Human blood type systems
Your blood type is most commonly defined by two systems: ABO (blood types A, B, AB, and O) and Rh (+ or -). But these aren’t the only systems; there are more than thirty others.
Month: December 2021
Sky tubes
A Bangladeshi engineer named Fazlur Rahman Khan revolutionised the design of skyscrapers by modelling them on bamboo tubes.
Animal actors
From 1951 to the 1980s the PATSY Award celebrated the greatest animal actor in Hollywood; from 2001 to today the Palm Dog Award celebrates the greatest canine actor showing at Cannes.
Featured category: The oceans
The space cemetery in the middle of the Pacific; the inaccessible island in the middle of the Atlantic; the largest ocean current in the world; and the pivot points around which the global tides turn.
From the archives: Metric
100 seconds in a minute, 100 minutes in an hour, 10 hours in a day; the American highway with kilometre signs; the $327 million dollar NASA metric mix-up; and that time pirates prevented the United States from getting the metric system.
Beer beetles
The Australian beetle Julodimorpha bakewelli attempts to mate with discarded beer bottles, sometimes to the point of its own death.
Pirate democracy
In the 18th century, a new pirate crew would come together to elect a captain and quartermaster, and agree on a shared code of conduct: what we today call the pirate code.
Deciphering a secret society manual
Around 1730 a German secret society recorded their initiation rituals in an encrypted manuscript. In 2011, that cipher was finally decoded.
The riff repeats
The opening riff of Nirvana’s “Come as You Are” bears a strong resemblance to the 1984 song “Eighties”… which in turn bears a strong resemblance to the 1982 song “Life Goes On.”
Rational dress
The Rational Dress Society, founded in 1881, fought the strictures of the Victorian corset, crinoline, and high heels.
Featured category: 19th century history
The hippo-greyhound swap between Egypt and England; the telepathic snail scam; the Salvation Army’s arch enemies; and the curious appearance of a Sri Lankan bell in pre-colonial New Zealand.
From the archives: Medicine animals
The human pregnancy test that uses dead rabbits; the human fertility test that creates human-hamster hybrids; mice with knocked-out genes; and the immortal dog cancer.
Donald Duck’s voice
Donald Duck’s distinctive speaking style is a type of alaryngeal speech – it is made without using your voice box.
Carless highway
M-185 has been part of Michigan’s state highway system since 1933… but no cars drive on it. And it has still managed to have at least one crash.
Sentinel chickens
Specially designated “sentinel chickens” allow health officials to track the emergence of infectious diseases like West Nile virus amongst human populations.
The Generalist Academy 