Random Fun Facts That Will Amaze You - Part 9

If you want to find out the dark secret cashews are hiding, the real reason why you can't bring water on a plane plus a whole host of more mind blowing trivia titbits, just stick around as we investigate fun facts that you never thought you needed to know!

Why Can’t You Bring Liquids On A Plane?

Picture this: You hear the final boarding call and rush to make your flight when you’re suddenly met with a brick wall of a man in uniform. After a moment of panic, he points out the bottle of water in your bag and signals to the "no liquids" sign. We’ve all been there, but have you ever wondered why you have to chuck your bottle at the gate?

The "3-1-1" rule was first put in place by the Transport Security Administration in 2006, and states that anyone boarding a plane can carry 3.4 ounces of liquid per container in a 1-quart bag, with just one clear plastic bag per passenger. According to Steve Hersem, former deputy director of the CIA’s Community Human Intelligence Division, that rule was the direct response to "Operation Overt."

That was a term used to describe a collaborative effort to foil the plot of Abdulla Ahmed Ali, a British citizen who had known affiliations with some pretty shady guys. When Ali’s bags were secretly searched when after returning to the U.K., operatives found a powdered orange soft drink and a large number of batteries in his suitcase.

Further surveillance revealed that he and his co-conspirators had been working at a bomb making laboratory where they drilled holes in soft drink bottles so that they could be filled with a hydrogen peroxide based liquid explosive, while still appearing unopened. The men planned to use the bombs on seven planes flying out of London and heading for North America, but thankfully they were arrested before they could go through with it.

According to the TSA, limiting containers to a quart sized bag prevents what’s known as a “critical diameter” which is basically the maximum amount needed to blow something up. If you really want to get that water past security, just freeze it. Surprisingly, the TSA lets liquids on board as long as they’re frozen solid. Or you could just chug it before boarding!

Who Was The Original “Peeping Tom”

A so-called “peeping Tom” is anyone who gets some sort of enjoyment from watching other people when they shouldn’t be, but who is the original Tom behind the age old phrase? To find out, let’s travel right back to the 11th century to know more about that iconic legend surrounding a late Anglo Saxon noblewoman named Lady Godiva.

As the story goes, Lady Godiva was married to a bit of a jerk named Leofric, Earl of Mercia, who had imposed some pretty harsh taxes on the townspeople. When Lady Godiva decided to ask her husband to lower the taxes on behalf of the people, he joked that he would only do it if she agreed to ride stark naked through the streets of Coventry.

Knowing his wife’s chaste nature, he didn’t expect her to actually go through with it. But Lady Godiva was well respected by the townspeople, and they unanimously agreed to lock their windows and doors as she rode peacefully with her long locks covering her most intimate areas.

That version of the story persisted right up until the 1700s, when some versions began to mention a man named "Tom the Tailor". Apparently, that "Peeping Tom" couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of Lady Godiva in the buff, so he drilled a hole in his shutters to watch her, but he paid the ultimate price.

Some say he was literally blinded by her beauty, while others say he was killed soon after. Whether that actually happened or whether it’s simply a work of fiction, as most historians have suggested, it is undecided.

Apple Pie Isn’t Actually That American

At some point, you’ve probably heard the phrase “as American as apple pie” but get this: apple pie is about as un-American as it gets. Neither the apples nor the pie itself came from America, yet it has somehow become a persisting symbol of Americanism.

It’s hard to say which varieties of apple first came to America because there are so many. Plus, apple trees are easy to cross pollinate which means producing new apple varieties is pretty easy. But by the 1800s, American farmers were already growing an insane 14,000 types of apple. The first varieties were intended for cider, which means they were too tart for eating.

But around the same time, John Chapman otherwise known as “Johnny Appleseed”, a guy who’s said to have traveled on foot across the U.S. planting apple trees, had bought the apple to American folklore fame. And by the 19th century, Americans by association had made the apple their own.

But apple pie was far from an American invention. In fact, the first recorded recipe for the dish was written in 1381 in England, although it also called for figs; raisins and pears not just apples. Where the phrase itself came from is a little harder to track.

