826
@qikipedia
People think cynics are smarter than optimists, but cynics actually do worse on tests of cognitive ability.
827
@qikipedia
Because your vocal folds need a humid environment to be elastic enough to produce certain sounds correctly, tonal languages — like Mandarin Chinese — are much more common in humid regions of Earth.
828
@qikipedia
PHOBOPHOBIA is the fear of developing a phobia.
829
@qikipedia
When national football teams do well in international competitions, birth rates drop nine months later.
The authors, Dr. Luca Fumarco and Dr. Francesco Principe, speculate "these results might be explained by individuals’ time allocation choices."
830
@qikipedia
Word of the day: DECIDOPHOBIA - the fear of making the wrong decision
831
@qikipedia
A RECURSIVE LAKE is a lake located on an island within a lake.
For instance, Lake Yathkyed in Canada has islands in lakes on islands in lakes on islands in lakes.
832
@qikipedia
In 1835 a New York newspaper reported a new telescope had revealed bat-winged men living on the Moon. To end the hoax, it claimed the telescope had caught fire.
833
@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.)
834
@qikipedia
Peacocks fake orgasm noises to trick peahens into thinking they’re more sexually active.
835
@qikipedia
Whales lower their voice to a whisper when communicating with their young to keep them safe from predators.
836
@qikipedia
In the early years of the BBC, there was a framed warning near the microphone in the radio studio that read: ‘If you sneeze or rustle papers you will DEAFEN THOUSANDS!!!’
837
@qikipedia
There’s a village in Montenegro that holds both the World Championships of Laziness (lying on a mattress for the longest time), and a slow bicycle race where the winner is the last to finish.
838
@qikipedia
Macropinna microstoma is a deep-sea fish with glowing green eyes that look out from inside its transparent, fluid-filled forehead (the holes on the front of its face are nostrils).
Image: Ezra Weller, CC BY 3.0
839
@qikipedia
In Norwegian, the period between Christmas and the New Year is called ROMJUL. Etymologically, it comes from Old Norse jól (Christmas) + rúmheilagr ("that needs not adhere strictly to legal proscriptions for a holiday").
840
@qikipedia
Word of the Day: PHILODOX - someone who is in love with their own opinions
841
@qikipedia
Honeybees and humans are the only animals we know that can be taught the difference between even and odd numbers.
842
@qikipedia
According to a 2012 Radio 4 analysis, Cabot Cove, Maine - home to Jessica Fletcher of Murder She Wrote - has the highest murder rate of any fictional town.
843
@qikipedia
In 1961, Dr. Leonid Rogozov was working in Antarctica when he developed appendicitis. As he was the only medical professional on site, he had to perform his own appendectomy.
Most doctors who winter over on Antarctica are now required to have their appendix removed beforehand.
844
@qikipedia
The USA is home to two towns named Accident, three towns named Embarrass, and four of the world’s five towns called Hazard.
845
@qikipedia
Ian Fleming went to a prep school in Dorset near an area called Spyway and next to the estate of the Bond family whose motto is ‘Non Sufficit Orbis’, which means ‘The World Is Not Enough’.
846
@qikipedia
In a 1666 paper for the Royal Society of London, physicist Robert Boyle listed things to be researched about coal mines including whether coal miners ever meet subterranean demons.
847
@qikipedia
The belief that ideas from the past are by default worse than ideas of the modern age is called chronological snobbery.
848
@qikipedia
This year’s Ig Nobel Prize in Physics went to a group of scientists who studied ‘why pedestrians do not constantly collide with other pedestrians’. The prize for Kinetics went to a group who studied ‘why pedestrians do sometimes collide with other pedestrians’. @improbresearch
849
@qikipedia
"[Young people today] think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it." ARISTOTLE (4th century BCE)
850
@qikipedia
Word of the Day: CERVANTHROPY — a delusional belief that you are a deer.
@qikipedia
A Quite Interesting Twitter feed from the team behind the BBC TV show QI.
linktr.ee/TheQIElves