Did you know that humans have been making our favorite TV snack, popcorn, for over 7000 years? It seems hilarious to imagine the first person seeing a solid corn kernel “explode” into a white, edible puff. While it often gets lost in the onslaught of information out there, the truth is that there are cool new details about our planet and universe being discovered every day.
We’ve gathered some fascinating facts about the world that people only stumbled across recently. So get comfortable as you read through, upvote your favorites and share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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A mathematics professor at Stanford University was [unalived] by his doctoral student who had been trying to get a PhD for 19 years.
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Buzz Aldrin battled depression and alcohol addiction after the Moon landing.
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When "old age" is cited as cause of death in a medical context, the person had multiple illnesses and it is not clear which one [ended] them; it has gotten less common over time due to better medical detection.
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In the US only, the strength of the placebo effect is so high that medical companies have trouble getting new painkillers approved through clinical trials.
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In 1969 North Korea shot down a US surveillance aircraft over the Sea of Japan, [ending] all 31 on board and that the US did not retaliate at all.
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When Fox refused to pay for Deadpool screenwriters Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick to be on set every day during filming, Ryan Reynolds paid with his own money to make sure they were there in order to keep the project on the right track & maintain the original creative team.when Domino’s Pizza entered the Italian market in 2015, the company had an ambitious plan of opening 880 outlets across the country by 2030. It got as far as opening 29 branches, that were all closed by 2022During a screening of "A Fish Called Wanda," Danish audiologist Ole Bentzen died from heart fibrillation, caused by an increased heart rate due to extended laughter. Newspapers reported he died laughing. Writer John Cleese considered using it for publicity but ultimately deemed it inappropriate.That elephants stay cancer free as they have 20 copies of a key tumor-fighting gene; humans have just one.There was a real-life Lord of the Flies-esque situation where school boys were stuck on a deserted island for 15 months but the boys banded together rather than feuding.Billy Idol was first choice for the role of T-1000 in Terminator 2, but a motorcycle accident in 1990 prevented it. During his time in hospital he also swore never to wear the Confederate flag again after a black employee explained his feelings on it.In 2012 a British man named Wesley Carrington bought a metal detector and within 20 minutes found gold from the Roman Age worth £100,000.Columbia Pictures refused to greenlight the 1993 film Groundhog Day without explaining why Phil becomes trapped in the same day. Producer Trevor Albert and director Harold Ramis appeased the studio, but deliberately placed the scenes too late in the shooting schedule to be filmed.Elizabeth I had a lot of missing teeth from eating too much sweets, making it difficult for foreign ambassadors to understand what she was saying.Isidor Straus, co-owner of Macy's, and his wife Ida died on the Titanic after refusing a lifeboat to prioritize women and children.Most newborns cry for 45 minutes to two hours every day during the first six months of life because crying is the only way they communicate.There are over 1,000 homes in Edinburgh, Scotland that nobody has lived in for over 10 years. The most common reason is a reclusive homeowner passing away and nobody realizing they've inherited the property.Stephen Hawking completed a final multiverse theory explaining how mankind might detect parallel universes just 10 days before he died.Juicero, a company that made a $699 juicer requiring Wi-Fi, an app, and QR-coded produce packs that had to be scanned and verified before juicing. Journalists found that the packs were easily squeezeable by hand, yielding the same results as the juicer. The company shut down shortly after.In 2022 seat belt use in the US was 91.6% of occupants (8.4% unrestrained) and unrestrained occupant deaths accounted for 49.8% of deaths.In 1590, starving Parisians ground human bones into bread.Mu Us desert in China was completely wiped out by reforestation efforts.A pizzeria owner discovered DoorDash was conducting a "demand test" and had a lower price for his pizza even though he had not asked for the pizzeria to be on the app. The owner ordered 10 pizzas on the app, paid $160, and had them delivered to a friend. DoorDash paid the restaurant $240.After actor Sean Astin turned 18, he left numerous personal items at his mother Patty Duke's house. Upon