701
@qikipedia
Word of the day: FUTILITARIAN – someone devoted to futile pursuits or futility itself.
702
@qikipedia
Think photosynthesis is just for plants? Think again.
703
@qikipedia
Axolotls, the Mexican salamanders famous for being able to regenerate whole limbs, spinal cords, eyes and parts of their brains, have a genome ten times bigger than that of humans.
Image: th1098, CC BY-SA 3.0
704
@qikipedia
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).
705
@qikipedia
According to The Malcolm Tucker Awards for Excellence in Swearing, the best ‘sweary moment’ of 2021 in sports was on April 24th, when the teams in the MLB’s American League West division were ranked so that their logos spelled out ‘ASSHAT’.
706
@qikipedia
According to the a 2003 online survey of 9,000 people in the UK, the most important invention of the previous 40 years was the widget, a nitrogen ball used in beer cans. It outranked space exploration, contraceptive pills, and the Internet. [📷: slworking2.]
707
@qikipedia
‘Roomba’, the name of the robotic vacuum cleaner, was created by marketing specialists. Before that, the company had tried to come up with the name on their own and held an internal contest. The best entry was ‘Cyber Suck’.
708
@qikipedia
If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it’s another nonconformist who doesn’t conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity. BILL VAUGHAN
709
@qikipedia
In 2020, a French man was awarded €40,000 by a court because they determined his job was so incredibly boring it had damaged his mental health.
710
@qikipedia
"Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable." ROALD DAHL
711
@qikipedia
At the end of 2020, the Guardian held a poll in which they asked readers to sum up the year in a single word.
The most common answer was "shit", followed by "fucked".
712
@qikipedia
If you are listening to something boring, doodling while you listen will improve your recall by 30%.
713
@qikipedia
Made a typo in an important email? This may make you feel better.
For most of 2009, the Chilean Mint produced 50 peso coins that advertised that they were from the Republic of "Chiie".
714
@qikipedia
To avoid US libel suits, authors will sometimes make sure to note that a fictionalized person has a small penis.
For libel, it must be obvious the real person and character are the same.
Men rarely want to prove in court that they are obviously the character with a small penis.
715
@qikipedia
"It's a troublesome world. All the people who're in it
are troubled with troubles almost every minute.
You oughta be thankful, a whole heaping lot,
For the places and people you're lucky you're not!"
DR. SEUSS
716
@qikipedia
The steeds of knights were not massive, powerful horses - knights actually rode horses the size of modern ponies.
(Image: Miles Wolstenholme; CC BY.)
717
@qikipedia
When restaurants play classical music in the background, diners spend 10% more per person. When they play pop music, diners spend 10% less.
718
@qikipedia
German chocolate cake is not from Germany.
It was originally made from a kind of chocolate developed by a man named German.
(Image: Tracy Hunter.)
719
@qikipedia
Tardigrades – also known as water bears - have survived all five mass extinctions on Earth since they evolved over half a billion years ago.
Image: Schokraie E, Warnken U, Hotz-Wagenblatt A, Grohme MA, Hengherr S, et al. (2012), CC BY 2.5
720
@qikipedia
January 14th was the Feast of the Ass in the medieval Christian calendar, a day when all Biblical donkeys were celebrated.
721
@qikipedia
‘Presbyterians’ is an anagram of ‘Britney Spears’.
Image: Glenn Francis, CC BY-SA 4.0
722
@qikipedia
John Harvey Kellogg, the co-creator of Corn Flakes, fostered 42 children but was so repelled by sex he never consummated his marriage.
723
@qikipedia
Word of the day: SCOFFLAW, n. a US term for one who treats the law with contempt, especially a law that’s difficult to enforce.
724
@qikipedia
In 2018, a woman in Crimea stole 70,000 rubles from a fortune-teller who had predicted that she would come into some money soon.
725
@qikipedia
The word ‘paraphernalia’ comes from Greek ‘para’ (besides) and ‘pherne’ (dowry) and originally meant a woman’s own property (apart from dowry) which she retained at least some control of in her marriage.
@qikipedia
A Quite Interesting Twitter feed from the team behind the BBC TV show QI.
linktr.ee/TheQIElves