We often tend to take things at face value, not pausing to think about them at great depth. However, that leaves us not only ignorant, but also has us thinking pretty one-dimensionally, and that’s really not a very good way to think. The following list of 15 Weird Facts might help rectify the problem a little, though. They did for me.
1 Ancient Romans had a sewer goddess, a toilet god, and a god of excrement.
We are all familiar with the Roman gods of strength and the underworld and goddesses of beauty and knowledge. However, it’s highly unlikely you knew that the ancient Romans also had patron gods and goddesses for toilets and sewers. The sewer goddess, Cloacina, was considered the protector of Rome’s sewage system, which was rather important when you come to think of it, and was invoked when there were any problems involving the sewers.
They also had a toilet god, Crepitus, who played the dual role of also being the god of flatulence. He was prayed to when an individual suffered from diarrhea or constipation.
Additionally, there was a god of dung, called Stercutius, who was worshiped by farmers while fertilizing their fields.(source)
2 Pineapples were quite the status symbol in 18th-century England. In fact, you could rent one out for an evening to take it to a party and show it off.
Although the pineapple was introduced to Europe towards the end of the 1400s, it did not enter England until the 1600s. However, once it did, it became quite the craze among people, and soon became something of a status symbol among the rich. In fact, people have been known to carry pineapples to parties to show off and would continue bringing it along wherever they went until it began to rot.
So popular was the fruit that almost everything during the period was shaped like a pineapple or had pineapples painted on them. Real pineapples, on the other hand, were quite expensive and could cost up to £5,000 each, or about the price of a new coach.(source)
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3 In order to impress females, male kangaroos flex their biceps.
Newly conducted research has come up with some rather interesting finds, For instance, it has been discovered that male kangaroos, much in the same fashion as male humans, flex their biceps to show off and impress their female counterparts. Male kangaroos use their arms to wrestle with rival mates, and it was observed that kangaroos with larger biceps were preferred by the females as prospective mates.(source)
4 There are pills that can make your farts smell like roses. Another pill, the ‘Father Christmas Fart Pill’ makes them smell like chocolate.
Next time you’re in the subway and you suddenly smell roses, don’t be fooled. It might just be a fellow passenger farting.
A Frenchman has apparently developed a pill that can make people’s farts smell like roses and chocolates. He began making and selling these pills in 2006 with surging sales especially during Christmas-time. These pills are made of natural ingredients such as mixed vegetable charcoal, fennel, seaweed, plant resin, and blueberry.(source)
Called “Bone Dusters Paleo Ale”, this beer was first brewed from yeast found on a 35-million-year-old fossil of a whale. The beer was the brainchild of paleontologist Jason Osborne and his curiosity regarding the yeast involved in the making of beers. He wondered if, by any chance, yeasts that live in fossils could be used to brew beers. He then worked with microbiologist Jasper Akerboom to swab fossils and was delighted when the whale fossil delivered the anticipated results, Although they were hoping to find a new species of yeast, the species they came across was a subspecies of the same yeast that is used in breweries.
The beer is now brewed and will soon be made available to the public. It tastes ‘sweet and untamed’, a little like Belgium beer, some say.(source)
