The vampire amoeba (Vampyrella lateritia) feeds on other microscopic organisms by penetrating their cell wall and sucking out the contents. www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFCQ...

Les Paul, inventor of the solid-body electric guitar, developed the concept using a short section of railroad track, a guitar string, and some railroad spikes.

What were electric eels called before the discovery of electricity? This is actually a trick question. Electricity came first.

Hiram Maxim invented a machine gun in 1883 but spent so much time firing it he went completely deaf. His son Hiram Percy Maxim, invented the silencer. The Maxim gun was the first fully automatic machine gun in the world, and it was very influential in the development of modern machine guns.

In archery, a "Robin Hood" is when an archer splits an arrow with a second arrow from the same shooting location. The name, of course, comes from the climactic scene in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) when Robin wins the archery contest.

The sum of the numbers on a roulette wheel is 666. This is true for both American and European Roulette.

True to their name, cicada killer wasps (Sphecius speciosus) hunt and capture cicadas. Female cicada killers sting cicadas and carry the paralyzed insects back to their nest for their larvae to feed on. Adults don't feed on the cicadas; they subsist on nectar and plant sap.

The Chapman stick is a musical instrument in the guitar family that lets the musician play bass and melody at the same time.

Downtown Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) has a network of tunnels and bridges connecting more than 40 buildings, and several rail stations, making most of downtown walkable without ever going outside, a big plus in the harsh, northern winters.

The first immigrant to arrive at Ellis island was a 15-year-old girl named Annie Moore from County Cork, Ireland.

A pelican's pouch can, in fact, hold more than its belly can! The pouch can hold around three gallons of water (and fish); roughly three times what can fit in its stomach. Dixon Lanier Merritt is usually credited with the well-known limerick, although he reportedly said he didn't originate it.

An "infix" is a linguistic sound inserted in the middle of another word. (Similar to how a prefix is added to the beginning of a word, or a suffix is added to the end.) One example of an infix is what is known as the Homeric infix, named for Homer Simpson: saxo-ma-phone, edu-ma-cation, etc.

Gene Autry, known as the Singing Cowboy, is the only person to be awarded stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in all five categories: film, television, music, radio, and live performance. He appeared in 93 movies and hosted the Gene Autry Show on television, along with his horse, Champion.

Ostreida is a vodka made from oysters by The Industrious Spirit Company in Providence Rhode Island. They distill the vodka "with just-hauled-from-the-sea oysters in the actual still."

A day in any given location on Earth lasts 24 hours – but any given date exists for 48 hours somewhere on Earth. The only time that every place on Earth has the same date is midnight at the International Date Line.

Phineas and Ferb are shaped like a P and an F.

RAS Syndrome (Redundant Acronym Syndrome) is the redundant addition of one of the words of an acronym to describe the acronym.

There really was a guy named Zamboni. Frank Zamboni owned a skating rink in Paramount, CA, in 1940. He built the first mechanical ice cleaner from spare parts and a surplus WWII jeep.

Seersucker cloth, often used in summer suits, got its name from the Persian words "shir" and "shakar" which translate to “milk and sugar,” referring to the alternating textures of the cloth.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington in the early 19th century, liked wearing high, leather riding boots so much that people began calling them Wellington boots.

The gympy-gympie (Dendrocnide moroides), a shrub native to Australia and Malaysia, has the most painful sting of any plant.

The largest species of isopod (the group that includes woodlice, pillbugs, sowbugs, roly-polies, etc.), Bathynomus giganteus, can reach a length of 8-14 inches. It is found in the deep waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Photo credit: noaa. gov (top); news. yahoo. com (in tray)

Judy Garland never won an Oscar. Renée Zellwegger won an Oscar for her portrayal of Judy Garland (Judy" 2019).

The tradition of the winner of the Indianapolis 500 drinking milk dates back to 1936 when Louis Meyer drank a bottle of buttermilk in the winners circle. It was not a planned event – Meyer just liked buttermilk. He said that his mother told him it is the best drink to cool off on a hot day.

