Honey

One of nature’s strongest demulcents, honey coats irritated throat tissue and helps reduce inflammation. It literally sticks to your throat and forms a protective barrier over raw tissues.

Studies have found that simply consuming one tablespoon of raw honey before bed can work as well as, or better than, typical OTC cough suppressants. Plus, it’s safe for kids and adults over the age of 1. Raw honey’s natural antibacterial and antioxidant effects also fight inflammation right where it happens.

Saline nasal rinse

Rinsing your nasal passages with warm saline (saltwater) washes away thickened mucus as well as allergens and pathogens that are caught in your nose and sinuses. It moisturizes swollen nasal tissues as well.

The use of a neti pot or squeeze bottle, or saline nasal spray rinse, can help relieve stuffy sinuses by opening up nasal passages. It also improves nasal breathing and does not cause rebound congestion like nasal decongestant sprays do. For safety and to avoid infection, make sure to use distilled or sterilized water, or water that has been boiled and then cooled to make up saline rinses.

Zinc lozenges

If taken within the first day of symptom onset, zinc lozenges can reduce the length of your cold by up to 33%. Elemental zinc ions that dissolve from the lozenge directly inhibit rhinovirus attachment to nasal/throat mucosal cells, thus preventing the virus from multiplying as quickly.

For best results, look for lozenges that contain either zinc acetate or zinc gluconate, and take them every couple of hours as soon as you feel the first signs of a sore throat.

Saltwater gargle

Mix half a teaspoon of salt into a warm glass of water and gargle. Salt will provide almost instantaneous relief to your sore throat because of osmosis. Salt will pull water from fluid-filled tissues of your swollen, inflamed throat, decreasing swelling, pain, and discomfort right away.

It will also help loosen any thick mucus deposits while rinsing away bacteria and viruses that may be remaining at the back of your throat.

Steam inhalation

Breathing in steam (whether from a hot shower, bowl of steaming water, or facial vaporizer) provides direct hydration to dry, irritated passages in your throat and thins thick mucus.

Inhalation won’t kill the virus itself, but the steam helps loosen congestion in your nasal passages and chest so you can clear your breathing passages more easily. Steam also relieves sinus headaches due to pressure.

High-dose vitamin C

Although daily vitamin C will not keep you from ever getting sick, increasing your vitamin C consumption at the very first sign of a cold will lessen the severity and shorten the duration by a few days.

Vitamin C aids your body’s white blood cells in fighting infections. So when you are fighting that nasty cold, eat foods high in vitamin C or take a high-quality supplement.

Elderberry (Sambucus nigra)

Black elderberry extract contains strong antioxidants as well as flavonoids that prevent viruses from entering and infecting healthy human cells.

Some clinical trials have shown that when elderberry syrup, lozenges, or extracts are taken at the onset of an upper respiratory infection, they can significantly decrease the length of time and physical intensity of cold and flu symptoms by reducing inflammation in the airway and assisting your immune system to fight off viral infections.

Aggressive hydration

When you have a virus, it’s important to be extra hydrated as your body is losing fluids quickly due to increased mucus production, perspiration, or fever.

Warm fluids, like clear broths, herbal teas, or water with lemon, will help keep your mucous membranes hydrated and thin out thick secretions so your body can expel them. Warm fluids also promote increased blood flow to the throat and nasal passages, which feels soothing and comforting.

Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.

1. What are the health benefits of elderberry?
2. Honey: An effective cough remedy?
3. Zinc lozenges and the common cold: a meta-analysis comparing zinc acetate and zinc gluconate, and the role of zinc dosage
4. “Drink plenty of fluids”: No harm in fluids for colds and flu – PMC
5. Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold – PMC
6. Effects of steam inhalation on nasal patency and nasal symptoms in patients with the common cold
7. Saline nasal drops reduce the duration of the common cold in young children by two days
8. Sore throat

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Cracking windows in a tornado doesn’t prevent damage

Plenty of families have passed down the claim that when a tornado’s coming, you should open the windows. But that’s bad advice. Opening windows lets more wind whip inside & ramps up the pressure. Lab tests with simulated tornadoes found that houses with forced openings suffered greater roof lift and worse wall strain than sealed ones. Keep them closed.

