101

Re: The Little-Known Factoids Thread

You can't fly to Delaware

unless you charter a plane.  No commercial airline has had a route to or from the state of Delaware since 2015.

Delaware's so tiny that Philadelphia International and Baltimore-Washington International are both basically local airports.  Just land near Delaware and most any place in Delaware is less than an hour's drive away.

Re: The Little-Known Factoids Thread

Edinburgh, Scotland was the first city in the world to have its very own Fire Brigade.
Every fire service beforehand was provided by insurance companies or volunteers. Edinburgh's Brigade was formed after a massive fire ravaged the city in 1824.

In 2017, Dame Vera Lynne became the oldest living artist to have a number 1 album in the UK at the age of 100.
It was a compilation album using original vocal recordings but re-orchestrated music. Paul Simon is the oldest artist to have an album of all new material hit the top spot in the UK in 2016, when he was 74.

Clocking in with 158 verses, Greece has the longest national anthem in the world.
Japan has the shortest as theirs is only four lines long.

The bees used in Candyman (1992) were bred specifically for the movie.
The filmmakers had to ensure the bees couldn't inflict any real damage to Tony Todd so they were basically newborns. They used bees that were around 12 hours old so they looked grown but their stingers weren't fully formed yet.

When she was a child, Jodie Foster was a voice actor for Hanna-Barbera.
The actress provided voices for child characters in shows such as Charlie Chan and the Amazing Chan Clan (1972) and The Addams Family (1973) where she played Pugsley Addams.

Thumbs up +1 Thumbs down

Re: The Little-Known Factoids Thread

This morning I had a shower reverie involving the references to Vera Lynne in Pink Floyd's The Wall.
Sting irrevocably besmirched the word "Synchronicity," but that's the word for what we have here, Jimmy.

(UTC-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)

Thumbs up +2 Thumbs down

Re: The Little-Known Factoids Thread

Plankton play a huge part in cloud formation.

In order for water vapor to condense into droplets (of which clouds are made up), it needs microscopic particles suspended in the air (aerosols) to latch onto.

A liter of seawater holds on average over a million of these little guys. And it has been found that they release large amounts of aerosols in the form of organic matter and sulfates. In fact, they may boost cloud formation by 60% over the course of a year.

(I read this in a scientific leaflet in my bathroom. Mind - blown -.)

Last edited by Saniss (2019-08-20 00:19:40)

Sébastien Fraud
Instagram |Facebook

Thumbs up +1 Thumbs down

Re: The Little-Known Factoids Thread

I have a vague, hazy memory from one of the Richard Hammond Weather Documentaries that this is why deserts are super important for the ecosystem too; because the wind causes the sand particles to knock about and go all crazy, shooting them up into the atmosphere where they can mix with the clouds as nucleation sites to form raindrops.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: The Little-Known Factoids Thread

True. Which reminds me of another fact in the same leaflet, about the Sahara desert. It used to be called "the green Sahara" 6,000 years ago because it was partly covered in forests, and there was farming and fishing.

But what do forests do? They absorb water in the ground, and give some back through evaporation. And that evaporation would help with rain. So basically, the forest in the Sahara was keeping itself hydrated.

Sébastien Fraud
Instagram |Facebook

Thumbs up Thumbs down

107

Re: The Little-Known Factoids Thread

Even now there are a ton of nutrients in the ground there. Prevailing winds grab the airborne stuff and shoots it across the Atlantic, and maybe 2% of it - still tons and tons and tons of the stuff - helps fertilize the Amazon.

Boter, formerly of TF.N as Boter and DarthArjuna. I like making movies and playing games, in one order or another.

Re: The Little-Known Factoids Thread

Yeah, and the rest is BLOWN OVER FRANCE AND WE GET SAND ALL OVER OUR CARS WHEN IT RAINS GODDAMMIT

Sébastien Fraud
Instagram |Facebook

Thumbs up Thumbs down

109

Re: The Little-Known Factoids Thread

Yikes. All we have to worry about is the yearly pollen drop. "Left the car parked for three hours. It's yellow now."

Boter, formerly of TF.N as Boter and DarthArjuna. I like making movies and playing games, in one order or another.