returning for them, many items, including the treasure map from "The Goonies," were gone. “It’s an item that would probably be worth $100,000 now,” he said. “And I think my mom threw it out.”During “Hell week” of Navy SEAL training, candidates are given no more than 4 hours sleep over five and a half days, all while under continual mental and physical stress.Frank Zappa’s son was born, the nurse refused to register him with the name “Dweezil,” so Zappa started listing names of musicians he knew, which became his son’s legal name(s). When Dweezil was five, his parents fought to legally change his name to Dweezil at his request and won.Anne, Queen of Great Britain had at least 17 pregnancies over a 17-year period & had miscarried or given birth to stillborn children at least 12 times. Of her 5 liveborn children, 4 died before the age of two & her sole surviving child, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, died at age eleven.Every even number is the sum of two primes, according to the Goldbach Conjecture, which has been verified up to 19 digits.After a week into the general run of the movie 'The Shining', Kubrick cut a scene at the end that took place in a hospital, where it's explained that Jack's body couldn't be found. The scene was physically cut out of prints by projectionists and sent back to the studio.Michelangelo spent two months hiding in the underground chamber while evading a death sentence ordered by the Pope.China does not recognize international time zones within its borders. The entire country uses China Standard Time which is aligned to Beijing Time.Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) was written by Robert Louis Stevenson during a 6-day cocaine binge. His wife Fanny said: "That an invalid in my husband's condition of health" was able to do "the manual labour alone of putting 60K words on paper in 6 days seems almost incredible".During the 1920s, Guinness was recommended to pregnant women due to the perceived high iron content of the drink.In parts of the UK, a rule from 1902 mandates that homes facing each other at the rear must be built 21 meters apart. This specific distance was determined by two urban designers who measured how far apart they could see each other's nipples through their shirts.That in 1956 the canals in Venice, Italy were drained and cleaned.When Napoleon surrendered after Waterloo he assumed he would be allowed to see out his exile comfortably as a foreign monarch in Britain, writing to the Prince Regent to ask "for a country house ‘about ten or twelve leagues from London – a big enough house to accommodate all my suite’."The Prussian language, which has been extinct since the 17th century, is slowly being revived, and for the first time, children are growing up with it as their first language.Bob The Builder was altered for Japanese children so they wouldn’t confuse him for a Yakuza member.A teen got hyperacusis after an airhorn was blasted near her ear. Her type of hyperacusis makes her so sensitive to sound that it hurts and caused her to drop out of school because the voices of teachers were too painful. She also needs special noise cancelling headphones at the mall.Drivers have complained of being trapped inside their electric vehicle after the vehicle's 12-volt battery died and they did not know how to open the car doors.Harrison Okene (a cook) survived 3 days at the bottom of the ocean in a sunken ship by finding an air pocket.A study where monkeys were shown to be willing to pay (sacrificing food) for risque photos of other monkeys.When the studio refused to meet Sienna Miller's pay request to star in the film 21 Bridges, Chadwick Boseman gave her part of his salary in order meet her number because he said "that's what you should be paid".The Luddites were not anti-technology. They were highly-skilled laborers who protested wage reduction and job replacement due to automation.Mathematician Kurt Godel's wife Adele was employed as a dancer at a cabaret when they met. Aside from the continuing disapproval of his family, Adele faced rejection and isolation in the academic community as well, particularly when the couple settled at Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.When England held its first lottery in 1567 everyone who bought a ticket got immunity from one arrest as long as it was not piracy, murder, felonies, or treason. Prizes for winning the lottery were £5,000 in cash, but also goods like plate, tapestries and “good linen cloth.”A computer study of over a million samples of normal English prose found that the longest word one is likely to encounter on an everyday basis is 'uncharacteristically' at 20 letters.In 1955 a runaway light plane took off by itself and spent 3 hours flying unpiloted over Sydney, Australia. Three separate Airforce attempts to shoot it down failed, before two Navy pilots made a successful 'kill' 5 miles offshore.News anchors in Turkmenistan, both men and women, were prevented from wearing any make-up after the former president discovered he was unable to tell the difference between them