Isabel

Why Some Civil War Soldiers Glowed In The Dark

They called it “Angel’s Glow,” and it took 140 years to figure out what was happening.

Continue Reading.

When Allen Parton was hit by a car, his service dog Endal dragged him into the recovery position, found his cell phone and pushed it into his hand, fetched him a blanket from under his wheelchair, then ran to a nearby hotel and barked at the door until someone helped. Source

594-Square-Foot Triangular ‘Tiny House’ Built On Abnormally Shaped Property

A family of 3 lives inside. Would you live in a tiny house like this?

Continue Reading.

There is no such thing as “cold.” When it’s cold, we don’t actually feel a “cold” temperature, we feel a lack of heat. The vibrations of the atoms in our bodies are transferred to the slow-moving atoms in the air, which causes us to lose heat. Basically, if you feel cold, nature is stealing from you. Source

This controversial procedure has been attempted with both mice and monkeys, but the idea of attempting it in humans is raising even more ethical questions in the surgical community, and its possibility is looked at by some doctors as a completely ridiculous claim. Source

21 Harry Potter Facts You Probably Don’t Know

J.K. Rowling thought of EVERYTHING. Even Stephen King noticed.

Continue Reading.

The “cool kids” in school are more likely to have drug, alcohol, and relationship problems. A study found that popular kids who tried to act older in middle and high school were seen by their peers as immature and less socially competent by the time they were 22. Psychologists call it the “high school reunion effect,” because people often show up to their class reunions and find that a lot of the popular kids aren’t doing so well. Source

Vikings used ravens to navigate. They brought ravens aboard their ships, then released them and sailed in the same direction to find land. The raven was so important to them that it became the symbol on their flag. Source

It was so cold in February 2015 that Niagara Falls froze over. According to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Eerie was 97% frozen, and the rest of the lakes iced over at 85%, which attracted a lot of tourists to Niagara despite the negative 22 degree weather. Source

Children in Dubai are literally worth their weight in gold. The country has been trying to motivate people to lose weight by giving everyone 1 gram of gold for each kilogram they lose, which equals about $20 for each pound lost. Families with children between 2-14 are paid twice as much. Source

Your GPS exists because of Albert Einstein. If the Global Positioning System had to use Isaac Newton’s theories instead of Einstein’s theory of relativity, GPS locations would be off by miles. Source

There are so many corpses floating in China’s Yellow River that many people become “body fishers” and make money by collecting the remains and selling them back to their families. Source

There used to be a profession called “knocker-up.” The person would walk around town and knock on people’s windows with a stick until they woke up. There were a large number of “knocker-uppers” in Britain and Ireland until the 1920s. After that, people had access to more affordable and reliable alarm clocks. Source

Writer Ernest Hemingway was 61 when he committed suicide in 1961. His father, brother, sister, son, and granddaughter also took their own lives. Bipolar disease and mental illness runs in the family, but it is often referred to as the “Hemingway curse.” Source

The Grisly Secrets Of How Victorian Londoners Treated Their Dead

"…the corpses of children were frequently carried to the places of sepulture in cabs."

Continue Reading.

In 1913, a young artist moved to Germany and supported himself with his drawings and paintings. WWI gave him direction, and he became a brave and decorated soldier, but he was partially blinded by a mustard gas attack in 1918. During his recovery, the news of Germany’s defeat emotionally destroyed him and he became bitter. Within a year he suggested the removal of an undesirable “race” of people. His name was Adolf Hitler. Source

17 Facts You Think Are True, But Are Absolute Lies

You’re getting these all wrong. Stop doing that.

Continue Reading.

An alien star passed through our solar system 70,000 years ago. Astronomers have discovered that a red dwarf came 0.8 light-years from the sun around the time modern humans are thought to have first spread across Asia. This is the “closest known flyby of a star” in our solar system. Source

After To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee never published another novel, but she’d written one that was forgotten for over 50 years. In 2014, a friend stumbled upon the book, which takes place when Scout Finch is an adult. Go Set A Watchman was the original submission Lee was asked to rewrite from the perspective of Scout as a child, and will be published as a sequel. Source

J.K. Rowling’s Elaborate Plot Spreadsheet

Harry Potter on a hand-written spreadsheet!

Continue Reading.

Behind The Scenes: President Barack Obama’s $1.5 million “Cadillac One”

Designed from the ground up by the Secret Service. The president has 12 identical limos in rotation and, when not in use, they’re parked in the basement of the Secret Service’s headquarters and are under 24-hour surveillance.

Continue Reading.

Geisha were originally men. Beginning in the 13th century, male geisha were a Japanese version of a jester who entertained royalty with songs, dances, and comedy. At the time, women were not allowed to entertain at parties, so female geisha didn’t emerge until 1751. Source

Researchers found a way to preserve computer data in the form of DNA encased in silica. While ancient scrolls have survived for thousands of years, hard drives and server storage can only hold up for about 50 years. Inspired by fossils, they encoded 83 kilobytes of data in DNA and enclosed it in silica spheres. According to their calculations, the info could survive over a million years. Source

The Past Is A Lie: These Famous Historical Moments Were All Heavily Edited

Several political leaders have attempted to wipe a person clean out of history.

Continue reading…

When John Belushi was on Saturday Night Live, he purposely sabotaged anything that was written by a female because he believed women were “fundamentally not funny.” Source

The bright haze lasted about 10 days, returned for the same amount of time a month later, then vanished.

Source

Having a midnight snack is bad for your brain. Scientists experimented with mice and found that just by feeding them at the wrong times, their entire systems were disrupted. The study showed that misaligned eating patterns can ultimately mess with the brain’s ability to form memories and learn new tasks. Source

After the 2014 World Cup, Germany’s Mesut Özil donated his tournament winnings to Brazilian children in need of surgery as a “personal thank-you for the hospitality of the people of Brazil.” Source

Skateistan provides education for children in Afghanistan and is one of the only ways girls can participate in sports. When it was founded in 2007, most locals had never even seen a skateboard, but it still grew into an international non-profit organization. Today, 1/2 of the students are streetworking children, and 40% are girls. Source

Planes used to be a lot more comfortable. In the 1940s, the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser had reclining club chairs throughout the cabin. On intercontinental flights, every seat could be adjusted into a bed so each passenger could sleep. Source