Things I Learned in 2022

Welcome to “Things I Learned in 2022”! In this post, I’ll be sharing a list of things that stood out to me as I read and listened to various sources throughout the year. These are things that I found noteworthy and thought-provoking, and I’ve included sources for each item as well as summaries of the linked articles or topics for those who are interested in more than just the headline. If you happen to notice any errors, you can reach me on Mastodon at @Secundus@home.social. Without further ado, let’s dive into the list of 95 things I learned in 2022!

1. Mammals can breathe through their anus 💨🐀🐷🍩.

   A new study found that mammals like rodents and pigs can use their intestines for respiration. The researchers demonstrated that the delivery of oxygen gas or oxygenated liquid through the rectum provided vital rescue to two mammalian models of respiratory failure.

2. The first cheese eaten by humans might have been discovered in killed animals like young deer that had partially fermented milk in their intestines 🧀🦌🤢.

3. China is planning over 150 new nuclear reactors in the next 15 years – more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35 years 🇨🇳🏭☢️.

   This undertaking could cost $440 billion. China is expected to surpass the US as the largest nuclear power generator by the middle of this decade.

4. Los Angeles has a massive oil industry inside its city 🏙️🛢️.

   In the city of Los Angeles, thousands of oil wells are hidden between cafés and bookstore-cafés producing petroleum. For most of the city’s history, the oil industry was visible. However, as public sentiment turned against the oil rigs, petroleum companies built oil derricks that looked like synagogues or other innocuous buildings. While this solution worked for a while, the people of LA eventually grew tired of their city’s industrial look, so they started to cover up the oil rigs.

5. Himalayan giant bees form a superorganism by buzzing in sync. They do this to defend themselves from enemies such as hornets 🐝💤.

   The bees synchronize the movements of their abdomen, which is used as a form of defense against predators. While Hornets cannot defeat these bees by themselves, they can still cause significant damage by attacking individual bees.

6. This probably isn’t news to anyone, but mining bitcoin uses a staggering amount of energy ⚡.

   At an estimated energy consumption of 204 TWh/year, Bitcoin’s carbon footprint in mid-2022 was between the electricity consumption of South Africa (210 TWh/year, 60 million people) and Thailand (185 TWh/year, 69 million people). At the same time, a single Bitcoin transaction has a carbon footprint equivalent to 918,135 VISA transactions or 69,043 hours of watching YouTube. The electrical energy used for a single Bitcoin transaction is equivalent to the power consumption of an average US household over 25.46 days.

7. The viral cause of influenza (and the Spanish Flu) was discovered just 90 years ago 😷🦠.

   In 1933, a team of researchers identified a virus as the primary cause of influenza. This discovery resulted from a sustained campaign of funding and research that began in 1918 when the influenza pandemic challenged the belief that bacteria caused influenza. The researchers used ferrets in their experiments. Their success in developing a vaccine for ferrets in 1926 and modifying it for dogs in 1927 legitimized the National Institute of Medical Research’s approach to virus diseases.

8. There are new records for the longest distance lightning and the longest duration lightning. The record now is a distance of 768 ± 8 km (477.2 ± 5 miles) and a duration of 17.102 ± 0.002 seconds ⚡🌩️🌎.

   The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has recognized two new world records for megaflashes of lightning in North and South America. The records were established using the latest satellite technology. The record for the longest single flash covered a horizontal distance of 768 km (477.2 miles) across the southern United States on 29 April 2020, while the record for the greatest duration for a single lightning flash was 17.102 seconds from a flash that developed continuously over Uruguay and northern Argentina on 18 June 2020. Both records occurred in hotspots for Mesoscale Convective System thunderstorms, where extraordinary megaflashes can occur.

9. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is marvelous. And this explainer really goes into the details of the inner workings of it (for example, why are four satellites required even though three should be enough to determine the position on a sphere) 🛰️

   GPS works by using a network of satellites orbiting the Earth that transmit signals down to the surface. Receivers then use the time delay between transmission and reception to calculate the distance to the satellite. By measuring the distance to at least four satellites, the location can be determined using trilateration. But this summary doesn’t do Bartosz Ciechanowski’s piece justice – you really should give it a read (and all his other posts too)!

10. The US owns and stores 1.4 billion pounds (640 million kg) of cheese 🇺🇸🧀.

    The cheese is stored hundreds of feet below ground in converted limestone mines in Missouri, referred to as “cheese caves.” This excess of cheese began in the 1970s when the government provided over 2 billion dollars to the dairy industry to increase production and lower the 30% inflation on dairy products. However, this led to overproduction and the government purchasing excess cheese to keep prices low. By 2019, dairy consumption was less than half it was thirty years ago.

