12 Farm-Fresh Trivia Tidbits for Thursday, February 13, 2025

This year’s Super Bowl broke viewership records at 127.7 million views. Kendrick Lamar’s Halftime Show got even more views than the game itself, clocking in at 133.5 million.

A protester who pulled out a combination Palestine/Sudan flag during the performance was banned from all NFL stadiums. In response, he said, “I was afraid I was gonna get sniped by a Secret Service’s bullet. I can watch a football program on a television if I choose to, sir.”

Someone compiled Google Trends data for the phrase “heart-shaped” between January 21st and 28th, and mapped out the top searches for each state. Some partners will be disappointed with boring gifts like “earrings” (Connecticut) and “diamond ring” (New Jersey), while others will be surprised by thoughtful lovers who bought an “end table” (Vermont) or “taco platter” (Iowa).

The U.S. received its lowest-ever score on the International Corruption Perception Index: 65 out of 100. It peaked in 2015 at 80, but it plummeted immediately thereafter, and hasn’t been in the top 20 “cleanest” countries since 2017.

A woman with epilepsy received a life-saving brain implant in a clinical trial, but it was forcibly removed when the company who made it went under, drastically reducing her quality of life. Her story is at the center of an ethical dilemma around the human mind that’s referred to as “neuro rights.”

In a goofy little Halloween stunt, Airheads made a cherry-scented foot spray that was a clunky play on the rhyme “trick-or-treat, smell my feet” and had to be explained by a VP of Marketing. Nothing sells a joke like a C-suite doofus defending the worst pitch made at a marketing meeting.

Six hundred and eighty-one people in history have exited the planet, which is about .0000000598290598 percent of all humans who have ever lived.

The black seadevil is the go-to fish for setting a scene of maritime horror, with its huge gaping maw full of sharp teeth and a bioluminescent lamp hanging in front to lure in prey. A haunting video has emerged of one of these goofy freaks lazily waddling up through sunbeams to the surface of the ocean for some ungodly reason.

A BBC documentary film crew discovered the fungus that would be go on to be named Gibellula attenboroughii, which grows inside of cave spiders’ brains and turns them into zombies.

In a study on fluid dynamics, scientists filled a small maze with milk, dropped in some red food dye and propelled it with drops of soap, and found that the liquid flowed in the quickest path to the end of the maze.

CDC data shows that this year’s 24 million recorded influenza cases (and the rate of hospitalization) make it the worst flu season since at least 2010. The public’s lack of precautions during a relative lull in COVID cases may be behind the wave.

David Fischer, who holds a ton of jump-roping world records and made a series of kids’ books portraying himself as a superhero called The Rope Warrior, pulled someone out of an icy lake using his jump ropes.