Sources: Actually, It’s Stranger Than That
Actually, It’s Stranger Than That: 500 True Stories Worth Repeating at Dinner, by J. R. Veley.
Every fact in the book was checked against at least one source. They are listed here by fact number. Web pages move and vanish; where a link has died, the title of the fact is usually enough to find the source again.
1. Everything You Know Is Wrong Facts 1–50
No. 001 Napoleon was not short
No. 002 Your tongue has no taste map
No. 003 You cannot see the Great Wall from space
No. 004 Lemmings do not march off cliffs
No. 005 Marie Antoinette never said “Let them eat cake”
No. 006 Cracking your knuckles does not cause arthritis
No. 007 Lightning strikes the same place again and again
No. 008 Vikings did not wear horned helmets
No. 009 Goldfish remember things for months
No. 010 Carrots do not give you night vision
No. 011 Sherlock Holmes never says “Elementary, my dear Watson”
No. 012 Nero did not fiddle while Rome burned
No. 013 Summer is not when the Earth is closest to the Sun
No. 014 The alpha wolf was a mistake
No. 015 Sugar does not make children hyperactive
No. 016 Nobody was burned at the stake in Salem
No. 017 Glass is not a slow-moving liquid
No. 018 Einstein did not fail math
No. 019 Bulls do not care about red
No. 020 You use all of your brain
No. 021 The pyramids were not built by slaves
No. 022 There is plenty of gravity in space
No. 023 Fortune cookies are not Chinese
No. 024 You do not lose most of your heat through your head
No. 025 Cleopatra lived closer to the Moon landing than to the pyramids
No. 026 Ostriches do not bury their heads in the sand
No. 027 A penny dropped from a skyscraper will not kill anyone
No. 028 George Washington’s false teeth were not wooden
No. 029 Shaving does not make hair grow back thicker
No. 030 Medieval Europeans knew the Earth was round
No. 031 Chameleons do not change color to hide
No. 032 Mount Everest is not the tallest mountain
No. 033 Paul Revere never shouted “The British are coming!”
No. 034 You have far more than five senses
No. 035 A Roman vomitorium was an exit
No. 036 You do not swallow eight spiders a year
No. 037 Toilets do not flush backward in Australia
No. 038 Edison did not invent the light bulb
No. 039 Nobody needs eight glasses of water a day
No. 040 The War of the Worlds caused no national panic
No. 041 A mother bird will not reject a chick you touched
No. 042 Black holes do not suck
No. 043 Houdini did not die in a water tank
No. 044 Alcohol makes you colder, not warmer
No. 045 The iron maiden is not medieval
No. 046 Hair and nails do not grow after death
No. 047 Franklin never proposed the turkey as national bird
No. 048 Nobody is left-brained or right-brained
No. 049 A life expectancy of thirty never meant dying at thirty
2. Happy Accidents Facts 51–100
No. 051 Penicillin was found on an unwashed dish
No. 052 The microwave oven began with a melted candy bar
No. 053 The Rosetta Stone was found by soldiers fixing a wall
No. 054 The Berlin Wall opened because of a press conference
No. 055 X-rays were discovered by a glow across the room
No. 056 The Post-it note began as a glue that failed
No. 057 The pacemaker was invented with the wrong part
No. 058 Lascaux was found by teenagers exploring a hole
No. 059 Rubber became useful when it fell on a stove
No. 060 The echo of the Big Bang was blamed on pigeons
No. 061 Lee’s battle plan was found wrapped around cigars
No. 062 Four sweeteners were found by tasting lab work
No. 063 Velcro was copied from the burrs on a dog
No. 064 The Terracotta Army was found by farmers digging a well
No. 065 Viagra was a failed heart drug
No. 066 Play-Doh was invented to clean wallpaper
No. 067 Radioactivity was discovered because Paris was cloudy
No. 068 The First World War began with a wrong turn
No. 069 Teflon was found in a cylinder that seemed empty
No. 070 Phosphorus was discovered by boiling urine
No. 071 The Dead Sea Scrolls were found by a shepherd
No. 072 Corn flakes began as wheat left out overnight
No. 073 Warfarin began as a cattle disease and a rat poison
No. 074 Shatterproof glass came from a dropped flask
No. 075 The first pulsar was labeled Little Green Men
No. 076 A Roman treasure was found by a man looking for a hammer
No. 077 The American Revolution was saved by a fog
No. 078 Super Glue was discovered twice
No. 079 The first synthetic dye was a failed malaria cure
No. 080 The Slinky was a spring that fell off a shelf
No. 081 Painless surgery was discovered at a laughing gas show
No. 082 Europe’s oldest mummy was taken for a lost hiker
No. 083 Gunpowder was invented in search of eternal life
No. 084 LSD was discovered through a chemist’s fingertips
No. 085 The Leaning Tower of Pisa was saved by a war
No. 086 Kevlar came from a batch that should have been thrown out
No. 087 Chemotherapy grew out of a poison gas disaster
No. 088 The oldest computer was found by sponge divers
No. 089 Bubble wrap was invented as wallpaper
No. 090 The cause of ulcers was found over an Easter weekend
No. 091 European porcelain was invented by a captive alchemist
No. 092 Gamma-ray bursts were found by bomb-watching satellites
No. 093 The Altamira paintings were found by a child
No. 094 Stainless steel came from a search for better gun barrels
No. 095 The first antidepressant was a tuberculosis drug
No. 096 The Louisiana Purchase was more than anyone asked for
No. 097 The tea bag caught on by mistake
No. 098 The first laboratory vaccine was a forgotten culture
No. 099 Gold was found in California just before Mexico gave it up
No. 100 A Nobel Prize began with a thousandfold mistake
3. Heists, Hoaxes and Cons Facts 101–150
No. 101 The Mona Lisa spent two years in a trunk
No. 102 Piltdown Man fooled science for forty years
No. 103 A con man sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap
No. 104 The Antwerp diamond thieves were caught by a sandwich
No. 105 A newspaper found bat-people on the Moon
No. 106 Gregor MacGregor sold a country that did not exist
No. 107 The man who stole the Crown Jewels got a pension
No. 108 The BBC reported a spaghetti harvest in Switzerland
No. 109 A forger proved his innocence by painting a Vermeer
No. 110 The Great Train Robbers left fingerprints on a Monopoly set
No. 111 Barnum faked the fake Cardiff Giant
No. 112 Ponzi’s scheme needed more postage coupons than existed
