Weird

This is our weird but true facts category.  These may be a little odd and a little strange, but they are all most definitely true facts!  If you are looking for weird fun facts then start scrolling!

WTF Fun Fact 13023 – The Samsung Butt Robot

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Putting your phone in your back pocket is dangerous business (at least for the phone). So to ensure their materials were sturdy enough to withstand the crush, Samsung invented a robotic butt. The Samsung butt robot exerts 220 pounds of pressure on their phones during testing.

How Samsung phones are robot butt-tested

Clad in a pair of blue jeans, the butt repeatedly sits on phone to see how they’ll react to the common real-world beating their bound to take.

According to Tech Radar (cited below), whose writer was invited to tour the facility;

“On a recent trip to Korea, we were invited by Samsung to take a tour of its dedicated testing facility, and as we made our way through the company’s labs (each more diabolical than the last) we came to understand just how seriously the company takes its quality control – even if one of these tests does involve an undeniably quirky robot butt (dressed in blue denim jeans, no less) repeatedly sitting on handsets.”

Other Sumsung quality testing

The facility did a number of quality tests on their phones. They tested durability, sound quality, and battery power, among other important functions.

While we’re sure the phones still break from time to time, they have been through a lot. Tech Radar also reported:

“Using a number of different mechanical devices that look like the world’s most brutal skill testers (including auto drop testers, tumble testers and continuous free fall testers), Samsung’s handsets are repeatedly dropped from varying heights and angles onto a variety of hard surfaces, such as metal and marble.”

The butt test is still our favorite and when the first tech writers got a chance to see it around 2014, the company was met with so much public interest that they finally released a video so people could see it for themselves. Enjoy! — WTF fun facts

Source: “Samsung built a robot butt just to test its smartphones’ durability” — Tech Radar

WTF Fun Fact 13004 – You Are More Likely To Die Around 11am

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“Fun” fact: Because of a gene linked to our circadian rhythms, humans are more likely to die around 11am than at any other time of day.

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In 2012, a study published in the Annals of Neurology reported on a gene variant that affects our circadian rhythms. And that variant, it seems, could also predict the time of day you will die. And that time is around 11am.

According to a write-up in The Atlantic (cited below), the study’s authors “realized through their research that there seems to be one DNA sequence that determines, essentially, how each of us relates to time itself. And data analysis — poring through 15 years’ worth of sleep and death patterns collected from subjects in an unrelated sleep study — helped them to make the realization.”

Why do we die around 11am?

A lot of this work has to do with the ways in which we are no longer beholden to a strict social schedule as we age.

Our external environment affects our inner circadian “clocks,” which regulate our bodies’ functions This includes elements like work schedules and daylight exposure. But there’s also a genetic component to the time of day we’re most active and alert.

According to another Atlantic piece on the research that studied the phenomenon: “Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston borrowed data that had been collected 15 years ago from a sleep study at Rush University in Chicago…First, its subjects had worn a device, called an actigraph, that provided detailed information about their sleep-wake patterns. Second, the subjects were all over the age of 65 when the study was originally done. So by the time the Harvard researchers got to them, many had passed away. They had all also agreed to donate their brains to science. Because of this, the researchers knew their precise times of death. Finally, in the course of the many physical and psychological evaluations undergone by the subjects, they had also had their DNA sequenced.”

The researchers compared data from over 500 participants, looking at genetics and the time of death. They found a piece of DNA that was linked to sleeping and waking hours.

People with a more common gene variant tended to die in the late morning, around 11am.

But this doesn’t mean 11am is a more dangerous time of day. The study participants had largely died of natural causes. So the issue is that their circadian rhythms affected their bodies in a way that late morning was the most common time for them to expire. — WTF fun facts

Source: “You Are Most Likely to Die at 11 a.m.” — The Atlantic

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 12982 – Death By Turnip

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On December 19, 1881 a former British Conservative MP (Member of Parliament) named Sir William Payne Gallwey suffered death by turnip.

It’s even more strange since he was out on a shooting trip at his estate, Thirkleby Park. But a gun was not the cause of his death.

How does one die by turnip exactly?

The Northern Echo reported, that Gallwey “was out shooting in the parish of Bagby, and in crossing a turnip field fell with his body on to a turnip, sustaining severe internal injuries.”

He received medical aid after his fall. But already in poor health, he was unable to recover from his run-in with the turnip. He died a few days later.

Gallwey was 73, and he just retired from Parliament a year earlier.

According to Victorian Commons (cited below), “Gallwey is not the only MP whose death involved a turnip.”

