100 Interesting Facts We Learned in 2020 | Mental Floss

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Did you know that penguin poop can produce laughing gas? Researchers based in Denmark and
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China were studying the effects of king penguins on the environment when they began to feel loopy
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It turned out they had been breathing nitrous oxide that formed from penguin guano breaking
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down in the environment. As Professor Bo Elberling said, quote, after nosing about in guano for
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several hours, one goes completely cuckoo. It is truly intense. Hi, I'm Erin McCarthy
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editor-in-chief of mentalfloss.com, and welcome to The List Show from my living room. The
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The psychoactive potential of penguin poo is just the first of 100 fascinating facts
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we learned in 2020 that I'm going to share with you today
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Animals can do more than get scientists high with their excrement. The world learned of the heroics of an African giant pouched rat in Cambodia this year
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Magawa the rat was rewarded a prestigious gold medal for saving lives by sniffing out
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unexploded landmines. We also learned that some wolf puppies like to play fetch. Researchers from Stockholm
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University in Sweden published a study demonstrating that three wolf pups would play something
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resembling fetch, even with a stranger. The fact that these three puppies all belong to
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the same litter, while unrelated wolves seemed uninterested in fetch, suggests that this type
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of playfulness may be an inherited trait in wolves. In February, researchers from St. Cloud University in Minnesota shed light, literally, on a phenomenon
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thought to be rare among amphibians. It turns out that most, if not all, species of amphibians
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biofluoresce under certain lighting conditions, kind of like nature's psychedelic blacklight posters. Scientists don't know why frogs and newts glow green, but speculate that biofluorescence
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may be an aid for locating each other on the forest floor. Back in the ever-fertile world of animal excrement, we learned that, not unlike humans, cows poop
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whole corn kernels. This came as a bit of a surprise, since cows are ruminants, a group
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of animals that have a number of physiological traits that help them break down the tough plant matter in their diet
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And while they're not consuming the same corn as human beings, if the thin exterior
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of a corn kernel can pass through their digestive system unscathed, it means the grain is especially resilient
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In a story that is hopefully completely unrelated, 2020 taught us what happens when you have
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a massive popcorn surplus. When COVID-19 forced the mass closure of movie theaters across the nation, farmers suddenly
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found themselves with mountains of unsold popcorn kernels. With no customers in sight, Preferred Popcorn, one of the largest popcorn distributors in
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the US, had to build seven silos to store the excess supply
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That's about 80 million theater tubs worth. The company also turned to the internet to sell 30 and 50 pound bags of the stuff
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So it might be time to grab your credit card and queue up some Netflix. And if you're roughly one pandemic's worth of time behind the Zeitgeist, maybe you'll
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want to check out Tiger King. The show taught us a lot about… something, presumably
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But in the aftermath of the viral series, we also learn the music heard in Joe Exotic's
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ridiculous music videos was, shockingly, not performed by him. The vocals were recorded
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by musicians Vince Johnson and Danny Clinton, who gave Joe the songs to use on a proposed
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reality series but didn't know he would lip-sync to them. Among other things, the series describes the unusual circumstances surrounding the 1997
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disappearance of Carole Baskin's first husband, Don Lewis. Joe Exotic repeatedly accused Baskin
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of murdering her husband so she could inherit his money. And in June, we learned from Hillsborough
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County Sheriff Chad Chronister that two handwriting experts he consulted deemed Lewis' will a forgery
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with a signature from Lewis that appeared to have been traced from a 1991 marriage document
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In happier news related to predatory animals, we found out that wolverines were spotted in
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Mount Rainier National Park for the first time in more than a century, according to the Cascades
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Carnivore Project and park officials. Wolverines need snowpack to build dens and cache prey
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making them vulnerable to the effects of climate change. By the way, that's cash like
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store for later use, not like cash me outside I'm a belligerent wolverine
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Anyway, the detection of the wolverine mom and her two kits in the forest of Washington
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is a good sign for the species. And during the late spring, we officially welcomed the not at all melodramatically dubbed murder hornet to U.S. soil
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The up to two inch long pest has a sting that one victim described as
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red-hot thumbtacks being driven into my flesh. It was spotted in Washington state
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and while it isn't likely to kill many human beings, it poses a serious threat to the region's
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honeybees. Murder hornets are so named because they like to decapitate all the bees in a hive
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and then feed the bodies to their offspring. Honestly, same. What do you get when you cross an American paddlefish with a Russian sturgeon? The answer
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as we learned this year, is a sturdlefish, the latest happy accident from the field of ichthyology
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Scientists at Hungary's Research Institute for Fisheries and Aquaculture were trying to breed