A green sky doesn’t prove a tornado is coming

Some storms give off a creepy green glow, which people claim is a sign of a tornado. That’s not always the case, though, as researchers have traced the color to thick water or hail in the clouds, bending sunlight toward green. Yes, it’s often linked to strong storms. But tornadoes can form under gray skies as well & plenty of green storms only drop hail.

Metal objects and phones don’t “attract” lightning

Wearing a necklace or carrying keys doesn’t pull lightning out of the sky. Even holding your phone isn’t enough to guarantee a lightning strike. These bolts connect to tall, isolated things because of how electric fields build up, not because of a ring on your finger. The metal will conduct it if a strike happens nearby, but it doesn’t lure it in.

Hurricanes can form at the equator

Ask most people, and they’ll swear hurricanes can’t happen on the equator. That’s almost always true. Storms need the Coriolis effect to spin & it’s weakest there. However, in 2001, Typhoon Vamei bucked the odds by appearing just 1.4° north of the equator near Singapore. It proved that hurricanes are possible this close to the equator.

Fresh snow isn’t automatically “clean”

Some people scoop up new snow & claim it’s pure enough to eat. You shouldn’t do that. In reality, snowflakes collect stuff as they fall, including soot & dust, even microbes. Studies show snow samples often contain measurable pollution & bacteria. This is especially true when the snow is downwind of industrial zones, and once it melts, those particles end up everywhere.

The eye of a hurricane isn’t always calm

It’s easy to think that the eye of a hurricane is a safe zone where nothing happens. And sure, it’s calmer than the eyewall, but it’s not guaranteed. Pilots who fly hurricane missions have seen winds still whipping inside the eye & dangerous ocean waves. As such, just because you see blue sky overhead doesn’t mean you’re out of trouble.

Thick clouds don’t always mean heavy rain

Despite what you might think, big, dark clouds aren’t always a sign of heavy rain coming. These clouds are dark because the light struggles to pass through a thick layer of droplets. It’s not necessarily because of a cloud stuffed full of rain. In fact, some of the scariest-looking skies barely sprinkle, while a thin gray layer higher up could force you to get an umbrella.

Cold weather doesn’t cause colds

So many people blame their sniffles on freezing air. But the real culprit is viruses. Studies show bugs like rhinovirus survive better in dry winter air, which is when people spend more time huddled indoors. Such a combination makes it easier for germs to spread. As such, you should blame the people you’re around, rather than the weather, for any illnesses during the winter.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Characteristics of internal pressures and net local roof wind forces on a building exposed to a tornado-like vortex
2. Exploring severe weather environments using CM1 simulations: The 29 August 2020 event in the Balearic Islands
3. Assessment of Protection System Positioning and Models Using Observations of Lightning Strikes to Structures
4. Typhoon Vamei: An equatorial tropical cyclone formation
5. Snow Scavenging of Polychlorinated Biphenyls and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Minnesota
6. Wind Distribution in the Eye of Tropical Cyclone Revealed by a Novel Atmospheric Motion Vector Derivation
7. Impact of aerosols on convective clouds and precipitation
8. Influenza Virus Transmission Is Dependent on Relative Humidity and Temperature

Black appears in the world in much stranger ways than many people know about. Here are six strange facts that you didn’t know about the color black. What’s your favorite fact?

The blackest man-made coating swallows 99.965% of light

Vantablack is a special kind of black. It’s so black that you can’t even see its shape, and it absorbs approximately 99.965% of all light. Vantablack is human-made, created from tiny carbon tubes that trap the light. You can’t even tell whether a shape is flat or curved when it’s coated in Vantablack. It’s that dark.

Tires are black because carbon black changes the rubber

Tires didn’t use to be black but were actually a pale sort of color, almost like beige. Manufacturers later decided to mix tires with carbon black. It made the tires tougher & more heat-resistant, while also making them last longer.

