12 Fresh Trivia Tidbits for Monday, August 26, 2024

Oranges are sold in red nets, and lemons are sold in yellow nets, due to the “confetti illusion.” The color you perceive is influenced by its context, so an orange in a red context makes it appear deeper and riper, while a lemon in a yellow context makes you overlook any underripe green splotches.

Scientists have found that entering into a fasting-feasting cycle can trigger your stem cells to repair intestinal damage. But it may also trigger precancerous growths.

In a desperate and obvious ploy for nostalgia, McDonald’s has been selling clear cups with some Shrek and Garfield imagery plastered on them. I guess they know what they’re doing, because they’ve proven wildly popular, with the normally $12 cups selling online for up to $100.

Smugglers tried to get $5 million worth of meth into the U.S. in a delivery of watermelons, by rolling the drugs into big balls and painting them in two different shades of green. It did not work.

Several all-American companies have bravely succumbed to pressure from aggrieved white people, canceling any policy that might benefit minorities or the LGBTQ+ community and apologizing for ever uttering the word “equity.” John Deere, Tractor Supply and most recently Jack Daniel’s have all tucked tail and cancelled their insidious inclusivity policies.

A poll of over 400 moms found that Gen Z dads were three times more likely than their older counterparts to change diapers, and two times more likely to make doctors’ appointments for their kids. But dads of all ages still fell well short of their wives’ domestic labor.

Meta has announced that users will soon be able to add an auto-play song to their profile, like in the Myspace days.

Sea Life Sydney Aquarium’s Sphen, half of a same-sex couple who made headlines for raising chicks together, has died at age 11. The aquarium has said, “Sphen and Magic shared a bond unlike most other penguin couples — they could even be found together outside of the breeding season, which is unique for gentoo penguins.”

British scientists have programmed a hydrogel to play (and get progressively better at) Pong.

Someone sent a postcard to Lydia Davis at 11 Cradock Street on August 3, 1903, but it was just delivered this week. Davis is most likely dead, and the address now belongs to a bank, which posted the card on social media. A Royal Mail spokesperson said, “It is likely that this postcard was put back into our system rather than being lost in the post for over a century.”

Researchers have been able to put tadpoles into a hibernation-like state with the drug donepezil, and they’re hopeful they may be able to put humans into a sort of suspended animation in a pinch.

The U.S. Advanced Projects Agency for Health just hired a scientist, Jean Hébert, who has suggest a path to immortality: slowly cloning all of your cells, little by little, until you’re a whole new you.