12 Trivia Tidbits for Wednesday, June 19, 2024
Another day, another new type of concrete that might save the world.
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Look to the Guy on Your Left. Now Look to the Guy on Your Right. All Three of You Have Microplastics in Your Semen
A study of 40 healthy young men getting fertility tests in China found that 100 percent of them had microplastics in their semen.
A Real Photo Was Disqualified From an A.I. Art Contest
Miles Astray’s photo of a flamingo curled up in a way that it looked like it didn’t have a head, which he called “F L A M I N G O N E,” won third place in an A.I. art contest. He then came forward and announced that it was a real photo, highlighting the fact that this dumb-shit contest had basically no parameters or oversight.
A 1.4-Petabyte Map of the Brain
Harvard and Google just published a huge map of 57,000 cells and 150,000,000 synapses, the largest map of the brain to date.
The Largest Ticketed Concert in U.S. History
Country singer George Strait set the record with 110,905 people showing up to his show at Texas A&M. The record had been held by the Grateful Dead since they hit 107,019 in 1977.
A New Type of Concrete Could Turn Roads Into Wireless EV Chargers
Concrete is like, really bad for the environment. It’s the second-most consumed substance on the planet (behind water), and accounts for 8 percent of carbon emissions worldwide. But a new process of recycling existing cement and combining it with a soot-like substance called “carbon black” creates nanoparticles that can behave like batteries. It could then potentially be used like a wireless charger to power cars as they traverse a highway.
Beetles Make Up About One-Fifth of All Known Species on Earth
Of the 2.16 million catalogued lifeforms on the planet, about 400,000 are beetles. Their evolutionary success is likely due to advanced chemical defenses they developed millions of years ago.
The U.S. Surgeon General Wants to Slap Warning Labels on Social Media Like They Did With Cigarettes
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said that depression risk doubles among teens who use social media for three or more hours a day, and that teens in the U.S. average almost five hours a day. In light of that, he thinks social platforms should have warnings that “social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.”
The Federal Government Is Aiming to Take Down Two of the Biggest Pieces of Shit in Town
The IRS believes it can rake in $50 billion in a decade by closing certain loopholes that allow shell companies to hide assets from the government. Meanwhile, the FTC is suing Adobe for manipulating users into more expensive subscriptions, and hiding their cancellation fees.
McDonald’s A.I. Drive-Throughs Failed Spectacularly
McDonald’s is throwing in the towel on its A.I. order bots because they kept screwing up orders in exciting new ways. For instance: One customer was given nine sweet teas because her bot picked up audio from a different customer’s order.
The U.S. Only Has 10 of the World’s Happiest Cities
2024’s “Happy City Index” has Minneapolis in its gold tier; Boston, Baltimore and D.C. in silver; and San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Madison, Pittsburgh, Rochester and Portland in bronze.
Communicable Diseases Are Way Up Across the Globe
A disease forecaster has found that 13 common contagious diseases are well above their pre-pandemic levels. U.S. flu cases are up 40 percent, while 44 countries in total have at least one disease that’s 10 times worse than it normally is.
The World Spent $3,000 Per Second on Nuclear Arms in 2023
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons found that the nine global nuclear powers spent $91 billion upgrading or expanding their arsenals in one year, with the U.S. alone throwing $51 billion into the nuclear piggy bank.
