in honor of the Constitution to thank God “for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed.” His instructions for Americans were to “unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions.” Again, no turkey.

Later, “President John Adams called for national fast days in 1798 and 1799. His proclamation announcing the first ‘day of fasting & humiliation’ was ‘a loud call to repentance and reformation’ in the face of possible war with France. President Madison called for two thanksgiving days, but by 1815 the custom of public days in America had died out.”

Abraham Lincoln created the enduring legend of the Native Americans and Pilgrims during the Civil War. He created what we now celebrate as Thanksgiving in 1863, declaring it a federal holiday. He also linked the day to the harvest, shifting the focus to food as a means of celebrating national unity. —WTF fun facts

Source: “The opposite of Thanksgiving” — The Boston Globe
* Note: While containing factual info, this was printed in the opinion section. A scholarly article on the same topic is available in the journal Gastronomica but is partly behind a paywall.

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