WEIRD WEDNESDAY

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Instead of both nostrils taking in the same amount of air when you breathe, you actually inhale most of your oxygen through one nostril at a time. Every few hours, the active nostril will take a break and the other one will take over until they ultimately switch back again.

Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/609283/

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The vast majority of drownings occur in fresh water. According to ThoughtCo, a staggering 90 percent of drownings take place in swimming pools, bathtubs, and rivers, not only because of circumstances, but also because of the way the different types of water affect the human body in potentially fatal situations.

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A study by The Journal of Dairy, Food, and Environmental Sanitation, conducted in 2017, assessed the cleanliness of coffee mugs in office kitchens—or lack thereof, according to the findings. The study found that a whopping 90 percent of the mugs tested contained some type of bacteria, and 20 percent of them actually had fecal matter on them. The culprit, the study found, is the sponges used to clean the cups, which are often the germiest items in the entire kitchen.

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The snakehead fish is an elongated, predatory fish distinguished by its long dorsal fins, large mouths, and shiny teeth. They have both gills and an organ located in their “gill arches” that permits them to breathe oxygen. They sometimes come up on land in search of food.

They are valuable as a food source and have become notorious as an intentionally released invasive species, with no natural predators. These fish have been kept as pets but as they get larger, people let them go into ponds, lakes, and rivers, making these fish invasive. They cane be as big as 14 pounds / 6.35 kilos.

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Much of the dust you see around your home is composed of dead skin cells. You shed skin nearly constantly and your entire epidermis completely regenerates approximately every 27 days. While the amount varies greatly per person, you’ll most likely shed at least half your body weight in skin cells throughout your entire life.

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Canadians say “sorry” so much that a law was passed in 2009 declaring that an apology can’t be used as evidence of admission to guilt.

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In 2006, a Coca-Cola employee offered to sell Coca-Cola secrets to Pepsi. Pepsi responded by notifying Coca-Cola.

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In the Harry Potter films, Harry’s glasses had no lenses. This was to prevent reflections from anything happening behind the scenes. The glass lenses were added in post-production.

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Hershey’s Kisses are named after the kissing sound the deposited chocolate makes as it falls from the machine on the conveyor belt.

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In English, leaving a party without telling anyone is called a “French Exit.” In French, it’s called a “partir à l’anglaise,” to leave like the English.

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Syphilis had a variety of names, usually people naming it after an enemy or a country they thought responsible for it. The French called it the ‘Neapolitan disease’, the ‘disease of Naples’ or the ‘Spanish disease’, and later grande verole or grosse verole, the ‘ great pox’, the English and Italians called it the ‘French disease’, the ‘Gallic disease’, the ‘morbus Gallicus’, or the ‘French pox’, the Germans called it the ‘French evil’, the Scottish called it the ‘grandgore‘, the Russians called it the ‘Polish disease’, the Polish and the Persians called it the ‘Turkish disease’, the Turkish called it the ‘Christian disease’, the Tahitians called it the ‘British disease’, in India it was called the ‘Portuguese disease’, in Japan it was called the ‘Chinese pox’, and there are some references to it being called the ‘Persian fire’.

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The Buddha commonly depicted in statues and pictures is a different person entirely. The real Buddha was actually incredibly skinny because of self-deprivation.

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Astronaut is a compound word derived from the two Ancient Greek words “Astro,” meaning “star,” and “naut” meaning “sailor.” So astronaut literally means “star sailor.”

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