Every tire looks the same shade today. It doesn’t matter what name is printed on the side.

“Black diamonds” are often carbonado

You might think that black diamonds are just regular jewels painted black. Not quite. They’re made from carbonado, a natural mix of diamond crystals & graphite.

Black diamonds have voids inside. They’re tougher than regular diamonds, and some scientists think they may have come from space. You can find them on Earth in Brazil & Africa.

In ancient Egypt, black symbolized fertile soil and new life

Not all societies see black as something negative. For ancient Egyptians, black represented life returning after the Nile flooded each year, and the word kmt quite literally meant “black land.”

Black soil meant rich soil. Rich soil made farming possible. The ancient Egyptians painted Osiris, who was their god of rebirth, with black skin in order to show growth, rather than death.

In Japan, blackened teeth were once fashionable

Today, we know that black teeth are a health problem. But not people in 10th-century Japan. They practiced something called Ohaguro, where married women & nobles would deliberately stain their teeth black.

They used an iron-based mixture that would eventually turn glossy after a few coats. Why did they do this? Because they thought it was a sign of elegance and maturity. Bizarrely, the mixture actually protected their teeth.

Some black clothes symbolized status 

Wearing deep black was both difficult & expensive in medieval Europe. You had to use a lot of dye and rare ingredients, along with a lot of labor, to achieve black. Only the rich could afford to do so.

As a result, true black clothing was a sign of wealth and status, since it showed you could afford all of that hard work.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Their Dark Materials
2. Why Are Tires Black?
3. Carbonado Diamond: A Review of Properties and Origin
4. Colors of Ancient Egypt
5. Ohaguro: The Beauty of Blackened Teeth in Old Japan
6. Intro to the blacks

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Sea-breeze collisions favor the Orlando area

Every summer, winds from both the Gulf & Atlantic become slow-moving walls that go inland, running into each other around central Florida. When those breezes meet, warm air is forced upward, and this leads to storms forming. It happens so consistently that meteorologists can practically circle it on a map.

Diurnal timing stacks storms in the late afternoon

Orlando’s daily storm schedule is rather reliable. The mornings start quietly & breezes set up by midday, and then by around 3 or 4 p.m., the sky starts rumbling. Usually, the heat builds through the day, which gives storms plenty of fuel to work with. Anyone who has ever planned a picnic here will have likely learned that lesson relatively quickly.

Typical summer wind regimes keep the focus inland

Larger wind patterns that stay light or come in from the east push those breezes farther across the state before clashing. The sweet spot usually ends up somewhere around the middle of the peninsula, which is, surprise surprise, right by Orlando. Essentially, the storms stack up where the winds meet & it happens inland far more than along the coast.

Total lightning rates in Florida storms run extremely high

Florida storms as a whole don’t hold back when they get going. Once they mature, they can spit out lightning at incredible rates, both inside the clouds & down to the ground, and it’s not strange for storms around Orlando to flash rapidly in short bursts. Pilots sometimes even reroute around those cells because the electrical activity is that intense.

Local studies tie first strikes to the west coast sea breeze days

One of the strangest patterns is how the first lightning of the day often begins along the west coast breeze & then moves inland. Those storms travel. And Orlando’s position puts it right in their path, so it’s quite common for the day’s earliest strikes to end, creating a stormy afternoon over the city.

Urban heat around Orlando boosts low-level lift

The city doesn’t exactly cool off at night, with Orlando’s concrete & roads trapping heat. By midday, the surface temperatures are often much higher than those in nearby rural areas. That extra heat gives the air a boost upward. Once it starts rising, it mixes with everything else happening overhead, all of which makes it easier for storms to appear.

