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Buzz Feed
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
11 Surprising Facts You've Probably Never Heard Before
I recently read The Wedding People by Alison Espach — 10/10 by the way, highly recommend — and one of the chapters mentioned that when bugs land on your food, they vomit on it before eating it. After getting over the immediate shock and disgust, I immediately had to Google it to see if it was true. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it's very, very true. The longer they sit on your food, the more likely it is that they threw up AND pooped on it, particularly on solid foods. "Flies don't have teeth," according to an article from the University of Sydney. "They can't take a bite out of our food, so they have to spit out some enzyme-rich saliva that dissolves the food, allowing them to suck up the resulting soup of regurgitated digestive fluids and partially dissolved most instances, spotting a fly on your food doesn't mean you need to throw it out. While there is little doubt that flies can carry bacteria, viruses, and parasites from waste to our food, a single touchdown is unlikely to trigger a chain reaction leading to illness for the average healthy that land out of sight and wander about for a few minutes vomiting and pooping on your food or food preparation area are more of a concern. The more time passes, the greater the chance of pathogens left behind by the flies growing and multiplying on our food. That's when health risks increase." After finding that out, I was inspired to share some other interesting facts. So, without further ado, here we go: Jared Leto gave Margot Robbie a rat as a Suicide Squad gift. Margot and Jared starred in the 2016 David Ayer's film Suicide Squad, based on the popular DC comics. The two got into character to portray the villainous lovers, Harley Quinn and Joker. To show his appreciation, Jared gave Margot a special present."When we shot Suicide Squad, not The Suicide Squad, Mr J (Jared) gave me a rat and he became a beloved pet," Margot said on Jimmy Kimmel Live. "We called him Rat Rat. He liked beer and bath time. Then the landlord of the place I was renting found out I had a rat and said Rat Rat had to go. And so then Jai Courtney, who plays Captain Boomerang, said, 'I'll take Rat Rat.' And then his landlord wasn't cool with that either, and so then one of the costumers on the job took Rat Rat. And then she had to give Rat Rat away, and Rat Rat - she gave him to Guillermo del Toro's daughters [who] apparently have rats." The ice cream used for commercials, TV, and movies, might actually be a completely different food. Oftentimes, when you see ice cream used on the big and small screen, it's actually mashed potatoes. As anyone who has ever eaten ice cream in life knows, the popular dairy product melts very quickly, especially when it's being used under hot studio lights. Companies instead use mashed potatoes because they give a similar look, they don't melt, and by adding food dye, they can easily mimic any ice cream color. Mashed potatoes have also been featured as substitutes for meat.*Bonus: Shaving cream is sometimes used instead of whipped cream and glue is used instead of milk. Leonardo DiCaprio used to be a breakdancer with a unique nickname. Remember those moves he pulled out for The Wolf of Wall Street? Well, that wasn't something he learned for the 2013 film. In fact, Leo was actually a breakdancer when he was younger and was given the nickname The Noodle from his community of breakdancers due to his flexible limbs. He even competed in a breakdancing competition in Germany and placed second. If you haven't seen The Wolf of Wall Street, here's a glimpse of Leo in action: There are "Asian unicorns" in it's not what you think. There's a rare mammal species known as the Saola, native to the Annamite Range in Vietnam and Laos. The Saolas are also known as spindlehorn, Asian unicorn, or infrequently, Vu Quang bovid. The species was first documented in 1992, and they've been rarely seen since. They are reportedly "critically endangered." They're recognized for their sharp parallel horns and white markings on their face. Despite resembling antelope, they're actually related to cattle. Toto the dog was paid more for The Wizard of Oz than some of its human costars. In the iconic 1939 film, Toto was played by a Cairn Terrier named Terry. The canine earned $125 per week. That's nearly triple of what the actors who played the Munchkins were paid. They were only given $50 a week. Ketchup was once used as medicine. Before it became a staple at restaurants, cookouts, and homes around the world, ketchup was once used to cure a string of ailments. That's right, the second most popular condiment on Earth was once prescribed by doctors to cure things like indigestion, diarrheumatism, and jaundice in the 1834, Dr. John Cooke Bennett invented tomato ketchup as a cure and it took off. This was during a time when the Cholera outbreaks swept through communities around the world. In 