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sturgeon asexually when they united paddlefish sperm and sturgeon eggs, producing a strange new
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hybrid. The sturtlefish siblings don't all look alike, but they do all eat meat like their mother
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Since introducing a new kind of fish could negatively impact the area's native species
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the researchers are keeping their creations in the lab. And they don't have plans to make any
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more. That last sentence will inevitably take on a new layer of irony next year
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as Jurassic Park-like sturtlefish abominations wreak havoc on the world. We learned that the Pembroke Welsh Corgi is getting more popular
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as it cracked the top ten of the American Kennel Club's list of most popular dog breeds for the
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first time ever this year. To be clear, that's the 2019 list that was published in 2020. It's
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kind of like how we never know what to call the Oscars that happen in February of a given year
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with the key difference being that you can't take the adorable Martin Scorsese on walks in
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your neighborhood. I can't prove that Netflix's The Crown caused the Corgi breakthrough, but I can
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say that it's hard to watch the show without wanting to get a Corgi of your own. We also
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I also learned one of Elizabeth II's greatest regrets of her decades-long reign this year
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In a new made-for-TV documentary, royal expert Ingrid Seward said that it was Elizabeth's
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delay in visiting the South Wales village of Aberfan in the aftermath of a tragic 1966
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mining disaster. I, by the way, learned this year that the tragic event was the inspiration for the Bee Gees
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first international hit song, New York Mining Disaster 1941, which we talked about in our
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video detailing the unexpected origins of popular songs. I realize it doesn't exactly fit the theme of this video, but I've got 86 more facts
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to go, so I'm going to count it. Researchers at Rudbad University Medical Center published an article this year indicating
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that bacteria from our planet would be able to survive on an extraterrestrial diet consisting
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of elements like nitrogen and phosphorus, along with carbohydrates found in meteorites
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They found that the bacteria subsisting on this diet could mutate in a way that makes
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them less virulent, but still potentially a risk for space travelers who are known to
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have compromised immune systems compared to human beings here on Earth. A more mundane discovery in the world of space exploration came from NASA. In early October
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the space agency sent a payload from Wallops Island, Virginia to the International Space
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Station. Inside was what astronauts have been begging for for decades—a new and improved
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toilet. This new design is lighter than previous models, but the real highlight is the sloped
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seat, making it far more comfortable for women aboard the station. After a trial run, the
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design may be called into action for future lunar missions. And in a move that will surely drive the science of flushing space toilets well into the future
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NASA presented their Commercial Invention of the Year award to RoboGlove, a special glove
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that can produce an additional 15 to 20 pounds of force for the wearer, and up to 50 pounds
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in short bursts. The plan is to eventually help astronauts combat physical fatigue while
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working with their hands in space. The glove, which is being developed by BioServo Technologies
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in Sweden, will also be available to consumers at some point under the brand name Iron Hand
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On the subject of old stuff from space in 1969 a meteorite landed in Australia and this year a study showed it contained traces of stardust from 5 to 7 billion years ago The stardust from the meteorite is officially the oldest known solid material on Earth It also smells like rotten peanut butter according to the scientists who studied it The idea
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of anything being that old is awe-inspiring, but the real mystery to me is how scientists
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know what rotten peanut butter smells like. Here's a more appetizing space discovery. This picture may look like a bucket of popcorn
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but it's actually an extremely detailed look at the surface of the Sun. Each kernel-shaped
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blob you see is a plasma bubble that's roughly the size of Texas. Captured by the Daniel
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K. Inouye Solar Telescope, this was the highest resolution photo of the sun ever when it was taken
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Scientists discovered a new comet in 2020. The C-2020 F3 NEOWISE comet, or Comet NEOWISE
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for short, was first spotted by NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer
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on March 27. It left the night sky a few months after it appeared. If you missed it, you'll
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have to be pretty patient, and immortal. NEOWISE won't be visible from Earth again
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for around 6,800 years. It was also discovered that a comet can have its own northern lights
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Data from the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission has confirmed that Comet 67P has a
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far ultraviolet aurora. This marks the first case of documented far ultraviolet radiation
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on a celestial object that isn't a planet or moon. Fun fact from back here on Earth! The Southern Hemisphere's version of the Aurora Borealis
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is known as Aurora Australis. You can see the southern lights from Tasmania, New Zealand
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Antarctica, amongst other places. We didn't learn that in 2020, but it is from our 2021