No. 113 The Gardner Museum still hangs its empty frames
No. 114 Mary Toft convinced the king’s surgeon she bore rabbits
No. 115 A Wagga Wagga butcher claimed to be a lost baronet
No. 116 Counterfeiters tried to steal Lincoln’s body
No. 117 The Hitler Diaries had the wrong initials on the cover
No. 118 A shoemaker in a bought uniform arrested a mayor
No. 119 Thieves drained Quebec’s maple syrup reserve
No. 120 Conan Doyle believed two girls photographed fairies
No. 121 Twenty years of loans against an empty safe
No. 122 The robbers who found three tonnes of gold by accident
No. 123 The day all London was sent to one address
No. 124 The mathematician who bought Cleopatra’s letters in French
No. 125 Four students stole the coronation stone on Christmas Day
No. 126 The Loch Ness photograph was a toy submarine
No. 127 Isaac Newton personally hunted a counterfeiter to the gallows
No. 128 A ham radio operator overheard a bank robbery in progress
No. 129 A stranger at Dover announced Napoleon’s death for profit
No. 130 Two prospectors seeded a field with diamonds
No. 131 The Hatton Garden vault was drilled by pensioners
No. 132 Two dozen journalists wrote a deliberately bad bestseller
No. 133 Howard Hughes phoned in to expose his own fake memoir
No. 134 A stolen Goya and the price of a TV licence
- https://artreview.com/national-gallery-goya-theft-kempton-bunton/
- https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/research-centre/archive/record/NGA26
- https://rountreetryon.com/viewing-room/4-a-history-of-art-in-james-bond
- https://www.thejamesbonddossier.com/features/the-new-european-looks-at-the-story-behind-the-dr-no-art-theft.htm
No. 135 The perpetual motion machine with a man upstairs
No. 136 The forger who had real banknotes printed for him
No. 137 The fake turf company that tunneled into a central bank
No. 138 A dead man with fake plans fooled Hitler
No. 139 The impostor who performed surgery from a textbook
No. 140 A 100-kilogram gold coin left in a wheelbarrow
No. 141 Sports Illustrated invented a pitcher who threw 168 mph
No. 142 The SEC was told Madoff was a fraud, in writing, for years
No. 143 D. B. Cooper jumped out of a 727 and was never found
No. 144 Rosie Ruiz won Boston by running the last mile
No. 145 Iowans bought shares in Sir Francis Drake’s estate
No. 146 A billion-dollar bank heist was stopped by a typo
No. 147 Japan’s star archaeologist was filmed burying his own finds
No. 148 The biggest gold find in history was gold from jewelry
No. 149 Thieves robbed the Louvre in daylight with a furniture lift
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Louvre_heist
- https://abcnews.com/International/louvre-gallery-reopens-public-after-brazen-heist-year/story?id=134979910
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/28/fourth-suspect-charged-in-louvre-jewel-heist-investigation
- https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/louvre-thieves-furniture-lift-heist-company-hoping-to-cash-in
No. 150 Catch Me If You Can was mostly fiction
4. Against All Odds Facts 151–200
No. 151 The man who survived both Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/first-confirmed-person-to-survive-two-nuclear-attacks
- https://abcnews.com/WN/atomic-bomb-victim-survived-hiroshima-nagasaki-dies-japan/story?id=9489697
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi
- https://www.history.com/news/the-man-who-survived-two-atomic-bombs
No. 152 Adams and Jefferson died on the same Fourth of July
No. 153 Kokura was spared by cloud and smoke
No. 154 The flight attendant who fell 10,000 meters
No. 155 The whole choir was late the night the church exploded
No. 156 Stanislav Petrov and the five missiles that were not there
No. 157 Juliane Koepcke fell into the jungle and walked out
No. 158 Poe’s cabin boy Richard Parker, eaten twice
No. 159 Washington rode out of Braddock’s defeat unhurt
- https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-01-02-0169
- https://mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/the-indian-prophecy
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Monongahela
- https://encyclopediavirginia.org/primary-documents/letter-from-george-washington-to-john-augustine-washington-july-18-1755/
- https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/french-indian-war/ten-facts-about-george-washington-and-the-french-indian-war
No. 160 The ranger struck by lightning seven times
No. 161 Twins separated at birth had led the same life
No. 162 Apollo 11 left the Moon thanks to a felt-tip pen
- https://www.history.com/news/buzz-aldrin-moon-landing-accident
- https://blog.museumofflight.org/flightdeck/failure-is-not-an-option-an-interview-with-buzz-aldrin
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/buzz-aldrin-used-this-humble-felt-tip-pen-to-save-the-apollo-ii-astronauts-it-just-sold-for-more-than-850000-180989142/
No. 163 A cook survived three days in a sunken tugboat
No. 164 The Civil War began and ended at Wilmer McLean’s house
No. 165 Both pistols fired at Andrew Jackson misfired
No. 166 Poon Lim survived 133 days alone on a raft
No. 167 A novel sank the Titan fourteen years before the Titanic
No. 168 One officer’s refusal stopped a nuclear torpedo in 1962
No. 169 A skier cooled to 13.7°C came back to life
No. 170 Mark Twain came in and went out with Halley’s Comet
No. 171 A Boeing 767 ran out of fuel and glided to a racetrack
No. 172 One woman survived the Olympic, Titanic and Britannic
No. 173 Laura Buxton’s balloon found another Laura Buxton
No. 174 Roosevelt was shot in the chest and gave the speech anyway
No. 175 The safest place in Saint-Pierre was a prison cell
No. 176 Two Dennis the Menaces debuted on the same day
No. 177 A captain was sucked halfway out of his cockpit
No. 178 An RAF gunner fell 18,000 feet without a parachute
No. 179 A Detroit street sweeper was hit by a falling baby twice
No. 180 A single switch stopped a hydrogen bomb in North Carolina
No. 181 The gunner who fell 20,000 feet through a station roof
No. 182 A father and son died at Hoover Dam thirteen years apart to the day
No. 183 A carpenter’s bomb missed Hitler by thirteen minutes
No. 184 A girl who could barely swim outlived 152 passengers
No. 185 Bulgaria’s lottery drew the same six numbers twice in a row
No. 186 The 747 that lost all four engines and kept its manners
No. 187 The only person known to have been hit by a meteorite
