Did you know that women might perform better
on tests in warmer rooms? Hi, I’m Erin McCarthy, editor-in-chief of MentalFloss.com. A study
published this year in the journal PLOS One found that female students performed better
on simple math and verbal tests with each degree that room temperature rose. Female
performance on math questions increased a whopping 27% at temperatures over 80 degrees
Fahrenheit versus their results in rooms under 70 degrees. More conditions need to be tested,
but it’s intriguing evidence that productivity could differ between genders based on environmental
conditions. And that’s just the first of 100 facts we
learned in 2019 that I’m going to share with you today. We may have learned just how rare supercentenarians,
or people over the age of 110, are this year, too. States in the US began introducing birth
certificates at different times in the last century, and according to research announced
this July, the introduction of these standardized records coincided with a 69-82% drop in the
rate of people living to the age of 110. In other words, a lot of our supercentenarians probably...aren't that old...and just don’t have good records of when they were born. Speaking of time, the 10,000-hour rule was
dealt a critical blow in 2019. For years scholars have questioned the legitimacy of ascribing
outsize importance to the role that 10,000 hours of practice plays in achieving mastery.
The idea originally spawned from a study published in 1993, which showed the best violinists
practiced the most, and was made famous in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. But a replication
of the study this year found that some violinists could practice as much as better players but
still not reach their level. To be fair to Gladwell, he never said 10,000 hours of practice
was a guarantee for mastery, but he did oversimplify the original 1993 study, according to one
of its authors. The bottom line? It probably requires more than just practice to make perfect. If you do want to make improvements, though,
you might try telling your goal to a mentor. Research from Ohio State University concluded
that sharing your goals with someone who you consider “higher status” will make you
more committed to those goals. They found this by having undergraduates set goals with
a lab assistant who was either dressed up in a suit, proclaiming to be an expert PhD
student, or in casual clothes, pretending to be a local community college student. I may not be higher status than you, but I
am curious what your goals for the coming year are. Drop your goal for 2020 in the comments.
And if you’re not a New Year’s resolution person, tell us one cool thing you learned
in 2019. As you might’ve guessed, our appetite for fun facts is pretty big over here. We got a few great studies that could help
you achieve professional success this year. Like, in a study of 183 employees, researchers
found that those with hobbies after work, such as playing sports or volunteering, were
more proactive during the work day. And according to a study that sorted 260 undergrads into 78 teams, people tend to like leaders
who are extroverted unless those leaders also consider themselves assertive or very warm,
in which case they’re liked less than the typical extroverted leader. In a study of workplace ethics, researchers
found that when participants believed that being honest will take more effort, they’re
more likely to be dishonest. In a study of 332 individuals, researchers found that people do tend to have a “type”
when it comes to romantic partners. They dated people with similar traits on the Big Five
Inventory: openness to new experiences, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
Though perhaps unsurprisingly, people high in extraversion and openness to new experiences
don’t stick to a type as often. And it probably won’t blow your mind if
I tell you that if you spend time outside, you’ll be healthier and happier. But research
released this year provided an actual amount of time you want to hit to get the benefits:
120 minutes per week outside! Do that 5,000 times and you’ll hit 10,000 hours, which,
as we know, might not mean much... Let’s talk space! Until 700 million years ago, Venus may have had liquid water, according to a study presented
at a conference in September 2019. NASA’s Pioneer Venus mission previously hinted that
water may have been possible on the planet at one time, so researchers did five simulations
based on the Pioneer Venus’s information and found that the planet may have been habitable
for 2-3 billion years. An elevator from a low-orbiting point above earth to the moon, which would require a 200,000-mile-long
cable, is not only possible...it would cost only around $1 billion based on the calculations
of Zephyr Penoyre and Emily Sandford. That estimate is based on a cable only around as
wide as a pencil lead, and even so there are a number of challenges to overcome, from wildly
varying cost estimates to the danger of orbiting space junk, but supporters of various models
of space elevator contend that these obstacles are surmountable. In 2019, we learned what the furthest object
we’ve ever explored with a spacecraft--which is 4.1 billion miles from earth--looks like. Photos
were taken of MU69, now renamed Arrokoth, in 2014, but clearer ones taken this year
show that it looks kind of like a snowman. *Sings: Hey we photographed a snow-man! Similarly, on April 10, we all learned what
black holes look like when a photo of one, roughly 54 million light years away, was released.
