951
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Word of the day: HINDERMATE - the opposite of a helpmate, a friend who only makes things more difficult
952
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Michelangelo hated painting the Sistine Chapel so much he wrote a poem about it.
It begins:
"I've already grown a goiter from this torture,
hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy
(or anywhere else where the stagnant water's poison)..."
953
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250 million years ago, the oceans were purple - not blue.
(Image: surfside; CC BY.)
954
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Voltaire was so frustrated with English spelling that he is said to have wished that one half of the English language be taken by the plague and the other by the ague.
955
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Some restaurant owners in China have tried an unusual method to get customers to keep coming back.
At least 215 restaurants have been caught lacing their noodles with opiates to addict their customers.
956
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A marine worm called Ramisyllis multicaudata has a single head and hundreds of bums. Its body branches off in all directions and each branch has its own butthole. (Image: Sarah Faulwetter)
957
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In the United States, giving birth is 20 times more lethal than skydiving.
958
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UNICEF has recently made Patron, Ukraine’s mine-sniffing Jack Russell Terrier, its first Goodwill Ambassadog.
959
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The Welsh for ‘July’ is Gorffennaf, which literally means ‘end of summer’.
960
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Word of the Day: BACKFRIEND - a friend who secretly does not like you at all
961
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"Coffee is a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your older self." TERRY PRATCHETT
962
@qikipedia
Eating the head of a sea bream called sarpa salsa can cause hallucinations. It was used as a recreational drug during Roman times.
963
@qikipedia
Queen Victoria owned a musical bustle that played the national anthem every time she sat down.
964
@qikipedia
There are about 20 quadrillion ants, or 2.5 million ants for every person on Earth.
965
@qikipedia
The 19th century naturalist Alexander von Humboldt has over 300 species named after him, as well as places, asteroids and part of the Moon.
966
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This is the Australian orb-weaving spider commonly known as the ‘alien butt spider’. (Image: Robert Whyte)
967
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Contrary to rumours, the Library of Congress doesn’t have a very small stash of Sigmund Freud’s cocaine. They have a very small stash of Sigmund Freud’s friend’s cocaine.
968
@qikipedia
In 1972 a talking statue of Abraham Lincoln was unveiled in Seattle. A malfunction caused the speakers inside it to play the Rolling Stones, so the statue was heard to announce, ‘I wanna get off, mamma’.
969
@qikipedia
Word of the Day: QUOMODOCUNQUINZING (17th century) - making money any way you can.
970
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Cats can safely receive blood transfusions from dogs - but only once.
A second transfusion of dog blood is often fatal.
971
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In the 1820s the water in the river Thames was portrayed as ‘monster soup’.
Image: Wellcome Collection CC BY-NC 4.0
972
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A SKUNKED TERM is a word that is difficult to use because it is transitioning from one meaning to another.
For instance, "it's all downhill from here" once meant "to become easier" but is now widely used to mean "to become more difficult".
973
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"The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." LILY TOMLIN
974
@qikipedia
Vampire bats lap blood rather than suck it – their saliva contains an enzyme called draculin to prevent the blood clotting.
Image: Mokele, CC BY 3.0
975
@qikipedia
The world’s second largest lake, Lake Superior, is approximately 10,000 years old, whereas the largest lake, Lake Baikal, is 25 million years old.
@qikipedia
A Quite Interesting Twitter feed from the team behind the BBC TV show QI.
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