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Amazing Facts desk calendar, which is filled with, you guessed it, 365 recipes for goulash
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Sorry, that's 365 fun and fascinating facts. A second moon started orbiting Earth up to three years ago, but scientists didn't discover
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it until 2020. The object, dubbed 2020 CD3, was no bigger than a compact car, making it
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a mini-moon. Any natural satellite that gets caught in a planet's orbit is technically
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a moon, no matter how big or small it is. Sadly, 2020 CD3 slipped from orbit just months
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after it was discovered, making Earth a one-moon planet once again. Radar data from the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft helped scientists
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identify three new possible bodies of water on Mars this year. The water is below the
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frozen surface of the planet, so its existence is predicated on the researchers' inferences
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about the data available to them being correct. If they are, though, it would be evidence
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that makes the possibility of life on Mars at some point more credible. Speaking of life on other planets, astronomers this year discovered what they called a sign
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of life on Venus. The presence of phosphine in the Venusian atmosphere could be explained
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by living organisms. Not all scientists are convinced of this conclusion, or even of the
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presence of phosphine in the Venusian atmosphere, but if the discovery is verified, it could
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give us another place to look for life beyond our planet. That could lead to interesting discoveries in the future, but some astronomical discoveries
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are actually about the past. The Gaia mission sent out to map the positions and velocities
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of about a billion stars to tell us about both the future and past of the Milky Way Galaxy
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One insight announced in 2020 was about the encounters between the Milky Way and our smaller
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neighbor, the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. As the SGD enters the Milky Way's orbit, the
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two entities interact in a way that's been described as a gravitational slam. The researchers
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tried to map out the history and importance of these slams, and called the Sagittarius
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Dwarf Galaxy the main dynamical architect of the Milky Way disk. There were even suggestions
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that the formation of our own Sun might have been caused by one of these galactic encounters
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Interactions between galaxies are one thing. Interactions between black holes are another
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A 2020 report published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters announced that a team of researchers
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was able to accurately predict when a flare caused by the intersection of two black holes
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would occur within four hours. The accuracy of this prediction may help confirm some of
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the underlying assumptions astronomers make about black holes, such as their symmetry
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along their rotational axes. And the Nobel Prize in Physics this year was awarded to a black hole
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Well, okay, it was awarded to three brilliant scientists, but their work was all about these
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massive and slightly terrifying space anomalies. It was awarded to Roger Penrose for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction
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of the general theory of relativity, and to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Gaze for the discovery
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of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy. That object, they believe, is a black hole
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Astronomy isn't the only way we can look into the past. This year a whole lot of interesting things were dug up or announced in the field of paleontology
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Among them, the world's oldest known sperm cells, dating back a hundred million years ago
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The cells were found in the reproductive tract of a small fossilized crustacean, and are
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about twice as old as the previous record holder for fossilized sperm cells
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They were so-called giant sperm cells. Most animals, including humans, produce a large number of very small sperm cells, but
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others, like some types of fruit flies and these crustaceans, produce a smaller number
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of sperm that can actually be longer than the animals themselves. As one of the geobiologists
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who yzed the fossils said, quote, from an evolutionary point of view, sexual reproduction
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with the aid of giant sperm must therefore be a thoroughly profitable strategy. I appreciate
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the professor clarifying that she meant profitable in the context of evolution, because that's
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one Etsy store I really don't need to see. And while we're on the subject of sperm, because apparently the Mental Floss team is
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on a mission to embarrass me on the internet, we learned new information about sperm motility
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in 2020. Ever since Antoni von Leeuwenhoek described sperm as a small earthnut that lashes
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its tail like that of a snake or an eel swimming in water in the late 17th century, scientists have
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believed that they move by slithering. And if you watch them in 2D, that definitely seems correct
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But researchers from the UK and Mexico recently captured their movement in 3D
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and found that they actually corkscrew, like otters. A sperm's tail can only move to one side
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so it propels itself forward by rotating its whole body. From very small to very large
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We've figured out the approximate size of a megalodon this year. The ancient and monstrous
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shark species has been the subject of curiosity for years now, but researchers at the University
