12 Trivia Tidbits for Wednesday, May 29, 2024

A study of three human bodies exposed to significant sunlight after death found definite signs of tanning, though it didn’t seem to find signs of sunburn. Sunburn in a metabolic process that isn’t much use to a corpse, and it’s unclear if it stops immediately or takes a little while to wind down.

An extremely rare blue-eyed cicada was discovered in Chicago. It’s comforting to think of Ol’ Blue Eyes coming back as a disgusting bug that spends most of its time buried in dirt.

A study has found that clear-air turbulence (the scary stuff that comes out of freaking nowhere) has increased dramatically between 1979 and 2020, and it’s likely a direct result of climate change. “Severe or greater”-level turbulence over the North Atlantic has increased by 55 percent.

Three years after the Civil War ended, the head of the Union Army’s veterans association declared May 30th a day to decorate fallen soldiers’ graves with the “choicest flowers of springtime.” Now it’s a day to get 20 percent off a throw rug on Wayfair.

Flamingoes generally live for 20 to 30 years, but Gertrude, a flamingo living in a British preserve, just turned 70 and laid an egg for the first time ever.

Hundreds of pieces of treasure sold to American buyers on eBay are suspected to have been stolen from the British Museum. The FBI wants to track them down and return them to the museum that pillaged them fair and square.

World Hunger Day, which aims to raise awareness, funds and action for the 783 million people on the planet who face hunger, falls on May 28th. National Hamburger Day, a made-up holiday designed to give fast-food social media managers something to post about, also falls on May 28th.

Researchers keep finding new uses for Ozempic. Most recently, a study found that the compound semaglutide helps type 2 diabetes patients fend off things like kidney failure, heart attacks and strokes.

The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council says that seven billion hot dogs are consumed in the United States between Memorial Day and Labor day.

Google's new AI feature that no one asked for has been confidently asserting some real doozies. For example, doctors recommend eating one pebble per day, glue in your pizza will help keep the cheese from sliding off, no African country starts with K (Kenya begs to differ) and thirteen US Presidents attended the University of Wisconsin (none have).

Scientists have called the discovery of 40,000-year-old mammoth bones in an Austrian basement the most significant mammoth-related discovery in over a century. Stone Age jewelry was found in a neighbor’s cellar 150 years ago, so here’s hoping the rest of the neighborhood develops a taste for wine.

Carlo Acutis was an Italian boy who died in 2006 at the age of 15, and is now on track to become the first Millennial saint. Pope Francis has officially recognized two miracles performed by Acutis, who was a gamer and computer programmer who’s come to be known as “God’s influencer.”