The scientists who made it happen received the Breakthrough Prize in fundamental physics,
which comes with a payout of $3 million. New calculations came out this year that suggested the Hubble Constant is around 82.4 kilometers
per second per megaparsec, much higher than previous estimates. The Hubble Constant is
essentially the expansion rate of the universe. What does this mean? Well, for one, it suggests
the universe is just 11.4 billion years old, considerably younger than the previously believed
13.7 billion years. Like many of these newer pieces of research, though, the findings are
still being debated. Meanwhile, it was also discovered that the moon is older than we thought. A new study
reveals it formed about 4.51 billion years ago, 100 million years older than previously
thought. And I have to say, it doesn’t look a day over 4.4 billion. And the moon is shrinking! This year, scientists
discovered that as the moon gets smaller, moonquakes occur, just like earthquakes. We also found a planet about half the size
of Jupiter, 31 light years away, that’s orbiting a star only 12% the size of our sun.
It’s unique to find a planet this big, let alone one that orbits a dwarf star. And if we ever sent astronauts to this planet,
they would come back different. Well, we already knew that space makes people different in
many ways. But thanks to a study on astronaut Scott Kelly, we now know that space travel
alters the ratios of bacteria in the gut’s microbiome—though its composition does normalize
after some time back on earth. A cluster of galaxies is a group of galaxies that are held together with gravity, and in
September 2019, astronomers found a group of 12 galaxies in what’s known as a “protocluster”--basically,
the group is in the early stages of becoming a cluster. This was the earliest known protocluster...
ever discovered, which will hopefully shed light on how they form and evolve. We also now know more about how the Milky
Way formed: Basically, it slowly collided with another galaxy about 25% of its size
and enveloped the entire thing, a discovery that was announced in 2018. In 2019, researchers
at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands in Spain helped shed more light on
this event. By studying our galaxy’s stars, especially extremely old stars found in a
sort-of “halo” that was likely caused by that galactic collision, they were able
to more precisely identify the timing of the collision, and hope to glean insights into,
quote, “the formation of galaxies more generally.” Let’s go from the stars to...the stars. This year it became public that, back in the nineties, Twentieth Century Fox had hoped
that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck would star in Office Space. And, uh, Justin, if you could get me those TPS reports by Monday that would be greaaaat. In other new news about old movies, Rob Reiner
revealed to Entertainment Weekly this year that the scene in When Harry Met Sally in
which Harry, Sally, Jess, and Marie are all on the phone at the same time required a whopping
61 takes. Entertainment Weekly also got the scoop that there was almost a sequel to My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Julia Roberts’s other best friend in the film, George, would’ve been getting married
in the second film. In music news, this year we learned that The Doors song “Touch Me,” written by Robby
Krieger, was originally called “Hit Me,” but Jim Morrison said, “I’m not saying
that. People might take me literally.” And the iconic cover photo of Abbey Road was an idea devised on a deadline within about
two days. Some amazing lost works were uncovered this year. Steven Hoelscher, a professor at the
University of Texas at Austin, announced the discovery of an essay by Langston Hughes that he found while
researching an investigative journalist. The essay, “Forward From Life,” was about
an encounter with a chain gang escapee. While cataloguing the archives of Anthony Burgess’s papers, the director of the International
Anthony Burgess Foundation found the lost, incomplete follow-up to A Clockwork Orange,
titled The Clockwork Condition. And a lost JRR Tolkien work that was found in an Oxford basement was published this year.
Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer contains his commentary on the work of Geoffrey Chaucer. Jason Scott-Warren, a lecturer at Cambridge,
was reading an article on a copy of Shakespeare’s plays held at the Free Library of Philadelphia
when he realized that the notes in the margins might identify it as Paradise Lost author
John Milton’s copy of the plays. And a Samuel Clemens signature was discovered this year in a 3-mile-long cave in Missouri.
People had been searching for the spot on the wall that a young Clemens signed for decades. The 2019 book Letters from Hollywood published
many newly uncovered letters, including one in which Hattie McDaniel takes on the criticism she
received for playing roles like Mammy in Gone with the Wind. She wrote, “Truly, a maid
or butler in real life is making an honest dollar, just as we are on the screen.” And now, because I had so much fun pronouncing
dinosaur names in our episode about fossils: This year, geologists and researchers took another look at the area where the crater
that killed the dinosaurs hit. They found that within minutes, that location was covered
in over a hundred feet of molten rock. An hour later ocean waters flooded back in, depositing
another 300 feet of rock, and then, within a day, the area was hit by a tsunami. And
you thought your week was rough. A new genus of pterosaur, Cryodrakon boreas, was identified in Alberta, Canada this year.
The reptile, which lived during the Cretaceous period, had a wingspan of at least 16 feet. And fun fact: its name translates to "ice dragon." The Ambopteryx longibrachium was also announced.
This dinosaur, from 163 million years ago, was about 13-inches long and had wings like
a bat. We also got the Aquilarhinus palimentus dinosaur, who lived 80 million years ago. That mouthful
of a name roughly translates to eagle-nose shovel-chin. So, you know, if you’re a linguistics-loving
bully, have fun with that one. We learned of a giant bird, a member of the Pachystruthio dmanisensis species, which lived
2 million years ago. At around 1000 pounds, it weighed about the same as a modern polar
bear. And at 11 feet tall, it will haunt my nightmares. A study of mosasaurs this year found that
the swimming reptiles didn’t just use their tails to get around. Mosasaurs probably had
giant pectoral muscles, so they could swim quickly by engaging those pecs. There are 280-million-year-old fossil footprints
in Grand Canyon National Park. New research was published this year on these prints, which
were created before dinosaurs came around. Their likely owners were Ichniotherium who,
before this research, we didn’t know could live in the desert. There are large holes in T rex skulls and
this year a team of paleontologists hypothesized why that might be. In research published in
The Anatomical Record, they laid out their evidence that the holes were once likely filled
with tissue and blood vessels, which served to keep the large T-rex cool. 257 footprints from Neanderthals who lived
80,000 years ago were excavated in France, and reported on this year. It was previously
unclear how many Neanderthals grouped together, but these prints led scientists to believe
that this group contained 10 to 13 members. Another of our ancient relatives are the Denisovans, who lived at the same time as Neanderthals.
By using the DNA taken from the fingerbone of a Denisovan, some scientists this year
came up with a picture of what the ancient people may have looked like. We don’t have much information about the
ancient Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley, which had its peak between around
2600 to 1900 BCE. But this year scientists sequenced the genome of a woman from the civilization,
which revealed their ancestry as well as connections to people all over Eurasia. The Philistine civilization, from between
the 12th and 7th centuries BCE, is mentioned in the Bible. Like the Harappans, they’ve
been pretty mysterious. But this year, DNA from 10 individuals was acquired and showed
that the Philistines traced part of their origin to southern Europe. Another group that pops up in the Bible is
the Edomites. Thanks to archeological evidence, we know that this society was mining copper
for tools and weapons in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages. This year, it was discovered
that the Edomites had a sudden technological leap in the 10th century that led to a more
efficient, better-controlled smelting process. This “punctuated equilibrium model” for
technological development suggests that, rather than the result of a long period of gradual
improvement, the improvements in smelting may have been the result of a “punctuation
event.” Research suggests that Ancient Egyptian influence may have been the cause. The Monte Alto people lived in ancient Mesoamerica
around 500-100 BCE, preceding the Maya classic period. In the Journal of Archaeological Science
this year, a study was published indicating that Monte Alto artists not only were aware
of magnetism but actually created sculptures that incorporated the raw materials’ magnetic
properties. Researchers found this year that as early as the Neolithic era, 7000 years ago, babies
would drink ruminant milk out of “baby bottles.” (Ruminants are a type of mammal that include
cattle and sheep.) Some of the unearthed bottles are even shaped like animals. Aww! Crocodiles were mummified in ancient Egypt.