11. Measles Infection can cause the immune system to be “reset” – prior immunities must be almost entirely re-learned 🦠.

    Measles causes “immune amnesia,” a phenomenon where the immune system forgets all the pathogens it has encountered before the measles infection. This means that the body has to start again to learn what is good and bad. The phenomenon is thought to have been with us for millennia but was only discovered in 2012. It is unknown how long immune amnesia lasts, and some studies suggest it could be driving other epidemics.

12. The Word broadcasting comes from the scattering of seeds (wheat) across the field 🌾🌱🧑‍🌾.

    In this video, the author describes how to grow wheat and turn it into bread. He talks about the history of wheat cultivation, the problems with the green revolution, and how Norman Borlaug helped solve those problems.

13. The mirrors (by Zeiss) that ASML will use for its wide aperture EUV lithography process must have a maximum of 1 pm aberrations at a diameter of 1 m – this equals aberrations the size of a human hair relative to the size of the Earth 🪞🦱🌍.

    ASML is developing the next generation of its extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, which will be faster and more precise than the current generation. The biggest challenge for EUV is throughput or the number of wafers a single machine can produce.

14. TSMCs requirements for cleanliness in their EUV lithography are insane 🤯.

    TSMC’s Giga-Fabs are complex, expensive chip manufacturing facilities that give them a competitive advantage over other companies. They offer a service that allows multiple customers to share the cost of putting new chips on a single wafer, helping smaller companies stay competitive. TSMC has also improved in cycle times, making them a leader in the foundry business. Clean rooms are one of the main drivers of fab expense. In the early phase of EUV production TSMC required less than one particle over 52 nm wide (the size of a small virus) each week.

15. Transient Luminous Events are amazing ⛈️.

    Red sprites are large-scale electrical discharges that occur high in the atmosphere during clear weather conditions. They are related to blue jets and blue starters, which are also atmospheric discharges. A new discovery has shown that ghost-like emissions can be produced by excited oxygen molecules in red sprites and blue jets, similar to green sprites.

16. Almonds and peaches are so genetically similar they can fertilize each other and produce viable hybrids 🌰🍑. Researchers at the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics have sequenced the genome of the almond tree and compared it to the genome of the peach tree. They found almond and peach trees had a common ancestor ~6 million years ago.

17. The Soyuz rockets are to this day lighted using basically giant wooden matchsticks 🚀🧨.

18. The Vulcan salute (🖖 – “live long and prosper”) is at least 2,600 years old.

    If a Cohanim (Jewish priest) gives you a blessing, he holds his hands like this. And the young Leonard Nimoy saw this as a child and was later inspired by it and popularized it in the 1960s in the television series Star Trek.

19. The original manuscripts of Caesar’s “Commentari de Bello Gallico” are long gone. The oldest surviving book-length manuscripts are almost always later than the sixth century CE 🏛️.

    The majority of our ancient texts are no older than the tenth century. Scroll-based books were delicate and cumbersome. When bound books became available, people stopped preserving scrolls. They discarded them once they had been copied into the more convenient and durable bound format.

20. Saturn’s rings form a disc wider than Jupiter while on average being only 10 meters thick 🪐.

    Saturn’s rings are made up of small, icy particles that range in size from dust grains to boulders. They are thought to be composed primarily of water ice, with small amounts of other materials such as silicates and organics. They are believed to have formed from a shattered moon or comet that got too close to Saturn and was torn apart by its gravity. The particles in the rings then began to orbit Saturn, forming the current ring system. It is unclear exactly how old the rings are or how they will evolve over time.

21. Lead concentration in ice cores reveals the rise and fall of Greek and Roman empires 🏛️🏺🧊.

22. Philips manufactures unique, energy-efficient Dubai lamps with long lifespans available nowhere else 🇦🇪💡.

    The Dubai lamps are only widely available in Dubai and are expensive to manufacture. They use flip-chip style LEDs and have a long lifespan, lasting 50,000 hours without needing to be replaced. They are also energy efficient, using less than $5 of power over four and a half years.

23. The largest bee in the world was believed to be extinct until it was rediscovered in 2019 🐝.

    Wallace’s giant bee, the largest bee in the world, was rediscovered by a team of researchers in the Indonesian islands of North Maluku. The bee had not been seen alive since 1981 and was found in a termite nest. It was named after Alfred Russel Wallace, a contemporary of Charles Darwin who studied it in the 1800s. The bee was also known as the “Hitler bee” due to a rare beetle with a similar name being popular with Nazi collectors. The rediscovery of the bee gained worldwide media attention, and Indonesian officials pledged to conduct a thorough survey of the species. However, the bee’s existence also attracted attention from the illegal animal trade, with a specimen sold on eBay for thousands of dollars.

