12 Farm-Fresh Trivia Tidbits for Friday, December 27, 2024
“Per my last email” has long been recognized as the worst opening line to read in an email. But we have a new contender: “Oopsie, we made a Poopsie!”
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Poland Has Had to Dip Into Its National Butter Reserve
Much like Canada recently borrowing from its huge national stockpile of maple syrup, a butter shortage has forced Poland to auction off 1,102 tons of frozen butter.
The First-Ever Drug Approved to Treat Sleep Apnea
The FDA just granted approval to a drug that can treat sleep apnea for the first time. Surprisingly, it’s Zepbound, a diabetes treatment that’s turned out to be some kind of wonder drug for obesity and other related ailments.
Stupid Dating Term of the Season: ‘Scrooging’
Dating blogs are running out of stuff to report on at the end of the year, so one of their made-up phenomena is “scrooging,” or breaking up with a significant other before the holidays to avoid having to buy a gift.
Your Air Fryer May Be Stealing Your Data for the Chinese Government
Smart air fryers from Chinese brands like Aigostar and Xiaomi were found to casually link your phone with trackers from Facebook and a couple of huge Chinese ad networks, ask for your gender and birthday, ask permission to record audio on your phone and then send much of this data to servers in China.
Meanwhile, China Is Cracking Down on Claw Machines
Hong Kong may tighten up regulation around predatory claw machines, saying they “capitalize on consumers’ enthusiasm for testing their luck.”
Gene Editing Alzheimer’s Into Oblivion
A gene-editing tool has proven effective at preventing the formation of amyloid-beta plaques, which is a crucial step in the development of the disease.
Charmin Rescinded a Woman’s Lifetime Supply of Toilet Paper
A Connecticut woman received an email saying that she’d won a big Charmin sweepstakes, but got a follow up saying, “Oopsie, we made a Poopsie!” and offering her a $2 coupon instead.
The Internet Is One-Third Dead
The Pew Research Center found that 38 percent of web pages that were around in 2013 are now dead. Since much of the modern internet is A.I.-generated pollution, this dump will soon bare little resemblance to the utopia we once knew.
We Could Fight Climate Change With Diamond Dust (But We Probably Won’t)
A study found that releasing 5.5 million tons of pulverized diamond into the atmosphere could reflect enough sunlight to cool the planet. But this would need to be a yearly procedure, and would cost $105 trillion to pull off.
Who Named Generation X?
Spin writer Jim Greer claims to have been the first to slap that label on the kids of the Silent Generation and the Boomers, in an article from January 1991. He made the suggestion based on the popularity of the 1991 book Generation X, which was taken from Billy Idol’s British punk band, which was taken from another book from 1964, which may have been taken from a magazine photo essay from 1952.
Mistletoe Is Named After Bird Poop
Mistletoe is a plant that lives on the surface of other trees and bushes, where it’s placed by birds who consume and then poop its seeds. In an Anglo-Saxon dialect no one speaks anymore, “mistle tan” meant “poop twig,” and that evolved into “mistletoe.”
It’s Also a Murderous Parasite
It sends its roots under the bark of its hosts, sucking out water and nutrients. As it spreads, it can choke an entire tree to death.