A second death by turnip

In November 1833 Whig MP Lewis Fenton died after falling from a window at his home. He

“Press reports suggested that there was ‘considerable mystery’ surrounding the circumstances of his death, hinting at suicide, but the ensuing inquest returned a verdict of accidental death. As Fenton’s widow explained to the surgeon who tended him, Fenton had been in the habit of going into the attic to look at ‘a piece of ground where some turnips were growing, to see that none of his cows were trespassing in it’. He had apparently over-balanced while standing on a chair to look out of the window.”

Assuring people it was not a suicide, Victorian Commons notes that “Other evidence showed that Fenton had been in a cheerful mood the evening before his death, when he had drafted a speech for a forthcoming meeting regarding a testimonial to the anti-slave trade campaigner William Wilberforce.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “Beware the turnip! Unusual causes of death among Victorian MPs” — Victorian Commons

WTF Fun Fact 12979 – The Longest Name in New Zealand

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New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs’ (DIA) sets a 100-character limit when it comes to people’s names. But that doesn’t fully explain the longest name in New Zealand, which belongs to a man named Full Metal Havok More Sexy N Intelligent Than Spock And All The Superheroes Combined With Frostnova.

How did he get the longest name in New Zealand?

The man wasn’t born with this name. In fact, he lost a bet five years earlier.

According to the NZ Herald (cited below), “A message on an online body building forum, written by someone describing themselves as a friend of the man, said the name change was the result of a lost poker bet and the man realized his drunken consequences only when his passport expired.”

Making it official

Apparently not one to backtrack on a bet, Mr. Frostnova registered his name change in 2010, which was confirmed by DIA Births Deaths and Marriages spokesman Michael Mead. It does sound like he was a bit too inebriated after the poker match he lost to remember precisely what he did, however. It was only when he applied for a new passport that he realized the name had been accepted and was now legal (though he was welcome to change it).

“The name met the requirements of naming rules and the applicant paid the fee and completed the form correctly, he said. Mr Frostnova could change his name again any time by completing the form correctly and paying the $127 fee, Mr Mead said. The process takes around eight days.”

There was no reason for the government to try to stop him since the DIA says names are only rejected in cases where they might “cause offense to a reasonable person, are unreasonably long, or without adequate justification include or resemble an official title or rank.”

However, in 2008, a Family Court Judge named Rob Murfitt did take issue with the name of a child and “publicly criticized some parents’ choice of names after he ordered that a girl named Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii be taken into court custody so she could change her name.”

In New Zealand, names can not include numbers or symbols. Therefore, some “rejected names in recent years include Majesty, King, Knight, Princess, Justice, Anal, V8, 89, Mafia No Fear, Lucifer, full stop and *.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “Dunedin man’s 99-character name” — New Zealand Herald

WTF Fun Fact 12976 – Rubber Bands Last Longer When Refrigerated

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Rubber bands aren’t expensive, but they can be important to have around. And making sure you don’t use them recklessly could help keep rubber out of landfills. But did you know that there’s an easy way to prolong the life of your rubber bands? Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

Why do rubber bands last longer when refrigerated?

The rubber used to make rubber bands is unlike most other materials. In many cases, materials do better in warmer or room temperature environments places that don’t stress the bonds hold them together. But that’s not the case for rubber bands.

Cold temperatures make the polymers in the rubber more relaxed. This prevents them from degrading or forming the dry rot that causes them to break just when you need them most.

According to JFlex (cited below): “When a rubber band is stretched it causes its polymer chains to become very ordered and it expels thermal energy (heat), thus shortening its life. This is increased further when placed in higher temperature environments which increases the oxidisation rate. Also, the natural rubber that is used to make rubber bands crystallises over time, giving us what is commonly called ‘dry-rot’ – which is where the bands get dry, crumble and no longer have any elasticity.”

Be careful when removing rubber bands from the fridge

Now, if you do decide to refrigerate your rubber bands, make sure not to stretch them right away.

“When a rubber band is in its relaxed state it is very unordered, and will cool when going from a structured state to a relaxed state. So when a rubber band is put in the refrigerator it makes the polymers even more relaxed due to the way they behave in the cold.

Something to be careful of is immediately stretching the rubber band after being in the fridge, as this will cause it to weaken significantly because of the rapid change of temperature state.”

Who knew? —WTF fun facts

Source: “Why do rubber bands last longer when refrigerated?” — JFlex

WTF Fun Fact 12974 – The Sex Lives of Constipated Scorpions

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The Ig Nobel Prizes have been awarded to 10 unusual (or unusually unuseful) scientific research projects each year since 1991. While it’s all in good fun, we couldn’t help but do a double-take this year at one of the winners – a team that published a study on the sex lives of constipated scorpions.

Constipated scorpions have it rough

Solimary García-Hernández and Glauco Machado of the University of São Paulo in Brazil won the 2022 Ig Nobel in biology for trying to discern whether being constipated affects a scorpion’s sex life. (To be fair, we can’t help but think being constipated is kind of a bummer for any creature.)