Summer Saharan dust plumes tweak storm behavior

Interestingly, dust from the Sahara drifts across the Atlantic every summer & ends up over Florida. These plumes move in and mess with the moisture and temperature balance in the atmosphere. Sometimes, the storms fizzle earlier than they normally would, so lightning counts drop for a bit. Researchers have tracked specific dust outbreaks doing exactly that over parts of Florida.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Diurnal and Spatial Variability of Lightning Activity in Northeastern Colorado and Central Florida during the Summer
2. A 10-yr Monthly Lightning Climatology of Florida: 1986–95
3. Quantifying Changes in the Florida Synoptic-Scale Sea-Breeze Regime Climatology
4. The emission, transport, and impacts of the extreme Saharan dust storm of 2015

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

The earthquakes that set it off

The trouble started late at night on December 16, 1811, when a huge earthquake hit the New Madrid region of Missouri, shaking an area bigger than most states. Two more followed in January & early February. However, these weren’t small tremors you might sleep through. They were actually so strong that even places far to the east felt them rumble through the ground.

Where on the river it happened

The February quake struck the area from New Madrid up to a bend near Kentucky. That stretch sits right on top of a fault that cuts across the riverbed, with the bend jerking upward in some spots & dropping in others. Such a sudden shift happened exactly where the river flowed. As such, the water reacted in a rather dramatic way.

What can make a great river run upstream

Earthquakes can throw big chunks of land upward in just a few seconds. When that happens under a river, the water slams into the new “wall” of land, and in the case of the Mississippi, parts of the riverbed went up so quickly that the current reversed. There were also powerful wave surges that raced back upstream.

How long the upstream surge lasted

The old reports talk about the river “running backward.” However, they don’t mean it flipped directions for days on end, as the backward flow only lasted a little while each time the quakes hit. It didn’t reverse continuously for three days. Rather, the region shook over & over for months, so different towns experienced different moments of the river acting strangely.

Why “three days” became part of the story

So where did the “three days” idea come from? It’s because people told & retold the story over time, with those separate events eventually sounding like one big, drawn-out episode. Yes, it flowed backwards, but it was for a short while, and not three days straight.

What else changed on and around the river

However, the quakes messed with more than the water’s direction. They also changed the landscape, as fault movement created sudden drops in the ground, which trapped streams. This turned parts of northwest Tennessee into what became Reelfoot Lake. Riverbanks also slumped into the water, and some areas along the river even had temporary waterfalls.

How researchers pieced it together

Nobody had seismographs back then, and it took a while for scientists to figure out what happened. It was only years later that they managed to use geological evidence & reports to trace where the faults run under the river. They then matched these with descriptions from people who lived through the shaking.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. On the Modified Mercalli intensities and magnitudes of the 1811/1812 New Madrid, Central United States, earthquakes
2. The Enigma of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811–18121
3. Faulting along the southern margin of Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee 
4. Accounts of the New Madrid Earthquakes
5. The New Madrid seismic zone of the Central United States

But why are these animals so small? And how did animals with completely different body plans end up being so minuscule? That’s what we’re going to find out.

A frog that averages 7.7 millimeters long

Paedophryne amauensis is one of the tiniest frogs on Earth. The adults only grow to a size of roughly 7.7mm (0.3 inches) long, so you could fit several of them on top of a penny & still have space left over. These tiny frogs live in damp leaves across Papua New Guinea. 

Their calls are just as small as they are, and they sound more like beeps than ribbits. Paedophryne amauensis are some of the smallest vertebrates known to exist. It’s quite incredible when you consider that they have a skeleton & organs inside those tiny bodies.

A fish whose mature females are 7.9 millimeters

Another tiny aquatic creature is Paedocypris progenetica. These fish don’t look like much at first glance, mostly because you can barely see them, and females reach maturity at around 7.9 mm. The majority of the fish are less than a centimeter. Only a few have been known to grow larger than 10mm.

The fish live in Southeast Asia in acidic blackwater swamps. The water is so soft that only the most well-adapted animal species can survive. Part of the Paedocypris progenetica’s skeleton is made of cartilage, not bones, so you can see through it. Shine a light across it & you’ll see the fish’s organs inside.

A mammal that weighs around 1.8 grams

Who would’ve thought a mammal could be so small? That’s exactly how the Etruscan shrew is, since it only weighs around 1.8 grams as an adult & measures between 35 and 48 mm long. These animals are essentially shorter than a golf tee.