when presenters wore it.In the past decade, total US college enrollment has dropped by nearly 1.5 million students, or by about 7.4%.Steve Jobs hated Android OS so much he would spend billions to destroy it since he believed it is "stolen product".Rihanna was discovered by American producer Evan Rogers in 2003, who saw the singer performing with a girl group while he was on holiday. “The minute Rihanna walked into the room, it was like the other two girls didn’t exist,” he said.After ABC executives & producers encouraged Margaret Cho to go on a crash diet, while filming her TV series All-American Girl in 1994, she lost 30 lbs (14 kg) in 2 weeks. This resulted in her hospitalization for kidney failure & led to major health issues that continued for years after the show.Possum Trot, a small town in Texas, adopted all the foster kids on a waiting list, eliminating the need for foster homes within a 100-mile radius.Elephant (Tarra) and a dog (Bella) had become close friends at a sanctuary in Tennessee. Unfortunately, one day Bella was killed by coyotes, and Tarra found her body and carried it a mile back to the barn where the staff were.Astronauts on board the ISS need to sleep near a ventilator fan. Warm air does not rise in space so astronauts in badly-ventilated sections end up surrounded by a bubble of carbon dioxide.Human Genome Project started in 1990 and by 2003, scientists had successfully documented 92% of the genome. However, it would take until 2022 before the final 8% was mapped and a full human genome was completely sequenced.In 1967 at the outbreak of the Six Day War the Suez Canal was shut down stranding fifteen ships, anchored together the crews formed a yachting club, held lifeboat races, and produced their own postage stamps — the ships would remain there until 1974.In 1968, North Korea attacked a US spy ship and captured her 83 crew members. In response, the US considered a blockade of N Korean ports, airstrikes on military targets, a land attack across the demilitarized zone, and even nuclear bombardment if the crew were not released.Scientists used a dating method to show a Viking ax cut trees on the North American continent exactly 1000 years ago, in 1021 C.E. This dating method uses a spike in solar radiation that left a mark in tree rings around the world. This proves the Vikings arrived before Christopher Columbus.The organizers of the 1985 song "We Are the World" didn't invite Madonna to participate on the recording because "they didn't think she could sing" and "it broke her heart" that that was the case.In 1968, over 6000 sheep were killed in Utah and popular theories pointed to the Army. It was revealed 30 years later that it was indeed the result of nerve agent testing. Families nearby developed nervous system illnesses, but the Army accepted no responsibility.Six-year-old Cao Qixian set a new women's world record by solving a 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube in an average time of 5.97 seconds. She became the first female ever to achieve an average time of under 6 seconds.Virgin queen bees will release battle cries and fight to the death until only one remains in the hive.Up to 25% of the Caucasian population cannot process codeine properly & the medication may not have an effect at all on up to 10% of the Caucasian population.There are 16.7 million IP addresses reserved specifically for amateur HAM radio operators.Kobe Bryant is the only person to have won both an Olympic medal and an Oscar.Peter Higg's original paper predicting the existence of the Higgs Boson was originally rejected by a scientific journal for being "of no obvious relevance to physics".Lady Diana Spencer wanted to marry the Prince of Wales in a secret marriage but the Prime Minister got word of it from spies and prevented the union. She died at young age - in 1735.Cheddar cheese is orange because they add color from the annatto fruit.On average, a child will be afflicted by the common cold 6-8 times per year.The capital of Canada once alternated between Toronto and Québec every four years. Queen Victoria selected Ottawa in 1857 because it sits far from the American border and it is situated on a cliff, making it easier to defend from a possible attack.From 1970 to 2015, The Sun published a picture of a topless female model on its page 3.Blackjack has a house advantage of only around 1-2% for skilled players & up to around 20% for unskilled players, while craps has a house advantage as low as less than 1% for skilled players & up to around 16% for unskilled players.Larry Ellison founder of oracle owns 98% of the sixth biggest Hawaiian island, Lānaʻi.No Kill Shelters aren’t actually no kill. They save 90% of their animals to be considered no kill.There is a scholarship at Loyola University Chicago that gives full tuition if you are Catholic and have the last name Zolp.Katy Perry released her debut album "Katy Hudson" through the Red Hill Records label. The album was a commercial failure and the label soon went bankrupt.The record for longest non stop run belongs to Dean Karnazes, who ran 350 