According to an Associated Press story on the prizes, “Scorpions can detach a body part to escape a predator — a process called autotomy. But when they lose their tails, they also lose the last portion of the digestive tract, which leads to constipation — and, eventually, death, they wrote in the journal Integrated Zoology.”

“The long-term decrease in the locomotor performance of autotomized males may impair mate searching,” they wrote.

Ok, maybe constipated humans don’t have it so bad after all.

Why even study this?

So, this particular study came about in an interesting way. The paper’s lead author Solimary García-Hernández had long been studying the scorpion species Ananteris balzani.

This species has an interesting characteristic – they shed their tails to help them escape a predator.

According to Smithsonian Magazine (cited below): “It was a big surprise in 2015 when she, while working as part of a larger research team, found that Ananteris scorpions are capable of shedding their tails. “Autotomy”—the process of dropping a body part to escape a predator—was until then known to have evolved in only a handful of animal lineages like starfish, spiders and certain lizards.”

Ok, so we totally understand wanting to look more closely into that interesting fact, especially since it turns out that when lizards shed their tails, it can impact their ability to walk but doesn’t kill them. However, scorpions are different.

When Ananteris scorpions shed their tails, their digestive tract backs up with feces, and they get swollen and die within around 8 months.

That’s weird since animals don’t typically adapt in a way that’s fatal to them unless it somehow helps their species. In this case, the extra months likely give them more time to reproduce. And that’s where studying their sex lives comes in.

The sex lives of constipated scorpions

García-Hernández decided to monitor the post-tail life of these scorpions to see how tail loss impacted their ability to reproduce.

“The team then set up a series of matings between stump-tailed and intact scorpions. García-Hernández predicted that autotomized male scorpions would be less successful at mating than their fully endowed counterparts, since the tail plays an important role in their complicated mating ritual.”

Male scorpions use their tails both to show off to mates and during intercourse, so not having a tail should make mating difficult. However, it turns out they just used their stump and were just fine.

It was a different story for females, however.

According to Smithsonian, “when the team explored the reproductive costs paid by stump-tailed females, the story was different. They found that tailless females, while able to mate successfully, went on to have 20 percent fewer offspring than intact females.

The reason for this difference? The five-month scorpion pregnancy provides a lot of time for females to get more and more constipated, says García-Hernández. She hypothesizes that the buildup of feces caused by the loss of the anus is either toxic to the embryos or that the feces simply crowds out the developing scorplings. This latter hypothesis is supported by the fact that a severely constipated scorpion can weigh 30 percent more than it did before it lost its tail. By comparison, that’s equivalent to a 150 pound person gaining 45 pounds of poop weight.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “For Constipated Scorpions, Females Suffer Reproductively. Males, Not So Much.” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12960 – Knocker Uppers

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No one enjoys an alarm clock. But just imagine not having one and relying on someone to stop by your home and bang on your window or door to get you out of bed in the morning. That’s what happened in industrial England before alarm clocks were invented. The human alarm clocks were known as “knocker uppers” or simply “knockers.”

Who were the knockers?

According to Snopes (cited below): “Before the average industrial worker in England had access to alarm clocks, someone needed to wake them up. This fell to the ‘knocker-ups,’ or ‘knocker-uppers,”’or simply ‘knockers’ who would go around working-class neighborhoods around Britain with sticks, pea-shooters, poles or anything else that would help them knock on doors and windows to get people up.”

Try hitting the snooze on that!

According to the BBC, they “were common in mill towns in northern Britain, or in London where dockers had unusual hours, and even with brewery workers in less industrial towns in Dorset.”

How did the knocker uppers come about?

A 2020 article in the Journal of Victorian Culture, “Knocker Ups: A Social History of Waking Up in Victorian Britain’s Industrial Towns” explains:  

“In pre-industrial societies, people organized their activities around diurnal and seasonal rhythms. Historians have argued that in contrast, industrialized societies became preoccupied with time and watching the clock. Time became money. Beginning work at factories at a fixed hour in the day became crucial for both factories and workers. In particular, wages of industrial workers became bound by time – if they failed to report to their duties on time they were fined. Within this context, knocker ups emerged in British industrial society to perform the vital duty of waking up industrial workers. Consequently, they became an integral part of the service industry created to cater to working-class clients. By waking up industrial hands on time, knocker ups contributed to industrial productivity. Usually, knocker ups went around industrial towns waking up clients with their innovative tools. Some used sticks and canes while others shot peas through pipes. Either way, the knocker ups used their creative ways to let their clients know it was time for them to wake up.”