But even for such a small animal, the Etruscan shrew is constantly moving & eating, meaning that it continually burns energy. It’s mostly due to the shrew’s high metabolism. You can find them in parts of Europe and North Africa. 

A chameleon with a 13.5-millimeter body

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Brookesia nana looks like a toy chameleon. But it’s a very real animal. The male of the species measures around 13.5 mm from snout to vent & 21.6 mm including the tail. The female is only slightly bigger.

Scientists who captured the species were able to see the developing eggs in the female, using micro-CT scans. Yes, even at such a small size, the female was able to reproduce. She’s small enough to sit on less than half of your thumbnail. 

Wasps measured in micrometers

It’s okay to feel insignificant sometimes. Just think about wasps whenever that happens, as some of them aren’t even a full millimeter large. Tinkerbella nana is less than 250 micrometers or 0.25 mm, putting it at a size smaller than a dust speck. They usually live near plants & water surfaces, although you’d never realize it because they’re just so small.

However, they’re not the smallest kind of wasp. Dicopomorpha echmepterygis wins that title. The males of the species can be as small as 139 micrometers & are actually wingless. They’re also smaller than the females.

Entire animals under half a millimeter

Most people have no idea about loriciferans, and that makes sense. These animals live between grains of sand on the sea floor. Most loriciferan species are between 100 and 500 micrometers long, although some of the “larger” ones can be 800 micrometers. But you still wouldn’t be able to see them since several of them could fit on a pinhead.

Loriciferans do have an entire set of body parts, like head, neck, thorax & abdomen. They’re just extremely small. The creatures also have a tough outer casing, known as the lorica. It’s what gives the group its name.

Water bears between 0.05 & 1.2 millimeters

You might’ve heard that tardigrades can survive all sorts of extremes. But that’s not the only interesting thing about them. A typical tardigrade, or water bear, is around 0.05 mm to 1.2 mm. The larger members of the species are barely big enough to see without a microscope. That’s right, all the images online of tardigrades are massively magnified.

These water bears walk on eight legs and move quite slowly compared to the animals that live near them. Still, they do have a knack for surviving. They can live in practically any moist environment, like moss or soil, freshwater or saltwater.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Ecological Guild Evolution and the Discovery of the World’s Smallest Vertebrate
2. Paedocypris, a new genus of Southeast Asian cyprinid fish with a remarkable sexual dimorphism, comprises the world’s smallest vertebrate
3. First Data on the Helminth Community of the Smallest Living Mammal on Earth, the Etruscan Pygmy Shrew, Suncus etruscus (Savi, 1822) (Eulipotyphla: Soricidae)
4. Extreme miniaturization of a new amniote vertebrate and insights into the evolution of genital size in chameleons
5. A new genus and species of fairyfly, Tinkerbella nana (Hymenoptera, Mymaridae), with comments on its sister genus Kikiki, and discussion on small size limits in arthropods
6. A complete three-dimensional reconstruction of the myoanatomy of Loricifera: comparative morphology of an adult and a Higgins larva stage
7. Tardigrades: Facts about one of the hardiest animals on Earth, and beyond

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Hoecakes with honey at Washington’s breakfast table

George Washington enjoyed starting his day with hoecakes, which are essentially griddled cornmeal cakes. He always had them drenched in honey. In fact, his step-granddaughter, Nelly Custis Lewis, left behind instructions describing how he would make sure the batter went right onto the griddle & flipped once before serving it with butter.

Jefferson’s macaroni, parmesan, and a pasta press

Thomas Jefferson wasn’t shy about experimenting in the kitchen. He actually drew diagrams of a macaroni press & wrote notes on the process of how to make it. This was based on what he saw in Naples. Back in America, he often imported Parmesan and recorded recipes for macaroni & cheese.

Lincoln’s fondness for gingerbread

Once upon a time, Abraham Lincoln joked on the campaign trail about how he loved gingerbread. He also confessed that he very rarely got much of it as a kid, claiming, “I loved it better than any other man, and got less of it.” Still, it seems that gingerbread was a treat he never truly forgot.

