1276
@qikipedia
To make the war less visible and traumatising for the small children of Kyiv, a local concrete manufacturer and a children’s charity have turned some of the military roadblocks in the city into fairy-tale characters. (Images: childrenheroes.org/en/; h/t @VlOstrovskyi)
1277
@qikipedia
This 1881 map shows how long it would take (in days) to get by train from London to other parts of the world.
1278
@qikipedia
Honeybees and humans are the only animals we know that can be taught the difference between even and odd numbers.
1279
@qikipedia
Doing a Monty Python silly walk for only eleven minutes a day is as beneficial for your health as the recommended 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity a week. (Study: bit.ly/3jutecL; 📷: Jazeen Hollings.)
1280
@qikipedia
Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people seem bright until they speak. PHYLLIS DILLER
1281
@qikipedia
"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then... you're doing things you've never done before and more importantly, you're Doing Something." NEIL GAIMAN
1282
@qikipedia
Every year, Lake Superior University publishes a list of words and phrases they would like to banish the next year.
This year's entries include "moving forward", "does that make sense?" and "it is what it is".
1283
@qikipedia
Word of the day: SORRY-GO-ROUND (19th century) - a depressing set of repetitive events
1284
@qikipedia
Open plan offices increase worker stress, blood pressure, and turnover.
1285
@qikipedia
The red material dropped from planes fighting forest fires acts both as a flame retardant and fertiliser, to help new growth after the fire is extinguished.
1286
@qikipedia
Phrase of the Day: PRODUCTIVITY THEATRE — when your colleague behaves in a way that seems to suggest they work very hard while in fact this might not be the case.
1287
@qikipedia
The belief that ideas from the past are by default worse than ideas of the modern age is called chronological snobbery.
1288
@qikipedia
A study has shown that birds that live in colder places have smaller beaks. McGill University’s blog published an article about the study with the headline ‘Peckers Get Smaller Where It Gets Colder’.
1289
@qikipedia
In the United States, giving birth is 20 times more lethal than skydiving.
1290
@qikipedia
You used to be able to eat dinner inside a taxidermied blue whale. Now you can't, because of two people who should be very ashamed of themselves. 👀🐳
1291
@qikipedia
Workers who only come into office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are sometimes referred to as TWaTs.
1292
@qikipedia
CUNNINGHAM'S LAW: The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question, it's to post the wrong answer. STEVEN MCGEADY
1293
@qikipedia
In 1938, the German army selected Werner Goldberg to appear on recruitment posters as "the ideal German soldier".
Two years later, he was discharged from the army because his father was Jewish.
(Both Goldberg and his father survived the Holocaust.)
1294
@qikipedia
San Francisco allows residents to "adopt a drain" and name it.
Names include "Drains of Castamere", "Grate Expectations" and of course, "Drainy McDrainface".
1295
@qikipedia
According to a 2021 scientific paper, capybaras are significantly more comfortable when bathing in hot springs.
(Image: Masaki Tokutomi; CC BY-SA.)
1296
@qikipedia
Word of the day: CHERUBIMICAL (16th century) - describes a happy-drunk, the person who after four drinks is telling their friends how much they love them
1297
@qikipedia
In the USA, Orthodox Jews make 18% of altruistic kidney donations (where a living donor gives an organ to a recipient he or she doesn't know). They are just 0.2% of the population.
1298
@qikipedia
You can be RUTHFUL - full of compassion or pity - in addition to being RUTHLESS.
1299
@qikipedia
Men are more likely to want a sports car when they feel bad about the size of their penis.
1300
@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’.
@qikipedia
A Quite Interesting Twitter feed from the team behind the BBC TV show QI.
linktr.ee/TheQIElves