# Weird (true!) facts you’ve learned recently **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 28, 2018, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266 "2018-04-28T15:33:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/21 "2018-04-29T00:06:57Z")
Neil Young’s father is in the Hockey Hall of Fame. mmm ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/22 "2018-04-29T00:13:28Z")
Chico Marx invented a fastener often used in aerospace applications. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/23 "2018-04-29T00:27:20Z")
Glowworms are real, but they’re not actually worms - they’re flying insects. ---
**Author:** ![Mithras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mithras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mithras)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/24 "2018-04-29T00:57:06Z")
I always assumed the name of Angel Falls in Venezuela was religiously inspired. It’s actually named for an American pilot named Jimmie. Jimmie Angel. I understand that this is a sore point for some Venezuelans. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/25 "2018-04-29T01:18:59Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I learned, right here at the Dope, that there are no muscles in our fingers. I never knew that. There are no skeletal muscles in our fingers. There are [arrector pili muscles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrector_pili_muscle). ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/26 "2018-04-29T02:42:50Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I am really not sure what you mean by this. In 1950 my wife moved from Brooklyn to Salem, NJ (Exit 1), the schools had recently been desegregated and she was placed in 6th grade into the old Negro school. So Salem desegregated some time between 1940 (when her step-sister was there) and 1950. If it wasn’t voluntary, who ordered it. If it was the state of NJ, then why wasn’t Teaneck still segregated? > > Another point. By 1965, all school segregation should have been illegal. > > To get back to the OP, I just learned today that there are cave paintings in Spain dated 70,000 ago. This is well before any homo saps were there so they must have been by Neanderthals. Not Annie’s claim, but I found this: > [@](#): > > In 1965, it became the first predominantly white community in the United States to voluntarily desegregate its schools through busing. > **[After Racial Melee, Teaneck Questions Its Proud Self-Image (Published 1990)](https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/13/nyregion/after-racial-melee-teaneck-questions-its-proud-self-image.html)** ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/27 "2018-04-29T02:51:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Chico Marx invented a fastener often used in aerospace applications. You’re thinking of Zeppo, and he wasn’t the inventor. He owned the company that was the first to begin producing them. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/28 "2018-04-29T02:56:01Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Neil Young’s father is in the Hockey Hall of Fame. He received an award from the Hockey Hall of Fame. He’s “in” the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/29 "2018-04-29T04:59:29Z")
For more…assuming you have a lot of spare time… check out: [https://www.reddit.com/r/TodayIlearned/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TodayIlearned/) for example: > [@](#): > > TIL that up until 2017 the Swiss Air Force operated only on weekdays from 8am to 6pm. They now work weekends but are still limited to office hours. Cites included. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/30 "2018-04-29T11:13:02Z")
What do the following people have in common? (No, it’s not the bomb) 1. [Leo Szilard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Szilard) (Founded the Manhattan Project) 2. [Edward Teller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller) (Known as Father of the Hydrogen Bomb for his work on nuclear physics) 3. [Eugene Wigner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Wigner) (Nobel prize winning nuclear physicist) 4. [John von Neuman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann) (Legendary mathematician - set theory, self-replication analysis used to discover DNA, explosive lensing math used for nuclear explosion) 5. [Nicholas Kurti](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Kurti) (Physicist on Manhattan Project) 6. [Theodore von Karman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_von_K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n) (Founded Jet Propulsion Lab) 7. [Michael Polanyi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Polanyi) (Chemist and polymath – 2 of his pupils and his son won Nobel Prizes in chemistry) 8. [Andrew Grove](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove) (Founded Intel corporation, Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 97) 9. [John Kemeny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Kemeny) (Invented BASIC computer language) 10. [Dennis Gabor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Gabor) (1971 Nobel Prize - Physics) 11. …and a half dozen other geniuses, including George Soros – I got tired of typing. They all went to 3 high schools in Budapest that were within 3 miles of one another. All in the period 1890 to 1920. I find this utterly astounding. [Cite.](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-considered-as-hungarian-high-school-science-fair-project/) ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/31 "2018-04-29T11:31:15Z")
> [@x-ray\_vision](#): > > He received an award from the Hockey Hall of Fame. He’s “in” the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame. > [@](#): > > He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a journalist in 1988 [link](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/journalist-author-scott-young-dies-1.533392) mmm ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/32 "2018-04-29T13:00:56Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > To get back to the OP, I just learned today that there are cave paintings in Spain dated 70,000 ago. This is well before any homo saps were there so they must have been by Neanderthals. No, anatomically modern humans have been around for much longer than that. However, this is not to say that our Neanderthal brethren could not have painted them. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/33 "2018-04-29T13:22:17Z")