We just wonder how the neighbors felt on the days they got to sleep in! — WTF fun facts

Source: “Who Were the Knocker-Uppers?” — Snopes

WTF Fun Fact 12957 – The Man Who Couldn’t Stop Rhyming

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A recent publication reports that a neuroscientist who suffered a series of strokes and seizures couldn’t stop rhyming and rapping after his recovery.

The rhyming neuroscientist

Of course, the neuroscientist’s name has been withheld to preserve his privacy, but a Feb 2022 piece in the journal Neurocase titled “The neurologist who could not stop rhyming and rapping” (cited below) says he is 55 years old.

In the abstract, author Mario Mendez states that “His strokes included right posterior cerebellar and right thalamic infarctions, and his subsequent focal-onset seizures emanated from the left frontotemporal region.

The urge to rap

The abstract goes on to describe the aftermath of his strokes:

“On recovery, he described the emergence of an irresistible urge to rhyme, even in thought and daily speech. His pronounced focus on rhyming led him to actively participate in freestyle rap and improvisation. This patient’s rhyming and rapping may have been initially facilitated by epileptiform activation of word sound associations but perpetuated as compensation for impaired cerebellar effects on timed anticipation.”

We still don’t know the underlying mechanisms that cause a person’s brain to develop linguistic dysfunctions after an injury such as a stroke. Some strokes affect the ability to speak or understand language, while others cause brain injuries with more unique symptoms. The irrepressible urge to rhyme is certainly a unique one!

Other post-stroke rappers

In 2019, The Atlantic published a piece on a 50-something man who couldn’t stop rapping after a stroke – and it’s likely the same person.

Dr. Sherman Hershfield specialized in physical medicine and rehabilitation and was in excellent health before he was plagued by blackouts and then a grand mal seizure and series of strokes. Then: “His personality also seemed to change. He suddenly became obsessed with reading and writing poetry. Soon Hershfield’s friends noticed another unusual side effect: He couldn’t stop speaking in rhyme.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “The neurologist who could not stop rhyming and rapping” — Neurocase

WTF Fun Fact 12956 – Witzelsucht, a Joke Addiction

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Have you ever met anyone who couldn’t stop telling jokes, even if no one else found them funny? Maybe they had Witzelsucht.

What’s a joke addict?

In 2016, neuroscientists Elias Granadillo and Mario Mendez published a paper titled “Pathological Joking or Witzelsucht Revisited” in The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences that described two patients with damage to their brains suffering from joke addiction.

They explained that “impaired humor integration from right lateral frontal injury and disinhibition from orbitofrontal damage results in disinhibited humor.” Two men were used as an example.

Compulsive jokesters

According to Discover Magazine:

“Patient #1 was a 69-year-old right-handed man presented for a neuropsychiatric evaluation because of a 5-year history of compulsive joking… On interview, the patient reported feeling generally joyful, but his compulsive need to make jokes and create humor had become an issue of contention with his wife. He would  wake her up in the middle of the night bursting out in laughter, just to tell her about the jokes he had come up with. At the request of his wife, he started writing down these jokes as a way to avoid waking her. As a result, he brought to our office approximately 50 pages filled with his jokes.“

“Patient #2 was a 57-year old man, who had become “a jokester”, a transformation that had occurred gradually, over a three period. At the same time, the man became excessively forward and disinhibited, making inappropriate actions and remarks. He eventually lost his job after asking “Who the hell chose this God-awful place?” The patient constantly told jokes and couldn’t stop laughing at them. However, he did not seem to find other people’s jokes funny at all.”

Diagnosis: Witzelsucht

Apparently, both men displayed signs of something called Witzelsucht, “a German term literally meaning ‘joke addiction.'”

“Several cases have been reported in the neurological literature, often associated with damage to the right hemisphere of the brain. Witzelsucht should be distinguished from ‘pathological laughter‘, in which patients start laughing ‘out of the blue’ and the laughter is incongruent with their “mood and emotional experience.” In Witzelsucht, the laughter is genuine: patients really do find their own jokes funny, although they often fail to appreciate those of others.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “‘Joke Addiction’ As A Neurological Symptom” — Discover Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12954 – Is the Soul Weighing 21 Grams a Lie?

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There’s no reliable way to weigh the human “soul,” though one person has tried. Still, the myth that the soul weighs 21 grams and that scientists have confirmed it still persists. And that’s because of a movie.

The weight of the soul

“21 Grams” is a 2003 film starring Sean Penn in which he plays a mathematician who experiments to find the weight of the human soul. It’s based on a story about a scientist, to some small extent, but the movie is pure fiction.

The man who attempted to weigh the human soul was a physician named Duncan MacDougall from Dorchester, MA. He assumed that if humans had souls in their bodies, those souls must weigh something. Therefore, upon death, the soul leaves the body and a person’s corpse should therefore be lighter.