24. Nuclear Power is not as bad as many belief 🏭🔌.

    For example, one coal plant puts over 100 times more radiation into the air than a nuclear plant. Additionally, coal plant pollution (ash) put into the air by the US alone amounts to 130,000,000,000 kg annually, while all of the nuclear waste ever produced in total amasses to about 450,000,000 kg.

25. 25% of the world’s sheep population are fat-tailed sheep, storing body fat in their bum– they’re bad for wool but are adorable to look at 🐑🐫.

    Camels have humps to store fat as an energy source, but they also have them to prevent overheating. Fat-tailed sheep, a type of domesticated sheep found in hot climates, also store their fat away from the core of their body to prevent overheating. These sheep comprise 25% of the world’s sheep population. They are found in northern Africa, the Middle East, India, Bangladesh, Western China, Somalia, and Central Asia. Many breeds of fat-tailed sheep have hair instead of wool due to their evolution in hot climates.

26. Apple earns more from gaming than Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Activision combined 🍎🎮.

    It is estimated that the App Store generated $15.9 billion in revenue in a year, with 69% of that revenue coming from gaming ($10.97 billion).

27. Distant galaxies appear larger in the sky than closer galaxies of the same size due to cosmic expansion 🌌✨.

    In general relativity, it is observed that distant galaxies appear larger in the sky than closer galaxies of the same size. This is because light from distant galaxies is from a time when the universe was much smaller, so the galaxies were much closer and covered more of the sky.

28. This phenomenon is called Angular Diameter Turnaround and it is mindblowing 🗜️🤯.

    It is useful for astronomers because it allows them to observe details in distant galaxies that would otherwise be too small to see. However, the sky is not full of distant objects because of the faintness and stretching of light from distant objects, the limited number of galaxies beyond a certain point, and the cosmic microwave background.

29. Bacteria can be classified by their shape 🦠🔬.

    Common types are coccus (Greek for grain) or bacillus (Greek for rod). Strepto means chain so streptococcus is a chain of coccus forms.

30. Botox is by far the most poisonous and the most expensive substance ☠️💸.

    The bacteria producing Botulinum toxin (Botox) is called Clostridium botulinum. Botox is the most poisonous substance known. 70 ng (1.5e-10 lb) can kill you. Furthermore, it is also the most expensive substance at ~ $100 trillion per kg ($45 trillion per lb).

31. Steve Jobs dunked an iPod in an aquarium to show that it could be made smaller 🪸.

32. Flour was spelled flower until ca. 1830 🧑‍🍳.

    The spelling of the word “flour” was once “flower,” and it referred to the finest portion of ground grain, similar to the French term “fleur de farine.” This word is a doublet of “flower,” partially replacing the native word “meal.”

33. There are more species of the Turbellaria flatworms alone (approx. 4,500) than there are of all mammals combined 🪱🐘.

    Turbellaria is a type of flatworm that is not a parasite. They are found in water or moist environments and are usually predators. They reproduce sexually and are hermaphrodites.

34. Half of the world’s aspartame production is by the same company that „invented“ MSG 🍬🧂.

    Aspartame is a synthetic sweetener. When consumed, it is quickly broken down in the gut into three chemicals: phenylalanine, aspartic acid, and methanol. Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid found in most protein-containing foods. At the same time, aspartic acid is a non-essential amino acid also found in protein-containing foods and produced naturally by the body. Methanol is a type of alcohol found in small amounts in various foods and produced naturally by the body. The FDA has extensively studied aspartame and determined it safe for consumption.

35. The Origins of the Marathon: How a Field of Wild Fennel Gave Its Name to a Legendary Race 🏃‍♂️🥇.

    The Greek word for fennel is “marathon,” which refers to a field covered in wild fennel. It was also used to name the village and the battle that took place there, approximately 42 km from Athens. The legendary messenger Pheidippides ran from the battlefield to Athens to announce the victory of the Athenians over the Persians in 490 BCE. It is said that he ran the entire distance without stopping and collapsed upon delivering the news.

36. Fennel seeds are actually the whole fruit, not just the seed 🌱.

    The anise flavor of licorice and absinthe is caused by estragole, an isomer of anethole. Estragole is also a secondary flavor in basil and tarragon, but it is suspected to be a carcinogen.

