12 Trivia Tidbits for Tuesday, June 4, 2024

A British woman who suffers from parasomnia has reported being delivered items she has no recollection of purchasing, racking up thousands in debt. Some items she’s arbitrarily sleep-purchased include fridges (apparently multiple), a full-sized plastic basketball court (unclear what that even looks like) and a bunch of paint.

Dr. Pepper has caught up to Pepsi in the battle for America’s favorite soda. They’re both tied at number two, each with about 8 percent market share. Coca-Cola is still sitting pretty at a 19 percent market share.

The NFL asked 15 rookie players to paint their new team’s logo, from memory, and the results were predictably juvenile. Apparel company Homage is selling T-shirts with the childlike logo renderings.

Murdoch relinquished leadership of Fox and News Corp in 2023, and the 93-year-old melting muppet just got married — for the fifth time. To a Russian woman, if you can believe it.

Cambridge University developed a robotic appendage that can be strapped onto a user’s arm and operated like an additional thumb. A recent study had 596 people try it out, and only 13 of them failed to perform dexterity tests (like holding and unscrewing a bottle with one hand). Half of those 13 were under 10 years old.

LEGO just released its first-ever religious set: the Notre Dame Cathedral, in 4,383 pieces.

A wine industry nepo baby decided to buck his family’s trend and create a simultaneously more futuristic and ancient drink. He soaked a common meteorite in a vodka-filled clay pot, which created both an oddly sweet taste and a mouthfeel that “is an experience of its own.” Or maybe he’s making it all up; we haven’t tried it.

A person who underwent a genetically modified pig liver transplant is “doing very well” two weeks after the procedure.

Haines, Alaska is home to a prestigious hammer museum. It’s unclear if it’s the largest hammer museum in the world, but it does feature ancient Roman hammers in its 2,000-plus hammer collection, which is neat. The museum says, “If you have any trouble finding us, just look for the 20-foot hammer out front.”

The main procedure for fumigating termites is blasting them with sulfuryl fluoride, which is toxic to humans. A new, greener method involves luring them out of the wood, Pied Piper-style, with a compound called pinese that mimics the scent of wood.

Seoul’s yearly International Space-Out Competition is a quest to achieve the lowest resting heart rate. To combat their notoriously brutal hustle culture, they decided to turn relaxation into a competition.

Paranormal expert Paul Lee has surveyed residents and employees of haunted locations around the U.K., and has found that an alarming number of ghosts have gone dormant in recent years, possibly wrapping up their unfinished business and moving on. Good news though: Lee says “it may be that ghosts can be recharged.”