Taft’s “possum and ’taters” banquet in Atlanta

In 1909, Atlanta threw William Howard Taft a banquet. However, it wasn’t your regular banquet, since the star of the meal was roast opossum with sweet potatoes, instead of steak or duck. Hardly something you’ll find on most plates. Even so, Taft apparently loved the meal, and this wasn’t his first time eating it, either. 

FDR’s hot-dog picnic for a royal visit

You’d expect Britain’s King George VI & Queen Elizabeth to eat fancy roasts or delicate pastries when they showed up at Hyde Park in 1939. But no. Instead, Franklin Roosevelt served them hot dogs on paper plates & told them to dig in. The royals were game enough to try them.

Eisenhower’s own vegetable soup

Sure, Dwight Eisenhower was a general who later became president. Yet he also liked cooking. He had a vegetable soup recipe, where he insisted on using a beef bone for flavor & allowed it to bubble away for hours. You’d hardly expect this from a guy who commanded armies.

Kennedy’s New England fish chowder

John F. Kennedy’s love for fish chowder wasn’t a secret in his family, and he had a preference for the creamy, rich kind. It had to be packed with haddock & salt pork, as well as potatoes. For him, this was pure New England comfort food. Kennedy even sent a recipe to a young fan who asked what he liked to eat.

LBJ’s Pedernales River chili

Lyndon Johnson was president with strong opinions about chili. He wanted no beans, ever, and his recipe, known as “Pedernales River Chili,” was heavy on beef, onions, peppers & spice. He liked it so much that White House staff handed it out. However, it was hardly a mild chili. Anyone eating it would have to be prepared to sweat through a bowl.

Nixon’s cottage cheese and pineapple

Honestly, cottage cheese sounds like an odd choice for presidential food, but that’s Richard Nixon for you. Sometimes he put pineapple on top, sometimes he’d put ketchup. His last meal before resigning in 1974 was actually a simple plate of cottage cheese & pineapple, along with a glass of milk.

Reagan’s jelly beans

Ronald Reagan kept jars of jelly beans within reach almost everywhere he went, including his desk & Air Force One. He even had them during cabinet meetings. Originally, he ate them to quit smoking back when he was California’s governor…and then never stopped. The company Jelly Belly even made special colored mixes for the White House.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Hoecakes
2. Jefferson’s Notes on Macaroni, [after 11 February 1789]
3. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 3 [Aug. 21, 1858-Mar. 4, 1860].
4. Politics and Possum Feasts: Presidents Who Ate Opossums
5. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt Served Hot Dogs to a King
6. What’s Cooking Wednesday: A Commander-in-Chef’s Recipe for Vegetable Soup
7. John F. Kennedy and New England Fish Chowder
8. President Johnson’s Pedernales River Chili
9. The Sad, Stately Photo Of Nixon’s Resignation Lunch
10. Jelly Belly® Jelly Beans and Ronald Reagan

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

People mimic posture and mannerisms

You may have noticed that when someone crosses their legs, you do the same. That’s not just a coincidence. In experiments, people automatically mirrored the small body language habits of their partners, like touching their face or tapping a foot. They’re not usually aware of it. It even happens in casual conversations where nobody was trying to copy anyone.

Blinks sync at the same moments during shared viewing

People tend to blink at the same time when they sit down to watch the same short video. In one lab test, 14 participants blinked in the same moment when the story naturally paused. It’s almost like their brains were taking a break together. Even when the movie didn’t have breaks, people still blinked at the same time.

Pupils dilate during problem-solving

During the 1960s, researchers noticed that people’s pupils grew bigger while solving math problems. Later studies kept finding the same thing. This showed that the eye change wasn’t random. When someone tried working out multiplication in their head, their eyes started dilating, and when they stopped, it faded. Effort makes your eyes shift shape. Who knew?

A “Duchenne” smile

Not every smile is built the same. There’s a grin called a “Duchenne” smile that uses both the cheek muscles & a little squeeze around the eyes, which people show when they’re reacting to something genuinely amusing. Scientists conducted research and found that electrodes placed on the face picked up that difference clearly. 