No. 188 The D-Day code names that appeared in a crossword
No. 189 Apollo 12 was struck by lightning and saved by one switch
No. 190 The pilot who fell through a thunderstorm for forty minutes
No. 191 Robert Lincoln, saved by a Booth, kept meeting assassins
No. 192 Dostoevsky’s firing squad was theater arranged by the Tsar
No. 193 Mawson walked out of Antarctica alone and missed the ship
No. 194 Franz Ferdinand’s car plate reads like the Armistice date
- https://www.hgm.at/en/visit-our-museums/museum-of-military-history/exhibitions/the-sarajevo-assassination
- https://www.profil.at/home/habsburger-sarajewo-attentat-der-tag-welt-366178
- https://hhjonline.com/did-the-license-plate-of-a-historic-vehicle-predict-the-day-world-war-i-would-end
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/curses-archduke-franz-ferdinand-and-his-astounding-death-car-27381052/
No. 195 Flight 236 glided 75 miles to the Azores with no fuel
No. 196 The Titanic’s baker outlasted everyone in the water
No. 197 Joan Ginther won the Texas lottery four times
- https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna38126776
- https://harpers.org/2016/01/the-luckiest-woman-on-earth
- https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/lottery/Joan_Ginther_tops_other_multiple_winners_in_lottery_history.html
- https://inquirer.com/philly/news/nation_world/Mystery_of_lottery_legend_Joan_Ginther_yields_clues_to_finding_75_million_prize.html
No. 198 Aloha 243 landed with its roof torn off
No. 199 Alvarenga drifted across the Pacific for 438 days
No. 200 Hopkins found the author’s own copy of the novel he was filming
5. Lost, Hidden and Forbidden Facts 201–250
No. 201 The island whose people shoot arrows at helicopters
No. 202 The underground city behind a basement wall
No. 203 Atlantis was invented by Plato
No. 204 The Brazilian island nobody may land on
No. 205 The fake Paris built for German bombers
No. 206 Doggerland, the country under the North Sea
No. 207 The seed vault halfway to the North Pole
No. 208 The resort with a bunker for Congress underneath
No. 209 The Mountains of Kong, mapped for a century, never there
No. 210 The Greek peninsula that has banned women for 1,000 years
No. 211 There is a sealed vault behind Mount Rushmore
No. 212 Machu Picchu was never actually lost
No. 213 The CIA admitted Area 51 existed only in 2013
No. 214 The US Army built a nuclear-powered city under the Greenland ice
No. 215 An island on the maps for 136 years was not there
No. 216 Surtsey, the island that was born in 1963 and is closed to everyone
No. 217 Gustave Eiffel kept a private apartment at the top of his tower
No. 218 Egypt’s great port before Alexandria sank into the sea
No. 219 An island that changes country every six months
No. 220 Michelangelo’s hiding place was found under a trapdoor
No. 221 Point Nemo is the loneliest spot on the planet
No. 222 The Japanese island no woman may set foot on
- https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/history/okinoshima-japan-island-women-ban/
- https://www.asianstudies.org/okinoshima-japans-newly-minted-unesco-world-heritage-site/
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/island-can-only-be-visited-men-180963245/
- https://www.okinoshima-heritage.jp/en/know/ritual.html
No. 223 Kowloon Walled City, the most crowded place on earth
No. 224 Genghis Khan’s tomb has never been found
No. 225 The Scottish island Britain poisoned with anthrax
No. 226 The Great Pyramid still has rooms nobody has entered
No. 227 The island three countries claimed before it sank
No. 228 The Hawaiian island closed to outsiders since 1915
No. 229 The Australian opal town that lives underground
No. 230 The Lost Colony left one word behind
No. 231 Fort Knox has let outsiders in three times
No. 232 Lasers found a hidden city around Angkor
No. 233 New Zealand is the tip of a sunken continent
No. 234 Poveglia is closed, and its ghost stories are mostly false
No. 235 A secret underground city lies beneath Corsham
No. 236 The Amber Room vanished in 1945
No. 237 The anthrax island that joined the mainland
No. 238 A seventeenth-century street lies under Edinburgh’s City Chambers
No. 239 The abandoned lifeboat on Bouvet Island
No. 240 Namibia’s forbidden diamond coast
No. 241 The presidential rail siding under the Waldorf Astoria
No. 242 The largest desert on Earth is Antarctica
No. 243 Japan’s holiest shrine is rebuilt every twenty years
No. 244 A Romanian cave sealed off for five million years
No. 245 Port Royal slid into the sea in minutes
No. 246 The Vatican Secret Archive was never secret, only private
No. 247 Lake Vostok lies under four kilometers of Antarctic ice
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vostok
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8998000
- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/classroom/posts/2012/02/secret-lake-buried-miles-under-antarctic-ice-could-hold-clues-to-life
- https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/fisticuffs-dawn-researchers-argue-over-vostok-life/
No. 248 An English town lies under the North Sea
No. 249 China’s first emperor lies in an unopened tomb
No. 250 A stone city built on a coral reef in the Pacific
6. Strange Laws and Stranger Trials Facts 251–300
No. 251 It is an offence to handle a salmon suspiciously
No. 252 A pope put his predecessor’s corpse on trial
No. 253 A sow was hanged for murder in 1386
No. 254 Peter the Great taxed beards and issued receipts
No. 255 It is not illegal to die in Parliament
No. 256 Switzerland bans keeping a single guinea pig
- https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/loo-flushing-explosives-gold_fact-check-lonely-guinea-pigs-and-other-quirky-swiss-rumours/45067078
- https://theworld.org/stories/2013/08/14/rent-guinea-pig-switzerland
- https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/09/guinea-pig-repo-markets-in-everything-the-culture-that-is-switzerland.html
No. 257 An accused murderer demanded trial by battle in 1818
No. 258 Scotland banned golf to protect archery practice
No. 259 A lawyer defended rats by blaming the cats
No. 260 Iceland’s committee decides if a name is legal
- https://archive.crin.org/en/library/news-archive/iceland-girl-wins-right-name.html
- https://csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2013/0131/Iceland-teen-allowed-to-use-name-not-on-official-registry