In 1924, an advertisement in the Gettysburg Times promotes “New Lestz Suits that are as American as apple pie”. By World War 2, it had stuck. American soldiers would even tell journalists that they were fighting for “mom and apple pie”.

It seems like traditional apple pie is a classic case of a popular misconception. There are actually tons of iconic things that aren’t actually American, including hot dogs, rodeos and even American football!

Is There A Dead Wasp In Every Fig?

You may have heard that rumor circulating during prime fig season, but it’s not actually as crazy as it sounds. Figs aren’t technically a fruit; they’re actually an inverted flower. As we all know, flowers need to be pollinated so they can reproduce and that’s where the fig wasp comes in.

The relationship that has developed between the fig and the wasp is known as “mutualism” because both the plant and the insect need each other to successfully reproduce. Wind or bees can’t pollinate female figs as they do other flowers, but the female wasp knows how to get inside the fruit to lay her eggs.

As she squeezes through a small opening in the fig known as an "ostiole", she makes the ultimate sacrifice as her wings fall off and the narrow passageway crushes her abdomen. When she arrives inside, she brings pollen into the internal flowers, lays her eggs in the ideal environment for her offspring and then dies a valiant death.

The blind and flightless male wasps hatch first, mate with their female counterparts, while they’re still inside their ‘galls’ then burrows a tunnel out of the fig. Then the females fly out, taking the pollen with them and starting the cycle anew. So, to answer that question: yes, there is at least one dead wasp in every fig.

But fear not! When you eat figs, you aren’t actually crunching down on sacrificial insects. The figs produce a special enzyme called "ficin" which breaks down the wasps body proteins that get absorbed back into the plant.

Do Fish Get Thirsty?

The answer depends on the water the fish lives in. Fresh water fish don’t drink much at all, at least not like we do. Those fish have a higher concentration of salt in their blood and body tissue than in the water they swim in. To “drink” they take small amounts of water into their bodies through their skin and their gills and then pee out any excess water.

The process that allows them to drink that way without having to consciously fill up on water like humans is known as “osmosis”. They don’t take much water in through their mouths if they did, they would risk over diluting their blood and unbalancing the salt to water balance within their bodies.

But when fish live in salt water, things are reversed because the concentration of salt in the water they live in is higher than the concentration of salt in their bodies. In that case, osmosis leads to water moving from their bodies to the water around them instead. That means they are at constant risk of dehydration, which is kind of ironic considering they literally live in water.

To compensate, they must actively drink water through their mouths instead. They process the water and then produce small amounts of salty pee as well as secreting salt through specialized cells in their gills.

Although they need to drink more than their freshwater counterparts, saltwater fish probably still don’t have a conscious response to seek out and drink water. So, the answer is something like this: yes, they get thirsty but they likely don’t know it.

Rabbits Used To Be Used As Pregnancy Tests

Before the trusty pee stick was around to determine your fate for the next 18 years or so, there were innocent bunnies. If you’ve ever heard someone use the perplexing phrase “the rabbit died!” to announce their pregnancy in a movie or TV show, here’s why.

Its origins can be traced back to the 1920s, and the discovery that a woman starts producing a hormone known as human chorionic gonadotropin or HCG shortly after a fertilized egg has implanted itself in the uterine wall. Seven years later, medical researchers also found that female rabbits injected with urine containing HCG would, within a few days also display distinct ovarian changes.

Thus, the so-called rabbit test was born, along with the misconception that the rabbits death was somehow an indicator of a positive result. The truth is that the rabbits always died. That’s because the only way to detect such changes in the rabbits ovaries was to open up the bunny and have a look around which, inevitably, killed it in the process.

Modern pregnancy tests are still based on measuring the amount of HCG present in urine, but thankfully they do that directly now without the need for a sacrificial bunny!

The Job Of The “Best Man” Was To Kidnap The Bride

A couple of hundred centuries ago, the role of the “best man” wasn’t about throwing the best party, holding the ring or making a speech with the most dad jokes in it. His duty was actually to serve as armed backup for the groom just in case he was forced to kidnap his intended bride from her disapproving parents.

In fact, the word “best” didn’t even imply that he was the grooms best friend, it just meant he was the best with a sword if a situation arose when it was needed. The tradition stems back to a time when men were expected to take a bride from within the community.