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of Bristol have now gotten a good idea of its full size. According to their research
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the megalodon would be about 52 feet long, its head alone about 15 feet, with a dorsal fin that's
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about as tall as I am. Its bite would have had the strength of 10 tons of force. I don't care
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care if it's been extinct for millions of years, I'm never swimming in the ocean again
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A team at McMaster University in Ontario announced a new DNA extraction method that allows them
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to pull the genomes of hundreds of animals and thousands of plants from less than a gram
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of soil. This technique could help researchers fill in knowledge gaps left from the available
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fossil record. And a team from Yale used Raman Spectral ysis to yze the chemicals of fossils in search
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of biochemical signatures that can give us new information about old fossils. They've
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already been able to use the technology to differentiate, for example, between insect
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cuticle and vertebrate cartilage, allowing them to identify an ancient creature known
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as the Tully monster, as a probable vertebrate. On the subject of spectroscopy, researchers at the University of Tokyo developed a new
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method of the chemical ysis process that is about 100 times faster than the current
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standard. While this probably isn't super important when yzing fossils, it could
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have important implications for exploring the stages of certain chemical reactions that
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happen on very short timescales, as Science Daily explained. This could provide better
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insights on short-lasting chemical processes like combustion. By measuring a large number
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of events within a short time, it could also enable improvements in biomedicine, like liquid
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biopsies of human blood, which may eventually prove preferable to the current standard of
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tissue biopsies when trying to detect cancer. In September, findings related to the 13-million
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year fossil of a newly discovered ape were published in the Proceedings of the Royal society be This ancestor of modern day apes could give us new information about the migration history of gibbons Its discovery relied on considerably less advanced technology than novel DNA extraction methods or Raman spectroscopy
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Hunter College's Christopher Gilbert just happened to see a primate tooth shining in a
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small pile of dirt while he was pausing for a rest. A powerful argument for stopping to smell
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the 13 million-year-old primate teeth. We also learned this year the juvenile
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Titanosaurs had an elongated snout or horn that may have helped babies break through their shell
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This new insight was enabled by the discovery of a remarkably preserved embryo
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Another long-necked creature from the past was demystified this year, when scientists used CT scans to conclude that Tanostrophius, a prehistoric reptile with a 10-foot
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neck, lived underwater. Features like nostrils on top of the snout, like a crocodile's
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led to this conclusion, and to my nightmares of a 20-foot-long water monster with a scary long neck
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Back in 2011, Chilean scientists unearthed a mysterious football-sized fossil in northern
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Antarctica and nicknamed it the Thing. This year, a study published in Nature revealed what it was
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the largest soft-shelled egg ever found, and the first fossil egg discovered in Antarctica
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Scientists believed it may have belonged to a mosasaur, a marine reptile that lived in the
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late Cretaceous period and could grow as long as 50 feet. If it is a mosasaur egg, that means not
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all mosasaurs gave birth to eggless offspring, as was previously thought. Though scientists did
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speculate that the thing may have hatched virtually instantly. New research was also published this year, identifying the first-ever known case of a
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malignant cancer found in a dinosaur. One of the researchers called the finding very
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exciting, but not, you know, if you're the dinosaur. In better news for organisms that are millions of years old, a study published in July showed
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that microbes roughly 100 million years old could be coaxed back into growing, and were
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even capable of eating and multiplying. Let's move a little closer to the present. A study
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The study published in June proposed a connection between a volcanic eruption in Alaska and
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the fall of the Roman Republic around 43 BCE. According to an ysis of ice cores, ash from the massive eruption entered Earth's
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atmosphere and caused widespread climate change, leading to crop failures and famine in Europe
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Those forces may have exacerbated Rome's civil unrest following the assassination of
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Julius Caesar in 44 BCE and hastened the Republic's dissolution. Speaking of ice, Greenland, home to the northern hemisphere's largest ice sheet
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lost 600 billion tons of ice over the unusually warm Arctic summer of 2019. According to NASA
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this was enough to raise global sea levels by 2.2 millimeters. The small town of Vorhojinska in Siberia has a monument designating it as one of the coldest
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places on Earth, with winter temperatures routinely exceeding 50 degrees below zero
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June temperatures are much warmer, around 68 degrees Fahrenheit. But a 100 degree day
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is almost unheard of. Almost. This past June, Verhoiinska recorded a record high for Siberia—100.4 degrees Fahrenheit
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The official culprit was a heat dome, which happens when a ridge of high atmospheric pressure