miles (560 km), it took him 80 hours and 44 minutes.After the F5 tornado tore through Joplin, Missouri a rare flesh-eating fungal infection known as 'cutaneous necrotizing mucormycosis' followed, infecting 13 and ultimately killing 5.Eddie Slovik is the only American soldier to be court-martialled and executed for desertion since the American Civil War.BBC interviewed a man who married a fictional girl. In 2019, 12% of people in Japan reported falling in love with anime/game characters. According to Sociologist Masahiro Yamada, the rise in pseudo relationships is due to hard work life and a dwindling pool of well paid men.According to actor Rick Moranis, in the original script for the 1987 film Spaceballs, the description of Dark Helmet was that the whole costume was one gigantic helmet. Then it got scaled back to just an exaggerated version of the Darth Vader helmet.In his will, George Washington left directions to emancipate all of the enslaved people that he owned after the death of Martha Washington. On January 1, 1801, all of the enslaved people he owned were freed. The Emancipation Proclamation was put into act on January 1, 1863, 62 years later.That the Wizard of OZ is only the 1st of 14 original works, and a total of 40 books in a series about the Land of OZ.The 2011 film “The Worst Movie Ever!”, unintentionally, had the worst box office opening ever recorded. One single person paid admission to see the film during its premiere, earning it a whopping $11.In 2022 two Californians filed a class action lawsuit against Barilla pasta because they thought it was made in Italy. They argue they suffered financial harm because they would not have bought it if they knew it was made in the US. The combined total they spent was $6.The quote "I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant" by Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor), was actually from the 1970 movie Tora! Tora! Tora!Stephen Hawking's famous wheelchair was sold at auction for almost 300,000 pounds. Hawking used this wheelchair from the end of the 1980s until the early years of the 1990s, before he became unable to use his hands to drive a wheelchair.Prior to setting the 1964 and 1965 land speed records, Art Arfons bought a jet engine from a F-104 Starfighter from a scrap dealer for $600. He successfully fixed the engine and tested it by tying it to trees in his garden, despite objections from the government and his neighbors.Caffeine is on the NCAA Banned Substance List.The Hanoi incident where a man lived after his hand was inside a particle accelerator while it was on. This incident sparked international attention to the dangers of using foreign translated instructions in experiments involving radiation.The current “land speed record” - the highest speed achieved by a person using a vehicle on land - is 763 mph. It was achieved in 1997 by Royal Air Force pilot Andy Green and has not been beaten since.One of the owners of the Arm & Hammer baking soda brand was businessman Armand Hammer. The brand was created 30 years before Hammer was born.Louisiana State Penitentiary ("Angola"), the largest maximum-security prison in the USA, has a radio station, a TV station, a magazine, a fire station, sugarcane fields, market gardens and herds of cattle and horses.The most expensive error banknote is a US $20 bill with a Del Monte fruit sticker stuck to it that sold for $396K in 2021. It was discovered in 2003 when a college student got it from an ATM & sold it online for $10K. Experts believe the sticker was likely placed deliberately by a bored employee.During the Truman reconstruction of the White House, a souvenir program was authorized. It allowed members of the public to order old pieces of the building such as timbers, bricks, facing stones, and paneling. Demand exceeded initial expectations and receipts exceeded expenses by $10,000.The authors for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” had never been to a ball game before putting together their now-famous song.Chicago reversed the flow of the Chicago River because it drained sewage into Lake Michigan where many got/get their drinking water from.During the gulf war an American F-15 dropped a bomb through an enemy helicopter that was attacking friendly forces.In 2012, Maryland manufactured and distributed a new license plate to celebrate the War of 1812. 800,000 of these plates include a link that promotes a Filipino gambling site.Henry Ford once set the world record for fastest speed achieved on land. In 1904 he drove a Ford 999 on a frozen lake and reached a speed of 91.37mph despite hitting a bump in the ice sending him airborne at one point. The record helped popularize Ford's company.A signed, typed letter (1983) from Steve Jobs, in which he wrote "I'm afraid I don't sign autographs", sold at auction for $478,939.Before the PB&J sandwich was invented, peanut butter was originally originally paired with savory foods like Worcestershire sauce & cheese.13% of the U.S. Population consumes pizza on any given day. The percentage is 25% among males aged 6-19.