If there was an inadequate supply of local available women, eligible bachelors had no choice but to seek out and capture a bride from a neighboring community instead. That also explains why the bride still stands to the left of the groom during the wedding ceremony, because the groom had to keep his dominant right hand free for defence.

The original duties of the best man also took on a whole new sinister meaning. The best man stood beside the groom until the wedding vows were exchanged to act as extra backup. After the wedding, he also stood guard outside the newlywed’s bed chamber as a guard of sorts in case anyone decided to attack, or the bride decided to do a runner. Suddenly, the whole thing doesn’t seem so romantic anymore!

Could The T-Rex Really Bot See You If You Didn’t Move?

If you’ve seen Jurassic Park, you’ll remember that one scene where the giant T-Rex is attacking a jeep during a thunderstorm and paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant shouts “don’t move! He can’t see you if you don’t move!” Surprisingly, that claim isn’t exactly airtight.

Doctor Alan Grant Don't Move All Scenes | Jurassic World Dominion by Video Memes

In fact, that fearsome predator couldn’t only see just fine, regardless of whether an object was moving or not there’s also a fair bit of evidence to suggest that its eyesight was better than modern day hawks and eagles! After the movies release in 1993, Professor Kent Stevens from the University of Oregon decided to get to the bottom of things.

He began the project "DinoMorph" which aimed to create tangible digital visualizations of extinct animals, including the T-Rex. North America’s leading paleo artist Garfield Minott provided Stevens with a life like T-Rex head sculpture he’d been working on.

Using that model, a laser pointer, a glass plate and taxidermic glass eyeballs, Stevens performed experiments to determine the visual field, depth perception and binocular range of the T-Rex. For those who don’t speak nerd, the “binocular range” is basically the area that can be viewed at the same time by both eyes.

At the end of his experiments, Stevens concluded that the T-Rex’s binocular range was 55 degrees, which is even wider than a hawks! According to his findings, the T-Rex also may have had a visual clarity up to 13 times better than a modern human.

For some perspective, an eagle has about 3.6 times the visual clarity of a person. Basically, standing still is not going to stop you being eaten whole by a T-Rex. There is some debate about how fast they were, though, with most scientists thinking they had a max speed of about 17-25 miles per hour. So, getting inside the Jeep and flooring it is your best bet!

Witzelsucht: People Who Can't Stop Making Puns

We all know someone who can’t help cracking terrible puns at every opportunity, and they might actually be suffering from a debilitating pun disorder known as Witzelsucht. One of the first noted cases of that pathological joking emerged in the strangest circumstances by the German neurologist Otfrid Foerster in 1929.

Foerster was operating on a male patient to remove a tumor. The man was conscious a common practice at the time and the moment Foerster started manipulating the growth, his patient suddenly erupted into a “manic flight of speech” as he recounted pun after awful pun.

In the same year, psychiatrist Abraham Brill reported coming across patients who would joke about anything and everything, even when they weren’t on the operating table. Since then, many more cases have been noted.

Strangely enough, none of the jokesters seem to find other people funny despite considering themselves to be absolutely hilarious. The link between those who suffer from Witzelsucht seems to be some sort of prior damage to the frontal lobes, which could be caused by a stroke or brain hemorrhage.

Scientists believe that the network of regions around the frontal lobes are responsible for the same sort of complex, analytical thought that is required to understand jokes. The brain damage suffered by those with Witzelsucht seems to disinhibit some of the signaling between those frontal lobes and the pleasure centers responsible for making us laugh.

That means they don’t find other jokes funny, while their own thoughts and feelings might still trigger the dopamine kick which makes them giggle at their own puns. I think It’s high time I got myself checked out for Witzelsucht!

Why Are Cashew Nuts Not Sold In Their Shells?

As we now know, cashews grow on trees inside a fruit. Technically speaking, the cashew fruit isn’t really a fruit but rather the swollen end of the stem just above the cashew nut. The “nut” itself is actually a seed inside the pit of the fruit which grows from the bottom of the apple.