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Naming_Committee
- https://www.thelocal.dk/20220725/explained-the-rules-for-naming-a-baby-in-denmark
No. 261 A Nebraska senator sued God and could not serve Him
No. 262 Flying a kite to annoy Londoners is still an offence
No. 263 The McDonald’s coffee plaintiff had third-degree burns
No. 264 Japan’s Dog Shogun built kennels for tens of thousands of strays
No. 265 A Russian town bell was flogged and exiled to Siberia
No. 266 A French village offered land to the weevils it was suing
No. 267 Singapore banned chewing gum because it jammed train doors
No. 268 Scottish juries had a third verdict: not proven
No. 269 Whales, sturgeons and unmarked swans belong to the King
No. 270 France lets you marry a dead person
No. 271 The first animal-cruelty trial and the donkey who was not there
No. 272 Britain jailed a medium under a 1735 witchcraft law in 1944
- https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/Helen-Duncan-Scotlands-last-witch/
- https://www.forcesnews.com/feature/how-sinking-second-world-war-ship-led-one-uks-last-witch-trials
- https://www.scotsman.com/heritage-and-retro/heritage/hellish-nell-the-scottish-blitz-witch-tried-at-the-old-bailey-2462524
- https://www.badwitch.co.uk/2016/11/seriously-suspicious-conspiracies-helen.html
No. 273 Japan requires employers to measure their workers’ waists
No. 274 The “Twinkie defense” was never argued in court
No. 275 Turkey banned the fez in 1925 and never repealed the law
No. 276 Oliver Cromwell was executed two years after he died
No. 277 Basel tried and burned a rooster for laying an egg in 1474
No. 278 It is still an offence in England to be drunk in charge of a horse
No. 279 The Indiana House voted 67 to 0 to redefine pi
No. 280 A medieval Norman cry still halts wrongs in Guernsey and Jersey
No. 281 Rome banned goldfish bowls and ordered daily dog walks
No. 282 Brazilian friars put their termites on trial
No. 283 A Pennsylvania prisoner sued Satan and lost on a technicality
No. 284 Elizabethan law dictated dress rank by rank
No. 285 Naming a pig Napoleon has never been illegal in France
No. 286 Canada repealed its duelling and witchcraft offences in 2018
No. 287 Reciting one psalm verse saved felons from the gallows
No. 288 Pep the dog was booked into prison for murder
No. 289 England demanded advance notice of Polish potatoes
No. 290 A Virginia inmate sued himself for $5 million
No. 291 Advocating a republic in print is still, on paper, a life offence
No. 292 The Georgia city where fried chicken must be eaten by hand
No. 293 The monkey selfie that went to a federal appeals court
No. 294 Athens tried axes, stones and statues for murder
No. 295 It has been illegal to wear armour to Parliament since 1313
No. 296 Europe’s last feudal state voted for the first time in 2008
No. 297 New York’s top court ruled an elephant is not a person
- https://www.click2houston.com/tech/2022/06/14/top-state-court-rejects-effort-to-free-bronx-zoo-elephant/
- https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chimps-kiko-tommy-don-t-have-rights-people-new-york-n770151
- https://www.animallaw.info/case/asociacion-de-funcionarios-y-abogados-por-los-derechos-de-los-animales-y-otros-contra-gcba
No. 298 New Zealand made a river a legal person in 2017
No. 299 Harming a saguaro is a felony; one saguaro fought back
- https://www.azleg.gov/ars/3/00932.htm
- https://www.azleg.gov/ars/13/00702.htm
- https://www.nps.gov/sagu/learn/saguaro-arms-project.htm
- https://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/saguaro.asp
- https://uapress.arizona.edu/2020/02/an-excerpt-from-the-saguaro-cactus-a-natural-history-book-release-celebration-feb-23
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Lounge_Lizards
No. 300 Missouri elected a dead man to the Senate in 2000
- https://www.csmonitor.com/2000/1109/p12s2.html
- https://www.kctv5.com/2025/10/16/this-day-history-missouri-governor-mel-carnahan-died-plane-crash
- https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/11/nevada-voters-elect-dead-brothel-owner-dennis-hof-state-assembly
- https://wc.arizona.edu/papers/94/58/01_95_m.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_Senate_election_in_Missouri
7. The Secret Lives of Everyday Things Facts 301–350
No. 301 Ketchup began as fish sauce and spent years as medicine
No. 302 The can opener arrived fifty years after the can
No. 303 High heels were invented for men on horseback
No. 304 The chainsaw was invented to help with childbirth
No. 305 Monopoly was invented to teach that monopolies are bad
No. 306 QWERTY was not designed to slow typists down
No. 307 Coca-Cola contained cocaine and still uses the coca leaf
No. 308 Toilet paper was sold as splinter-free in the 1930s
No. 309 The diamond engagement ring was invented by an ad agency
No. 310 The treadmill was invented as a punishment for prisoners
No. 311 Barbie was copied from a German gag doll for men
No. 312 The original 7 Up contained lithium
No. 313 The inventor of the match thought it not worth patenting
- https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/ap25353/walker-john
- https://ctlhs.co.uk/golden-jubilee/fifty-interesting-events/john-walker-sells-friction-matches-1827/
- https://hekint.org/2022/08/22/phossy-jaw-an-industrial-horror-story/
- https://heritage.stockton.gov.uk/articles/people/john-walker-inventor-of-the-friction-match
No. 314 The necktie is named after Croatian mercenaries
No. 315 The fax machine is older than the telephone
No. 316 The teddy bear is named for a bear Roosevelt refused to shoot
No. 317 Thomas Crapper did not invent the flush toilet
No. 318 Dom Pérignon tried to get the bubbles out of champagne
No. 319 London’s first male umbrella-carrier was hooted at
No. 320 In 1918 the advice was pink for boys, blue for girls
No. 321 The first vending machine sold holy water
No. 322 The Frisbee began as a pie tin
- https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-23/toy-company-wham-o-produces-first-frisbees
- https://wham-o.com/blogs/news/the-flight-of-a-classic-a-brief-history-of-the-frisbee
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Headrick
- https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/the-sweet-new-england-history-of-the-frisbee/
No. 323 Georgian Britons rented pineapples for the evening
