# Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 13, 2020, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674 "2020-04-13T03:19:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 146
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2021, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2908 "2021-10-22T23:41:08Z")
It’s not Economics. It’s plain English. And that was exactly a defense. It’s an age old tactic. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2021, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2909 "2021-10-23T01:00:40Z")
> [@Limmin](#): > > It takes an Einstein to understand me! 😉 And to show up my limited German skills. It’s been over 40 years, maybe I should quit trying. 😁 ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2021, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2910 "2021-10-23T13:03:26Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > And that wasn’t my only question. Possibly, but you didn’t ask those. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2021, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2911 "2021-10-23T13:47:02Z")
I will ask the questions Robot\_Arm neglected to. What about the cost of medical care provided? Those branding and flogging wounds didn’t heal themselves. And the security needed to guard against rebellions and recover escapees. Not to mention, we need to deduct for the cost of sea passage for these immigrant workers. Just in case it’s not obvious, I’m being sarcastic. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2021, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2912 "2021-10-23T17:17:38Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Yeah, but did you think about how much it cost the British to set up those colonies? Huh? HUH?? Aww, shucks guys - I’m just glad someone appreciates us… j (I guess I better follow @Mighty_Mouse’s lead and add, _Just in case it’s not obvious…_ ) ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2021, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2913 "2021-10-23T18:29:45Z")
The term, ‘scientist’, was coined in 1830 to describe Mary Somerville, a woman. ‘Man of science‘, didn’t fit and she wasn’t a physicist, geologist, chemist, but all three! ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2021, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2914 "2021-10-23T19:04:12Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > The Amtrak Coast Starlight, as it goes through south Oregon, crosses over the Cascades southeast of Eugene, and its last two Oregon stops are tiny towns hardly anybody has heard of: Chemult and Klamath Falls. I wondered why the train doesn’t stop at, say, Ashland or Medford, well that’s because it doesn’t go that way. > > It’s too bad Amtrak can’t always go where most of the people are! Klamath Falls is more than 20,000 people, which counts as a major town in Southern Oregon. It’s about the same size as Ashland. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2021, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2915 "2021-10-23T20:42:51Z")
The first (“mechanical” bathroom) shower was patented in 1767. > **[Shower | Modern showers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shower#Modern_showers)** > > The first mechanical shower, operated by a hand pump, was patented in England in 1767 by William Feetham,\[citation needed\] a stove maker from Ludgate Hill in London. His shower contraption used a pump to force the water into a vessel above the user's head and a chain would then be pulled to release the water from the vessel. Although the system dispensed with the servant labour of filling up and pouring out buckets of water, the showers failed to catch on with the rich as a method for piping hot ... j ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2021, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2916 "2021-10-23T21:38:04Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > TIL that if you are lost in Central Park, [you can use the numbers on the base of the lampposts to get an idea of where you are located](https://worksthatwork.com/artefacts/location-code-in-central-park). I’ve never been to Central Park, but I hope I remember this in case I ever get to visit. All the trees in Berlin’s streets and most of the trees in the parks are numbered: They nail a little round white sign (here is the link to the ones making the [signs](https://bechstein-baum.de/baumplaketten/)) to them with the number printed in black. It is called the [Baumkataster](https://www.berlin.de/senuvk/umwelt/stadtgruen/stadtbaeume/de/karte/index.shtml) (link to the official site in German: with disclaimer in red: _this map does not claim to be complete and no rights can be derived from it._ Can’t get more German than that, can you?). ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2917 "2021-10-24T07:45:02Z")
Turns out that all people with blue eyes [share a common ancestor](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/all-blue-eyed-people-have-single-ancestor-common-same-genetic-mutation-gene-european-descent-a7961251.html). ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2918 "2021-10-24T16:05:49Z")
I’m totally confused by this. I have green eyes, and my brother’s eyes were blue. Does this mean that two brothers don’t have common ancestors? ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2919 "2021-10-24T16:14:13Z")
I gotta be honest; anything more complex than a basic [Punnett Square](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punnett_square?wprov=sfti1)and I’m completely lost, genetically and biologically speaking. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2920 "2021-10-24T17:00:34Z")