In 1907, he wrote about his effort: “Since … the substance considered in our hypothesis is linked organically with the body until death takes place, it appears to me more reasonable to think that it must be some form of gravitative matter, and therefore capable of being detected at death by weighing a human being in the act of death.”

A flawed experiment

According to LiveScience, “MacDougall teamed up with Dorchester’s Consumptives’ Home, a charitable hospital for late-stage tuberculosis, which at that time was incurable. MacDougall built a large scale, capable of holding a cot and a dying tuberculosis patient. Tuberculosis was a convenient disease for this experiment, MacDougall explained in his paper, because patients died in ‘great exhaustion’ and without any movement that would jiggle his scale.”

We’re already on shaky ground here, but it gets worse.

“MacDougall’s first patient, a man, died on April 10, 1901, with a sudden drop in the scale of 0.75 ounce (21.2 grams). And in that moment, the legend was born. It didn’t matter much that MacDougall’s next patient lost 0.5 ounce (14 grams) 15 minutes after he stopped breathing, or that his third case showed an inexplicable two-step loss of 0.5 ounce and then 1 ounce (28.3 g) a minute later. MacDougall threw out Case 4, a woman dying of diabetes, because the scale wasn’t well calibrated, in part due to a ‘good deal of interference by people opposed to our work,’ which raises a few questions that MacDougall did not seem eager to answer in his write-up. Case 5 lost 0.375 ounce (10.6 grams), but the scale malfunctioned afterward, raising questions about those numbers, too. Case 6 got thrown out because the patient died while MacDougall was still adjusting his scale. MacDougall then repeated the experiments on 15 dogs and found no loss of weight — indicating, to his mind, that all dogs definitely do not go to heaven.”

Despite being a poor experiment with few samples in which his own first result was undermined by everything that came after it, he sent in his write-up to the journals American Medicine and the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, and his results were also reported in the New York Times.

No one except a sheep rancher in Oregon has ever tried to replicate the experiment, for ethical reasons.

So science has neither determined the existence of a soul nor its weight. —WTF fun facts

Source: “How much does the soul weigh?” — LiveScience

WTF Fun Fact 12952 – Yeats and Crowley Fought Over Magic

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Aleister Crowley was an English magician. He founded a religion called Thelema and practiced what he called “Magick.” William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet who also dabbled in the occult. The two were bitter rivals – in fact, Yeats and Crowley fought over magic to the point of violence.

White magic vs black magic

In the late 19th/early 20th century, the British duo were equally interested in the mystical world, albeit from very different angles. According to Open Culture (cited below) Yeats “once passionately wrote that the study of magic was ‘the most important pursuit of my life….. The mystical life is the center of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.'” And while “Crowley would surely say the same, but his magic was of a much darker, more obsessive variety, and his success as a poet insignificant next to Yeats.”

The pair was at the center of the fight between practitioners of white and black magic.

Crowley vs Yeats

Yeats was also outside of the mainstream of occult studies and was dismissed from the Theosophical Society for his experiments. After that, he joined Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which later included writers like Bram Stoker. But Crowley was also part of the Order and the two butted heads because Yeats felt Crowley used his magic for evil.

As a result, Yeats made sure Crowley was never initiated into the Order’s inner circle. He later ensured Crowley was expelled altogether.

This happened in 1900 and Crowley reduced to accept the decision. According to Yeats biographer Richard Ellmann, Crowley launched “astral attacks” on Yeats and things finally deteriorated into physical violence:

.… in Highlander’s tartan, with a black Crusader’s cross on his breast… Crowley arrived at the Golden Dawn temple in London. Making the sign of the pentacle inverted and shouting menaces at the adepts, Crowley climbed the stairs. But Yeats and two other white magicians came resolutely forward to meet him, ready to protect the holy place at any cost. When Crowley came within range the forces of good struck out with their feet and kicked him downstairs.“

The Battle of Blythe Road

This moment became known as “the Battle of Blythe Road.”

Open Culture reports that after his ouster, “Crowley went looking for converts—or victims—in London, while Yeats attempted to stop him with ‘the requisite spells and exorcisms.’ One such spell supposedly sent a vampire that ‘bit and tore at his flesh’ as it lay beside Crowley all night.”

That’s certainly one way to deal with your enemies! — WTF fun facts

Source: “Aleister Crowley & William Butler Yeats Get into an Occult Battle, Pitting White Magic Against Black Magic (1900)” — Open Culture

WTF Fun Fact 12950 – Anatidaephobia

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Anatidaephobia is the fear of being watched by ducks. And despite this existing as a fun fact for decades, it may not actually be a real thing. If it is, it originated in an awfully strange place for a real phobia.

Who’s afraid of a duck?

Ducks are probably only watching you if you get too close to them or their nests. But we don’t want to downplay phobias, because they’re very real and produce real physical symptoms. So, could someone fear that a duck is watching them? Sure.