37. Mosses are mostly independent for their reproduction – their sperm swims to other mosses 💦.

38. There actually is some science to wine tasting 🍷🧑‍🔬.

    • Anthocyanin is the pigment that turns wine red. It fades or turns brown over time ➝ Younger wines tend to be more intensely red
    • The amount of anthocyanin depends on the climate
      • Warm climates typically have more pigment and are more opaque
      • Cold climates tend to be more translucent
    • Marangoni effect or Tears of wine
      • The more individual droplets, the higher the alcohol content
      • The slower the droplets move, the higher the sugar content
      • Explanation: Alcohol has lower surface tension and higher volatility than water. The water/alcohol solution rises up the surface of the glass, lowering the surface energy of the glass. Alcohol evaporates from the film, leaving the liquid with a higher surface tension (more water, less alcohol). This region with a lower concentration of alcohol (greater surface tension) pulls on the surrounding fluid more strongly than the regions with a higher alcohol concentration (lower in the glass). The result is the liquid is pulled up until its own weight exceeds the force of the effect.

39. The main chemical compound responsible for the fragrance of rain is the bicyclic alcohol Geosmin 🌧️👃.

    • Geosmin is a metabolite of bacteria
    • Humans are very sensitive to geosmin
      • 20 times stronger than Limonene (the big aromatic compound in citrus)
      • 50 times stronger than vanillin
    • There are two ways to smell things
      • Orthonasal olfaction (normal smelling) ➝ People really like geosmin this way
      • Retronasal olfaction (through the back, for example, when we are chewing our food) ➝ People really don’t like geosmin this way
        • Some fish taste muddy because of this
        • Beetroot tastes muddy / like dirt because of this

40. Napoleon’s decree requiring disclosure of secret recipes for internally used products led to the emergence of the original Cologne 🧴.

    Initially, “aqua mirabilis” was marketed not as a perfume but as an internally used medicinal product. In 1810, however, Napoleon Bonaparte issued a decree requiring the disclosure of all secret recipes for internally used products. To avoid this, the Cologne was marketed as an “externally applicable agent,” thus making it the first fragrance water as we know it today.

41. Around 50% of your bodies Nitrogen atoms are from the Harber-Bosch method 🧪👩‍🔬.

42. The laser for ASML’s EUV lithographers (which is manufactured by Trumpf) has over 450,000 parts and weighs over 10 tonnes ⚙️🏋️.

43. According to Intel, four flights with a Boeing 747 cargo plane are necessary to deliver a single EUV system 🛫🛬🛫🛬.

44. Peppercorns are actually not corn or seeds but a whole fruit 🌶️.

    In English, “corn” was used to refer to any seed. However, in recent decades it has almost exclusively been used to refer to corn or maize (also known as Indian corn). Peppercorns, on the other hand, are dried fruits. Black peppercorns are picked before they are fully ripe and then briefly boiled, giving them their brown color when dried. While red peppercorns are picked ripe.

45. Wikipedia has a List of non-water floods with examples such as the “London Beer Flood,” the “Great Molasses Flood” of Boston, or the 2017th “Pepsi fruit juice flood” 🍹.

    Non-water floods typically occur when liquids are released from storage facilities or when toxic waste is released from industrial retaining reservoirs. These types of incidents can be catastrophic, especially if they occur in cities. For example, the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 in Boston, US, was caused by the failure of a molasses tank and resulted in 21 deaths. Industrial retaining reservoirs that fail can flood large areas and cause physical and environmental damage. The Ajka alumina plant failure in Hungary in 2010 and the Kingston Fossil Plant spill in Tennessee, US, in 2008 are examples of this. The cleanup from the Kingston Fossil Plant spill took several years and resulted in the deaths of at least 40 workers.

46. 1875th Dublin whiskey fire killed 13 people – all of them were attributed to alcohol poisoning from drinking the undiluted whiskey 🥃🔥💀.

    The Dublin whiskey fire occurred on 18 June 1875. It lasted one night and caused $6.44 million worth of damage in whiskey alone (adjusted for inflation). The fire started in a bonded storehouse where over 1 million liters of whiskey were stored. The fire caused a river of whiskey to flow through the streets. Many people drank from it, leading to 24 hospitalizations and 13 deaths due to alcohol poisoning.

47. Anise, carrot, celery, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, parsley, and parsnip all belong to the same genetic family. The scientific name is Apiaceae, and with more than 3,800 species, it is the 16th-largest family of flowering plants 🥕.

    Apiaceae, also known as the celery, carrot, or parsley family, is a large family of flowering plants with over 3,800 species. The family is known for its aromatic plants and includes many economically important species. Some members of the family are toxic, including poison hemlock, water hemlock, and giant hogweed.