No. 324 There has never been lead in a lead pencil
No. 325 Blue jeans exist because a tailor could not spare $68
- https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2010/05/20/forever-in-blue-jeansand-in-court/
- https://levistrauss.com/2013/03/14/the-story-of-levi-strauss/
- https://www.levistrauss.com/2019/07/04/the-history-of-denim/
- https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/09/in-a-word-denim-jeans-and-geography/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_W._Davis
No. 326 The bicycle may owe its existence to a volcano
- https://www.cyclinguk.org/cycle/draisienne-1817-2017-200-years-cycling-innovation-design
- https://velo.outsideonline.com/2017/02/200-years-on-two-wheels-the-first-bike-ride-and-the-enduring-soul-of-cycling/?scope=anon
- https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/454-war-famine-pestilence-and-design/transcript/
No. 327 Bubble gum is pink because it was the only dye
No. 328 Coca-Cola did not put Santa in a red suit
- https://theferret.scot/fact-check-coca-cola-red-santa-claus-christmas/
- https://fakehistoryhunter.substack.com/p/coca-cola-did-not-create-santa
- https://culinarylore.com/beverage-history:was-coca-cola-the-first-soda-to-use-santa-in-ads/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus
- https://fohbc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/WhiteRocksSantaClaus.pdf
No. 329 American states once ordered margarine dyed pink
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-government-came-to-decide-color-your-food-180973962/
- https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/171/30/case.html
- https://www.sciencehistory.org/collections-blog/stomping-the-margarine
- https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/resolving-canada-s-conflicted-relationship-with-margarine-1.741363
No. 330 Listerine turned bad breath into a disease
No. 331 Queen Victoria started the white wedding dress
No. 332 The first ballpoints cost $12.50 and leaked
No. 333 Pez was a breath mint for smokers trying to quit
No. 334 America banned sliced bread for 49 days in 1943
No. 335 Kleenex was for cold cream until customers said otherwise
No. 336 Wristwatches were for women until the wars
- https://magazine.tagheuer.com/en/2021/11/04/a-wristed-development-what-stopped-the-pocket-watch-part-2/
- https://quillandpad.com/2014/07/08/the-first-wristwatches-from-breguet-hermes-and-patek-philippe-were-made-for-women/
- https://www.worthy.com/blog/knowledge-center/watches/wristwatch-evolution/
- https://wornandwound.com/military-watches-of-the-world-great-britain-part-1-the-boer-war-through-the-second-world-war/
No. 337 The shopping cart needed hired fake shoppers
No. 338 Silly Putty was a failed wartime rubber substitute
No. 339 A Norwegian did not invent the paper clip
No. 340 The Popsicle and the 11-year-old on the porch
No. 341 Vaseline began as gunk that fouled the oil pumps
No. 342 The modern bra was two handkerchiefs and a ribbon
No. 343 The first barcode scanned was on a pack of gum
No. 344 Worcestershire sauce was a failed batch left in a cellar
No. 345 The dishwasher was invented by a socialite with chipped china
No. 346 The safety pin was invented to settle a $15 debt
No. 347 Chewing gum exists because a general wanted rubber tires
No. 348 The coffee filter was a page from a schoolbook
No. 349 Before alarm clocks, people paid knocker-uppers
No. 350 The lawn mower was copied from a cloth-trimming machine
8. Nature's Rule-Breakers Facts 351–400
No. 351 The first platypus was checked for stitches
- https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/natures-weirdest-platypus
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/glowing-platypus
- https://blog.nature.org/2019/10/07/the-platypus-is-weirder-than-you-ever-imagined/
- https://source.washu.edu/2008/05/platypus-genome-explains-animal-peculiar-features-holds-clues-to-evolution-of-mammals/
- https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-19th-century-naturalists-didnt-believe-in-the-platypus
No. 352 Crows remember your face and hold a grudge for years
No. 353 A jellyfish that can grow young again
No. 354 Tardigrades survived ten days in open space
- https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Research/Tiny_animals_survive_exposure_to_space
- https://sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080908135906.htm
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6952461
- https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Tardigrade
- https://www.britannica.com/animal/tardigrade
No. 355 Camels do not store water in their humps
No. 356 The naked mole rat ignores most of the rules of being a mammal
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/naked-mole-rats-can-survive-18-minutes-without-oxygen-180963002/
- https://elifesciences.org/articles/31157
- https://theconversation.com/meet-the-naked-mole-rat-impervious-to-pain-and-cancer-and-lives-ten-times-longer-than-it-should-118809
- https://www.sciencealert.com/we-just-figured-out-how-naked-mole-rats-survive-low-oxygen-and-it-s-even-trippier-than-imagined
No. 357 Two orcas that eat great white sharks’ livers
No. 358 Every clownfish starts life as a male
No. 359 Pando, a forest that is a single tree
No. 360 Inky the octopus escaped down a drain to the sea
- https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2016/04/13/inky-octopus-escapes-new-zealand-aquarium/Tmq6wbv3lujKGKw9e4alAL/story.html
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/160414-inky-octopus-escapes-intelligence
- https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/fishkeeping-news/aquarium-octopus-causes-havoc/
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ten-wild-facts-about-octopuses-they-have-three-hearts-big-brains-and-blue-blood-7625828/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinnoctopus_cordiformis
No. 361 A brainless slime mold redesigned Tokyo’s railways
No. 362 Greenland sharks live four centuries and mature at 150
- https://www.sci.news/biology/greenland-sharks-longest-lived-vertebrates-04099.html
- https://livescience.com/greenland-shark
- https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/greenland-shark.html
- https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/glierpub/385
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ommatokoita
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl
No. 363 Piranhas are timid, and Roosevelt gave them their reputation
- https://www.ploddingthroughthepresidents.com/2025/09/theodore-roosevelt-never-witnessed-a-cow-being-skeletonized-by-piranhas.html
- https://www.greaterclevelandaquarium.com/how-a-president-propagated-a-piranha-myth/
- https://themeateater.com/fish/freshwater/bar-room-banter-will-piranhas-turn-you-into-a-euro-mount
No. 364 The mantis shrimp punches like a bullet and sees color badly
No. 365 Common swifts stay airborne for ten months
No. 366 The deep-sea anglerfish male fuses to the female
No. 367 The largest organism is a fungus under an Oregon forest
No. 368 The electric eel is not an eel and can leap
No. 369 Bowerbirds build a stage and decorate it in blue
No. 370 Komodo dragons have virgin births
No. 371 Lobsters are not immortal, whatever the internet says
No. 372 The pistol shrimp’s snap makes a bubble as hot as the Sun
No. 373 Vampire bats feed hungry friends and keep score
No. 374 Male seahorses get pregnant and go into labor
No. 375 The Venus flytrap can count to five
No. 376 The bombardier beetle fires a boiling jet, 500 times a second
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-this-beetle-creates-500-explosions-per-second-in-its-bum
- https://news.mit.edu/2015/how-bombardier-beetles-produce-defensive-spray-0430
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/beetle-survives-toad-vomit-animals
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC22274/
No. 377 A tiny pufferfish builds a seven-foot sand mandala
No. 378 Male antechinuses mate for two weeks, then all die
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/why-a-little-mammal-has-so-much-sex-that-it-disintegrates
- https://news.uq.edu.au/article/2013/10/dying-sex-%E2%80%93-extreme-mammal-habits
- https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/578360
- https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/01/antechinus-sex-cannibalism/
No. 379 Bats are not blind; some see better than you
No. 380 The hairy frog breaks its toes to make claws
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/wolverine-frogs-pop-retractable-claws-from-their-toes
- https://sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080623125003.htm
- https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/facts-and-arguments/horror-frog-makes-its-own-claws/article10567688
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_frog
No. 381 A young godwit flew 13,560 km without stopping
No. 382 Cicadas that keep time in prime numbers
No. 383 The bamboo that flowers once a century and dies
No. 384 The turtles that breathe through their backsides
No. 385 The reef fish that passed the mirror test
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/fish-cleaner-wrasse-self-aware-mirror-test-intelligence-news
- https://www.omu.ac.jp/en/info/research-news/entry-23252.html
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-tiny-reef-fish-can-recognize-itself-in-a-mirror
- https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna15487308
No. 386 Ming the clam, 507 years old and frozen by accident
No. 387 Sharks do get cancer, whatever the supplement bottle says
No. 388 The Antarctic fish with clear blood
No. 389 The seabird that naps in ten-second bursts while flying
No. 390 The salamander that never grows up and regrows everything
No. 391 The fungus that turns ants into puppets
No. 392 The frog that freezes solid every winter
No. 393 The lyrebird chainsaw came from a zoo
No. 394 The parasite that makes rats like cats
No. 395 Cockroaches would not inherit the Earth
No. 396 Koalas have human fingerprints
No. 397 Australia’s rabbits began with two dozen
No. 398 The oldest tree was cut down by a student
No. 399 The parasite that becomes a fish’s tongue
9. Money, Manias and Madness Facts 401–450
No. 401 Newton got the South Sea Bubble right, then wrong
No. 402 On Yap, a stone lost at sea still counted as money
No. 403 England taxed daylight, window by window
No. 404 The Dutch let Manhattan go to keep a nutmeg island
No. 405 Tulip mania did not ruin Holland
No. 406 A Scottish duelist ended up running France’s finances
No. 407 Hungarian prices doubled every fifteen hours
- https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/762605-highest-inflation-rate-ever
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_peng%C5%91
- https://planetbanknote.com/banknote-blog/hungary-1946-the-worst-hyperinflation-ever/
- https://learn.planetbanknote.com/hyperinflation-hungary/
- https://dailynewshungary.com/hungarys-nightmare-hyperinflation-of-1946/
No. 408 The Soviet Union paid for Pepsi with submarines
No. 409 Vespasian taxed urine, and the coins smelled fine
No. 410 A divorcing couple split their Beanie Babies in court
- https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19991106/2993553/no-joint-custody-beanie-baby-collection-is-divided
- https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/couple-divorce-beanie-babies/
- https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2004-08-31-0408310304-story.html
- https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/1999-flashback-the-day-beanie-babies-died
- https://www.encyclopedia.com/media/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/beanie-babies
No. 411 Old wooden tax receipts burned down Parliament
No. 412 The penny cost nearly four cents to make
- https://coinnews.net/2025/02/10/penny-costs-3-69-cents-to-make-in-2024
- https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/national-international/last-pennies-ever-minted-sold-16-million-historic-auction/3735831/
- https://www.canada.ca/en/news/archive/2012/05/minister-finance-strikes-last-penny-enter-circulation-canada.html
No. 413 Ruined brokers did not jump from windows in 1929
No. 414 Two pizzas were bought for 10,000 bitcoin
No. 415 An Italian bank takes Parmesan as loan collateral
No. 416 Britain taxed hats, so hatters sold “headgear”
No. 417 The US paid off its entire national debt once, in 1835
- https://www.kunc.org/npr-news/2011-04-15/when-the-u-s-paid-off-the-entire-national-debt-and-why-it-didnt-last
- https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/jan/12/george-lemieux/fla-senator-says-jan-8-1835-only-day-us-has-been-d/
- https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-1/andrew-jackson-national-debt-reaches-zero-dollars
