A Matter of Perspective

“I tawt I taw a putty tat!”

If you are a fan of Warner Bros. cartoons you know this is the famous line spoken by Tweety. Well, did you know that the Warner Bros. film studio has officially confirmed that Tweety bird is a canary?

Me neither.

In my quest for more and more trivial knowledge, I have been reading another one of the “hard to believe facts” books. This one is titled “853 Hard to Believe Facts” and some of the “facts” truly are hard to believe.

For example, did you know that in Mexico, Austria, and Germany the law recognizes that it is basic human nature to escape for freedom and hence the act of prison escape itself is not a crime?

I bet a lot of jail-breakers around the United States would love for that one to be removed from the law books!

This next one makes a lot of sense given children’s desire to put toys in their mouths. Maybe you have noticed that the heads of LEGO figures have a hole. Its sole purpose is to prevent choking.

Wow! Now, please, those of you who are prone to test these theories, don’t be stuffing LEGO heads into your mouth to see if you choke!

In nature, we often see things that may appear to prove the theories of evolution. For example, elks have two ivory teeth which are believed to be the remnants of the tusks from their ancestors.

Interesting theory. I wasn’t around back then, but I like to believe God created elks just the way they are. Any genetic modifications to their bodies are more likely a result of something that human beings did either intentionally or through damaging the ecology.

This next fact registered very high on my scale as I am very interested in anything related to the ship the Titanic.

According to the book, some fourteen years before the sinking of the “unsinkable ship”, a novel called “The Wreck of the Titan, or Futility” written by Morgan Robertson, had described a ship called Titan, traveling on the same route at almost the same speed, sinking after a collision with an iceberg.

Things that make you say “hmmmm.”

This next one I have a hard time believing. The middle name of the actor Richard Gere is Tiffany. I’m not sure I believe it. At all.

This one might be good to take note of: in 2016, the University of California published a study that says in short that if you have increasing difficulties detecting sarcasm, you might be developing dementia.

Romans did not have an equivalent word for “interesting.” I find that fascinating.

There is a lot of truth in this strange fact. In 2014, a study found a direct link between the frequency of selfies and the tendency toward psychopathy and narcissism.

This one is interesting (all you Romans take note!). Many plants can chemically “feel” who is eating their leaves (caterpillars or deer) and counteract by releasing tailor-made defensive chemicals.

I’ll leave you with this tidbit. If we were capable of hearing frequencies lower than 20 Hz, we would hear the movement of our muscles.

Flex your brain on that one!