- [Narrator] They say
curiosity killed the cat, but it's natural to wanna find out more about the world around us. After all, that's probably
why you're watching this video in the first place, right? Rest assured, these weird and wonderful nuggets of information are sure to satisfy that craving for now. Just sit back and allow me to amaze you. Why are There Stones on Railway Tracks? Here's a clue. They're not just for aesthetic purposes, and they actually have an
official name, a ballast. Still no idea? It's all part of a clever system designed to hold everything in place while up to 1 million pounds of pure power hurtle over the tracks above. You see, laying miles of steel tracks directly onto the ground would be a total engineering nightmare. They would be subject to all
sorts of external risk factors including heat expansion and
contraction, ground vibration, precipitation build-up in bad weather, and plant growth from beneath. The ballast is part of a
clever solution to this problem that has been in place
for over 200 years now. First, a foundation is built to prevent flooding on the tracks, then a load of crushed
stone is deposited on top. Next, a line of wooden beams or ties is laid followed by more stones. Their sharp edges stop them
from rolling over each other, and that helps to hold everything in place when the steel rails are
laid end-to-end on top. The ballast distributes
the load of the ties, which in turn support the load
of the train on the tracks. The tracks themselves are only
are held together by clips, because bolts would buckle and break thanks to heat expansion. There you have it, a centuries-old process that facilitates movement
over thousands of miles with the help of a few stones! What are those floaty things in your eye? We've all seen them at some point, those little, squiggly translucent worms that seem to float across
your field of vision, but what are they? The thing is, they seem to dart away the moment you try and focus on them, which means figuring out
what they actually are is pretty darn difficult. Rest assured, they're not really alive. They're officially known as eye floaters and the good news is that you
can totally just ignore them most of the time. Most floaters are small flecks
of a protein called collagen, which is part of a gel-like substance in the back of your eye
called the vitreous. As you get older, the protein fibers that
make up the vitreous shrink down to little
shreds that clump together. The shadows these fibers
cast on your retina, the light-sensitive tissue
at the back of your eye, is what causes the floaters to appear. Floaters can appear at any age, but you're more likely
to start noticing them between the age of 50 and 75. Still, it's better than
actually having tiny worms swimming around in your eyes. In Ancient Greece, throwing
an apple at a woman was considered a marriage proposal. Popping the question these
days involves two key things, getting down on one knee
and flashing a pricey rock. But in Ancient Greece all
you really needed to do was reach for the nearest fruit bowl. To find out where the
whole apple throwing thing first started, let's turn to
the pages of Homer's "Iliad". Eris, the goddess of
discord, was pretty peeved that she hadn't been invited
to Peleus and Thetis' wedding, so she decided to do what
any logical woman would, throw a golden apple
into the wedding party. The apple bore the inscription,
"For the most beautiful one" so of course a scuffle broke out between the three goddesses at the wedding over who could grab it first. Eventually, it was left to
Paris of Troy to pick a winner, you know, the guy who
started the whole Trojan war because he was chasing a married woman? The goddesses all tried to bribe him, but it was Aphrodite who
promised the best reward, a certain Helen of Sparta
and no-one could beat that. Since then, it was considered
sacred to Aphrodite to throw an apple as a declaration of love and to catch it as a symbol of acceptance. What do you think, should this long-lost
custom make a comeback? Apples are much cheaper than
engagement rings after all. Napoleon was once attacked
by a pack of rabbits. After signing the Treaties of Tilsit which marked the end of the
war between Russia and France in July 1807, Napoleon was in the
mood for a celebration. Instead of reaching for a pinata or just cracking open a
cold one with the boys, he called for a full-blown hunting party. Napoleon asked his Chief of
Staff, Alexandre Berthier to traipse around the countryside
and round up some bunnies, but little did he know it
would come back to bite him, literally. Berthier reportedly collected somewhere between several
hundred and 3,000 rabbits, stuck them in a cage in a field and prepared to release them. But when the rabbits were set free, they didn't just scamper away, they charged in the direction
of the hunting party instead. At first, it all seemed pretty funny, but in no time the bunnies had
completely swarmed Napoleon, causing him to seek
refuge to his carriage, which was also quickly
surrounded by the critters. Besieged and outnumbered, the party had no choice but
to wave their white flag and retreat from their fluffy adversaries. Apparently, Berthier was kinda lazy and just bought the rabbits
from local farmers instead, which meant they certainly
weren't afraid of humans, especially ones as short as Napoleon. Why are public toilets U-shaped? Today on thing's you never noticed before, but totally will now, public and private toilets
are shaped differently. Before you go looking for
square-shaped public toilets, I'm really only talking about the seats. Specifically, public toilets
have open-ended U-shaped seats, while the one in your bathroom at home probably has a seat which
goes all the way around. You might assume that using less plastic is more cost-effective
for public restrooms, but there's actually a
more important reason for this difference, hygiene. Two-pronged, open-fronted toilet seats are actually required
by the plumbing codes adopted by most public
authorities in the U.S. That's because if you're a dude, the U-shaped seats give you
a little more breathing room, which means you're less
likely to touch the seat with your junk. It also means there's one less area you could accidentally splash pee on, and it gives the ladies a more comfortable wiping
experience at the same time. The more you know, right? Why do cats blep? If you're a cat owner, you might understand what
