Fact O' The Day

[Peelz]

"Almost all varieties of breakfast cereals are made of grass."

is that why Im so mellow after I eat mah lucky charms?

[Krandall]

"Some of the 140 or more dead bodies on Mt. Everest are visible from standard climbing routes."


Since 1922, the tallest mountain in the world has claimed the lives of almost 200 climbers. While many have died because of avalanches, others have succumbed to a variety of conditions related to the mountain's extreme temperatures, such as hypothermia.

Currently, there are over 140 bodies still on the mountain. Efforts to retrieve the bodies have almost always resulted in failure; consequently, climbers using standard routes pass more than their share of corpses, which should serve as fairly effective reminders of just how serious and perilous the endeavor can be.

[Peelz]

thats gotta be comforting during that hike..... 

at least youd have something to eat I guess.... 

[Krandall]

"Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy."

[Krandall]

"Modern pop music is more homogenous."


A study published in the journal Scientific Reports analyzed patterns in samples of pop music dating back 50 years, including pitch and timbre distributions, loudness, and note combinations. All evidence pointed toward "an important degree of conventionalism" or "no evolution" in the production of contemporary music. In other words, an increasing lack of originality. Furthermore, the study found increasingly louder volume dynamics.

[Peelz]

"Modern pop music is more homogenous."


A study published in the journal Scientific Reports analyzed patterns in samples of pop music dating back 50 years, including pitch and timbre distributions, loudness, and note combinations. All evidence pointed toward "an important degree of conventionalism" or "no evolution" in the production of contemporary music. In other words, an increasing lack of originality. Furthermore, the study found increasingly louder volume dynamics.

not surprising. 

[Krandall]

"Coca-Cola once recalled an advertising poster due to a risqué image hidden within it (it was of a woman about to perform oral sex)."

[Krandall]

"A group of kangaroos is called a mob."

[Krandall]

"We're conditioned to crave fats, but tasting fats actually makes us perceive flavors less."


We have a biological drive to consume fats and have a genetic variance in how we respond to eating it (we can't technically taste fat, but people with a specific variant of the CD36 gene are able to detect it, and as a result tend to crave less of it). A three-year study at the University of Nottingham has concluded that tasting fat actually inhibits the brain's perception of flavor. Participants were monitored with MRI scanners as they tasted four different fruit emulsions, one of which had flavoring but no fat, while the other three had fat and various flavoring properties. The non-fatty sample provoked a bigger response in the brain regions associated with taste than any of the fatty samples, even though the flavor perception was the same.

[Krandall]

"The U.S. Library of Congress' collection occupies 650 miles of bookshelves. "


The Library of Congress in Washington D.C. doesn't just have over 33 million books; it also has 12 million photographs, millions of maps, sheet music, and other manuscripts. Its holdings make it largest library in the world; and having been founded in 1800, it is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country.

[Krandall]

"In 2002, researchers bought DNA through the mail and "built" a deadly polio virus."


The researchers were from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. They bought DNA through the mail and, using a laptop and taking advantage of their access to the school's biology lab, they built a real polio virus (most viruses are extremely simple organisms, little more than a trace of genetic material wrapped in a sheath) and injected it into a mouse, which became paralyzed and died. Their point was to show how easy it was to create a dangerous yet effective virus.

[Peelz]

I regularly send my "dna" through the mail....

seeps through the paper envelopes sometimes though 

[Krandall]

"Around 32,000 people actually live in Timbuktu."


Often used as a byword for an out-of-the-way locale, Timbuktu -- an impoverished town in the West African country of Mali -- was in the Medieval era a bustling and vital outpost where people from across Africa, Asia and the Middle East came together to trade. At the confluence of so much wealth, culture and knowledge, and located in far-off, exotic and mysterious Africa, Timbuktu became a subject of intense fascination for Europeans.

[Peelz]

is that near bum-fuked-egypt?

[Krandall]

"Every citizen in Kentucky is required by law to take a bath once a year."