12 Farm-Fresh Trivia Tidbits for Sunday, February 23, 2025
For some of the oldest dude-shaped things on the planet, mummies actually smell pretty nice.
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Why Do All Hockey Players Sound Extra Canadian?
Linguist Andrew Bray has documented a “fake Canadian” accent among American players, who mirror Canadian pronunciations in an artificial way. Hockey language is so strong, even native Canadians actually sound more Canadian than necessary.
Australian Wildlife Handlers Had to Deal With an Infinite Bag of Venomous Snakes
When reptile specialists were called in after a red-bellied black snake bit a dog, they were able to round up five of them. While in the snake bag, four of them started giving birth, turning a five-snake bag into a 102-snake bag.
An Opossum Binged on Chocolate Cake — And Accidentally Saved Its Own Life
A real estate agent in Nebraska spotted an opossum being weird on her back deck, and saw that it had eaten an entire Costco chocolate cake they’d left sitting out. A wildlife rescue organization captured the animal and took it to a vet, who happened to find and treat an unrelated lead poisoning that might have killed it.
Two Kidnapped Donkeys Were Rescued Because They Went Viral
A Seattle-area donkey owner posted about her two donkeys, Juan and Julio, being kidnapped from her yard. After they went viral, a woman who had just paid $5,000 for two donkeys realized that she was in fact harboring Juan and Julio, and swiftly returned them to their owner.
A Mob Boss Was Caught On a Hot Mic Complaining About Kids These Days
The alleged boss of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra, Giancarlo Romano, was wiretapped and observed complaining about his “miserable” Gen Z recruits, some of whom had been arrested and flipped to state’s witnesses.
Mummies Smell Pretty Good, Actually
Because of comprehensive embalming techniques, mummies don’t stink like rotting putrid flesh. A “panel of trained human sniffers” has determined they had “pleasant” notes of pine, cedar and juniper, plus hall-of-fame resins like frankincense and myrrh.
Breakfast Is Becoming a Luxury
On top of eggs hitting a record average of $4.95 per dozen, the cost of orange juice concentrate has jumped 90 percent in five years because of a spreading citrus disease, and coffee beans are the most expensive they’ve been in 47 years because of climate catastrophe in Brazil and Vietnam.
A 14-Year-Old Math Prodigy Broke Six World Records in One Day
Aaryan Shukla traveled to Dubai to put on a clinic, breaking records like “Fastest Time to Mentally Add 100 Four-Digit Numbers” (30.9 seconds). Shukla says he practices for math competitions “about five or six hours daily.”
Hundreds of Thousands of Microchipped Pets Are Suddenly Screwed
A company called Save This Life, which has sold hundreds of thousands of rice-sized microchip implants to help register and track pets, abruptly shut down after 13 years. Their customer service has gone completely dark, and owners are scrambling to register their pets’ implants with the company’s rivals.
We’re Winning the War on Sharks
There were only 47 unprovoked shark bites reported worldwide in 2024. That’s down from 69 in 2023.
Answer Vocabulary Questions to Give Free Rice to Needy Children… Somehow
FreeRice.com is a game where you answer vocabulary questions, and private donors pay for 10 grains of rice per question you get right. According to them, thousands of students use their game to rack up community service hours, and they’ve already donated over 224 billion grains of rice.
Bacteria Plus Fungus May Equal Life
Testing out a hypothesis for the potential origin of multicellular life, scientists implanted bacteria into fungus and were able to recreate some of the basic features of complex cells.