48. Dictyostelium discoideum, also known as Dictys, are a type of slime mold (which are actually not molds (molds are fungi) but are protists), and they are fucking amazing 🍄🤯.

    Just watch the second half of the video, starting at the 10:33 minute mark.

49. There are two main types of precipitation: frontal and convective. Frontal rain, which accounts for about 40% of all rain, is relatively predictable. In contrast, convective rain, which makes up most of the precipitation, is more difficult to predict 🌧️🌦️.

50. The oldest manuscript of Beowulf we know of was written by two people 🐺✍️🧑‍🏫🧑‍🎓.

    The only surviving manuscript of the story known as “Beowulf” was written by two scribes, one of whom used an older font style and made corrections to the other’s work. We don’t know the names or much else about these scribes.

51. Much of the music in older Japanese video games has been inspired by Japanese jazz fusion, such as the band Casiopea – Give it a listen, it really has those Mario-vibes 🎶🎷🍄🕺🏼.

    Casiopea is a Japanese jazz fusion band that has been active for over 40 years and is known for its high-energy performances and catchy melodies. The band was formed in 1977 and succeeded in Japan in the 1980s with its synthesized instrumental music.

52. GPS doesn’t work when the device is moving faster than 1,000 knots (1,900 km/h; 1,200 mph) or at an altitude higher than 18,000 m (59,000 ft) – These CoCom Limits were intended to prevent the use in intercontinental ballistic missiles 🛰️🚀.

53. You’re technically hotter than the Sun: The Sun’s core produces 60 mW of thermal energy (for a volume of 1 cup). That’s about the same as a lizard and substantially less than a human (350 mW) ♨️🌞🤸

    The larger an object is, the more heat it needs to produce to radiate the same heat per unit of surface area. Even the core of the Sun, where nuclear fusion occurs, would be relatively cool if it were isolated due to its low heat production per unit of volume. In fact, a cup of material from the solar core produces about the same amount of thermal energy as a human or lizard. In contrast, a person’s body produces more heat per volume than the Sun.

54. The first modern Britons had “dark to black” skin 🧔🏾🧒🏽.

    DNA analysis of Britain’s oldest complete skeleton, Cheddar Man, shows that the first modern Britons lived around 10,000 years ago and had dark to black skin and blue eyes. Cheddar Man’s ancestors probably came from the Middle East. They migrated to Europe before crossing the ancient land bridge called Doggerland to reach Britain. The findings indicate that skin color was not always a proxy for the geographic origin and challenge the idea that Britishness is linked to whiteness.

55. Higher salt intake, in the long term, leads to lower thirst, more hunger, and higher blood pressure 🧂🩸.

56. ¼ of all people are super-tasters ½ are normal tasters and ¼ are non-tasters – super-tasters usually prefer more salt 👅🧂.

57. 75% of animals in the ocean are bioluminescent (compared to only 0.1% on land, in the air, and in rivers or lakes) 🐡🔦.

    Bioluminescence is more common in marine animals than on land due to the darkness of ocean environments and obstacles in non-ocean environments.

58. The term mesmerize dates back to Franz Mesmer, an 18th century physician who founded a therapeutic movement called mesmerism 😵‍💫👻.

    Mesmer believed in an invisible fluid in the body that could be affected by the planet’s gravitational force and proposed that manipulating this fluid through magnetized objects could cure diseases caused by a blocked fluid flow. Despite initial success in his medical practice, Mesmer was accused of fraud and forced to leave Vienna, eventually fading from the mesmerist movement. However, his use of trance states in treatment later led to the development of modern hypnotism.

59. Domino’s Pizza was the first to deliver pizza. In the beginning, the store was called Dominic’s 🍕🛵.

60. Pizza Margherita was created in honor of Italy’s queen and national flag 🍕👸🏻🇮🇹

    Pizza Margherita was invented in June 1889 by Raffaele Esposito, the chef at Pizzeria Brandi, in honor of the Queen of Italy and to celebrate Italian unification. The toppings of tomato, mozzarella, and basil were inspired by the colors of the Italian flag. The origins of Pizza Margherita can be traced back to similar toppings that were popular in Naples in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. At that time, different pizza toppings such as basil, tomatoes, and thin slices of mozzarella were already being used. The calzone, a similar dish made by folding the dough over itself and filling it with various ingredients, was also popular then.

61. Apples originated in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan’s biggest city and former capital, Almaty’s former name, Alma-Ata,  means “father of apples” 🍎🇰🇿.

