1276
@qikipedia
About one person in twenty can't visualise images in their head.
1277
@qikipedia
In the UK, February is usually a drier month than August.
1278
@qikipedia
Following a recent salmonella outbreak, the US Centres for Disease Control has warned people not to ‘kiss or snuggle’ their chickens.
1279
@qikipedia
Every 25 December in Chumbivilcas Province, Peru, residents go to the centre of town to have a communal fistfight. Residents claim it is cathartic.
Afterwards, fighters are encouraged to drink away the pain of their injuries.
1280
@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.
1281
@qikipedia
A wheeple is an ineffectual attempt to whistle loudly.
1282
@qikipedia
Death rate drop during economic downturns.
People drive less and get into fewer accidents, leading to cleaner air. People also have less money to spend on cigarettes and alcohol.
1283
@qikipedia
Moles shrink their brains in winter to conserve energy.
(Image: Johnnie Walker; CC BY-NC-ND.)
1284
@qikipedia
Ancient Greek and Roman mimes were not silent — they were performers and entertainers who talked and sang. They were called ‘mimes’ because they were good at mimicking other people.
1285
@qikipedia
Word of the day: ROGITATE - to ask the same question over and over again; particularly beloved of toddlers
1286
@qikipedia
In Nahuatl, the language spoken by the Aztecs and still spoken in Mexico, gold is ‘coztic teocuitlatl’ (‘yellow divine excrement’) and silver is ‘iztac teocuitlatl’ (‘white divine excrement’).
1287
@qikipedia
In the French Republican calendar, every day was named after something important to rural French life.
28 December was the day of manure.
1288
@qikipedia
Pierre de Courbertin's original plan was to add a new Olympic ring for each completed Olympiad. If he’d had his way, the Olympic symbol would now feature 28 rings.
1289
@qikipedia
There is no such thing as ‘a daddy longlegs’. There are at least three different creatures that answer to that name: the cellar spider (an arachnid); the harvestman (an arachnid but not a spider); and the crane fly (an insect, picture below).
Image: neurovelho, CC BY-SA 3.0
1290
@qikipedia
"I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities that I have visited, all my ancestors." JORGE LUIS BORGES
1291
@qikipedia
You can be RUTHFUL - full of compassion or pity - in addition to being RUTHLESS.
1292
@qikipedia
APROSEXIA is the inability to concentrate.
1293
@qikipedia
Word of the day: SPUDDLE - to work hard but achieve nothing
1294
@qikipedia
The COP26 climate conference is estimated to have a carbon footprint of 102,500 tonnes, equivalent to the annual average emissions of 8,000 Britons.
1295
@qikipedia
The frequency of a pig’s grunts reveal its personality.
1296
@qikipedia
The British Army briefly used a phonetic alphabet including "M as in Emma".
1297
@qikipedia
There is an outside toilet on the edge of a cliff in Siberia. It stands 2,500 metres above sea level and receives loo roll by helicopter.
1298
@qikipedia
Countries are more likely to go to war when their national football team is doing well.
1299
@qikipedia
Some mathematicians call 667 ‘the fax number of the beast’.
1300
@qikipedia
Brazil could not afford to send a team to the 1932 Olympics, so they sent the athletes on a ship full of coffee.
The athletes sold the coffee along the way to fund their journey.
@qikipedia
A Quite Interesting Twitter feed from the team behind the BBC TV show QI.
linktr.ee/TheQIElves