The question is whether this fear rises to the level of anatidaephobia. That’s less likely since the word was coined by Gary Larson in his comic The Far Side. The idea of this particular phobia is a hoax.

Phobias and anatidaephobia

Phobias spawn feelings of intense fear and worry about object or situations. While there’s no formal duck phobia, the idea of anatidaephobia comes from the Greek word “anatidae,” meaning “swan, ducks, or geese,” and “phobos,” meaning “fear.”

According to PsychCentral (cited below, and which does eventually get around to the point of mentioning it’s a hoax): “People who experience this phobia may not necessarily be worried that a duck might attack them. Instead, their fear centers around the idea that somewhere, a duck could be watching them — constantly.”

However, while “Anatidaephobia may seem like it could be a credible phobia, the fear of being constantly watched by a duck is actually a fictional phobia created for entertainment.”

In other words, you won’t find a fear of ducks in the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5), though you will find diagnostic criteria for “Specific Phobia: Animal type.”

That doesn’t mean a fear of birds, in general, is fake though. “Ornithophobia, or the fear of birds, is an animal type of specific phobia. Some people with this type of phobia may fear all birds or just a specific type of bird, such as a duck. Although anatidaephobia may not be real, the fear of ducks is a very real phobia.”

In the end, PsychCentral explains that: “Anatidaephobia can be traced back to Gary Larson, creator of the ‘The Far Side’ comic. Larson’s cartoon comic depicted a paranoid office worker with the caption, ‘Anatidaephobia: The fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you.’ The comic showed a duck looking out a window from another building behind the office. The point of Larson’s cartoon was to illustrate that any object can be a source of fear. Since the fictional phobia debuted in 1988, anatidaephobia has gained popularity. This has led to the internet questioning the phobia’s veracity. While anatidaephobia is indeed a hoax and not a real phobia, fears and phobias are no laughing matter. Phobias can have serious affects on a person’s daily life.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “Fear of Ducks Watching You: Is Anatidaephobia a Real Condition?” — PsychCentral

WTF Fun Fact 12948 – Pumpkin Boat World Record

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Have you ever looked at a giant pumpkin and thought to yourself, “that looks seaworthy”? Well, plenty of folks do, which is where there’s a Guinness World Record for the longest journey in a pumpkin boat.

A 12-hour tour – in a pumpkin boat

On August 27, 2022, a Nebraska man named Duane Hansen took for the river in an 846-pound pumpkin and rode it 38 miles down the Missouri River. The S.S. Berta turned out to be seaworthy for the 12-hour tour from Bellevue Marina to Nebraska City’s Riverview Marina.

Hansen’s goal was to beat the previous Guinness World record for a journey by gourd set in 2016 by Rick Swenson. He sailed on the Red River between Minnesota and North Dakota.

Taking a risk

According to Smithsonian Magazine (cited below): “Hansen spent years on the project, eventually naming his prize pumpkin Berta, he told News Channel Nebraska’s Dan Swanson. He was inspired to break the record after attending a three-day pumpkin growing seminar in Portland, Oregon, five years ago, when he met a woman who at the time held the record he sought.”

Apparently, you can get some really unique ideas at pumpkin-growing seminars!

His water-worthy pumpkin was named the SS Berta and had a circumference of around 146 inches. And the trip was not without its challenges.

“Hansen hopped inside and took off for the day-long journey, with family members and friends cheering him on from along the banks. Throughout the next 12 hours, he fought to stay afloat as an array of obstacles—including rocks, sand bars and waves—threatened to tip him over.”

Of course, someone relatively objective had to witness the event, so Hansen brought along a larger entourage to witness the send-off and arrival.

Smithsonian Magazine notes that “To comply with the Guinness World Records’ rules, Hansen had asked non-family members to witness the event. Attendees included Bellevue City officials, who took photos and videos along the way to provide evidence.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “Nebraska Man Makes World’s Longest Journey by Pumpkin Boat” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12947 – Only Humans Have Chins

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We found this hard to believe at first, but it’s the little details that matter when it comes to anatomy. As an anatomical feature, only humans have chins.

That seems surprising if you’ve ever rubbed your pet under their little “chin.”

What’s a chin?

While we basically all call the bottom of the face a “chin,” a chin is technically a bone formed at the apex of the lower jaw. And a chin is a bony protrusion that juts out in a way that is only seen in human skulls.

According to Smithsonian Magazine (cited below): “Even chimpanzees and gorillas, our closest genetic cousins, lack chins. Instead of poking forward, their lower jaws slope down and back from their front teeth. Even other ancient hominids, like the Neanderthals, didn’t have chins…”

Ok, so maybe anatomical technicalities aren’t really that amazing, but what is interesting is that the chin protrusion doesn’t really serve a purpose. No one knows why humans even have chins.