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sits above an area and keeps heat from escaping. That said, large regions of Siberia experienced abnormally high temperatures this year, which
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you can blame on climate change. In February, Canadian archaeologists announced that they had found a motherload of artifacts
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in a famous Arctic shipwreck. The HMS Erebus, one of two ships carrying Sir John Franklin and a crew of 128 sailors
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on a doomed quest for the Northwest Passage, disappeared in the 1840s. When the wreck was
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located in 2014, divers began studying it for clues to the premature demise of the expedition's
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crew. This year, they retrieved more than 350 objects, including dishware, sealing wax
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and a pair of epaulets from a naval uniform. Titanic sank in 1912, and we may have learned something new about its final hours in 2020
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According to first-hand accounts, the northern lights were visible over the waters where the ship went down that night
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The lights didn't have anything to do with the accident, but the solar storm that produced them may have been a factor
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The same solar activity that causes the aurora borealis to light up can also influence magnetic
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equipment and radio waves. A study released this year posited that interference with the compass aboard the Titanic may have
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led the ship off course into the path of the fateful iceberg. After that, the same solar storm could have theoretically contributed to the radio interference
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the ship experienced as it tried to make a distress call. This entire theory flies in
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the face of my supposition that the ship's lookouts were distracted by the makeout session
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going on between Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Becater. I fought for that Titanic joke
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Near, far. In another freezing part of the northern hemisphere, specifically Russia
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archaeologists announce a bizarre and mysterious discovery in March, a huge circular structure of
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mammoth bones. At the site, about 300 miles south of Moscow, scientists said the circle
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which has a 40-foot diameter, had been constructed with the skeletons of about 60 mammoths roughly
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25,000 years ago. Why did this happen? The tragic results of the world's first mammoth-based
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game of Zip Zap Zap! Nope. I'm seeing here the answer is, scientists aren't sure
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Speaking of super-old human-made objects, we might finally know where Stonehenge's largest
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stones actually came from, a question that had been debated for years. Researchers tested
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the chemical signatures of Stonehenge's biggest blocks and found they almost all had
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similar makeup, so they likely originated from the same location. Then they compared
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the stone's signature to those of rocks from quarries all over England, and matched
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it to a site about 15 miles north of Stonehenge. Mystery mostly solved. The origins of two
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of the 52 stones sampled remain unknown. The final resting place of the USS Nevada was another mystery solved in 2020. The World
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War II battleship survived the attack on Pearl Harbor and went on to fight on D-Day in North
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Normandy and in the battles of Okinawa and Iwo Jima. After the war, it participated in
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the first atomic detonations on Bikini Atoll. But in 1948, the Navy sunk the potentially
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radioactive ship off of the coast of Hawaii. In May, archaeologists located the Nevada
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15,000 feet below the surface. In February, the UK Parliament shared that a long-forgotten passage in London's Westminster
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Hall had been found after historical consultants found old plans for a doorway. The passage
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which was likely built for Charles II's coronation in the early 1660s, leads from
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Westminster's West Cloister right into the hall. Parliament members probably used it as
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a shortcut before it was presumably sealed sometime after World War II. There's even
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some 19th century graffiti on the walls. One message reads, This room was enclosed by Tom Porter, who was very fond of Old Ale
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And renovations at Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk, England unearthed two centuries-old rat nests
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filled with a frankly admirable cache of stolen goods. Sometime between the 1500s and 1700s
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These greedy rodents pilfered more than 200 swatches of precious textiles, fragments of
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handwritten sheet music, and even parts of a valuable Catholic psalm book from 1568
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The discovery supported the belief that the estate's human residents, the bedding fields
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were both extravagant and deeply religious. As for the excavation project itself, archaeologist Matthew Champion called it utterly filthy work
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A more recent artifact was unearthed when Ernest Hemingway's grandson, Sean, found an unpublished
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short story by his grandfather titled, Pursuit as Happiness. Believed to have been written between 1936 and 1956, it's about a fisherman hunting
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a huge marlin. Reminds me of that other Hemingway classic, The Senior Fellow in the Ocean
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Another long-forgotten piece of writing was rediscovered this year, and taught us a bit about the long-running debate over the role of monuments in shaping the United States' history
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A letter from Frederick Douglass was discovered by Scott Sandage of Carnegie Mellon University
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Douglass wrote in 1876 about a statue portraying Abraham Lincoln standing over a shirtless
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hunched newly man The famed abolitionist says the monument quote not as it seems to me tell the whole truth of emancipation His ambivalence towards the statue presages perhaps the contentious conversations that continue to unfold about how
