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We all love facts. Facts are interesting, entertaining, and shocking all at once. So, in this article, you will find five facts that you are not aware of.
1. Only Two Mammals Like Spicy Food: Humans and the Tree Shrew
Since tree shrews have a mutation in their ion channel receptor, TRPV1, which makes them less susceptible to the "hot" chemical in chilli peppers, they can now be added to the exclusive club of mammals that appreciate spicy food, which has only previously been held by humans.
Therefore, whereas other mammals in the study avoided the maize pellets laced with capsaicin (the molecules that give chilies their heat), the cute animals happily ate them.
2. The “M’s” in M&MS Stand For “Mars” and “Murrie
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The two businessmen who invented the candy-coated chocolates are Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie. The two had a tense relationship since 1949, years before M&Ms became the most popular candy in the United States.
In 1941, Forrest Mars Sr., of the Mars candy company, struck a deal with Bruce Murrie, son of famed Hershey president William Murrie, to develop a hard-shelled candy with chocolate at the centre. Mars needed Hershey’s chocolate because Mars anticipated there would be a chocolate shortage in the pending war, which turned out to be correct.
Mars leveraged Murrie out of his 20% stake in the company by paying him only $1 million for a piece of it that would soon be worth billions.
3. The First Computer Was Invented in the 1940s
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Supercomputers are commonplace today and don't require much room. Has your living room been installed with an Xbox One? A supercomputer, i.e. a tablet/laptop hybrid, in your bag? That is also a supercomputer. (Don't even start us on what you have in your pocket.) However, when supercomputers initially emerged, they required a tremendous amount more room. The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer are the first of their kind in the world (ENIAC).
ENIAC was first constructed in 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering. It weighed 60,000 pounds and took up space equivalent to most studio apartments (1,500 square feet). ENIAC was delivered to the military soon after its construction and used to calculate
ballistic trajectories with terrifying precision. ENIAC is now credited with bringing about the "dawn of the information”.
4. Sea Lions Can Dance to a Beat
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Only humans (though not all people, to be fair) and sea lions can move their bodies in time with an external rhythm. In 2013, when researchers at the University of Santa Cruz found and saved a sea lion that had become stranded, they discovered that she was extremely intelligent and had even learned how to dance. It was once believed that only animals capable of complex vocal learning could maintain a rhythm, though parrots can as well.
5. The Legend of the Loch Ness Monster Goes Back Nearly 1,500 Years
There is a legend of an Irish monk passing through Scotland that was published around the year 565 AD. Saint Columba learned of a "water beast" that was said to attack and devour those who entered the river.
To assist, the monk lured the beast into view using his companion as bait. When Columba told the beast to "go no further," the beast stopped and swam back upstream. That river, which emerges from the well-known Loch Ness, is now known throughout Scotland as the River Ness.
The Loch Ness monster mythology started to spread around 1933. At the time, a road next to Loch Ness had been completed, providing a clear view of the lake. A couple witnessed a large animal in April that they described as looking like a "dragon or prehistoric monster," and it crossed in front of their automobile before vanishing into the sea.
Following the publication of the occurrence in a Scottish newspaper, several sightings occurred. The Daily Mail hired big-game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell in December 1933 to find the sea serpent. Large tracks that he thought belonged to "a very powerful soft-footed animal around 20 feet [6 metres] long" were discovered along the lake's edges.
The Bottom Line
Zoologists at the Natural History Museum, however, discovered that the tracks were similar and created using an ashtray or umbrella stand with a base shaped like a hippopotamus limb. Wetherell's involvement in the hoax was not known.
Written by Purnimaa Alagappan
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