Why do chins exist in humans?

Of course, once anthropologists and evolutionary biologists realized this bit of human uniqueness, they set about trying to explain why we evolved chins. Maybe it’s to help us chew food? Maybe it helps us speak?

Nope. Those ideas have all been largely debunked. The chin is in the wrong place to help reinforce the jaw for chewing. Our tongues don’t seem to generate enough force to require a chin to help us speak. If the chin developed to help us find mates, then it would only appear in one gender.

The list of reasons the chin doesn’t need to exist goes on and on.

According to Duke University’s James Pampush, the chin may not actually serve a purpose at all. This would make it a “spandrel” – “an evolutionary byproduct left from another feature changing.”

“In the chin’s case, it could be the result of the human face shrinking over time as our posture changed and our faces shortened, or a remnant from a period of longer jaws.”

Of course, there’s really no way to prove the chin serves no function since you’d have to reject every possible hypothesis first.

It looks like we may just have to live with the mystery. — WTF fun facts

Source: “A Chin-Stroking Mystery: Why Are Humans the Only Animals With Chins?” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12946 – The Stone of Destiny

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Even if you’re a “royal watcher” and love the idea of real-life kings, queens, and princesses, you can still feel a little “icky” about the idea that royals often feel like they were chosen by the universe in some way to wield power and influence over others. Perhaps that’s why the so-called “Stone of Destiny” is making headlines before the coronation of King Charles III.

What is the Stone of Destiny?

Also called the Stone of Scone, this slab of red sandstone has been used in the UK since the 9th century when it was used to coronate Scottish kings. King Edward I stole it in 1296 after invading Scotland, and it was built into a throne in Westminster.

The Stony of Destiny long sat at Westminster Abbey and is still today what kings and queens of England sit upon during their coronations (with a cushion, of course, because royalty doesn’t want to be uncomfortable).

Stealing the stone

The stone was briefly stolen on Christmas Day in 1950 by students and a teacher making a statement about Scotland’s independence, but (while it was broken in the process) it was returned 4 weeks later. And the people who stole it were not charged – instead, a movie was made about the effort, aptly titled Stone of Destiny.

Soon, it will play a role in King Charles III’s rapidly-approaching coronation.

In 1996, the stone was returned to Scotland, but it will make the journey to England for the King’s coronation.

What’s so special about the stone?

The stone has some conflicting stories associated with it. The most common legend is that it was used by Jacob as a pillow in the Book of Genesis. It’s the pillow he laid his head upon when he had the dream of Jacob’s ladder.

That means it would have been mined in Palestine and the story goes that it made its way through Egypt, Spain, and to Ireland, courtesy of the prophet Jeremiah before the next part of the legend begins.

Later, the stone was brought from Ireland to Argyll, Scotland by Fergus the Great, the legendary first king of Scotland. (More accurately, he was the King of Dál Riada, a territory that spanned modern-day Scotland and Ireland.)

During the Viking raids on Scotland in the 9th century, the stone was moved to the Abbey at Scone (which is why it’s often called the Stone of Scone). It was moved there by Kenneth MacAlpin, which sounds like a modern name but is actually the name of a 9th-century king who began to consolidate the lands (and peoples, such as the Picts) into a separate country called Scotland.

Its biblical origins are unlikely, however, since geologists have proven that it’s “lower Old Red Sandstone” from a quarry very close to Scone. However, some insist the real Stone of Destiny still resides in Scotland because what was stolen by King Edward I and then repatriated had always been a replica of the original. — WTF fun facts

Source: “The “Stone Of Destiny” Is Returning To Westminster For The Coronation Of King Charles” — IFL Science

WTF Fun Fact 12944 – The Hallucinogenic Effects of Nutmeg

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When fall and winter come around each year, many of us are reminded of happy times by the smell of nutmeg (and the baked goods that act as a nutmeg vehicle). Well, it turns out we should all stick to the loaves of bread and cakes and stay away from nutmeg on its own. We weren’t aware until now of the hallucinogenic effects of nutmeg.

Don’t let your kids do nutmeg.

Nutmeg gets you high?

We all know the old saying by Galen that anything consumed in enough quantity is poisonous. But for nutmeg, that quantity is two tablespoons.

Of course, nutmeg toxicity probably isn’t going to get you if you eat a whole loaf of pumpkin bread or a whole pie (the stomach ache will be enough punishment). If that were true, we’d hear a lot more about it. But also, two teaspoons is over twice as much as anyone puts in a recipe (1/4 to 1/2 TEAspoon is usually the limit).

Sit down and eat two tablespoons of the stuff in one sitting and you’re in for a baaaad time thanks to a toxic compound called myristicin. Sure, it will give you hallucinations, but it will also make you yearn for better times as you lay on the bathroom floor and spend the rest of the day vomiting.