And a virtual autopsy of one such crocodile showed that the animals were likely hunted
for the specific purpose of being mummified. A found photograph of Harriet Tubman taken in the 1860s went on display at the National Museum
of African American History and Culture in 2019. It was in a photo album that had originally
been owned by a Quaker schoolteacher and abolitionist. The remains of the last ever slave ship to come to the United States, which arrived
(illegally) around 1860, were confirmed to be in the Mobile River in Alabama. The Clotilda
had taken 110 Africans from West Africa to Alabama before being burned by its captain. Eighteen hundred miles below the earth’s
surface, there are 4.5 billion-year-old continents. And this year we learned that they may be
the result of an ocean of magma dating to the very beginning of the Earth’s formation. And an entire lost continent the size of Greenland,
named Greater Adria, was discovered under Europe this year. One hundred million years
ago, tectonic shifts moved it underwater in the Mediterranean. In math, cubing a number means multiplying
it by itself two times. Up until this year, mathematicians were able to represent every
number from 0 to 100 as three cubed integers added together, or—in the case of numbers
like 4, 5, and 13— to prove that such a thing was impossible. The exception was the
number 42, which mathematicians had failed to represent as the sum of three cubed integers,
or to prove it impossible. In 2019, two mathematicians figured out how to represent 42 in this way,
sparking many Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-related headlines. Another math problem that went unsolved until
this year was a theoretical question: In a lottery in which the winning number is infinite,
and the number of tickets is infinite, is there a ticket that always wins? The answer: nope. We learned 9 trillion more digitals of pi
this year thanks to Google employee Emma Haruka Iwao who got us to 31.4 trillion digits total
(calculations done via computer...not by hand of course). Speaking of things that go on for a long time,
this year we learned that a man can do tai chi for a full 36 hours. That’s what Samuel
Michaud did to break the world record for consecutive hours practicing tai chi. If you think that’s impressive, we also
now know that a person, specifically Lata Tondon, can cook for over 87 hours straight.
She cooked up 1600 kilograms, or more than 3500 pounds, of grains and other dishes for
around 20,000 people. We also learned that Cam Newton--another record breaker this year--can catch 51 footballs
one-handed in just sixty seconds. And we learned that 978 students and teachers will show up and floss (the dance, that is)
simultaneously if a world record is on the line. Finally (in world record news at least) we
learned not to count out the 90-94 age group of runners. In July, 91-year-old Diane Hoffman
broke a world record for that group by running 400 meters in about 2 minutes and 44 seconds,
a period of time accounting for roughly 5 ten-thousandths of a percent of her time on
earth to date. Even more amazing? She only started competitive running at the age of
90! From amazing human beings to other amazing animals: The “crypt keeper” wasp is creepy -- being
a parasite who lives off of other wasps is already freaky enough, but it also travels
through its host’s head. Yuck. And this year, researchers found that the crypt keeper
wasp can live off of seven separate gall wasp species, an unusual ability for a parasite. I actually don't find it that gross, I think it's great. *Off-camera: No!* And speaking of parasites, we already knew
about the Ophiocordyceps fungus, which uses ants as its host. Invading an ant’s body,
then getting it to climb up on a leaf, allows it to produce many spores. But this year,
research revealed that the various Ophiocordyceps species share an ancestor species which infected
beetles rather than ants. There are dyeing poison frogs with white stripes and ones with yellow stripes. That’s “dyeing”
with a “d-y-e,” by the way. By placing frog models in French Guiana, scientists this
year learned that white-striped frogs were bothered more by bird predators. This year we learned that there are actually
three species of electric eel. One of them, the Electrophorus voltai, can create an 860
volt shock, the highest ever recorded from an animal. Birds have different noises for different
situations, and we now know that while yellow-legged gull parents are communicating about danger,
their embryos are paying attention and become restless within their eggs. Speaking of which, squirrels eavesdrop on
birds. When birds are making noise that indicate their surroundings are safe and calm, the
squirrels become relaxed as well. We learned this year that the typically-monogamous convict cichlid fish will mourn a breakup.
