Quite Interesting — 30 Questions Bibliography
3 min readJul 27, 2020
- Chainsaw: Invented in 1783 Scotland by 2 doctors to cut human bones in surgery. Specifically a woman’s pelvis during childbirth. It was hand cranked like an old school egg beater, but with serrated teeth.
- Canned Tuna: It’s called retort cooking. Pressure cooking for 2–4 hours in the can.
- American Cheese: Colour was a marker of quality — the grass high in beta-carotene transferred to the milk, and it was considered awesome. Then they sold customers orange annatto coloured cheese, because customers are suckers.
- Olympic Bullseye: Inside in: Black, Blue, Red, Yellow
- Largest River: the Hamza River is a slow flowing aquifer beneath the Amazon River and is a twin river system. It flows 3% the speed of the Amazon River: 5m/s compared to 1mm/s.
- Fastest Human Runner: The aboriginal man 37km/h on a muddy river bed. But with training and modern shoes, scientists have reasoned — dubbed T8 — would hit 45km/h, faster than Usain Bolt with a top speed of 42km/h.
- Abundant Metal: Oxygen, 65%, Carbon 18%, Hydrogen 10%, Nitrogen 3%, CALCIUM 2%.
- Animal Eats Bamboo: Giant Pandas eat 99% bamboo. 1% also eat other plants, and animals. They’re bears after all.
- Most Michelin Stars: According to Michelin Guide Tokyo 2020 — Tokyo has 226 Michelin-starred restaurants. In comparison 122 Michelin Star Restaurants in Paris, 70 in London and 170 in New York.
- Animal Saving Human Lives: Horseshoe Crabs have this blue blood used to detect bacteria and pathogens in medical drugs.
- Jellyfish Sting: Pee on it? Urine is too similar in chemical composition to regular water. The vinegar stops nematocytes from firing more venom into your body.
- Arms of an Octopus: They move over rocks and seabed with the rear 2 limbs, and the front 6 are used to grab stuff.
- World’s Biggest Rock: It’s 2.5 times the size of Uluru. Splitting hairs: considered a monocline, and not a monolith.
- Longest Animal: oarfish — 17m. 50m worm. Blue whale: 25m. Reticulated python — 10m.
- Animal Sound: Pistol Shrimp all at once— 250dB. Blue Whale — 188dB. Sperm Whale — 230dB. Rifle shot is 150dB.
- Fold A4 Paper: No more than 7 times. Pop beer bottles with it. At 7 folds, it’s 128 pieces of paper thick.
- Highest Suicide Rate: Guyana, at 30 per 100,000 people. Amongst developed nations? South Korea at 20 per 100,000 people. Australia is 12 per 100,000.
- Appendix Uses: doesn’t explode.
- Camel Humps: unlike the camelbak drink bottle.
- Colour of Mars: images from the rovers are all brown.
- Centipede Legs: 30 to 354. Depends on the species.
- Blue Whale Swallow: a castaway adrift inside is not a thing.
- Driest Place on Earth: Some valleys in Antarctica have no rain, no snow. Atacama Desert, Chile is the classic driest desert in the world.
- Loofah: You grow the stuff in the garden. Stir fry it with prawn and spring onion.
- Ancient Rome — Common Language: It’s likely Ancient Greek was the reason Christianity spread as much as it did.
- Accused of Witchcraft: but 1 in 4 were killed.
- Australian Spiders: people haven’t died from spider bites for nearly 40 years. Antivenom processes are a win.
- Santa Claus: from 270–343. Technically Greek, but now Turkey
- Immigration to New York: Elephantine Colossus, a tourist attraction on Coney Island.
- Oldest Living Rainforest: Daintree rainforest is 180 million years old, 10 million years older than the Amazon.
