Fun Facts and Strange Events

So this is where we talk about random fun facts that we’ve learnt during the week as well as any strange or interesting events. It’s the kind of stuff that you can keep in your memory bank for one those conversations when you really don’t know what to say (I bet you’re thinking about one right now). Each month we'll convert our blog into a fun fact zone, so if you have any that you would like to share with us then that’s your chance. Just pop a comment under the post, we’ll choose which one we think is the funniest/weirdest thing and you’ll get a special mention in the next Fun Facts blog.

Fun Fact #1: The city of Birmingham, UK, was recorded in the Doomsday Book, complied shortly after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. At the time it was only a small village so it’s value was placed at £1, as that was all the villagers could afford to give to their Lord.

Now lets have a strange event. On Thursday 10^th April in Chonqing, Southwest China, a beekeeper named She Ping asked his wife and fellow beekeepers to cover him with close to half a million bees. She Ping had performed the stunt a few times before, saying the first time was when he was 22 years old, he’s now 34, and he did it out of curiosity. His assistants wrapped the semi-naked man in plastic before coaxing the bees to stick to him, using incense and cigarettes to try and keep the 456,000 insects from covering his face. The ‘bee dress’ weighed approximately 45kg in total, with enough bees to fill 28 bee hives. Feeling “hot, suffocating and nervous” She Ping began to free himself after 40 minutes and 20 bee stings.

She Ping isn't actually the first person to 'wear' bees. It was a Saturday morning in July 1885 when an unfortunate man walking down Regent Street, London, became very attractive to a swarm of bees. Adhering to the Victorian stereotype the man tried to continue his walk without a fuss, however onlookers began following him to watch the strange activity. It wasn't until one passer-by instructed the man to take off his coat, that he finally able to get free of his buzzing friends. Messrs Mappin and Webb, his employers at a cutlery firm, wrote to the London Standard concerning the incident saying "We are pleased to say that the man is none the worse for this extraordinary visitation."

Fun fact #2: Perhaps not so fun but the first recorded case of prostate cancer is though to have been found in the remains of a 2700-year old Scythian king in Russia. The second oldest case was found in October 2011 when research was conducted on an Egyptian mummy dating to the Ptolemaic period (285-30 BC). You can read the full journal article on the 2011 research by clicking on the link at the bottom.

World War One can not be classed as a strange event but it was a strange way for a few inventions to be discovered. One of those was the sanitary towel. Originally Cellucotton was used in German and Austrian paper plants , however it was the US company Kimberly-Clark that realised the full potential of this super-absorbent material. When the US joined the war, Kimberly-Clark began mass-producing the material at around 380-500ft per minute and used it for surgical wadding. It was Red Cross nurses who discovered the unofficial use for the Cellucotton and in 1920, after two years of study and market research, it went on sale under the name Kotex. However as women were uncomfortable buying the product from male shop assistants, a new use for the material was found. In 1924 Kleenex was on shelves as the result of ironing the material to create a smooth and soft tissue.

In Berlin, 1918, it was recorded that half the children in the city were suffering from rickets which was thought to have been caused by poverty. Dr Kurt Huldschinsky noticed that many of his patients looked pale, so he came up with an experiment whereby he would position four children under mercury-quartz lamps, emitting ultraviolet light. The children's bones became stronger over time and once the results were published, children all of Germany were given the treatment. We now know that Vitamin D is essential for bones to become strong and healthy and the process is in fact triggered by ultraviolet light. Thanks Dr Huldschinsky!

You may have wondered who was responsible for the vegetarian sausage. No? just me then. Konrad Adenauer was the mayor of Cologne at the time and with the British blockage of Germany, the city began to starve. Adenauer came up with substitutes for meat and other hard to find items, eventually creating a sausage made of soy named Friedenswurst or "peace sausage". He was turned down for a patent in Germany as their opinion was that if it didn't contain meat, then it wasn't a sausage. Funnily enough he had better luck in Britain and the soy sausage patent was granted on 26 June 1918.

Finally, I want to tell you about the tea bag. Unlike the previous inventions it wasn't created as part of the war time effort, it just happened at around the same time. An American tea merchant in 1908 began sending his customer's tea in little bags. In turn they used them by placing them in hot water, whether by accident or on purpose we don't know. During the war Teekanne, a Germany tea company, used this method to send tea to the troops and gave the bags the name "tea bombs". That would make a cup of tea more exciting wouldn't it? On second thoughts, it may confuse Grandma.

Fun Fact #3: In the 1980's there was a great moral debate over the popular boardgame, Dungeons and Dragons. Many parents were concerned that the game was having a negative impact on their children. One mother tried to sue her son's high school principal after he ran a game during which she believed her son was cursed. She lost the case but she went on to form the group Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons, also known as BADD. She definitely felt that the game was a BADD influence on the younger generations (apologies for such a cheesy joke but it had to be done).

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879981711000271