WTF • Fun • Fact    ( /dʌb(ə)lˌju/  /ti/   /ef/ • /fʌn/ • /fækt/ )

     1. noun  A random, interesting, and overall fun fact that makes you scratch your head and think what the...

WTF Fun Fact 12580 – African Elephant Poop

Elephants are the largest land mammals in the world. So it’s logical to believe that they would do everything in a big way. We just didn’t realize HOW big.

Looking at the facts, it makes sense that an adult African elephant could produce over 300 pounds of poop per day. Males can grow up to 13 feet high and weigh 7 tons (that’s 14,000 pounds!). Females weigh about half of that.

It’s no surprise that they produce so much poop, considering how much they eat and how their digestive systems work. African elephants eat about 4-7% of their body weight in grasses, herbs, fruit, plants, and trees each day. And that vegetarian diet must be doing something right because they can live to be around 70 years old.

Of course, that same diet is also hard to process, so most of it comes out in their waste products. The rest is absorbed for nutrients while they sleep.

And sometimes, those elephants need those calories when they’re on the move – they can walk up to 120 miles a day (but their average is closer to 15 miles). If necessary, they can also use that energy to run. In fact, an elephant can run much faster than a human, reaching speeds of 40mph!

But back to the fact at hand. Elephants produce about 300 pounds of dung per day. So much that 1) we’re glad we don’t have to clean it up, and 2) some animals (such as dung beetles and specific monkey species) have evolved to eat this feces. The latter makes sense since much of the food is not digested and would still contain some nutrients.

 – WTF fun facts

Source: “African Elephant Facts” — Elephants for Africa

WTF Fun Fact 12579 – Viruses Aren’t Living Things

There’s really not that much disagreement in the scientific community – in fact, what constitutes being “alive” is more of a philosophical question. But at some point, it’s both helpful and fascinating to think about what really counts as “being alive.”

In many ways, viruses simply don’t make the cut, even though we talk about them as if they were alive. But that’s because we tend to use metaphors of living things to describe them.

Why not? Well, here are a few reasons:
– They cannot carry out any metabolic processes on their own (generally the definition of being alive)
– They cannot reproduce on their own, only replicate within a host cell.
– They don’t have ribosomes (in fact, they don’t even have cells)
– They cannot produce energy or control the environment in which they exist (only replicate in it).
– They cannot independently form proteins from messenger RNA
– They’re just so darn small (which, to be fair, is not a big part of the argument but something to consider).

In the end, they are just a jumble of protein and RNA that needs a spark of life from somewhere else to do anything at all.

Of course, there are some arguments to the contrary. Those who believe viruses should be considered living things point out the following:
– They have genomes
– They can evolve
– Under the right conditions, they do have the ability to reproduce (even if it’s not on their own)

So perhaps viruses are in between somewhere, only being alive when they can reproduce. That’s something to consider, but only for fun really, since the answer won’t help us solve our viral issues. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Are Viruses Alive?” — The University of Texas at Austin Biodiversity Center

WTF Fun Fact 12578 – Mike the Headless Chicken

It’s hard – and gross – to think about, but the phrase “like a chicken with its head cut off” originates in a biological oddity of chickens.

You see, you can decapitate a chicken and it will continue to run. They aren’t zombies (because they’re not actually dead yet), it’s just that the animal’s spinal cord circuits still hold residual oxygen. It’s kind of a sick biological joke that the most decapitated animal has this odd feature if you think about it.

The circuits that still have oxygen to operate no longer have a brain to control them, so the spinal cord’s signals go to the legs, causing the chicken to run (typically for just a few seconds).

This is pretty rare since chickens are typically laying down when this happens, but it has certainly happened.

Now, Miracle Mike the Headless Chicken (as he was dubbed by Life Magazine in the 1940s) is a different story. Poor Mike’s owner left a tiny part of his brain stem intact with a messy chop.

On September 10, 1945, Lloyd Olsen was beheading chickens on his farm, and got a runner, but was surprised to see that he didn’t keel over immediately.

Olsen’s great-grandson, Troy Waters, told the BBC years later that his grandparents put the chicken on the screen porch for the night and were shocked to wake up and see “The damn thing was still alive,” according to Waters.

But this isn’t some sketchy legend. Headless Mike toured the country, drawing slack-jawed audiences at carnivals. It was photographed and recorded by the news in various towns and in Life Magazine.

The family had their share of interlopers who insisted on coming to see Mike but also got plenty of hate mail for not just putting him out of his (or perhaps just their) misery. – WTF fun facts

Source: How Mike the Chicken Survived Without a Head — Encyclopedia Brittanica

WTF Fun Fact 12577 – Catgut strings

While it may sound like many cats were harmed in the making of music, strings were once may from the entrails of animals (just probably not cats). The practice goes all the way back to Greek mythology (but later, was anything but a myth).

