As an avid reader, I tend to pick up weird facts here and there through the books I’m consuming. The strange thing is, I tend to pick up more factoids from fiction than I do from nonfiction.
A good example of this is the Temperance Brennan series by Kathy Reichs. As a forensic anthropologist, she weaves a lot of history and cultural aspects into her novels. Not to mention that I get to look up random French-Canadian expressions whenever the story is set in Montreal. The way she weaves it all together in a way that you can understand and appreciate is what keeps me coming back to the series.
However, I’m not nearly as smart as I wish I was, so I’m often putting my book down and grabbing my tablet to find out whether or not what I just read was true. Which, as you probably know, leads me astray more often than it doesn’t. I can’t help it, I love to learn things and when I get on a roll, it’s sometimes hard to stop.
Some odd and interesting things I’ve found while internet searching dubious facts that were completely unrelated:
Over sixty percent of the world’s lakes are in Canada. As someone who has lived in the desert for nearly 50 years, this fascinated me. The nearest lake to me was manmade. And has had bodies surface in it recent years.
Allodoxaphobia is the fear of other people’s opinions. This is not something I ever thought to seek out, but I do find it fascinating that you can be afraid of someone else’s opinion. However, it does explain a lot about some people I know.
The largest piece of fossilized dinosaur poo discovered is over 30cm long and over two liters in volume. Okay, this made me chuckle. It’s believed to be from a Tyrannosaurus Rex and is being used to help understand the dinosaur’s diet. I am curious as to how long it took them to figure out it was a dino turd and not something else.
Bananas are radioactive. I knew this prior to stumbling across it on the internet, but I believe I also heard it in a movie once as well. It’s due to all that lovely potassium they contain. And here I was just snacking on them to keep the muscle cramps at bay.
Fish form orderly queues in emergencies. Wow, score one for the fishes, who apparently have better manners than cats or humans. But it is fascinating to think that they have the ability to recognize and respect social rules. Back in the days when I had a freshwater tank, mine just bumped each other out of the way to get at the food. Oh, and the tetras liked to play in the bubbles released by the water filter.
Most ginger cats are male. This is something I discovered not by googling, but when my boss foisted two tiny orange babies onto me two years ago. His daughter apparently guilted him into adopting this particular cat because, “Orange girl cats are rare, dad!” Which led me to Google to verify, because I’m annoying that way. Approximately 80% of ginger cats are males, because the gene for the ginger coat color is on the X chromosome. The gene for retention of braincells must be located elsewhere.
One last one before I go:
New Zealand has more sheep than humans. This is one of those facts that, even if it’s disproven, I will believe it to be true until the day I die. It’s just too fun to not run with. And I swear, if I don’t get to see some real live sheep when I’m there next year, I will be severely disappointed.
What weird facts do you have rattling around in your brain? Please share them because I truly enjoy dropping random things on my co-workers when they least expect it.