    The ancestor of all domestic apples, the Malus sieversii, grows wild in the Tian Shan mountains. The Romans discovered the fruit in Syria and dispersed it around the world. Almaty is officially recognized as the origin of all apples. Its wild apples are nearly indistinguishable from modern domesticated varieties.

62. The Cretaceous impact event (which led to the extinction of the dinosaurs) hit the Earth so hard, creating tsunami-like waves in lakes that weren’t even connected to the Gulf of Mexico ☄️🦖🦕💀🌊.

    The Cretaceous impact event generated a tsunami that reached far inland across the Gulf of Mexico. It caused significant shaking of the Earth that resulted in tsunami-like waves in lakes not connected to the Gulf.

63. Spelt or Dinkel is a species of wheat (and has been cultivated since approximately 5000 BC) 🌾.

    Spelt is a type of wheat believed to have originated as a hybrid between domesticated emmer wheat and wild goat grass. It may also have been created through hybridization between bread wheat and emmer wheat. There is an ongoing debate about whether spelt has a single origin in the Near East or separate origins in Asia and Europe. It has a long history of cultivation in Europe, especially in the Alps, and was an important trade grain in the 18th century. It is sometimes harvested while still green, a tradition dating back to the need for nutrient-rich basic foods for summer fieldwork. In the 20th century, its cultivation declined due to lower yields and complicated baking properties. Still, it has recently experienced a resurgence, particularly in the organic sector.

64. A Martian meteorite is a type of rock that originated on Mars and was later ejected from the planet due to an impact event. It then traveled through space and landed on Earth as a meteorite. It is possible to estimate the time spent in transit from Mars to Earth by measuring the effect of cosmic radiation on the meteorites ☄️🪐

    Martian meteorites are believed to come from Mars due to their similar composition to the rocks and gases found on the planet. The amount of time it takes for a Martian meteorite to travel from Mars to Earth can be calculated using measurements of cosmic radiation on the meteorite. It is believed that the meteorites come from a small number of impact events on Mars occurring every few million years. The impactors responsible for these events are typically several kilometers in diameter and create craters on Mars that are tens of kilometers in diameter.

65. Oxygen masks in airplanes use the same substance (potassium chlorate) as matchsticks 🛩️🥢.

    Potassium chlorate, commonly used as an oxidizer in matchsticks, can also be used as an emergency source of oxygen. When heated, it releases oxygen, which is why it is sometimes used in the oxygen masks found on commercial airplanes. When the mask is activated, a chemical reaction is triggered that heats the potassium chlorate, releasing oxygen for the wearer to breathe.

66. The teardrop of a hypothetical Earth-size eyeball would contain about as much water as the Earth’s oceans 🥲🌏👁️.

67. Before Aspirin was developed in the late 1890s, available narcotics like laudanum were unpopular because of side effects like sleepiness, constipation, and the risk of addiction. Salicylic acid, at this time only available as derivatives from willow bark, became freely and cheaply available after the synthesis of the free acid by Hermann Kolbe in 1859 but was toxic. Aspirin, which is acetylsalicylic acid, was developed as a safer and more effective alternative to salicylic acid 💊🤕.

    Pain relievers, or analgesics, have a long history dating back to ancient civilizations. In the 19th century, salicylic acid derivatives such as willow bark were used to relieve pain but were toxic. The development of acetylsalicylic acid, or Aspirin, in the late 1800s was a major breakthrough in treating pain. Phenazone, or antipyrin, was another early synthetic pain reliever introduced in the late 19th century, which also had side effects.

68. There are multiple copies and closely related stelæ of the Rosetta Stone. The most recent one was discovered in 2011 🪦🇪🇬

    The Rosetta Stone is a stone slab with hieroglyphic inscriptions that was instrumental in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. It has three copies of a decree honoring kings and priests, one written in hieroglyphs, one in Demotic, and one in Greek. The stone is currently on display at the British Museum in London, where it has been since it was discovered in 1799 by soldiers of Napoleon Bonaparte’s army. Multiple copies of this ancient Egyptian decree have been found over the years. Still, the Rosetta Stone is the most well-known and famous due to its role in deciphering hieroglyphs.

69. You probably have a lot of misconceptions about the world’s geography 🗺❌. For example

    • Vancouver has the same latitude as Paris
    • New York has the same latitude as Madrid
    • Two-thirds of the African continent lie north of the equator

70. The Lyall’s wren or Stephens Island wren was a small, flightless bird in New Zealand. Its extinction is often attributed to the hunting of a single cat, Tibbles, who belonged to the lighthouse keeper David Lyall on Stephens Island 🐥🐈🇳🇿.