Female cichlids were given the opportunity to choose a male partner. Some females were
then separated from those partners. The separated females were less likely to open a mysterious
box that may or may not contain food, which researchers took as evidence of a more pessimistic
post-"breakup" worldview. In another lab experiment, neuroscientists discovered that while mice are working on
a task, like licking an item when prompted, they fidget more as they focus. Researchers in 2019 revealed that they managed
to restore some cellular functions in a pig’s brain hours after the animal had died. We’ve known for a while that venus flytraps
have hairs that allow them to sense when an insect is nearby. But research from this year
showed that they can sense items that weigh less than a single sesame seed. The idea that there was only one species of
Chinese giant salamander was debunked this year. There are actually three species. This
means that the Andrias sligoi, or South China giant salamander, is the largest amphibian
in the world. In a development that overlaps the technological and animals worlds, AI can now distinguish
the faces of chimpanzees. Conservationists hope this might help stop illegal chimpanzee
trading. This year we progressed in the search for the Loch Ness monster...kind of. A team took
250 water samples and discovered a large amount of eel DNA in Loch Ness, which could point
to a large eel being the source of the rumors. According to a study involving MRIs of dogs, when people started breeding the animals,
they changed dog brains. The neuroscientist and lead author of the study Erin Hecht told
the Washington Post, “Brain anatomy varies across dog breeds and it appears that at least
some of this variation is due to selective breeding for particular behaviors like hunting,
herding and guarding.” Mono Lake in the Sierra Mountains only contained two species of animal, as far as scientists
knew, up until this year when they found eight nematode species in the lake, one of which
has three sexes: male, female, and hermaphrodite. We learned this year that loons don’t mind parenting a duckling. In northern Wisconsin,
a pair of loons was observed looking out for an orphaned duck. The Hebetica sylviae bug was discovered in
2019. The name “sylviae” came from its unexpected discoverer: two-year-old Sylvie
Beckers, who’d overwatered her mom’s flowers. That mom was a biology professor, so she was
the perfect person to observe the little bugs floating up as a result of the overwatering. In the world of medicine, a particular molecular
defect that’s exclusive to patients with Parkinson’s disease was discovered this
year, which may help with early detection of the disease. Speaking of disease detection, AI is getting
very good at it. A scientific review published in The Lancet Digital Health journal reported
that algorithms could correctly diagnose diseases 87% of the time versus healthcare professionals
who were at 86%. These results were valid only in the specific circumstances tested,
though, and the methodologies employed may have tilted the results; we’re probably
quite a ways off from AI doctors. An entirely new autoimmune disease was discovered this year in a 9-year-old patient. It was
a mutation of their genes involving a lack of P I 3 K Gamma. Pinpointing diseases in
such a specific way helps personalize treatment. In research this year, AI was used to
examine the cardiac MRIs of 17,000 people. It determined that genes were responsible
for 22-39% of the variation in the left ventricle’s size and function, which is significant. When
that ventricle is unable to pump blood, the result is heart failure. Microbiologists discovered a protein that’s
integral to the spread of the common cold in bodies. It’s known as SETD3 and identifying
it might be the first step in a cure for the cold. If you’ve made it this far, your reward
is 19 more rapid-fire facts, with no discernible connection. Here we go! Before this year, it was believed that hurricanes
can only form in wet environments, but new information about atmospheric science has
revealed that hurricanes can form in dry, cold places. They wouldn’t do that on Earth
today, but other planets might experience dry hurricanes. In a study on mouse sleep, neuroscientists
look at melanin-concentrating hormone-producing neurons, which they now think might be a cause
of the brain forgetting information. The neurons fire most during REM sleep. That may be why