No. 418 Strasbourg’s dancing plague of 1518
No. 419 Sweden’s 43-pound coin led to the first banknotes
No. 420 Voltaire got rich by cornering a lottery
No. 421 The Rothschild Waterloo fortune is an antisemitic invention
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Mayer_Rothschild
- https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/news-waterloo-race-tell-britain-wellingtons-victory-brian-cathcart
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rothschilds_(film)
- https://books.google.com/books/about/The_House_of_Rothschild_Money_s_prophets.html?id=3I55vwEACAAJ
No. 422 Trading onion futures is illegal in the United States
No. 423 Zimbabwe printed a 100 trillion dollar banknote
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_one_hundred_trillion_dollar_note
- https://www.cato.org/commentary/zimbabwe-hyperinflates-again-entering-record-books-second-time-less-decade
- https://polgeonow.com/2015/11/death-of-zimbabwe-dollar-currency-demonetized.html
- https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/12/413885631/big-change-yields-small-change-as-zimbabweans-exchange-trillions
No. 424 Britain taxed bricks, so brick makers made them bigger
No. 425 The US Treasury could legally mint a trillion-dollar coin
- https://www.numismaticnews.net/coin-market/1-trillion-coin-can-the-u-s-mint-do-it
- https://www.semafor.com/article/01/19/2023/the-best-arguments-for-and-against-minting-a-1-trillion-coin-to-solve-the-debt-crisis
- https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/verify-could-the-us-treasury-print-a-1-trillion-coin-to-avoid-the-debt-ceiling-crisis-biden-congress-debt-limit/65-5b9ca9cc-7186-4e0f-93f3-ae748202fc3d
No. 426 Shoppers rioted over Cabbage Patch Kids in 1983
No. 427 Prisoners of war used cigarettes as money
No. 428 A Nevada man has been selling the Moon by the acre
No. 429 The ace of spades is fancy because of a tax
No. 430 Two Texas brothers tried to corner the silver market
No. 431 Canada’s first paper money was cut from playing cards
- https://www.bankofcanadamuseum.ca/2018/12/a-good-deal/
- https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2008/11/quest-confidence-400-years-money/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Canadian_currencies
- https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/1600-1770.pdf
- https://coinweek.com/paper-money-play-your-cards-right-or-spend-them/
No. 432 Germany finished paying for the First World War in 2010
- https://www.history.com/articles/germany-world-war-i-debt-treaty-versailles
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations
- https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/413322/4c3fffa7b1de4151be9641a8254f6f30/WD-1-088-08-pdf.pdf
- https://www.militarytrader.com/militaria-collecting-101/germany-pays-off-wwi-debt
No. 433 Nobody knows whether “salary” really comes from salt
No. 434 Britain’s Railway Mania took in the Brontë sisters
No. 435 The Bank of England prints £100 million notes nobody can spend
No. 436 The man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo was a fraudster
No. 437 Governments have taxed bachelors for two thousand years
No. 438 A laughing fit closed schools in Tanganyika in 1962
No. 439 The Aztecs paid in chocolate, and forgers faked the beans
- https://exhibits.library.cornell.edu/chocolate-food-of-the-gods/feature/when-money-grew-on-trees
- https://archive.archaeology.org/1011/abstracts/chocolate.html
- https://www.worldhistory.org/Chocolate_in_Mesoamerica/
- https://www.ie.edu/insights/articles/cervantes-and-cacao-a-bittersweet-legacy/
- https://www.mentalfloss.com/food/candy/counterfeit-chocolate-not-just-thing-past
No. 440 A student sold a million pixels for a dollar each
No. 441 Nobody called Alaska “Seward’s Folly” in 1867
No. 442 Nauru bet its phosphate fortune on a West End musical
No. 443 Spanish dollars were legal tender in the US until 1857
No. 444 The $20 coin that sold for $18.9 million
No. 445 Scutage let knights pay instead of fight
No. 446 The $2.9 million tweet drew a top bid of $280
- https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/04/13/jack-dorseys-first-tweet-nft-went-on-sale-for-48m-it-ended-with-a-top-bid-of-just-280/
- https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/2point9-million-dollar-nft-of-jack-dorseys-first-ever-tweet-plunges-in-value.html
- https://fortune.com/2022/04/14/jack-dorsey-nft-first-tweet-auction-plunge-value-drop
- https://www.startupdaily.net/?p=100160
No. 447 Brazil beat inflation with a currency that did not exist
No. 448 Britain finished paying for the First World War in 2015
No. 449 The Knights Templar ran an early traveler’s check
No. 450 Monte Carlo’s 26 blacks in a row
10. The Body and Mind Misbehaving Facts 451–500
No. 451 Phineas Gage recovered better than the textbooks say
No. 452 A Kentucky family was blue for generations
No. 453 Placebos can work even when you know
- https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0015591
- https://scholars.houstonmethodist.org/en/publications/a-controlled-trial-of-arthroscopic-surgery-for-osteoarthritis-of-/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2359128/
- https://scholars.duke.edu/publication/810357
- https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect
- https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/behavioral-impact-higher-price
No. 454 The doctor who proved handwashing works died in an asylum
No. 455 The operation with 300 percent mortality is a myth
No. 456 The man who could not make new memories
No. 457 The woman who feels almost no pain
No. 458 Half of viewers miss the gorilla
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/but-did-you-see-the-gorilla-the-problem-with-inattentional-blindness-17339778/
- https://news.illinois.edu/expecting-the-unexpected-does-not-improve-ones-chances-of-seeing-it/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3964612/
- https://www.nhpr.org/national/2013-02-11/why-even-radiologists-can-miss-a-gorilla-hiding-in-plain-sight
No. 459 Heroin was sold as a cough medicine
No. 460 Charles Osborne hiccuped for 68 years
No. 461 A brain injury can leave you sounding foreign
- https://languagehat.com/foreign-accent-syndrome/
- https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/mysteries-of-foreign-accent-syndrome
- https://mentalfloss.com/article/531339/what-is-foreign-accent-syndrome