Personal distance zones have measured ranges

Anthropologist Edward T. Hall once used a tape measure to literally track how close people stood in everyday life. It’s different across different countries. In America, the patterns were pretty consistent, as under 18 inches was “intimate,” 1.5–4 feet was “personal,” & 4–12 feet was “social.” Anything beyond that was “public.” 

Handshakes transfer skin-bound molecules

Two strangers shook hands in one experiment & something unexpected happened. Chemicals from one person ended up on the other’s glove, including things like squalene & fatty acids. Cameras also caught people touching their noses more afterward. Airflow sensors picked up that they were actually sniffing, almost like they were checking the sample.

Lie judgments hover around 54% accuracy

One study involved volunteers having to guess the difference between truth vs. lies. The grand total average was about 54% correct & that’s only slightly better than flipping a coin. It didn’t matter whether they were watching faces or listening to voices. Their accuracy kept landing right around the same number.

Foot pointing often shifts toward chosen actions

Researchers have noticed something funny about feet. They tend to “decide” before the rest of you does. Experiments showed that people’s feet angled toward the thing they were going to pick, like an object on a table or a way out of the room. The body leaned in first & words came later.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. The Chameleon Effect: The Perception-Behavior Link and Social Interaction
2. Synchronization of spontaneous eyeblinks while viewing video stories
3. Pupil Size in Relation to Mental Activity during Simple Problem-Solving
4. The Duchenne Smile: Emotional Expression and Brain Physiology II
5. Edward T. Hall, Proxemic Theory
6. A social chemosignaling function for human handshaking
7. Accuracy of Deception Judgments
8. Foot cues can elicit covert orienting of attention

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Fire ants link bodies to build waterproof rafts

Fire ants quite literally hold their legs & jaws together with other ants to stay above water. They do this when floods come along. These creatures snap together like LEGO pieces, with enough trapped air to keep the whole colony afloat for days. That’s pretty amazing teamwork. And especially for bugs that usually just bite.

Periodical cicadas run on prime-number schedules

You wouldn’t think that cicadas care about math, but they do. Some cicadas stay underground for thirteen years, or sometimes seventeen. They’ll then crawl up to the surface. Scientists say the odd-number cycles help them avoid predators’ rhythms. And honestly, waiting that long for a few weeks of flying sounds rather wonderful for an insect.

Honeybees map directions with a dance

You might’ve seen bees doing figure-eight moves inside their hives. That’s not just random buzzing around. They’re creating a map to tell other bees where the food is compared to the sun. The wider the angle of the dance, the farther away it is. Essentially, they’re showing off their bee GPS, just without Wi-Fi.

A tiger moth can jam a bat’s echolocation

Tiger moths have the remarkable ability to click away at high speed. This throws off a bat’s echolocation completely. In fact, it’s so strong that the bat’s attack often fails because it simply can’t get a read on where the moth is. Scientists muted the moths during an experiment & the bats started catching them again.

Glasswing butterfly wings cut glare with nano-pillars

Glasswing butterflies look almost invisible in flight, and that’s thanks to their wings that act like natural anti-reflective glass. They have tiny, uneven pillars on the wing surface. These pillars scatter light in all directions, which is quite different from smooth glass. Their wings allow you to see straight through without any glare.

Treehoppers talk by vibrating plants

Instead of chirping like crickets, treehoppers prefer to send messages through plant stems. They create low vibrations that go along the leaves & stalks. Other insects pick it up with their legs, meaning that they’re quite literally talking through plants. How amazing is that?

Cockroaches have an ultra-fast escape circuit

Anyone who’s ever tried to sneak up on a roach will know it’s nearly impossible. This is because they have little hairs on their back end that sense the tiniest puffs of air, sending a lightning-fast signal straight to their legs. They’ve already picked a direction & bolted within a fraction of a second. No wonder they’re so hard to catch.