Blue eyes are a recessive gene. Two brown-eyed parents have a chance to sire blue-eyed offspring if both of them have a blue gene (no pun intended). So, all brown-eyed people with recessive blue genes would have that ancestor, and so would their fully brown-eyed offspring. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2921 "2021-10-24T17:19:13Z")
Yeah, I got that. I just don’t know how green eyes fit in. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2922 "2021-10-24T17:32:20Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > Turns out that all people with blue eyes [share a common ancestor](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/all-blue-eyed-people-have-single-ancestor-common-same-genetic-mutation-gene-european-descent-a7961251.html). > [@panache45](#): > > I’m totally confused by this. I have green eyes, and my brother’s eyes were blue. Does this mean that two brothers don’t have common ancestors? I’m reading it as “If two people have blue eyes, they’re definitely related. Others may be also related to a blue-eyed person, or maybe not.” > My husband and I both have brown eyes. Mine are a lighter brown and his are dark brown. We have three children. One with green eyes (exactly the color of my sister’s eyes), one with blue eyes, and one with dark brown eyes. My mom had green eyes, all the other grandparents had dark brown eyes. Where did the blue eyes come from? [https://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/brown-eyed-parents-blue-eyed-kids](https://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/brown-eyed-parents-blue-eyed-kids) ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2923 "2021-10-24T17:41:27Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Charlton evidently believed it, though. So, I guess, did Ace Books. Ballantine books had the paperback rights to ERB’s Tarzan series and published almost all of his Tarzan books in 1963 (and reprinted them later), along with his John Carter of Mars series. Ace books had the paperback rights to some other ERB series (Pellucidar, Carson of Venus, Caspak, and various unaffiliated stories, which they started publishing in 1962), but not the Tarzan series, yet they, too, started printing some of the Tarzan books, starting with **The Beasts of Tarzan** in 1963. I’d wondered how two different companies could be printing paperback editions simultaneously in the same country (three, actually, since Dover published a few in higher-quality trade paperback size) . It turned out to be because Ace played loosely with copyright law (look at the way they published Lord of the Rings in 1965 on either a technicality or misinformation, depending on who your believe). > > In any event, the folks at ERB noticed what was going on and took legal action. The Charlton series was stopped after four issues, the last cover-dated July 1965. The Ace series stopped after the 1963 series (One of the titles published was _Jungle Tales of Tarzan_. It was possible for the folks at Charlton to have been using the Ace books as inspiration). I have three paperback ERB books\* I inherited from my dad and your post inspired me to check the publisher. They’re all three Ace paperbacks as is the copy of _Mastermind of Mars_ I found at the used bookstore. If I hadn’t already decided to wrap them up in plastic baggies to prevent further deterioration, I would now. I’m not sure how rare they are but considering the copyright issues they’re not easy to find. As I can attest–I’ve been looking to complete those series for years but I guess I’ll have to buy new copies of all of them. My dad’s books were well-read and well-loved and it shows. Plus Ace used really cheap paper that’s getting brittle in its old age. Fun fact: I also inherited my dad’s paperback copy of _The Hobbit_ which is the first authorized paperback version published in the US. There’s a box on the back cover announcing this fact. The unauthorized version they were railing against? Was published by Ace. \*None of them are Tarzan. One is from the Caspak series, the other is from the Moon series, and the third one is ERB’s final book. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2924 "2021-10-24T17:54:25Z")
XB-70 Valkyrie is a prototype, only three units were built, a study that contributed to the development of the [SR-71 Blackbird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird) among other planes. _That_ is the coolest aircraft ever made by anyone, USA or not. And if you search for the development of that plane you will easily find the story about titanium. In [Popular Mechanics](https://www.popularmechanics.com/search/?q=sr-71%20blackbird) it is told at least three times. ETA: You can’t call it ninja’d that much later… ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2925 "2021-10-24T18:41:22Z")
I warmly recommend this book: > **[The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator: Winegard, Timothy C.:...](https://www.amazon.com/Mosquito-Human-History-Deadliest-Predator/dp/1524743429)** > > The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator \[Winegard, Timothy C.\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2926 "2021-10-24T19:19:03Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > XB-70 Valkyrie is a prototype, only three units were built, a study that contributed to the development of the [SR-71 Blackbird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird) among other planes. Have you heard about the successor to the SR-71? The [SR-72](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_SR-72). A UAV capable of over Mach 6. 🕶 ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2927 "2021-10-24T19:25:25Z")
No, I had not. Looks cool, but… it is unmanned and not yet a prototype. Mach 6 impressive, granted. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=145) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=147)