Amusing Facts

Once upon a time, around the mid 1200s in what was then Bohemia, a Cisterian monk brought back some earth from Jerusalem and sprinkled it on the monastery cemetery lot. Local people thought this made it an especially holy spot and they all wanted to be buried there. While the graveyard would have had to […] More

One of the Beatles best kept secrets, was John Lennon’s marriage to wife, Cynthia Twist. The two had met at the Liverpool College of Art in the late 1950s, where an aunt had managed to get Lennon enrolled. They dated for some time, before Twist discovered she was pregnant in 1962. Their son, John Charles […] More

Places, people, even animals end up with nicknames derived from things associated with them, or just from the whimsy of one person whose sense of humor appealed to others. Not so when it comes to the largest piece of fruit in America, the Big Apple that is New York City. The term came into common […] More

“A rose, by any other name” may smell as sweet, but a country relabeled from the original, is sometimes confusing. Did you ever wonder how some of the world’s countries came to be called by their present names? Spain – They were really splitting hares on this one. Phoenician settlers found such an abundance of […] More

Moths are more exciting than the little white things that flutter out of clothing that wasn’t stored properly. Some of them are incredibly fascinating creatures for their form, colors, size and odd features. One of the most interesting is the Hawk Moth, with more than 1200 species broken down into about 200 varieties and spread […] More

A lot of the lexicon and sayings in modern day conversation have cultural and even historical origins. And then there are those that are nowhere near as fascinating. In fact, their prosaic basis would be quite dull if it weren’t for the occasional quirky argument over who started using an expression…and even why. Take the […] More

Africa, the largest continent in the world, has a fascinating composition of the exotic and unusual, sometimes in places or forms that people least expect. The typical concept of the land is hot, arid, jungles, and wild animals. But there are many other features that surprise those interested enough in the land, to look beyond […] More

Valentine’s has its chocolate, Mother’s Day has its flowers, and now Super Bowl Sunday has its…pizza? According to surveys, frenzied fans, and their fed-up spouses/partners, would rather call, than cook. The biggest day of the football year has fans reaching for the phone to dial their favorite pizzeria. Could that be why, the day after […] More

Human reproductive technology has certainly stood the scientific world on its head over the last 30 years, but in Nature, some of the ways that life on Earth regenerates, is downright strange. Aphids are born pregnant. In fact, they are pregnant before they are born. The common aphid, of which there are 4400 species, produces […] More

If there is a stereotypical image of Native Americans, it is as they prepared for war, by painting their faces and bodies. But in reality, the body decoration served many more purposes. Face painting was quite common on a daily basis, depending on the season or weather. Thick coats of bear grease served to protect […] More

Technically you could almost say they waft aloft on the wings of a bird, because the Queen Alexandra’s butterfly is the largest member of the order Lepidoptera, in the world. Discovered by Sir Alfred Meek in 1907, this beautiful denizen of Papua, New Guinea was named for her Royal Highness, Queen Alexandra, the Danish born […] More

Although its barren desert-like conditions may have been traversed by the ill-fated Scott expedition in 1912, the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica were not formally discovered and recorded until the mid 1950s. Given the endless miles of snow and ice, where temperatures have gone as low as -89C, the stretch of barren territory came as […] More