I bet you didnt know that

Red Kev wrote: »

The country Senegal got it's name allegedly from when the first European explorers arrived off the coast. They pointed at the land and asked a local fisherman "What's that called?". "Su-Nu-Gaal" was the answer, and so it became Senegal.

Thing is, the Europeans didn't speak Wolof (local language) and the locals wouldn't have spoken their language either. The mystery is cleared up when you realise that "Su-Nu-Gaal" in Wolof means "That's our canoe".

That's like Kangaroo which means "I don't know" in aboriginal.

Edit: upon further research that appears to be a myth.

I'm currently reading The QI Book of General Ignorance, which I would encourage if you're enjoying this thread. It's full of the kinds of things you thought were new, but are probably wrong about. It says, for example, that there are more pet tigers in the USA (~ 12,000) than wild in all their natural habitats (est. 5,100-7,500).

Flippyfloppy wrote: »

Roma gypsies are not Romanian

Some are.

sbsquarepants wrote: »

That's a great show. Haven't seen it in a while though, is it still on?

Friday nights at 10 on BBC1. Or every night on Dave

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

How many moons does the Earth have ?

What is the triple point of water?

Most scientists agree that humans are the only animals who produce emotional tears. While animals may not weep like humans, they do, however, emit cries which seem to indicate emotional distress. Since tear production, called lachrimation, is necessary for healthy eyes, most vertebrates are capable of producing tears.

There must have been some point in time, evolutionarily, when the tear became something that automatically set off empathy and compassion in another. Actually being able to cry emotionally, and being able to respond to that, is a very important part of human communication.

A small study in the journal Science that was widely cited—and widely hyped by the media—suggested that tears from women contained a substance that inhibited the sexual arousal of men.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Fascinating story over on the BBC from 25 January 2017

The Irish novel that seduced the USSR:



I heard of The Gadfly, but only as a suite by Shostakovich. Now, I know it's based on the book The Gadfly by one Ethel lilian Voynich (1864-1960), a native of Ballintemple, Cork.
Is it really 'the bestselling Irish novel of all time', though?

Here she is on her ninety fifth birthday in 1959:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYoxNOJ5fwk

Considering the number of posts in this thread to do with binary and computer science I think it is fitting to point out that the father of Ethil Voynich is in fact George Boole, father of computer science .

Somebody studying atoms is just a bunch of atoms trying to understand themselves

The Automobile Association once had to pay Ordnance Survey 20 million quid after the AA included an Ordnance Survey copyright trap on one of their maps - copyright traps are deliberate mistakes (fictitious streets, rivers etc) inserted into maps, which, if replicated by a different map maker, prove that they have used/stolen the copyrighted material.

Armchair Andy wrote: »

I'll bite.

Why?

It's about as sensitive as a safe place in an American college campus.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

Boliva lost its coastline to Chile in the War of the Pacific over a century ago. The Bolivian navy have ships on Lake Titicaca and some rivers in case they ever get their coast back.

Ironically, they didn't have a navy when they had a coast which is one of the reasons they lost that war so badly.

Strangely, I actually knew this! There was a Bolivian and a Chilean in my class in college and they sometimes slagged each other over it. :pac:

No part of the famous 'Las Vegas Strip' is actually in the city of Las Vegas. It's in the nearby unincorporated townships of Paradise and Winchester Nevada.

Even though Mercury is far closer to the sun (it orbits at a distance of 58 million km) the surface of Venus (which orbits the sun at over 108 million km) is far hotter. This is due to the greenhouse effect caused by massive amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The average temperature on the surface of Venus is 462 degrees celcius, day or night.

We live in a cluster of galaxies known as the local group, an area which encompasses about 100 billionth of a percent of the observable universe. Eventually in a few billion years all those galaxies will merge to form one supergalaxy called Milkomeda. We are gravitationally bound only to this tiny part of the universe forever however even if we discover sci-fi levels of interstellar travel. This is due to the fact that dark energy is moving the rest of the universe further away from us at speeds we can never hope to match (warp speed or not). In the far distant future, 100 billion years or so the rest of the universe will have moved so far away from our own local group there won't be any evidence anything exists beyond the nothingness of space past Milkomeda.

When Robert Wadlow the tallest man who ever lived at 8 feet 11 inches died at 22 there was no sign he had stopped growing. Wadlow died due to a badly fitted brace on his foot that caused blisters which then got infected. Speaking of 8 footers. Only 16 people have been verified measured at standing 8 foot or taller, four of those are alive today and one, Patrick Cotter O'Brien was Irish (born in Kinsale). In fact O'Brien would be the first known person in human history to have been measured at 8 feet or more.