Once that part is removed, there’s still a hard shell to get past before you reach the part that we actually eat. You probably never knew any of that, because all those extra parts have been removed before the tasty nuts reach your snack bowl.

But why aren’t they just sold inside their shells like pistachios? It’s not just done that way to make things easier for you. Another thing you probably don’t know about cashew plants is that they belong to the same family as poison ivy and poison sumac.

The plant contains a powerful oily chemical irritant called "urushiol" which can cause itchy skin reactions in people who are sensitive to the chemical. That toxic fluid isn’t only found in the leaves of the plant, but also between the shell and the cashew nut itself. Once they’ve been harvested, the seeds are roasted at high temperatures to destroy the harmful shell oil.

That is also when the nuts change color from a greenish grey color to the golden brown color we know and love. If cashews were sold in their shells, people would run the risk of ingesting the toxic chemicals in such large quantities that it could even prove fatal!

Why Do Cats Lay On Their Back When They See You?

Throughout history, cats have been thought of as mystical creatures, and they still baffle us to this day. One of the biggest mysteries of their many quirky behaviors is why they lay on their backs whenever they see you.

Our feline friends express themselves through body language all the time, but their signals can sometimes be hard for their owners to read. Most of the time, laying down on its back is a sure fire sign that they’re comfortable and happy in your presence. When a cat exposes its belly, it leaves itself in a vulnerable position, which usually means they feel safe and protected around you.

According to cat experts, having their ears pointed up and facing forward at the same time could mean they’re feeling in a playful mood, they are trying to convince you that they’re harmless, so why not grab their favorite toy and try to instigate a game!

But there could also be a darker meaning to why your cat lays on his back. In fact, some have suggested that it might even be a sign of aggression! That could also be seen as a defensive pose, because your cat could attack with all four claws. If their ears are flat back against their head, your cat is most likely feeling defensive and ready to launch an assault.

To be sure, check their eyes if their pupils are dilated, that could be tell tale sign that they’re feeling agitated. Basically, make sure to check the signs before you go straight in for that belly rub!

Why Don’t Insects Get Fat?

Here’s a life changing question for you: when was the last time you saw a fat bug? And I don’t just mean a plump looking caterpillar, I’m talking a morbidly obese ant or a butterfly that could barely shift its weight off the ground. There’s a reason why you don’t see chunky insects as often as you see plump people.

Just like humans, bugs can be overfed, but being an obese insect has harmful effects. Males can’t protect territory since they are more sluggish than their competitors, they struggle to find mates and they generally don’t live as long. But truly fat bugs are still few and far between.

Although insects can build fat reserves, they rarely ever look fat. That’s because their outermost layer known as the exoskeleton is a hard, protective shell that doesn’t grow or stretch like our skin does when we get bigger. Insects don’t shed that layer when they reach adulthood, so fat just builds up underneath and puts pressure on the insides. You can think of it kind of like a Victorian ladies corset that holds everything in place.

Although some bugs might look fat like a plump caterpillar that spongy, squishy texture is just the nutrient rich storage the larvae needs to turn into a butterfly during metamorphosis.

Who is Luke in lukewarm?

The word ‘lukewarm’ is normally used to describe the temperature of something, but why not John-warm or Sharon-warm? More specifically, lukewarm is a temperature that’s neither particularly hot nor cold it’s tepid, if you like. But it can also be used in other situations.

Let’s say you crack a joke in front of your pals and only get a laugh or two, you could say their reaction was lukewarm. But who or what is Luke, and how did the word come about? The word “Luke” actually comes from the Middle English “Leuk” which in turn was borrowed from the Dutch word "Leuk" meaning tepid or weak. Since tepid basically means barely warm, there was really no reason to add the word “warm” after it.

For a long while "Luke" was the standard word used to mean warm, until the word ‘lukewarm’ popped up around the 14th century to describe something as tepid, and within the next two centuries it also took on the more figurative meaning of “lacking in enthusiasm”. It isn’t clear where the word "Luke" as a first name came from, but it received a huge boost in popularity thanks to the publishing of The Gospel of Luke around 70-90AD.

I hope you were amazed at these weird and wonderful trivia facts. If you want to find out more interesting facts, you might want to take a look at our whole fun facts series. Thanks for reading.