12 Trivia Tidbits for Thursday, April 18, 2024

Most mass farming is pretty cruel, but things like foie gras are especially horrifying. Since there’s so much research on lab-grown meat at the moment, some scientists are setting their sights beyond Fourth of July hamburgers and trying to master the cell-by-cell recreation of delicacies like foie gras, Wagyu beef and bluefin tuna.

A woman in Brazil was arrested after bank employees noticed that the elderly man she wheeled in was completely limp and pale. She went as far as putting a pen in his fingers and saying, “Uncle, are you listening? You need to sign.” When asked why the guy looked maybe dead, she said, “He is like that. He doesn’t say anything.”

Milton Hershey, J.P. Morgan, radio inventor Guglielmo Marconi, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt and journalist Theodore Dreiser all had literal front-row tickets to the carnage, but opted out of the trip for reasons ranging from wife sprained her ankle, to manager forced them to take a cheaper ship.

Paris’ head of cybersecurity is bracing for an estimated 3.6 billion cyber attacks on the Olympics’ digital tools and outlets.

Tapping into existing research on lunar minerals, and studying ancient Egyptian pigmentation chemistry, an Oregon State scientist has developed a specific magenta pigment that shows promise as an energy conserving coating for vehicles and buildings.

Ikea’s new Brännboll collection is an attempt to get on the radar of couch potatoes who prop up the $200 billion-per-year gaming industry. Besides gamer-y colors like pinks and blues, the collection also features low furniture that caters to the unpredictable and ever-changing posture of a marathon gamer.

First of all, let’s get the facts straight: O.J. did own a white Ford Bronco, but he left that back at the crime scene. He hopped in a white Ford Bronco belonging to Al Cowlings, the man who was actually driving through the whole ordeal. Cowlings’ buddies now own the car, and have been offered $750k for it, but are holding out for a million or two.

A $10 billion copper mine was built in the jungle of Panama, but a bad business gamble, shaky national politics and unrest over an unfair tax policy forced the company to shut down in 2016. All the equipment is there, as is the copper, if you want it bad enough.

A newly discovered, horrible little ant was just discovered in Australia. Because it’s “slender, pale and thrives in darkness,” scientists named it leptanilla voldemort.

NASA had big plans to send a bunch of rocks scooped up by the Perseverance Mars rover back to Earth, but decided it was too expensive. They’re trying to figure out a cheaper way to retrieve those precious hunks.

McDonald’s put up a series of billboards in public spaces in the Netherlands that are mostly blank, and feature no branding, but smell like French fries to anyone within a five-meter radius.

Pringles has launched a bunch of branded Crocs, and some bizarre add-ons, including those weird little buttons you put in the holes, a big-ass mustache on the front of the shoe and a strap-on ankle holster that fits a small thing of Pringles. The signature flavor that comes with the shoe is a watermelon chili lime abomination called “Croc-tail Party.”