The Greek god Hermes was said to have strung his lyre with cow entrails. And in mythological fashion, he stole those cows from his brother Apollo who he then lulled into blissful acquiescence with his playing (to the point that Apollo gave him his entire herd).

Meanwhile (or, probably, prior), in Egypt, instruments strings were being strung with a material called catgut. The Egyptians loved their cats so much it’s unlikely they used cats (and that catgut is more than a bad translation), but the name stuck. And so did using animal intestines for string, especially later on for violins. Much later, a similar method of creating string from intestines was used for tennis rackets.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “catgut is tough cord made from the intestines of certain animals, particularly sheep, and used for surgical ligatures and sutures, for the strings of violins and related instruments, and for the strings of tennis rackets and archery bows.”

They continue with a little history lesson:

“The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians and the later Greeks and Romans used the intestines of herbivorous animals for much the same purposes. The origin of the term catgut is obscure; it is not known if the intestines of cats were ever put to such uses.”

Then some gruesome detail that animal lovers should probably skip:

The intestinal tubes (called runners) of sheep are washed, cut in ribbons, and scraped free of mucous membrane and circular muscle tissue. The ribbons are placed in an alkaline bath for several hours and then stretched on frames. While still moist they are removed, sorted by size, and twisted into cords of varying thickness. A smoothing and polishing operation completes the process.

Professional string players can still buy catgut strings and they have a lot of influence over sound quality. But the pros can “go vegan” with their strings, using ones with a synthetic core that sounds much like catgut strings and are also longer-lasting. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Are Violin Strings Really Made of Cat Guts?” — SHAR Music

WTF Fun Fact 12576 – We’re Fools About April Fools’ Day

With all the pranks and accompanying joy (and trauma!), you’d think we’d have a solid way of tracing the origins of April Fools’ Day back to its source. But it’s unclear who the original “fools” were.

It seems safe to say that the holiday is in some way tied to the Spring equinox, a time of celebration and merriment for many. But what’s with all the pranks? Are we still celebrating the ancient Roman festival of Hilaria with a 21st-century twist? Or perhaps something closer to India’s Holi festival?

Or did something else happy on April 1 in the distant past spark interest in celebrating this day with hijinx?

Some believe its roots lay in France in 1582 when some were deemed foolish for not knowing about the switch from the Gregorian calendar to the Julian calendar and therefore celebrated the new year on April 1 instead of January 1.

What’s interesting is that different parts of the world have other stories about the day and its tradition, providing a clue that it goes back quite far and spread around the world before people began writing about it.

So if anyone tries telling you they know the origins of April Fools’ Day, just remember that no one really knows. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Who Were the First Pranksters? No Jokes Here—All About the Origin of April Fools’ Day!” — Parade Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12575 – American Bologna

The Italians may have brought bologna to America, but there’s little resemblance to the mortadella meat of Italy. The meat became a household staple for just about everyone during the Great Depression since it was cheap. It continued to reign supreme on shelves after that because it was easy to make into lunch sandwiches.

When Americans think of bologna, we tend to think of those yellow packages and round slices. And that’s because of a German immigrant who began his career beginning at age 14 when he apprenticed with a Chicago butcher.

Oskar Ferdinand Meyer spent six years in Chicago meatpacking until he could afford to lease his own marketspace and put his skills to use. He had learned traditional European sausage-making techniques over the years.

That’s how what we now know as Oscar Meyer bologna began, and success came early because of a growing German-American immigrant population in Chicago. His company later created the technology for vacuum packing sliced meats to make lunch making much more effortless.

So while the Italians brought proto-bologna to America in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was young Oskar who took steps to make it mainstream. – WTF fun facts

Source: “How Lunch Became a Pile of Bologna” — Eater

WTF Fun Fact 12574 – John Hinckley Jr. Stalked Jimmy Carter

If the police had just looked at the journal sitting next to the guns would-be assassin John Hinckley, Jr. was trying to transport through the Nashville International Airport in 1980, they would have foiled his entire plot.

Of course, at the time, they had no idea Hinckley had plans to kill a U.S. president.

For those who don’t know the details, it didn’t matter much to Hinckley which president he shot. His only goal was to get the attention of actress Jodie Foster, who he had become obsessed with after seeing her in the 1976 Martin Scorsese film Taxi Driver. The film also starred Robert DiNero as Travis Bickle, a Vietnam vet and taxi driver with plans to assassinate a senator.

Creepily, Foster (who starred as child prostitute Iris in the film) was only 12 years old during filming. But in 1980, she was a freshman at Yale, and Hinckley was sending her letters that went unanswered.

Not content to be ignored, Hinckley made plans to emulate Travis Bickle but made his target even bigger – the president.

