12 Farm-Fresh Trivia Tidbits for Thursday, November 28, 2024

The “bio-duck” is a recording taken in the South Fiji Basin in 1982, that sounded like a series of low-frequency, almost mechanical, pulsating blasts. Researchers have revisited it, and determined it was likely a series of whales speaking and listening to each other across vast distances.

All land animals can produce tears to lubricate their eyes, but humans are the only ones known to cry emotionally, and we don’t really know what purpose that serves or why other animals don’t do it.

A Senate investigation found that from 2018 to 2023, people paid $12.4 billion to the major airlines for the privilege of upgrading to a seat with slightly more legroom.

Weihenstephan is a German brewery that began as part of a Benedictine monastery in 1040, was later controlled by the Bavarian state and is now part of an agricultural school: TUM School of Life Sciences’ Brewing and Beverage Technology.

A British phone company created “A.I. Granny,” a program that’s designed to waste phone scammers’ time using the voice of an old lady. On the surface it’s a cool use of A.I., but underneath, it’s an attempt to make A.I. seem fun and useful to skeptics. Based on the virality of the gimmick, it seems like it’s been a pretty successful attempt. Don't forget: this is a phone company, one of the few entities that could meaningfully fight phone scammers through policy or infrastructure updates.

A study found that bumblebee queens prefer pesticide-laced soil, and in fact, the more toxic the better. Scientists were caught off-guard with the results of the study, calling them “terrifying” because bees may actively contribute to their own colony collapse.

Russian cosmonauts who docked with the ISS reported that it freaking reeks, and put on protective gear to help filter the smell. NASA can’t figure out what’s wrong, and says the air quality is normal.

A study of 800 people found that men who are focused on appearing “manly” were slow to forgive a mistake by a colleague. When asked to recall two specific instances of their own manliness, they suddenly became more forgiving. When asked to recall 10 instances, they usually couldn’t, and remained unforgiving.

A batch of raw milk from California was recalled because it was infected with bird flu. If only there was an effective and trusted process for removing pathogens from milk.

Ukraine’s Antonov An-225 Mriya was the largest plane to ever fly, at 275 feet long and a wingspan of 290 feet. It was destroyed early on in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Researchers were able to transplant a pig heart valve into a rodent, using reprogrammed human cells.

Triphallia is the medical term for having triple dongles. The condition was noticed in an infant in 2020, and in 2024, an autopsy of a 78-year-old man revealed he technically had two very small penises hidden in his scrotum. He likely went his whole life without noticing.