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best to memorialize our nation's past. An incomplete story by Louisa May Alcott sat hidden
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in Harvard University's Houghton Library archives until Strand Magazine managing editor Andrew
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Julie came across it this year. Aunt Nellie's diary, which Alcott wrote when she was just 17
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years old, follows two friends who vie for the affections of a dashing young man named
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Edward Clifford. You'll have to decide for yourself who wins his heart in the end. The
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story cuts off right in the middle of a sentence. Another unpublished manuscript from an esteemed author surfaced this year. A 53-page sequel
23:08
to Philip Roth's 1972 novella The Breast, written by Roth, was offered through the auction
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house Bonhams in March. And if you're a Twilight fan, you'll be happy to know the story isn't
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quite over. Author Stephanie Meyer, who some say is the Philip Roth of young adult vampire
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romance sagas, published Midnight Sun this year, which relates the story of a vampire-human
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romance from Edward Cullen's point of view. Meyer was working on it in 2008, but an online leak led her to hold off
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Meyer has said that she has two more Twilight books planned. In his 2010 autobiography titled The Thrill of the Chase, art dealer Forrest Fenn dropped
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clues as to the whereabouts of a treasure chest he had hidden somewhere in the Rocky Mountains
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that contained gold, jewelry, and other valuables worth more than $1 million
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could have been purely a fun story of an eccentric endeavor, turned out to have a dark side. At
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least five people lost their lives in pursuit of the treasure. In June 2020, though, someone
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finally found it. Fenn announced the man, who did not wish to be identified, located
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the treasure based in part on a 24-line poem found in the book. Fenn knew the man was telling
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the truth because he received a photograph of the discovery. The saga of one of the biggest book heists in history came to a satisfying conclusion
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this year. Three years after they were stolen from a London warehouse, 200 rare books were
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found buried under a house in Romania. The stash included works by Isaac Newton and Galileo
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adding up to $3.2 million in total value. The recovery was the result of tireless work
24:30
by investigators in Italy, Romania, and the UK. In his book The Office, the untold story of the greatest sitcom of the 2000s, author
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Andy Green revealed that Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk was close
24:41
to getting the role of Michael Scott, which ultimately went to Steve Carell. Paul Rudd
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and Colin Hanks were considered for the part of Jim. In other Office news, Jenna Fisher disclosed what was written on the note that Jim gave
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Pam that was stuffed inside of a teapot during the second season—a note that Pam didn't
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read until the ninth and final season. On her podcast, The Office Ladies, Fisher said that the note, which viewers never see
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was actually a genuine farewell message to her written by John Krasinski
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A bonus feature included on the home video release of Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker
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pulled the curtain back on a very cool cameo you probably missed
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Sally Guinness, the granddaughter of Obi-Wan Kenobi actor Alec Guinness, played an officer
25:19
but she wasn't part of the resistance. The younger Guinness was a First Order loyalist
25:24
Not everyone was satisfied with the conclusion of HBO's Game of Thrones in 2019, to put
25:28
it mildly. According to George R.R. Martin, who wrote the book series the show was based on, things
25:33
could have been a little different. You could have watched the ending in a theater. In January
25:37
2020, Martin told German media outlet Welt that there were discussions about ending the
25:41
series with a trilogy of feature films. Ultimately, of course, the story wrapped up on a theater
25:45
television. Or HBO. Are they still using that slogan? If you enjoyed Joaquin Phoenix's performance in 2019's Joker, you might be interested
25:53
to know he could have been part of the Batman universe much earlier. In a 2020 interview
25:57
with Empire Magazine, director Darren Aronofsky said that when he was developing a Batman film
26:02
years prior, he wanted Phoenix to play the Dark Knight. One of the strangest relics in video game history hit the auction block earlier this
26:09
year, and it went for a cool $300,000 plus an additional $60,000 buyer's fee
26:14
The piece in question was the Nintendo PlayStation, and no, I didn't just misspeak. This gaming
26:19
console was to be the end result of a proposed partnership between Sony and Nintendo in the
26:23
early 90s, and the auction item was one of the original prototypes. The deal fell apart
26:28
when Nintendo backed out and struck an agreement for a CD-ROM console with Philips. Sony went
26:32
on to produce the PlayStation solo, and, well, they did just fine
26:36
How much would it cost to live in the original Golden Girls house? The answer, as we learned
26:40
this year is about $4 million. The house, whose exterior introduced many a scene in
26:45
the iconic series, was put on the market for the first time ever in July of this year
26:50
Though the show takes place in Miami, the house is in Los Angeles, and went for over a million dollars over its original asking price. No word on whether cheesecake was included
26:58
It's not quite as critical as knowing how much an old house used in a sitcom's establishing
27:02
shots can fetch on the open market, but the ability to measure temperature accurately
27:06
when that temperature is only tens of billionths of a degree above zero Kelvin, is important
27:11
in specific settings, like conducting quantum experiments and harnessing quantum technologies. To address this challenge, researchers developed a thermometer for ultra-cold gases that consist
27:20
of just a single atom. They published their work this year. And for decades, scientists
27:24
have been interested in a group of metal oxides that are able to store more energy than should
27:28
theoretically be possible. Now, in a technique called in situ magnetometry, an international
27:34
research team co-led by the University of Texas has shown that energy can be stored
27:38
inside these transition metal oxides in a way that materials used in today's lithium-ion
27:43