Dragonflies can see in almost every direction

A dragonfly’s eyes cover nearly its whole head. As such, it can spot movement from the front, back & sides without needing to twist around. But that’s not all. Each compound eye holds around 30,000 tiny lenses, which gives them quite an edge. They notice changes almost instantly from any prey they’re chasing in the air.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Fire ants self-assemble into waterproof rafts to survive floods
2. Independent divergence of 13- and 17-y life cycles among three periodical cicada lineages
3. The flight paths of honeybees recruited by the waggle dance
4. Tiger Moth Jams Bat Sonar
5. The role of random nanostructures for the omnidirectional anti-reflection properties of the glasswing butterfly
6. The Behavioral Ecology of Insect Vibrational Communication
7. Responses of Giant Interneurons of the Cockroach Periplaneta americana to Wind Puffs of Different Directions and Velocities
8. Visual Acuity in Insects

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

The first McDonald’s drive-thru was built for soldiers

Yes, you read that right. The very first McDonald’s drive-thru was built in 1975 in Arizona, near a military base. Soldiers couldn’t step out of their cars while in uniform, so the restaurant decided to cut a hole in the wall & build a window. They passed food through it, and with it, drive-thru culture as we know it took off.

A 20-year burger stayed almost unchanged

In 1999, David Whipple bought a hamburger from McDonald’s, then threw it in his coat pocket & forgot about it. He found the coat again 20 years later. The burger looked essentially the same, including the bun and the patty, and there was no sign of any rot. How did this happen? It’s because the bread & beef had dried out enough that bacteria couldn’t survive on it.

Fast food logos are designed to trigger hunger

Any red & yellow color combinations you see on fast food logos aren’t random. Companies choose them because they literally get your brain moving, as the colors catch your eye and make you feel hungry. This encourages you to order quickly. As a result, many chains use the same shades as a kind of psychological bait.

McDonald’s once tried a bubblegum-flavored broccoli

There was a time in 2014 when McDonald’s decided to make their vegetables taste more fun. So they made bubblegum broccoli. However, the problem was that kids didn’t know what to make of it, since the mix of sweet & savory was confusing. The product never made it onto shelves and was cancelled during testing.

The smell of fried food spreads faster than most cooking odors

Anytime you smell fried food from way down the street, you’re not imagining it. Hot oil kicks tiny aroma-packed droplets into the air, which float around longer than steam from soup or baked bread. As such, that’s why a fryer can make a whole parking lot smell like lunch, even with no food in sight. The smell really is that strong.

Soda fountain ice can be dirtier than toilet water

Time for a gross fact. Tests on ice from drink machines have found quite a bit of bacteria, although it’s usually in the machine instead of the water. When workers don’t clean the inside properly, slime builds up & that’s where the nasty stuff hides. Then it ends up right in your cup. In some cases, the ice has been found to be dirtier and more bacteria-ridden than toilet water.

Fast food salads sometimes have more calories than burgers

Salads sound healthy, but those dressing packets & fried toppings, as well as piles of cheese, make it anything but. Some of the “healthy” options at big chains have more than 800 calories. That’s more than a lot of burgers on the same menu, even though people think lettuce makes food low-calorie. But it’s really just dressing with leaves underneath.

Some burgers contain DNA from unexpected animals

Not every burger is exactly what you think it is. ClearLabs ran DNA tests on fast food patties and picked up traces from animals that weren’t supposed to be there. Thankfully, these were tiny amounts, stuff you’d never notice, but they included chicken & even rat in a few cases. It’s usually down to how everything’s processed on massive shared equipment. 

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. The first McDonald’s Drive Thru was inspired by U.S. Army soldiers stationed at Fort Huachuca Army Base
2. Man unveils 20-year-old McDonald’s hamburger
3. A Social Semiotic Study of Color Psychology in Junk Food Restaurant Posters
4. McDonald’s attempted to make bubble-gum flavoured broccoli for kids
5. Deep-fried flavor: characteristics, formation mechanisms, and influencing factors
6. Beverages obtained from soda fountain machines in the U.S. contain microorganisms, including coliform bacteria
7. Despite more ‘healthy’ options, little change in fast-food calorie counts
8. Under the Microscope: A Molecular Analysis of Burger Products