19th-century America, tomatoes were thought to be deadly and poisonous, but after many tests, tomato ketchup prevailed. It became so popular that Dr. Bennett even made tomato pills. Some of the dinosaur sounds you hear in Jurassic Park are actually animals mating. Creating sounds for an extinct species can be hard. So, Gary Rydstrom, a Lucasfilm sound designer, decided to get creative. The noise the velociraptors make in Jurassic Park is actually the sound of tortoises having sex. Chainsaws were invented to help aid women during childbirth. The hand-cranked chainsaw was invented by Scottish doctors John Aitken and James Jeffray. It was specifically used during a procedure called symphysiotomy, where doctors cut the pubic cartilage to widen the pelvis and create more room to deliver the child. It reportedly provided a "quicker" and "safer" way to perform the procedure versus using knives and bone saws. According to Business Insider, "Two doctors invented the chainsaw in 1780 to make the removal of the pelvic bone easier and less time-consuming during childbirth. It was powered by a hand crank and looked like a modern-day kitchen knife with little teeth on a chain that wound in an oval." Keanu Reeves has a private foundation that he doesn't want his his name connected to. Known for his kind and generous demeanor, Keanu funds a foundation that specializes in cancer research and aids children's hospitals.'I have a private foundation that's been running for five or six years, and it helps aid a couple of children's hospitals and cancer research,' Keanu told Ladies Home Journal in 2009 per Vogue, adding, 'I don't like to attach my name to it, I just let the foundation do what it does.'And if that wasn't pure enough, Keanu also auctioned off a 15-minute Zoom date with him in June of 2020 to benefit Camp Rainbow Gold, an Idaho-based children's cancer charity. The bidding went up to a whopping $16,600. Belgium used to have a feline-based mail delivery service. In the 1870s, cats were used to deliver mail in Belgium, but the system didn't last long because it proved to be unreliable."Belgian authorities, who in the 1870s recruited 37 cats to deliver mail via waterproof bags attached to their collars. It was an idea posited by the Belgian Society for the Elevation of the Domestic Cat, which felt cats' natural sense of direction was not being fully exploited. During a trial, the cats were rounded up from their villages near Liège, taken a few miles away, and burdened with a note in a bag - with the idea that the cat would return home complete with missive." Lastly, the inventor of the Pringles can is buried in his creation. Pringles can inventor Fred Baur died in 2008 at the age of 89. He made a very interesting request when it came to where his ashes would be preserved."At his request, some of Baur's ashes were buried in the very container that helped launch a billion-dollar snack food," NPR's Scott Horsley reports. Do you know any wild, cool, bizarre or super interesting facts that a lot of people don't know? Share them with me below!
Otago Daily Times
4 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Son of Arrowtown's colourful life
Jim Childerstone, aka 'Five-mile Fred', who died recently, aged 90, was well known to many Whakatipu residents despite living out of town for the past 30 years. Philip Chandler delves into his full life and his interesting take on wilding pines. Forestry consultant, logger, writer, hiker, golfer, adventurer ... the list goes on. Third-generation Arrowtowner Jim Childerstone, who died recently, aged 90, might have lived with his wife Margot in North Otago for the past 30 years, but Arrowtown was still where his heart was. Raised there, his parents were Mary and Walter, and Mary's father was well-known local doctor, William Ferguson. When almost 7 he and Mary joined Walter in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he developed tea plantations. However, it was World War 2, and as Japan was about to invade they escaped by boat to South Africa. At one school he learnt rugby "the South African way under a former Springbok", he said. On arriving home he returned to Arrowtown School. He wrote he and school mates risked their lives exploring old gold mining tunnels. In his book, Up the Rees Valley, he wrote about 60-plus years of local trips and tramps with friends including summiting, with a schoolmate, the Remarkables in 1952 during a challenging 16-hour day. Margot says at Lincoln College, near Christchurch, where he received an agricultural diploma and post-grad degree in soil and water, he paid for most of his books from goldpanning in Arrowtown. She adds he stayed an extra two years to play on the college basketball team. He started his journalism career at Auckland's Herald newspaper, but had the opportunity to earn more as a pneumatic drill operator before a stint as a Sydney Morning Herald court reporter. He later travelled to Europe, sleeping on beaches in Greece, then in Canada worked on the Calgary Herald and was a part-time ski patroller in Banff. He and