batteries are unable to do. This could eventually lead to smaller, more powerful batteries
27:48
From a better battery to better screens for electronics. Or at least hopefully more environmentally
27:52
friendly screens. This year, researchers developed a flexible film made out of fish scales instead
27:58
of the more common types of plastic that are used as substrates for electronic displays
28:02
Since fish scales are often wasted, the scientists hope that this will prove to be a more eco-friendly
28:06
material at a reasonably low cost. At the January Consumer Electronics Show, a company named Manta 5 debuted their Manta
28:13
5 Hydrofoiler XE1, a bike that can propel you across water using pedals
28:18
Instead of wheels, it has hydrofoils, which create lift when water passes over them
28:22
The bike has a retail price of $9,000. Are you sick of your car's clunky sun visors clocking you on the forehead
28:28
You may not have to deal with them for much longer. At the CES trade show this year, Bosch took home an innovation award for their virtual
28:34
visor. The device is see-through and blocks only the sunlight coming through so you can
28:39
see more of the road. It will even track your eyes as you move to make sure the sun stays
28:43
out of your field of vision. It's still in development, but may one day become an option
28:47
for consumer car purchases. Sony announced the release of a wearable air conditioner this year that can fit under your
28:52
clothes. Called the Sony Rion Pocket, this device can lower a person's surface temperature
28:56
by up to 23 degrees and is controlled through an app. Also this year, robots were developed
29:01
that can give people personalized massages with varying levels of firmness and very little
29:06
human contact. People who sampled the technology were reportedly apprehensive at first. Understandable
29:11
you know, since you have a lifeless automaton pushing down on your back, but they got over
29:15
it fairly quickly. Speaking of robots, engineers at the University of California San Diego this year invented
29:20
a SquidBot. The robot can swim freely underwater by generating jets of water to propel itself
29:26
By attaching sensors and cameras, the Squidbot can be used for underwater exploration
29:30
Belgium has a bold new butter alternative—insect larva. Ghent University researchers blended waterlogged black soldier fly larvae together and then
29:39
used a centrifuge to extract a greasy substance that you can spread on toast
29:43
They're still working out how to actually make it taste good, but it supposedly works pretty well for baked goods if you mix it with actual butter
29:49
Taste testers reported that cakes with one-fourth insect butter and three-fourths regular butter
29:53
were normal. But a half and half cake tasted unusual enough that they wouldn't buy it
29:58
If scientists can work out the flavor issues, Insect butter could end up being a healthy, eco-friendly option
30:03
And it's not exactly a new invention, but we learned this year that you can now officially paint your bedroom a shade of blue called Swimcap, or a shade of green called Forest Elf
30:12
Earlier this year, Pantone added 315 new hues to its fashion, home, and interior color system
30:17
including 50 pinks and a whopping 70 blues. The Renaissance master painter Raphael tragically never had access to Forest Elf
30:25
And to add insult to injury, for 500 years there's been a popular theory about his untimely
30:29
death at age 37, that his promiscuity led to a deadly case of syphilis
30:34
But according to a new study published in Internal and Emergency Medicine, the facts
30:38
don't really add up for that diagnosis. Raphael reportedly suffered a severe fever for as long as two weeks, which wouldn't
30:44
have been a symptom of syphilis or any other venereal disease. The researchers suggested that Raphael may have come down with pneumonia, which his physician
30:51
tried to treat with bloodletting, likely not knowing the cause of the illness themselves
30:55
loss of blood may have weakened him enough to ruin any chance of recovery
30:59
In 2020, the journal Annals of Mathematics published a proof of the Conway Knot, a problem
31:04
that stumped geometry experts for decades. It took then-University of Texas grad student
31:09
Lisa Piccirillo less than a week to demonstrate that, quote, the Conway Knot is not slice
31:14
This completes the classification of slice knots under 13 crossings and gives the first
31:18
example of a non-sliced knot which is both topologically sliced and a positive mutant
31:22
of a slice knot. I'd explain that, but my producers are informing me that I have no
31:27
idea what it means. Looks cool, though. And researchers at Texas A&M University developed a mathematical model to help engineers build
31:34
safer planes. After the 2019 crash of a Boeing 737 MAX, it was discovered that a failed pressure
31:40
sensor was potentially the cause of the disaster. This new model aims to aid engineers in selecting
31:45
the right types and placements of sensors on planes in order to maximize safety and efficiency
31:50
For years, Australian fairy circles were one of Earth's unexplainable phenomena. Alan
31:54
Turing offered up a model explaining how strongly structured patterns like the fairy circles
31:59
could emerge in nature. His model explained that random disturbances in certain climates
32:03
along with a reaction-diffusion mechanism, could be the cause. This year, researchers
32:08
from several different countries tested the Turing pattern theory using drones and data
32:12
recording from weather stations, finding that, in the case of the fairy circles, this reaction-diffusion
32:17
was responsible. Turing advanced mathematics in a number of ways, but we now know how many
32:22
math problems it's possible to solve in a minute, thanks to Nadab Gill. The 10-year-old
32:27
boy broke a Guinness World Record this year when he completed 196 problems in less than
32:31
60 seconds And scientists finally solved a 90 geometry problem this year Maybe they should have gotten the 10 kid on it to save some time It was a particular section of mathematician Edward Ott Heinrich Keller conjecture that had been an unsolvable puzzle for nearly a century
32:47
but computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University finally cracked it. They used a
32:51
computer program known as a SAT solver to test the conjecture. And after four months of programming
32:56
and 30 minutes of computing, they got the result, proving the conjecture true in regards to areas
33:01
in the seventh dimension. Believe me, I don't understand it either, but I had to include
33:06
it for these bittersweet words from one of the professors who had been studying the problem
33:09
for the last 30 years. I was really happy when we solved it, but then I was a little
33:14
sad that the problem was gone. Aww. Also gone in 2020? Holland. Well, not North and South Holland, two of the Netherlands
33:23
provinces. But people have long used the name Holland when talking about the whole country
33:27
and in January, officials announced that this was now verboten. The government is replacing
33:32
Holland with the Netherlands everywhere. Government buildings, universities, companies, marketing materials, and so on. Since North and South Holland boast high-traffic destinations like
33:42
Amsterdam and The Hague, the area was on the verge of an over-tourism crisis. Popularizing
33:47
the term the Netherlands is a way to remind possible visitors that there are other places
33:52
to go within the country. Okay, we've been dancing around the biggest story of 2020 long enough. It's time to finally address
34:00
Harry and Meghan stepping away from their roles as senior members of the royal family
34:03
Among other things, we learned that there's a very interesting definition of financially
34:07
independent when you're royalty, which can include millions of dollars of inheritance
