1126
@qikipedia
Word of the Day: MISOKINESIA — having strong negative feelings, thoughts, or physical reactions when seeing other people fidgeting or engaging in small repetitive movements like leg shaking or finger tapping.
1127
@qikipedia
This is how scientists predict the continents will move over the next 200 million years.
(Animation: Sammy2012; CC BY-SA.)
1128
@qikipedia
Word of the day: QUAALTAGH, n. the first person you meet when you leave the house (from the Manx language).
1129
@qikipedia
Capt. Sir Mansfield Cumming suggested British secret agents use semen as invisible ink during WWI.
1130
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According to a 2021 scientific paper, capybaras are significantly more comfortable when bathing in hot springs.
(Image: Masaki Tokutomi; CC BY-SA.)
1131
@qikipedia
Mount Thor in Canada has the world's longest vertical drop.
If you fell off it, you would fall for over a kilometer before you hit anything.
(Image: Peter Morgan; CC BY-NC-ND.)
1132
@qikipedia
Word of the day: LYCHNOBITE - someone who works at night and sleeps all day
1133
@qikipedia
Brazilian footballer Argélico Fuchs spent much of his life spelling his name "Argélico Fucks", resulting in headlines such as "Fucks off to Benfica".
1134
@qikipedia
Dragonfly’s wings are highly efficient bacteria killers. They are covered in nano pillars which tear bacteria apart if they come into contact with them.
1135
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Items that got stuck in Americans’ orifices last year include a piece of cake (ear), ‘hard poop’ (nose), ‘unknown amount of marbles’ (throat), ‘headphones’ cord’ (penis), barbell (vagina), and stress ball (rectum).
1136
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Over the last 70 years, the United States has lost at least three nuclear bombs.
1137
@qikipedia
One of the contenders for the Japanese Word of the Year 2022 is 顔パンツ(Kao pantsu) that literally translates as ‘face underwear’ and expresses the idea that in the pandemic era, not wearing a face mask in public is as embarrassing as not wearing pants.
1138
@qikipedia
Without biting midges, we wouldn’t have chocolate: cocoa plants are pollinated by them.
1139
@qikipedia
In 12th-century Milan, many politicians had surnames starting ‘Caga’ or ‘Caca’, i.e. ‘shit’. For instance, Gregorio Cacainarca (Gregorio the Shit-In-a-Box); Arderico Cagainosa (Arderico the Shit-In-Your-Pants); and Girardo Cagapisto (Girardo the Shit-Pesto). (h/t @ProfSimonton)
1140
@qikipedia
Word of the Day: TECHNOSTALGIA — nostalgia for old technology.
1141
@qikipedia
The German word for compound interest - ZINSESZINS - translates literally to "interest's interest".
1142
@qikipedia
The ‘cheese’ in the phrase ‘big cheese’ may have nothing to do with food: it probably comes from the Persian word ‘cīz’ that means ‘thing’.
1143
@qikipedia
1922 was an important year in western literature: the publication of ‘Ulysses' in full by James Joyce and ‘The Wasteland’ by T.S. Eliot, the death of Marcel Proust and it's the year in which F. Scott Fitzgerald set 'The Great Gatsby’.
1144
@qikipedia
According to the Guinness Book of World Records the world’s most difficult tongue twister is in the Xhosa language of South Africa: ‘Iqaqa laziqikaqika kwazw kwaqhawaka uqhoqhoqha’ which means ‘The skunk rolled down and ruptured its larynx’ (the last word contains three clicks).
1145
@qikipedia
In 2016, Yukon Territory, Canada rolled out a campaign to remind residents that they should make sure to get enough vitamin D.
The campaign's tagline was "we all need the D".
1146
@qikipedia
"What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?" URSULA K. LEGUIN
1147
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In Ancient Greece, there was at least one man named Shitty, one man named Milk-Scum, and one man named Named.
1148
@qikipedia
Word of the day: ROGITATE - to ask the same question over and over again; particularly beloved of toddlers
1149
@qikipedia
Merlin the wizard was inspired by legendary Welsh bard, Myrddin, but his name was changed to make it less like the French word for shit, ‘merde’.
1150
@qikipedia
The man who invented the modern roundabout, the stop sign, the taxi stand, the one-way street, and the pedestrian crosswalk never learned how to drive.
(Image: honorary driving licence of William Phelps Eno.)
@qikipedia
A Quite Interesting Twitter feed from the team behind the BBC TV show QI.
linktr.ee/TheQIElves