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Andy Sullivan: Against the Grain

Last week, I was scrolling stories on my msn page and came across a story that caught my eye.  The title was 50 Facts so Interesting They’ll Crush Your Boredom.  Everybody needs their boredom crushed every now and again, right? In that case, settle in.

Clouds are extremely heavy.  At ½ gram per cubic meter, the weight of cumulus clouds can really add up when you consider how long and wide they can get.  There’s a precise speed where jogging become running.  According to conditioning coach Mike Antoniades, in an article for BBCSport, jogging means moving at speeds less than 6 mph.  Any faster than that is technically running. 

Arrector pili muscles, fan-shaped muscles at the base of each hair, are responsible for goosebumps-which contract when the body is cold in an effort to generate heat and cause a person’s hair to “stand up straight” on their skin.  Did you know there was a peak cuteness for puppies? A study reveals they reach their peak level at 6-8 weeks old.  Though it varied slightly depending on species, as National Geographic explains, “Jack Russell Terriers peak at 7.7 weeks, cane corsos at 6.3 weeks and white shepherds at 8.3 weeks.  All 3 breeds showed an uptick at 30 weeks old but it’s unclear why.

Fried maple leaves are a popular snack in Japan.  They’re known as Momiji, and are maple leaves collected from the ground, preserved in salt barrels, then fried in tempura-style sweet barrels.  The sharpest memories are from early adulthood.  Called the reminiscence bump, the psychological concept holds that as adults reflect on events of their lives, they remember more events from their teens and twenties than from any other time of their lives. 

Did you know there was a species of jellyfish that never dies? Known as Turritopsis dohrnii-or colloquially, the immortal jellyfish-this animal is able to revert back to its adolescent state after going through adulthood, and repeats this process through all eternity. 

 Princeton University has been around since 1746 but didn’t start officially awarding doctorates until 1879.  They had their first graduate student, however, in 1771.  That first graduate student? James Madison-fourth President of the United States.  I’ll continue with these facts in the coming weeks. 

The Norwegian Dream suffered a series of troubles over its 14-year lifespan that led many to believe that it was cursed. In August 1999, it collided with a container ship on the way to Dover, England. Eight years later, it hit a barge while leaving Uruguay. In November 2005, a passenger died while snorkeling on board when the ship was anchored. It’s no wonder the ship's owners eventually renamed the disaster-prone vessel. 

I’ll have more of these facts as the weeks progress. 

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