In other words, don’t try this at home. The risk far outweighs any interesting side effects.

Nutmeg has hallucinogenic effects if consumed in a high enough quantity. But toxicity begins at just two teaspoons (which you’d have to eat in one sitting). The compound myristicin is responsible for the effect, which can also lead to nausea and vomiting.

The hallucinogenic effects of nutmeg are not like visions of sugarplums

Let’s put it this way – if there were any sort of traditional high you could get from something as common as nutmeg, we’d be seeing a lot of bad TikToks of ill-conceived “nutmeg challenges.”

According to Healthline (cited below – and fact-checked by experts), the toxic compound in nutmeg can be found elsewhere. “Myristicin is a compound found naturally in the essential oils of certain plants, such as parsley, dill, and nutmeg,” but it’s found in the highest concentration in nutmeg.

The myristicin in nutmeg acts a bit like the compound in peyote (called mescaline) in that it acts on the central nervous system (CNS) and enhances the neurotransmitter called norepinephrine. But unlike peyote, there are no special nutmeg rituals…for a reason. That’s because myristicin also affects the sympathetic nervous system and that’s a system you really don’t want to mess with since overstimulation produces anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, jitteriness, poor digestion, and even high blood pressure.

That’s not a fun time. And in that sense, it’s not at all going to be like a peyote trip. Besides, stimulating the CNS can also cause nausea, dizziness, and other side effects.

In other words, you’re just poisoning yourself if you try to take nutmeg to get “high.”

The history of nutmeg intoxication

There aren’t many studies on this phenomenon (thankfully, not many people have been misguided enough to do this to themselves). But some people didn’t know any better – like a woman who put FAR too much nutmeg in a milkshake and experienced “nausea, dizziness, heart palpitations, and dry mouth, among other symptoms. Although she didn’t report any hallucinations, she did mention feeling as if she was in a trance-like state,” according to Healthline.

More recently, a 37-year-old woman did try two tablespoons of nutmeg – she missed out on any hallucinations or trance-like states and just felt “dizziness, confusion, grogginess, and an extremely dry mouth” for about 10 hours. Not a great way to spend a day, if you ask us.

A 10-year review of cases from the Illinois Poison Center “revealed over 30 documented cases of nutmeg poisoning,” “both intentional and unintentional exposures, as well as drug interactions leading to toxicity.” 50% of those cases were from people trying to get high from nutmeg, mostly kids under 13. They experienced hallucinations, drowsiness, dizziness, dry mouth, confusion, and – in two cases – seizures. Oh, and then there was some respiratory, cardiovascular, and gastric distress.

If nutmeg seems like an easy way to get high, you might also want to know it can potentially cause organ failure, in some cases, and it can kill you when combined with other drugs.

Mind-bogglingly, some people have tried to smoke or inject nutmeg to get high. But “Like any other drugs, the dangers of nutmeg overdose can occur no matter the method of delivery.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “Can You Get High on Nutmeg? Why This Isn’t a Good Idea” — Healthline

WTF Fun Fact 12942 – You Can Hear Rhubarb Growing

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When we plant something, it feels like it takes forever to start growing. But that’s not the case with rhubarb. Once this vegetable gets going, it can develop so fast you can hear rhubarb growing.

How to hear rhubarb growing

According to Atlas Obscura (cited below), this is mostly the case with forced rhubarb – the kind you give a little extra effort to in order to get it to develop faster.

“Forced rhubarb, which is made to mature in near total darkness, grows at such an alarming rate—as much as an inch a day—that it actually makes squeaks, creaks, and pops as it gets bigger. It makes for sweeter rhubarb, growers say, and sick beats.”

Of course, if you’re forcing rhubarb to grow in a facility, it can be hard to hear over the sound of any machines you have running to keep the conditions ideal.

Rhubarb’s unique growing characteristics

Atlas Obscura states that “The method of growing forced rhubarb dates back to the early 1800s, and continues in much the same way today. Farmers let the rhubarb grow out in the open for two years, as the roots collect and store calories. Then the plants are transplanted to lightless growing sheds around November, where they continue to grow—warm, but out of season and in the dark. The rhubarb grows without photosynthesis, which normally makes the plant tough and fibrous…The process also results in deep, red stalks, without the normal green shading.”

The loudest noise you’ll hear is the forced rhubarb bursting out of its bud with a pop. Then, it makes a fainter noise as the stalks rub up against each other and squeak. That’s because forced rhubarb isn’t planted far apart.

There aren’t many forced rhubarb growers anymore, though you can still find some in Michigan and Washington state if you want to hear a vegetable grow. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Listen to the Sick Beats of Rhubarb Growing in the Dark” — Atlas Obscura