[**OTOH**](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Question_of_art_and_adornment), > [@](#): > > …in 2018, using uranium-thorium dating methods, red painted symbols comprising a scalariform (ladder shape), a negative hand stencil, and red lines and dots on the cave walls of three Spanish caves 700 km (430 mi) apart were dated to at least 64,000 years old. If the dating is correct, they were painted before the time anatomically modern humans are thought to have arrived in Europe. And speaking of things I just learned today, I had not heard of [Homo sapiens idaltu.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens_idaltu) ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/34 "2018-04-29T13:54:56Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > [link](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/journalist-author-scott-young-dies-1.533392) It’s not uncommon for incorrect facts to be included in death notices. Here is a list of members: > **[List of members of the Hockey Hall of Fame](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Hockey_Hall_of_Fame)** > > This is a list of members of the Hockey Hall of Fame. The Hockey Hall of Fame was established in 1943 and located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is a hall of fame and museum dedicated to the history of ice hockey. Originally, there were two categories for induction, players and builders, and in 1961, a third category for on-ice officials was introduced. In 1988, a "veteran player category" was established in order to "provide a vehicle for players who may have been overlooked and whose chances f... Scott Young is not on it. Journalists are not on it. > [@](#): > > Originally, there were two categories for induction, players and builders, and in 1961, a third category for on-ice officials was introduced. In 1988, a “veteran player category” was established in order to “provide a vehicle for players who may have been overlooked and whose chances for election would be limited when placed on the same ballot with contemporary players.”[1] Eleven players were added into the category, but in 2000 the board of directors eliminated it and those inductees are now considered to be in the player category.[1] > > As of 2017, there are 271 players, 105 builders and 16 on-ice officials in the Hall of Fame. Eleven of the honourees have been added after their death.[1] > **[List of members of the Hockey Hall of Fame](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Hockey_Hall_of_Fame)** > > This is a list of members of the Hockey Hall of Fame. The Hockey Hall of Fame was established in 1943 and located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is a hall of fame and museum dedicated to the history of ice hockey. Originally, there were two categories for induction, players and builders, and in 1961, a third category for on-ice officials was introduced. In 1988, a "veteran player category" was established in order to "provide a vehicle for players who may have been overlooked and whose chances f... ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/35 "2018-04-29T14:12:06Z")
> [@Jennshark](#): > > That rap is an acronym for Rhythm and Poetry. As has been pointed out, this is false. To expand on “this is false,” the word “rap” has been a term for “talking” since long before there was rap music, and originally had no connotation at all of being associated with music or poetry; it just meant talking. It was from that origin that the word came to mean “poetic spoken word performance in music.” Sicne it started out just meaning to talk (as early as the 1930s) it would make no sense at all for it to be an acronym involving music (a meaning it did not take on until the 1970s.) For fun linguistic facts; linguists don’t know where the following words came from: Bird Dog Kick I know it seems weird such common words don’t have a known origin, but it is true. Etymploically speaking they all suddenly appear in English or Old English out of nowhere, with no likely cognate in any other language. “Dog” is especially odd, because until teh 16th century, English speaking people called that animal a hund, or hound. And then suddenly they started calling them dogs, and no one knows why. The word likely comes from he Old English “docga,” which may have meant “strong” - but no one knows where THAT word came from, and no one knows why in the 1500s people replaced a perfectly good word with a totally different one. “Bird” is equally weird. In Old English, animals with feathers and wings were called “fugol,” which is the origin of the word “fowl.” Bird may be from “Bridd,” which meant a young bird specifically, but again, no one has any idea where “Bridd” comes from either. It is related to no other word in any other language. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/36 "2018-04-29T14:17:01Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > “Dog” is especially odd, because until teh 16th century, English speaking people called that animal a hund, or hound. And then suddenly they started calling them dogs, and no one knows why. They probably took it from [Mbabaram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbabaram_language#Word_for_%22dog%22) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/37 "2018-04-29T14:45:51Z")
RickyJay, interesting. It seems that with “kick” experts can at least make an educated guess, that it’s from the same Indo European root (meaning “to sprout” or “jut out”) that gave us “chit” and “scion.” ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/38 "2018-04-29T15:20:03Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > And speaking of things I just learned today, I had not heard of [Homo sapiens idaltu.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens_idaltu) Wow, that is cool. Thanks for posting. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/39 "2018-04-29T15:58:02Z")
Another derivation that’s weird if it’s correct (and it’s still not completely certain) is that the word “bad” apparently comes from the word “bæddel”, which means something like “homosexual” or “effeminate” or “hermaphrodite”. It thus is similar to the way “gay” is used in certain dialects (and, yeah, I’m aware how offensive that it is). It’s also similar to the way that “lame” is used, and people seldom remark on the fact that the slang use of that word is also offensive. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/40 "2018-04-29T16:13:14Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > [**OTOH**](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Question_of_art_and_adornment), > > And speaking of things I just learned today, I had not heard of [Homo sapiens idaltu.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens_idaltu) Cool! Your link led me to a half hour spent catching up on hominid fossil advances since the 80s. Then, the possible common ancestor to humans and most of all apes — 11 to 7 million years ago, give or take — was Ramapithecus. I see now that’s been renamed Sivapithecus, and is considered ancestral only to orangutans. Instead, the current best candidate for a common ancestor to apes and humans (but not orangutans) is Ouranopithecus, first found in Greek Macedonia, and later in Turkey. Who knew! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266.md?page=3)