34:12
Alright, the real story I was trying to avoid is the novel coronavirus, aka COVID-19. Let's get
34:18
this over with as quickly as possible, by which I mean both this section of the video and this
34:22
pandemic. We learned that COVID-19 is zoonotic. That means it's a virus that first infected
34:26
animals, then jumped to people. We know it's not the flu, and that there's a relatively small risk
34:32
of food packaging transmitting the virus, so you probably don't have to wipe down your groceries
34:36
with antiseptic wipes like I was doing in the middle of March. We know that fewer people are
34:40
dying of the virus than died during the devastating 1918 flu pandemic, but that COVID-19 has taken
34:45
more lives than any flu season since then. We learned what social distancing means
34:50
that most of us have been washing our hands all wrong for years, and that maybe we should have
34:54
appreciated those silly little office traditions a little bit more. I cannot tell you what I would
34:58
give right now to sign the birthday card of someone I have never met. Enjoy your day
35:02
Bob or Bill or whatever your name is. And if you found yourself craving nature while being stuck
35:07
indoors your gut microbiome may have been to blame That the theory laid out in a new study released this year anyway According to this new theory when our gut microbiome is starved for environmental microbiota it hijacks our brain to promote our nature instincts This is called the love bug effect Exposure
35:25
to nature's microbes may boost our immune system and our mental health. That could even
35:29
explain why we're attracted to the smell of rain. That scent, known as petrichor, is
35:33
mostly the smell of rain hitting bacterial spores in the soil. Researchers discovered that, when it comes to socially distanced restaurant seating
35:41
customers prefer partitions between tables to unused tables sat with mannequins. I don't know why we needed a study to tell us this, but we got one anyway
35:48
Let's move on to some good news. The American Cancer Society announced in January that the number of deaths from cancer in the
35:55
U.S. dropped 2.2% between 2016 and 2017, the biggest one-year decrease in history
36:01
The main driver behind the improvement was the decrease in deaths from lung cancer, thanks
36:05
in part to the decline in smoking and breakthrough immunotherapies that have saved lives
36:09
And while you're kicking that nasty smoking habit, maybe consider giving the black licorice
36:13
a rest too. In September, the New England Journal of Medicine reported a case of death by black licorice
36:18
A 54-year-old man who had eaten a bag and a half of black licorice every day for weeks
36:23
died from sudden heart failure. And physicians determined that the man OD'd on glycyrrhic acid, a compound in licorice
36:29
root that can, in large quantities, cause high blood pressure, cardiac irregularities
36:34
dangerous electrolyte imbalances. The case in question may be a tragic outlier, but the
36:39
FDA does say that, quote, if you're 40 or older, eating two ounces of black licorice
36:44
a day for at least two weeks could land you in the hospital with an irregular heart rhythm
36:48
or arrhythmia. In October 2020, microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier and biochemist Jennifer A. Dudna made history as the first pair of women to jointly win the Nobel Prize in chemistry
36:59
The duo received the honor for discovering the CRISPR gene editing tool in 2012, which
37:03
Which was described by the fine folks at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences as genetic
37:07
scissors that mean researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants, and microorganisms
37:12
with extremely high precision. Since its discovery, the tool has been used in clinical trials for new cancer therapies
37:18
and may have extensive applications in agriculture. We also relearned the lesson that science beef will never die, as scientists argued over who
37:26
really deserves the credit for CRISPR technology. While Charpentier and Dudna unlocked the so-called basic science behind the tool, molecular biologist
37:34
Feng Zhang translated the work to mammalian cells, and the two sides have been engaged
37:39
in years of high-profile patent fights. Some feel Lithuanian researcher Virginia Sikshniz was unfairly denied publication of his own
37:46
independent findings which were similar to Charpentier and Dudna perhaps because he works for a less prestigious institution Could we celebrate all of these scientists for their groundbreaking work Sure but where the fun in that
37:59
Gimme that science beef! Some groundbreaking work happened involving memory this year
38:04
A research team discovered that there are two distinct processes occurring during memory
38:07
consolidation in the brain, one involving the excitatory network and the other involving
38:12
inhibitory networks. This insight could prove important for future therapeutic interventions for disorders like
38:17
Alzheimer's disease. We finally figured out the best time to drink coffee
38:22
Researchers from the University of Bath in the UK discovered that drinking coffee first thing in the morning after a night of poor sleep has negative effects on blood sugar levels
38:31
Subjects of the study who drank strong black coffee before eating had up to 50% increased
38:35
blood glucose responses to their breakfast. That could be concerning, especially if you're susceptible to diabetes and heart disease
38:41
You heard it here. Drink your coffee after you're done eating. One of the weirder things we learned this year is that people are more likely to see
38:48
UFOs when they're stuck at home. Sightings of unidentified flying objects rose by 51% in 2020 over the same time period last
38:55
year, according to the Wall Street Journal. When people get bored of baking bread and playing Animal Crossing, they apparently look
39:00
to the skies. In February, we learned that a human being can pole vault 20 feet 3 inches
39:06
This wasn't exactly a bombshell, given that it eclipsed the previous record by just 1
39:09
centimeter, but considering the Olympics were canceled this year, let's take the opportunity
39:13
to shout out Louisiana's Armand Duplantis, even if he does represent Sweden at the international
39:19
level. And while we're giving shoutouts, let's give one to Matt Berry, who, along with the creative
39:24
team of the incredible What We Do in the Shadows TV show, taught us all how regular human bartenders
39:29
from Tucson, Arizona, behave. And one shoutout in the non-human category to Yingying and Lala
39:35
two giant pandas in Hong Kong's ocean park, who, in the words of the zoo
39:39
succeeded in natural mating for the first time after more than a decade of staff efforts to
39:43
get the two pandas together. By September it was confirmed that Yingying was not pregnant
39:47
but surely the world has earned the right to some good news about a panda baby in 2021
39:52
Finally, a study came out this year showing that skin covered by a tattoo produces roughly 15
39:57
less sweat than skin without one on the same person. It may be a result of the needle damaging
40:02
glands during the inking process, and it gives me a reason to reconsider the neck tattoo I was
40:06
planning on getting that said, I managed to shoot 40 YouTube videos in a tiny apartment without
40:10
killing my husband this year, and all I got was this lousy neck tattoo. Wow
40:17
Our next episode is all about weird historical weapons. Drop one in the comments for a chance
40:21
to be featured in that video. Or if you made it this far, I don't know, just write down your pet's
40:25
name. It's been a long year. Here's to a better 2021, and thanks as always for watching Mental
40:30
Floss. We'll see you soon

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