Margot, who grew up in Argentina, met in a London pub and married close by, in Hampstead, in '68. Jim worked for the British government's Central Office of Information which relocated him to the Solomon Islands. "We had two and a-half years, which was fantastic," Margot says, "and Jim trained some young Solomon Islanders as reporters." They had a summer in Queenstown, Jim working as an Earnslaw stoker, then returned to England. They popped back for good in the mid-1970s and bought a 5.5-hectare Closeburn property, near Queenstown, which was about 70% covered in wilding pines. They lived in their pantechnicon, Margot recalls, while Jim built a log cabin from Corsican pines. Visitors commented on its lovely smell, she says — they later moved into a larger residence built of Douglas firs milled above One Mile Creek. Jim operated a portable mill, cutting timber, mostly wildings, for houses in nearby Sunshine Bay and Fernhill but also over at Walter Peak, at the Arrowtown golf course and even Stewart Island. He set up a timber yard in Industrial Place, then a larger one called Closeburn Timber Corner where today's Glenda Dr is. Meanwhile, he wrote his 'Five-mile Fred' column in Mountain Scene over three years — named after Queenstown's Five Mile Creek, not Frankton's later Five Mile. They were his and mates like 'Twelve-mile Trev's' musings on topics of the day from "up on the diggings". His columns made a book, Of gold dust, nuggets & bulldust, accompanied by Garrick Tremain cartoons. The Childerstones also developed the Closeburn Alpine Park campground, but were badly burnt in the '87 sharemarket crash. The couple, who eventually paid off most of their debts, moved first to Arrowtown then, helped by Lotto winnings, bought in Hampden, North Otago, in '94. Jim still frequented Queenstown, staying in hotels with Margot when she'd bring through Spanish and Italian tours during her days as a tour guide. He established a forestry consultancy, and took a stand against the wholesale destruction of wilding 'pests'. "There are practical ways of attacking the problem rather than the gung-ho attitude of fundamentalist conservation groups," he told Scene on the release of his book, The Wilding Conifer Invasion — Potential Resource or Pest Plant, in 2017. Pointing also to the ugliness of sprayed Douglas firs on hillsides, he argued wilding trees could be harvested for high-grade building timber and biofuels could be extracted from wood waste while also applauding locals Michael Sly and Mathurin Molgat for tapping wildings for essential oil products. Queenstown's Kim Wilkinson, who recalls hiking in the hills with Margot and Jim on Sundays before enjoying their hospitality, says "Jim was still hiking around the hills in his late 80s and even in his later years had the mental energy and enthusiasm of a young man in his 20s". Margot says "people are coming out of the woodwork saying 'he did this for me', nobody has a bad word to say about him". She reveals before he died there had been moves made for them to potentially retire to a pensioner flat in Arrowtown.
Perth Now
26-05-2025
- Perth Now
Young girl hospitalised after brutal dog attack
Parents feared their young daughter was about to be scalped by an off-leash dog during a park visit with her puppy. Six-year-old Margot McNicol has undergone surgery after being mauled by an American Staffy at Nairne's newest off-leash dog park in the Adelaide Hills on Sunday afternoon. Margot was at the park with her family and her own puppy when the dog leapt up and grabbed her head. Hearing her screams, Margot's mother Christina ran to save her daughter from the jaws of the dog. 'She screamed, I ran over, and I saw the dog had her head in its mouth and was pulling her hair like a tug of war,' she told 7NEWS. WATCH ABOVE: 6-year-old girl requires surgery after being attacked by dog. Margot McNicol required surgery after being attacked by a dog in the Adelaide Hills. Credit: Supplied. McNicol said it took four adults to get the dog off her young daughter. 'I stabilised my daughter's head and her hair so it couldn't keep pulling because I was really worried it would scalp her,' she said. Little Margot was rushed to hospital with multiple puncture wounds to her head, along with scratches and bruising. Margot's father Braedan told 7NEWS his daughter's injuries could have been a lot worse. 'If she was bitten somewhere else on the head because she had multiple bites on her head, it could have been a completely different story,' he said. Witnesses at the park told 7NEWS that the owner of the dog left quickly and without even apologising. The Woodside Rd dog park at Nairne has only just opened. Credit: 7NEWS Mount Barker District Council told 7NEWS they are aware of the incident and are investigating. The owner could face a fine of over $300 and the dog may be put down. Margot's mother said it should be a lesson to the owner. 'If that is what is the safest (euthanasia) I think that is what should happen,' she said. 'The owner should know better, and I hope this is a lesson to them.'