    The Stephens Island Wren was a bird species native to New Zealand. It disappeared from the larger islands of the country before the arrival of Europeans due to the introduction of Pacific rats but remained on Stephens Island. The extinction of the species is often attributed to the hunting of a single cat, Tibbles, who belonged to the lighthouse keeper David Lyall on Stephens Island. However, several feral cats on the island were likely responsible for the extinction of the Stephens Island Wren in 1895. The bird is now represented in museums by eleven specimens brought by Lyall’s cat.

71. Playing around with the Demon core and slipping with the screwdriver lead to a nuclear chain reaction and a lethal burst of radiation 🪛☢️💀.

    The demon core was a plutonium sphere used to develop the first atomic bombs during World War II. It was involved in two criticality accidents at the Los Alamos Laboratory in 1945 and 1946, resulting in the deaths of two physicists and radiation exposure for others present. It was intended to be shipped as part of a nuclear weapon in Japan but was retained at Los Alamos for testing.

72. The dinosaurs died in springtime 🦖🦕☠️🌸🌼🌷. A study used fossilized fish bones to pinpoint the season of the mass extinction event that wiped out nearly three-quarters of life on Earth 66 million years ago. The research found that the asteroid strike occurred in the Northern Hemisphere spring. The impact and subsequent nuclear winter led to the extinction of 75% of Earth’s species, including all non-avian dinosaurs. The study also found that the event occurred on a spring day, with the fish dying soon after the asteroid strike. The findings are based on the analysis of thin layers of bone cells in the fins of the fossils, which mark the arrival of different seasons, and isotopic carbon data, which suggests the fish died in the spring.

73. The hypothesis that dinosaurs died because of an asteroid impact was formed in the 1980s. The first real evidence was the discovery of a layer of clay rich in iridium, an element found in meteorites, at the end of the rock record of the Cretaceous period at various sites around the world 💀☄️.

74. The Epic of Gilgamesh is not the oldest surviving work of literature – it’s not even the oldest surviving poem about Gilgamesh 👵🏻📜.

75. The peace sign is a superimposition of the flag semaphore for the characters “N” and “D,” taken to stand for “nuclear disarmament” ☮️🎌.

    The peace symbol was designed in 1958. It is a superimposition of the flag semaphore characters “N” and “D” and stands for “nuclear disarmament.” The symbol was initially created for the British nuclear disarmament movement and has since become a globally recognized symbol of peace.

76. Carl Friedrich Gauß invented the Fourier Transform before Joseph Fourier did in 1807. He also invented the Fast Fourier Transform 160 years before Cooley and Tukey reinvented it in 1965 🧮🤓🧐.

    The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is an algorithm used to analyze and decompose signals into their pure sine waves, determining the frequencies and amplitudes of a signal. It is used in many fields, including radar and sonar, 5G, and WiFi. It was originally developed to detect nuclear weapons tests.

77. The Earth’s North Magnetic Pole is Actually a South Magnetic Pole 🌎🧲🧭.

78. Raising 1 liter of water from 20°C to 100°C takes 335,520 Joules. Turning it into steam takes 2,262,912 Joules ⛲🧖.

79. A cumulous cloud the size of a house contains about 1 liter of liquid water 🚰.

80. Melting ice sheets on land cause the sea level to rise but can result in a fall in the area around the sheet. The opposite side of the world will experience a greater rise in sea level. If Greenland melts, the worst flooding will occur in Australia and New Zealand 🧊.

81. By law, the flow rate over Niagara Falls is at least 2830 m³/s (100,000 ft³/s) (1415 m³/s or 50,000 ft³/s at night or during the off-season). The rest is used to generate electricity 🏞️⚡.

82. In the 1940s, up to 70% of Karaganda’s inhabitants (Kazakhstan’s fourth most populous city) were ethnic Germans. They were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan from various parts of the Soviet Union when Hitler invaded Poland in 1941 🇷🇺❄️✊🇩🇪.

    Until the 1950s, many of these deportees were interned in labor camps, often simply because they were of German descent. The population of Karaganda fell by 14% from 1989 to 1999 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union; it was once Kazakhstan’s second-largest city after Almaty. Over 100,000 people have since emigrated to Germany.

83. Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth when measured from sea level. But: The summit of Mount Chimborazo (Ecuador) is the farthest point from the Earth’s center due to the planet’s shape. And: The point on the Earth’s surface that moves the fastest as the Earth spins is the peak of Mount Cayambe (a volcano north of Chimborazo). Mount Cayambe also has the distinction of being the highest point on the Earth’s surface, directly on the equator ⛰️🌋💫.