In 1980, Jimmy Carter was president, but on the campaign trail for reelection and running against Ronald Reagan. It appears that Hinckley’s first plan was to assassinate Carter, and he got pretty close at least twice – once in Dayton, OH, and once in Nashville, TN. Both times he got close to the president, but it appeared to be more of a trial run to ensure his plan would work. However, he was certainly capable of carrying out the plan in Tennessee because he was armed.

Despite deciding against shooting President Carter in Nashville, Hinckley would regroup. A scare at the airport in which security found multiple weapons in his luggage didn’t deter him. Neither did getting hauled into the Metro Nashville Jail, but that’s likely because he was quickly released on a small bond and paid $62.50 in total for his transgression (at least, the one people knew about).

Today we know that Hinckley’s plans were laid out in a journal he also kept in his luggage right next to those guns the police found. But no one opened it.

Of course, the very next year he would go on to shoot President Reagan in Washington, right across from the Secret Service headquarters. Reagan lived, and Hinckley was captured, but he was eventually found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982 and handed over to a mental health institution. He was granted unconditional release in 2021. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Investigators Think Hinckley Stalked Carter” — The New York Times

WTF Fun Fact 12573 – The Men Who Helped Make America’s Parks

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was established in 1933 by Franklin Roosevelt as part of his New Deal. It took millions of young men, many of whom had been living on public assistance due to the Great Depression, and employed them to do manual labor around the country.

The CCC had many accomplishments during its 9-year tenure, such as building roads and bridges. But perhaps most memorable are the 3 billion trees they planted, the paths they created in state and national parks, and how they transformed the country’s entire park system.

Putting hundreds of thousands of struggling men to work on environmental conservation projects turned out to be one of Roosevelt’s big successes. It combated the unemployment rate and gave young men a sense of purpose.

Many of the workers came from the east, and the biggest challenge was getting them to work out west, where a lot of infrastructure work was needed. The U.S. Army stepped in to solve the logistical problems associated with transportation.

As of July 1, 1933, there were around 300,000 enrollees in work camps around the country, nearly all aged 18-25, and 1,433 total working camps had been established. The U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture hired CCC employees to fight forest fires, plant trees, clear and maintain access roads, re-seed grazing lands, implement soil-erosion controls, build wildlife refuges, fish-rearing facilities, water storage basins, and even animal shelters. Enlisted lasted 6 months, and men got on-the-job vocational training.

Workers got $30 per month as well as room and board, though they were required to send home $22 to 25 of their monthly earnings to support their families. Some corpsmen received vocational education while they served.

It’s estimated that some 57,000 illiterate men learned to read and write in CCC camps and their ranks included WWI veterans, skilled foresters, and even 88,000 Native Americans living on Indian reservations.

At its peak in August 1935, over 500,000 men were working throughout 2,900 camps. All told, historians estimate that nearly three million men (5% percent of the U.S. male population) took part in the CCC at some point. No women were allowed to serve, and Black Americans were forced to work on other projects, despite efforts to prevent discrimination.

The CCC program ended at the start of World War II as funds for the program were diverted to the war effort. But in the end, the CCC was responsible for over half the reforestation in the nation’s history.

– WTF Fun Fact

Source: “Civilian Conservation Corps” — History.com

WTF Fun Fact 12572 – Einstein Never Failed Math

It’s incredible how pervasive myths about Albert Einstein are. In fact, very few of the quotes attributed to him are even accurate. It turns out if you just say something about the man and it gains traction, it becomes fact in some people’s minds.

And we’ve always loved the story that even though he was a genius, Einstein failed math as a schoolboy. Algebra, to be specific.

Apologies to anyone who has used their own math grades to portend their future genius, but Einstein failing any class is just flat-out wrong. He was a genius as a child, too, especially in math.

His school records were retrieved from his Swiss school by the New York Times, showing excellent grades in every subject. They state:

“The records, contained in a collection of the great theorist’s papers now being prepared for publication at Princeton, confirm that Einstein was a child prodigy, conversant in college physics before he was 11 years old, a ”brilliant” violin player who got high marks in Latin and Greek. But his inability to master French was the bane of his school days, and may have been chiefly responsible for his failing college entrance examinations.”

So, where did we get this idea? Well, it wasn’t invented out of thin air. Instead, it was the result of a misunderstanding.

The first biographers who saw Einstein’s records were likely confused by the grading system used by his school in Switzerland. At age 16, he received a 1 out of 6 in arithmetic and algebra. But what the scholars didn’t realize is that 1 was the highest, and 6 was the lowest.

Now, there’s a further explanation that makes us realize it was an honest mistake. The following year, Einstein’s grades in math were 6 on a scale of 1 to 6. However, the school reversed the grading system that year, making 6 the highest grade. – WTF Fun Fact

Source: “Einstein Revealed as Brilliant in Youth” — The New York Times