7NEWS
26-05-2025
- 7NEWS
Parents feared off-leash staffy would ‘scalp' six-year-old daughter in unprovoked attack
Parents feared their young daughter was about to be scalped by an off-leash dog during a park visit with her puppy. Six-year-old Margot McNicol has undergone surgery after being mauled by an American Staffy at Nairne's newest off-leash dog park in the Adelaide Hills on Sunday afternoon. Margot was at the park with her family and her own puppy when the dog leapt up and grabbed her head. Hearing her screams, Margot's mother Christina ran to save her daughter from the jaws of the dog. 'She screamed, I ran over, and I saw the dog had her head in its mouth and was pulling her hair like a tug of war,' she told 7NEWS. WATCH ABOVE: 6-year-old girl requires surgery after being attacked by dog. McNicol said it took four adults to get the dog off her young daughter. 'I stabilised my daughter's head and her hair so it couldn't keep pulling because I was really worried it would scalp her,' she said. Little Margot was rushed to hospital with multiple puncture wounds to her head, along with scratches and bruising. Margot's father Braedan told 7NEWS his daughter's injuries could have been a lot worse. 'If she was bitten somewhere else on the head because she had multiple bites on her head, it could have been a completely different story,' he said. Witnesses at the park told 7NEWS that the owner of the dog left quickly and without even apologising. Mount Barker District Council told 7NEWS they are aware of the incident and are investigating. The owner could face a fine of over $300 and the dog may be put down. Margot's mother said it should be a lesson to the owner. 'If that is what is the safest (euthanasia) I think that is what should happen,' she said. 'The owner should know better, and I hope this is a lesson to them.'
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Germany lays to rest Margot Friedlaender, Holocaust survivor key to remembrance culture
BERLIN (Reuters) - Margot Friedlaender, a Holocaust survivor who played an important role in Germany's remembrance culture ensuring the country's Nazi past is not played down with the passage of time, was laid to rest on Thursday after dying last week aged 103. A funeral ceremony took place at a Jewish cemetery and Holocaust memorial site in Weissensee, Berlin, the city where Friedlaender was born and to which she eventually returned. Among the mourners were President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who bowed to her coffin which was covered in pink and white flowers. Friedlaender died on May 9, almost exactly 80 years after the Soviet Red Army liberated the Theresienstadt concentration camp where she was imprisoned. For Steinmeier, she embodied the "miracle of reconciliation" between Germany and Jews around the world, while Merz called her "one of the strongest voices of our time: for peaceful coexistence, against anti-Semitism and forgetting". Friedlaender was born in Berlin in 1921 to Auguste and Arthur Bendheim, a businessman. Her parents split in 1937 and Auguste tried in vain to emigrate with Margot and her younger brother, Ralph, in the face of intensifying persecution of Jews. Her father was deported in August 1942 to the Auschwitz death camp where he was murdered. In early 1943, on the day Margot, Ralph and Auguste were set to make a final attempt to leave Germany, Ralph was arrested by the Gestapo secret police. Auguste was not with her son at the time but turned herself in to accompany him in deportation to Auschwitz where both later died. Margot went underground and managed to elude the Gestapo by dying her hair red and having her nose operated on. But she was finally apprehended in April 1944 by Jewish "catchers" - Jews recruited to track down others in hiding in exchange for security - and sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in what is the Czech Republic today. She survived Theresienstadt and met her future husband, Adolf Friedlaender, there in early 1945, shortly before the liberation of all Nazi camps at the end of World War Two, and they emigrated to New York in 1946. In New York, Margot worked as a dressmaker and travel agent, while her husband held senior posts in Jewish organisations. Both vowed never to return to Germany. After her husband's death Margot revisited Berlin in 2003, among a number of Holocaust survivors invited back by the German capital's governing Senate. She moved back for good in 2010, at age 88, regaining her German citizenship and giving talks about her Holocaust experiences, particularly in German schools. "Not only did she extend a hand to us Germans – she came back; she gave us the gift of her tremendously generous heart and her unfailing humanity," Steinmeier said this week. Friedlaender's autobiography, "Try To Make Your Life - a Jewish Girl Hiding in Nazi Berlin" was published in 2008, titled after the final message that her mother managed to pass on to Margot. She was awarded Germany's Federal Cross of Merit in 2011 and in 2014, the Margot Friedlaender Prize was created to support students in Holocaust remembrance and encourage young people to show moral courage. In a 2021 interview with Die Zeit magazine marking her centenary, Friedlaender reflected on the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party's rise since 2015 on the back of anti-immigrant sentiment, saying it made her uncomfortable. "I remember how excited the 10-year-old boys were back then (in Nazi era) when they were allowed to march. When you saw how people absorbed that - you don't forget that," she said. "I always say: I love people, and I think there is something good in everyone, but equally I think there is something bad in everyone." (Writing by Miranda Murray and Matthias Williams; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
