12 Trivia Tidbits for Tuesday, July 16, 2024
What’s the most disappointing tourist attraction in the country? How old is the world’s oldest map? How many bananas will the Olympic Village be stockpiling like Donkey Kong? You’ll know the answers within the next two minutes.
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The World’s Oldest Map
The Babylonian Map of the World is a clay tablet from around the ninth century BC that depicts Babylon, seven other cities, the Zagros mountains, a swamp and something called the “Bitter River.”
Ancient Egyptian Fishermen Mummified a Crocodile
3D imaging of a 3,000-year-old mummified crocodile found, somewhat predictably, a fish with a fishing hook inside. Researchers believe this croc was caught by fishermen with ritualistic mummification in mind.
A 161-Million-Year-Old Stegosaurus Is for Sale
If you’ve got $6 million lying around (and want to throw a wrench in the gears of global paleontology), you can own Apex, a nearly complete fossilized stegosaurus. Researchers aren’t too psyched about the price and the publicity, because if owning dinosaurs becomes trendy among the super wealthy, museums and research institutes may be priced out of specimens.
A Boy and His Whales
A man rowing across the Atlantic Ocean was joined by a pack of long-finned pilot whales. They hung out with him for hours, goofing around together, with one of them even crashing into his boat.
You’re About to Hand Billions of Dollars to Bezos
Amazon expects to see a six-percent increase in revenue from this year’s Amazon Prime Day sales, projected at $13.3 billion. Good for him, man, the guy could use a win.
A Guy Was Caught Smuggling Hamsters in His Pants
After a break-in at an Ohio pet store, a suspect was taken into custody. Police cut his leopard-print pants with scissors, revealing a bunch of live hamsters. One cop had to ask: “For your safety, is there a gerbil inside you?”
Google Is Investing Big Time in Cybersecurity
Alphabet appears to be buying a cybersecurity tech start-up called Wiz for $23 billion, which would be the most it has ever spent acquiring a single company.
Two Rare Parrots on a Blind Date
Two red-fronted macaws from separate zoos have been put together in a cage in hopes that they’ll start cranking out babies, as there are only about 300 of them left in the world.
The Olympic Village Will Need Three Million Bananas
Housing and feeding up to 15,000 athletes means about 40,000 meals per day, including three million bananas and 20 tons of coffee (which will turn into 40 tons of coffee waste).
Dogs Can Smell Trauma on Your Breath
A group of therapy dogs trained to detect the chemical effects of PTSD on a person’s breath have done so with 90 percent accuracy.
The 500-Million-Year-Old Missing Link From the South Pole
A Moroccan fossil collector acquired a cool rock a few decades ago that, now that it’s been more closely studied, contains the oldest known relative of what would become spiders, scorpions and horseshoe crabs.
Empirically Speaking, the Most Disappointing Tourist Attraction in the Country
A study of Google and TripAdvisor reviews found that Florida’s Kennedy Space Center is the most underwhelming tourist attraction in these United States. At $75 for adult admission and $65 for kids, the Kennedy Center is taking a mighty big swing, and is apparently not connecting.
