Things I've learned recently via wikipedia rabbit holes
Siri, remind me to look up papilloma
Pap smears are named after Georgios Papanikolaou, the doctor who determined its use in detecting early signs that could lead to cervical cancer. I always thought it was an acronym or something to do with “papilloma,” a word whose meaning I also don’t know but frequently read about in HPV pamphlets. Anyway that doctor’s face appeared on the 10000 Greek Drachmas (RIP) banknote making him probably the only gyno on any currency.
A lot of mass hysteria episodes are really creepy, but some of them are pretty amusing – like the Tanganyika laughter epidemic, when around a hundred girls began laughing uncontrollably for days on end. Less amusing when you consider that it was probably a stress or trauma induced response.
Related: In July 1518, in Strasbourg, France, a woman began to randomly and enthusiastically dance in the middle of the street. Within a month, 400 people were dancing. There are theories, but nobody can be certain why it happened. You just need to know about it.
Jonestown wasn’t a mass suicide. It was a mass murder.
So much crazy shit happens at Disney World.
There are about 10 churches in The Antarctic and none of them look particularly well-fortified against the cold if you ask me.
The Toynbee tiles are one of our planet's greatest and lowest stakes unsolved mysteries since the late 80s.
There are more constructed languages than I could have imagined and yet somehow Esperanto still hasn’t caught on.
Despite being very common in fictional works, historical information about ball-and-chain flails is scarce. There is even doubt they existed at all due to the number of pieces in museums that turned out to be forgeries.
There is speculation that in around 50 million years, humans could feasibly have colonized the entire galaxy. I’m so happy I won’t be here for that and honestly I I hope we fail. There's also apparently a 95% chance that humans will be extinct in 10,000 years so who knows? Just take me now.
Between 1956 and 1977, Mississippi set up a commission that became a de facto intelligence organization surveilling over 87 000 people suspected of being anti-segregationists. The commission was eventually linked to the murder of three civil rights organizers.
An Australian Prime Minister walked into the sea and never returned so they named a swimming pool after him (among other things!!!)
Bread dildo. That’s it. Bread dildo.
List of people by cause of death. Perfect for anyone who is into macabre trivia.
Reading thematically grouped paradoxes is a really great way to use your free time getting unreasonably frustrated by logic.
Lastly, I can’t even begin to explain to you how I ended up reading about this. But somehow light appears to be able to go back in time and change from a wave to a particle if the results are observed after the experiment is over
Check on your friends with ADHD. See you Saturday.
thanks for the last part <3
Thank you!