I'm talking about here. If you have absolutely no idea though, a blep, as the internet
has kindly named it, looks a little something like this. Basically, if your cat
sticks its tongue out and forgets to put it back
in its mouth, it's blepping. It might look totally unintentional, not to mention outrageously adorable, but science says otherwise. According to animal behaviour consultant and cat expert, Amy Shojai, blepping is actually related to the way cats investigate
their surroundings. The scientific name for
this mouth agape face is the Flehmen response, which cats use to collect
pheromones on the tongue. When these are transferred to
the internal scent mechanism or vomeronasal organ on
the roof of their mouth, they can detect the sexual status or other information about other cats. Pretty much any interesting
scent can be explored by blepping. That means that when your cat looks like its forgotten how its tongue works, it's actually just being
a fluffy little detective. Why isn't Disney World
overrun by mosquitos? Disney World might be the
most magical place on Earth, and part of that magic is that you're unlikely to leave the park with a single mosquito bite because there aren't any mosquitoes there. Disney World is located slap-bang in the middle of swampy Florida, which should be teaming
with flying insects. But there's a smooth undercover operation called The Mosquito
Surveillance Program in place to keep them at bay. Firstly, there are carbon
dioxide traps all over the park. Once they catch bugs, the
team can quickly analyse how best to eradicate the population. Disney has another secret weapon, though, an army of sentinel chickens. While the birds go about their daily lives in coops all over Disney World, their blood is constantly monitored for mosquito-borne diseases
like West Nile Virus. Although the chickens
can't actually get sick, the Disney team can use the chickens to locate the offending insects and deliver a swift blow to wipe them out. There's a caterpillar
that freezes itself solid. The frozen Arctic probably isn't the ideal
environment for a caterpillar unless you're a Woolly
Bear caterpillar, that is. This bizarre creepy-crawly
starts feeding on vegetation the moment it hatches in Autumn, but by the time the Arctic winter hits, the inevitable happens, it freezes solid. Now, for most animals, including humans, that would be game over. But when spring finally comes back around, the caterpillar defrosts and continues munching away
like nothing ever happened. It does this by producing
cryoprotectant in its tissues, which allows it to freeze its
heart, followed by its gut, and finally its blood. Some winters in the
Arctic can last 11 months, which means it will thaw
and eat for just one month before freezing again. Although some Woolly Bears have been known to survive as many as 14 winters, when they finally metamorphosise
into the tiger moth they ironically have only
a few days to find a mate before they die. Seems like a bum deal to me. How do astronauts scratch their noses? Being an astronaut comes with its own set
of unique challenges, but something you might
not have thought about is how to scratch an annoying itch when you're covered head-to-toe
in a bulky spacesuit. Surprisingly, astronauts
do have a few options when it comes to nose-scratching. In fact, most space helmets have a small patch of Velcro on the inside for this very purpose. Besides this, the helmets are
also fitted with a foam block known as a Valsava device which astronauts use to block their noses when they readjust pressure. This block can also come in handy as an improvised scratching
post in times of need. In 2011, Endeavour shuttle astronaut, Andrew Feustel found himself
in a rather sticky situation when some of the chemical used to prevent fogging inside
the helmet got in his eye. Thankfully, he was able
to use the Valsava device to relieve the irritation
and continue his spacewalk. Next time you have an
annoying itch, just think, it could be worse. How long should you dunk an Oreo? No matter what you say,
Oreos were made for dunking. But if you want an optimum
treat-eating experience, how long should you dunk for? In 2016, members of
Utah State University's Splash Lab conducted a very serious
experiment to find out. The team held cookies halfway
in 2% milk for increments from half a second to seven
seconds and weighed the Oreo to measure how much
milk had been absorbed. In just one second, the Oreos absorbed 50% of
their potential liquid weight, which had increased to 80% in 2 seconds. The number then flatlined for one second, until the cookie had absorbed
all of its potential milk within four seconds. What does that mean for all the dunking aficionados out there? Basically, holding your Oreo in milk for any more than 5 seconds won't allow it to absorb any more milk. It will just go soggy and
drop off into the glass, which no one wants. Three seconds is more than
enough to saturate the cookie, and any more risk-taking might
cost you your precious Oreo. A woman drilled a hole in
her head to gain superpowers. What if I said you could
give yourself superpowers without being bitten by
a radioactive spider? Sounds good, right? All you have to do is drill
a hole in your own skull. I'll pass, thanks. Believe it or not, that's exactly what British
woman, Amanda Feilding did way back in 1970, and she lived to tell the tale. Before taking an electric
drill to her own skull, Feilding got herself all clued-up on the ancient practice of trepanation, which claims that the old
hole-in-the-head trick is a gateway to higher consciousness. The idea is that blood flow to the brain is reduced when the cranial
bones fuse during infancy, meaning that as adults we
have a limited capacity for knowledge and understanding. Fielding believed that
creating a calculated opening in the skull would act as a release valve to restore a greater flow of
blood and cerebrospinal fluid to the brain. In the film "Heartbeat in the Brain", Fielding documented her
own trepanation on camera. Although she lost nearly a pint of blood, she wrapped her head in a scarf, ate a steak to replace lost iron and then went out to a party. 50 years later, there is
still no medical evidence to support these claims about trepanation. And as far as I know, no
one has seen Amanda Fielding flying or shooting laser
beams from her eyes just yet. Do you have a random fact that
you think will impress me? Let me know in the comments below. And, as always, thanks for watching! (upbeat music)