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_accent_syndrome
- https://www.brainfacts.org/thinking-sensing-and-behaving/language/2017/waking-up-with-a-foreign-accent-072617
No. 462 A memory of something that never happened can be planted
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_the_mall_technique
- https://cora.ucc.ie/items/ea64497b-c210-4ad6-9bf0-497939ea752d
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-likely-arent-as-susceptible-to-false-memories-as-researchers-thought/
- https://www.washington.edu/news/2001/06/11/i-tawt-i-taw-a-bunny-wabbit-at-disneyland-new-evidence-shows-false-memories-can-be-created/
- https://www.simplypsychology.org/loftus-palmer.html
No. 463 A doctor threaded a catheter into his own heart
No. 464 The MSG scare began with one letter to a journal
No. 465 A DNA test said a mother’s children were not hers
No. 466 After some brain injuries a hand acts on its own
No. 467 A lemon-juice bank robber inspired the Dunning-Kruger effect
No. 468 Londoners tried to revive the drowned with tobacco smoke enemas
- https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/saving-lives-with-a-puff-of-smoke/
- https://bcmj.org/special-feature/special-feature-tobacco-smoke-enemas
- https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/before-modern-cpr-there-were-tobacco-smoke-enemas
- https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2009-July/091906.html
No. 469 The human body glows with visible light
No. 470 In Cotard’s delusion, the living believe they are dead
- https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/05/27/man-describes-life-with-walking-corpse-syndrome
- https://drlindseyfitzharris.com/disturbing-disorders-cotards-delusion-walking-corpse-syndrome/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard%27s_syndrome
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-brains-of-people-with-walking-corpse-syndrome-might-actually-be-shutting-down-22544104/
No. 471 A man was acquitted of a killing because he was asleep
No. 472 Einstein’s brain was taken without permission
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_of_Albert_Einstein
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Stoltz_Harvey
- https://www.hcplive.com/view/who-stole-einsteins-brain
- https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/127990/driving-mr-albert-by-michael-paterniti/9780307765352
- https://staff.washington.edu/chudler/ein.html
No. 473 The 38 witnesses who did nothing never existed
No. 474 Fewer than fifty people have “golden blood”
No. 475 Some people cannot recognize faces, even their own
No. 476 A man overdosed on a placebo
No. 477 Americans once drank radium water as a tonic
No. 478 Up to a third of people sneeze at the sun
No. 479 Some people have no mind’s eye
No. 480 A schoolboy stayed awake for eleven days
No. 481 The stethoscope was invented out of embarrassment
No. 482 The Stanford Prison Experiment was not what textbooks say
No. 483 Some people get drunk because their gut brews alcohol
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6688673/
- https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/woman-beats-dui-rap-with-claim-her-body-brews-alcohol/
- https://au.news.yahoo.com/belgian-man-whose-body-produces-192733317.html
- http://www.brusselstimes.com/1016746/man-with-auto-brewery-syndrome-acquitted-of-drink-driving
No. 484 Blindsight: dodging objects you cannot see
No. 485 Dreaming in black and white was a television-era habit
- https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/vision/dream/2002-schwitzgebel.pdf
- https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/DreamReportRepl.htm
- https://mindhacks.com/2008/10/20/monochrome-dreaming/
- https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/publications/do-we-only-dream-in-colour-a-comparison-of-reported-dream-colour-/
No. 486 Europeans ate Egyptian mummies as medicine
No. 487 Peto’s paradox: why elephants rarely get cancer
- https://ascopost.com/issues/november-10-2015/multiple-copies-of-tp53-tumor-suppressor-gene-potentially-related-to-lower-than-expected-cancer-rate-in-elephants
- https://carlzimmer.com/elephants-large-long-living-and-less-prone-to-cancer-86/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peto%27s_paradox
- https://www.sciencenews.org/article/bowhead-whales-cancer-dna-repair?nb=1
No. 488 Split-brain patients and the two hemispheres
No. 489 The Mozart effect never made babies smarter
No. 490 One person in ten thousand has their organs reversed
No. 491 The civil servant with most of his brain missing
No. 492 The lobotomy won its inventor a Nobel Prize
- https://www.el-hai.com/blog/2016/05/02/fighting-the-legend-of-the-lobotomobile.html
- https://www.publicradioeast.org/2005-11-16/my-lobotomy-howard-dullys-journey
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11578627/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy
- https://www.npr.org/2005/08/10/4794007/nobel-panel-urged-to-rescind-prize-for-lobotomies
No. 493 Some people are born without fingerprints
No. 494 The woman who can smell Parkinson’s disease
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-supersmeller-can-detect-the-scent-of-parkinsons-leading-to-an-experimental-test-for-the-illness/
- https://regenerative-medicine.ed.ac.uk/news-events/news-archive/news-archive-2019/progress-towards-skin-swab-test-for-parkinson-s
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6487537
No. 495 Two months in a cave without a clock
No. 496 The goat-gland doctor who nearly became governor
- https://www.kansashistory.gov/kansapedia/john-r-brinkley/11988
- https://www.kcur.org/politics-elections-and-government/2018-08-09/the-last-time-a-kansas-gubernatorial-election-was-this-close-it-involved-goat-glands
- https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/John-Richard-Brinkley-1105
- https://www.museum.tv/radio-encyclopedia-2/brinkley-john-r
No. 497 Bacteria do not outnumber your cells ten to one
No. 498 The appendix is not useless
- https://corporate.dukehealth.org/news/appendix-isnt-useless-all-its-safe-house-bacteria
- https://gizmodo.com/your-appendix-may-not-be-as-useless-as-you-think-1791075530
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/guest-blog/your-appendix-could-save-your-life/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7455376/