84. Rabbits were not domesticated for food until the middle ages 🐰🐇.

    Before this time, rabbits were primarily kept as pets or for their fur. It was not until the growth of monasteries in the middle ages that rabbits began to be kept for their meat.

85. Hamsters for pets were domesticated in the 1930s 🐹.

    Before this time, Hamsters were primarily found in the wild and were not kept as domestic pets. The Syrian Hamster was the first species to be domesticated, followed by the Russian Dwarf Hamster and the Chinese Hamster.

86. Sir George Everest was against naming Mount Everest after him ⛰️🏔️.

    The British survey wanted to preserve local names for mountains in 1849, but couldn’t find a commonly used name, so naming the mountain after Sir George Everest was proposed. Despite objections from Everest himself, the Royal Geographical Society officially adopted Mount Everest’s name in 1865.

87. Mount Everest’s pronunciation differs from the pronunciation of Sir George’s surname 🗣🇬🇧.

    The modern pronunciation of Mount Everest is /evarist/ (ee-VAR-ist), while the pronunciation of Sir George’s surname was /‘ivrist/ (EEV-rist).

88. The US Senate is unfairly proportioned, giving small states like Wyoming the same number of senators as large states like California, which has about 68 times as many residents 🇺🇸⚖️.

    This gives an advantage to Republicans in controlling the upper house. As of 2021, the Democratic half of the Senate represents 41,549,808 more people than the Republican half.

89. Defenestration is a thing – throwing someone or something out of a window 🤬🪟🤸.

    The word comes from the Latin de- (down from) and fenestra (window or opening). Notable examples of defenestration include the assassination of William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas, by King James II of Scotland in 1452, the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572, and the assassination of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, in 1844.

90. Smartwatches flash their light on and off (when measuring the pulse or blood oxygen) to subtract ambient light (during the off phase) ⌚🔦💕.

91. Smartwatches measure breathing rate by measuring pulse. When the lungs expand during inhalation, the space within the chest becomes smaller, causing the volume of the heart to decrease. As a result, the heart must beat faster to maintain the same blood flow throughout the body 😮‍💨🫁.

    Blood oxygen is measured by using two effects. 1. Oxygenated blood is redder due to the presence of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. 2. Oxygenated blood absorbs less infrared light than deoxygenated blood. By combining the measurement of reflected red light and infrared light, it is possible to determine the oxygenation level of the blood. The relationship between the two light sources can be used to determine the oxygenation level, even if the ambient light or the position of the device changes. Varying ambient light or the device’s position, the two light intensities may move relative to each other. But the direction of their movement will depend on the oxygen concentration of the blood.

92. Lemon actually has a fairly low Vitamin C content 💪🍋🫑🌶🥫🥦🍓🍋🍊🥝🥬🍎. The following table shows how much of various foods is needed to obtain 100 milligrams of Vitamin C:

    Food	Amount [in grams]
    Raw rose hips	8
    Raw bell peppers	50
    Black currants	57
    Raw red bell pepper	71
    Raw yellow bell pepper	77
    Raw green bell pepper	86
    Ketchup	86
    Steamed bell peppers	108
    Cooked broccoli	111
    Cooked brussels sprouts	118
    Raw kohlrabi	159
    Grapefruit	164
    Strawberries	175
    Lemon	197
    Orange	220
    Kiwi	234
    Grapefruit	245
    Cooked kale	270
    Apple	833

93. If cats and dogs in the US were a country, they would rank fifth in global meat consumption. They also produce as much feces as 90 million Americans 🐈🐕🍖🇺🇸.

    According to a study by UCLA, cats and dogs contribute to 25 to 30% of the environmental impact of meat consumption in the United States. Meat consumption by dogs and cats creates the equivalent of about 64 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, which has the same climate impact as a year’s worth of driving from 13.6 million cars.

94. The abbreviation “lb” for pound comes from the Latin word “libra,” which was used in the ancient Roman phrase “libra pondo,” meaning “a pound by weight” 🏋️‍♂️⚖️💷£.

    The abbreviation “oz” for ounce comes from the Latin word “uncia,” which was borrowed by Medieval Italian and shortened to “onza,” introducing the “z” into the word. These abbreviations were likely adopted in English because of their historical usage in measuring weight and length. The British pound (£) symbol also comes from the Latin word “libra” and originally represented the value of a pound of silver.

95. On 28 December 2022, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Uranus, plus the Moon and the Earth, were visible to the naked eye 🪐🌎🌎🛸☄️🚀💫👀.