we forget most of our dreams. I 2019 three out of four of the Break Brook murder victimes were identified by name. This was partially thanks to paleogeneticist
Ed Green who can recover DNA from hair without a root -- a previously impossible task. Another cold case was helped along in 2019,
this one dating back to 1997. But it wouldn’t have been solved at all without the help of
Google Earth. A man was using it to check out his former house in Florida when he spotted
a car submerged in a nearby pond. Sure enough, a deceased man inside had been reported missing
over two decades earlier. In 2019, human beings visited the Titanic for the first time in fourteen years. Based
on the footage a deep-sea explorer team took, some experts now believe it will disintegrate
within 30 years. Speaking of shipwrecks, the HMS Terror, which sunk in northern Canada during the 1840s,
got its first ever visit this year. Marine archaeologists found that many of the items on board were well-preserved, including bottles, plates, guns, and chamber pots. Scientists created a gel that can regrow tooth
enamel, which was previously impossible. Another amazing lab-grown gel might stop forest fires from spreading. Putting the gel, which was invented
at Stanford, on vegetation will keep it flame retardant for the entirety of wildfire season. For a third lab grown breakthrough we have
yeast-produced CBD and THC, which could hopefully be used for medicinal purposes. On that note, thanks to the discovery of wooden
bowls containing traces of cannabis this year in China, we learned that people have been
using it as a drug since at least around 2,500 years ago. We learned that robots can do gymnastics and
it’s pretty amazing. Robotics company Boston Dynamics posted a video of their robot Atlas
doing tricks like somersaults, leaps, and handstands like a metallic Simone Biles. I,
for one, can't wait until 2025, when we'll learn whether or not our robot overlords are
benevolent. A research team discovered that a plastic tea bag releases billions of microplastic
particles- 100 nanometers to 5 millimeters big--into a cup of tea. More research is needed
on this one, though! Meanwhile, a team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that electric stimulation in lab rodents
can increase hair growth, which led to their invention: a baseball cap that does the same
thing to humans, which they are going to test on balding men. All sorts of problems are being solved this
year! Like when a team in Scotland revealed they’d created an artificial tongue, which
can taste and identify types of whiskey. Thanks to Merriam-Webster, we learned that “stan” is a word in 2019. They added the
word to the dictionary with the meaning “an extremely or excessively enthusiastic and
devoted fan.” The first known use was in the 2000 Eminem song...“Stan.” *Sings "Stan" in emo* This year also gave us a few abbreviations
that officially count as words: vacay, sesh, and inspo. As in, “Hearing an Instagram
influencer use the word “inspo” to mean inspiration gives me “upchuck inspo.” Scientists estimated the size of the proton
this year after a 2010 study cast doubt on the previously-accepted measurement. Protons
have a radius of about 0.833 femtometers. For the record, a femtometer is one quadrillionth
of a meter. We learned that there are officially self-driving mail trucks. In May the U.S. Postal Service
tested the trucks and their ability to cart mail from Phoenix to Dallas during a two-week
project. And in other exciting tech news, we learned that drones can be responsible for insulin
delivery. More specifically, a drone containing diabetes medicine was flown 11 miles over
water from Galway to the Aran Islands in Ireland. Yay, progress! And insulin! And Ireland! We learned a lot here at Mental Floss this
year, too. We have an incredible audience of enthusiastic, curious people; everyone
loves animal facts; and a group that’s significantly smaller than everyone loves ASMR. In all seriousness,
though, it’s been a ton of fun to share these facts with you, and we can’t wait
to bring you more fun list show episodes in 2020. If you’ve got an idea for an episode,
drop it in the comments. If you love the List Show, consider sharing it with a friend. And
remember to subscribe here and hit the notification bell so you don’t miss our next episode
(coming out New Year’s Day). We’ll see you then!
