Useless Facts

This just blew my mind.

 

Eighty percent of American grocery stores mist their fresh vegetables with a water spray, mostly to add weight (and profit) to the produce at the checkout.

 

Pogonophobia is the fear of beards.

 

Imagine having that and xyrophobia (the fear of razors).

 

A Japanese cat named Motimaru has set the YouTube record for cat videos with 685,201,400 views. The feline also has 302,000 Twitter followers.

 

Only because the original Maru is semi-retired now.

 

A luffa 'sponge' is actually a gourd that you can grow in your backyard and process at home.

 

I don't think I even have as much mildew in my shower as I should given its infrequent cleaning schedule.

 

Personally I respect dirt as long as it stays outside where it belongs.

 

Everyone remembers the "disrespectful to dirt" line from that episode, but personally I prefer "He identifies himself as a magnet for foodstuffs. He boasts that he will banish dirt to the land of wind and ghosts."

Maybe it's the deadpan, matter-of-fact delivery by the actor (Hank Azaria, I think?).

 

The innovative Tunneling Shield first used when constructing the Thames Tunnel in London was patented by Marc Isambard Brunel and the Lord Cochraine together. The latter was a privateer & admiral and the real life inspiration behind the Aubrey-Maturin series' protagonist, Jack Aubrey.

In essence, the tunneling shield was part-invented by a (legal) pirate.

 

The Post Office Department offered government-backed savings services to American residents for over half of the twentieth century.

[I can remember having such an account as a kid, and pasting savings stamps into a booklet. It looks like the Postal Services in the UK still have savings programs.]

 

The old euphemism about the rabbit dying referring to a positive pregnancy test is a bit of a misnomer. Since they killed the rabbit to do the test, the rabbit was going to die either way.

 

Ohio actually has you sign a form attesting you’ll take your fireworks purchase out of the state to set them off. Fireworks aren’t 100% legal here.

 

Motor racing was banned in Switzerland from 1955 to 2007.

 

I was aware that Cochrane had been an inspiration for Jack Aubrey, but I didn't realize how many events in the books were taken from real life before browsing through his wikipedia page. Very cool.

 

There have been only four entities so far capable of launching a space capsule into orbit and successfully bringing it back to Earth: the United States of America, Russia, China, and SpaceX.

 

Or only four who were inclined to do so.