Before his movie career took off, W. C. Fields was a vaudeville juggler, performing as The Great McGonagle. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytgP...

A dinkus is a typographical symbol that is used to denote an intentional omission of a paragraph(s) in a long quote, or a break in continuity such as a scene change or a flashback.

Smarties candies were originally made on pellet machines that made gunpowder pellets during WWII. Note: this refers to the American sugar tablet candy called Smarties. The Smarties company sells the same candy in Canada but under the name Rockets, because the name Smarties was already in use.

The FedEx logo features a blank space between the last two letters. It uses negative space to create an arrow – symbolizing speed, reliability in moving things efficiently from one place to another.

Fulgurites are tubular structures formed when sand or soil containing a lot of quartz is struck by lightning. The name is derived from the Latin word for lightning: "fulgur." Fulgurites are often called "petrified lightning." Photo credits: nps. gov (sand); mentalfloss. com (tray)

The beehive hairdo was created in 1960 by Margaret Vinci Heldt of Elmhurst, IL.

Labord's chameleon (Furcifer labordi), of southwestern Madagascar, is the shortest-lived land vertebrate in the world. They spend more time as eggs than they do as adults.

A Quaker gun is a log placed in such a way as to deceive the enemy about the strength of a defense. The logs were often painted black, angled upwards through the fortification wall, and often had wheels added for added realism. Photo credits: warhistoryonline_com (wheel); gettysburgcompiler_org

Nightingale floors make a squeaking sound when an intruder walks on them, alerting inhabitants to intruders. One of the best known examples today can be found in Nijō Castle in Tokyo.

In 2016, a global search was undertaken to find a mate for a brown garden snail (Cornu aspersum) named Jeremy at the University of Nottingham. (It is unclear why the snail was given a masculine name given that snails are hermaphrodites.)

In the 1950's, New York, like most of the U.S., was implementing comprehensive civil defense measures in response to the growing threat of nuclear attack from the Soviet Union.

The ruff (Calidris pugnax), named for the extravagant collar of feathers displayed by the males, was originally called the ree (in English). That name is known from as far back as 1465.

Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo is the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world, with up to 3,000 people crossing at a time. It is what is termed a "scramble crossing," meaning that car traffic is stopped from all directions so pedestrians can cross at any angle, including diagonally.

Some ants apparently navigate by counting their steps. In one study from 2006, researchers trained ants to follow a straight path from their nest to a feeding station. Then they modified the length of the ants' legs – either gluing on extensions (stilts) or cutting the legs shorter.

Juneau is unique among U.S. state capitals in that it is inaccessible by road. All goods coming in and out of Juneau are transported by boat or plane. There are roads in and around Juneau but none connect to any other cities.

Seventeen Nobel Prize winners in one photo. The 1927 Solvay Conference on Quantum Mechanics. Some of those pictured, such as Marie Curie and Albert Einstein were already Nobel recipients, others would go on to receive the award for later work.

The piglet squid, (Heliconcranchia species), was photographed by the crew of the Nautilus Explorer at a depthe of around 4,500 feet off the Palmyra Atoll in the central Pacific. Photo credits: Nautiluslive.org

In 2007, a gorilla named Bokito escaped from his enclosure at the Rotterdam Zoo by jumping over a nearly 12-foot-wide moat and crossing an electric fence. Apparently he had been angered by some children who had been throwing rocks at him.

Although these two padlock setups look superficially similar, they serve very different purposes – either allowing access by any one keyholder, or requiring every keyholder to be present for safety.

Rudolf Nureyev’s grave in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois near Paris. The monument, designed to resemble an Oriental Kilim rug, is a mosaic made from small pieces of colored glass. The fringe is brass.

Saturn's moon Mimas looks like the death star and has a heat signature that looks like Pac-Man.

Accuracy vs. precision

Bill Nye, "The Science Guy," patented a design for a ballet shoe that incorporated improved support and flexibility to reduce dancer's pain and injuries. Although Nye was awarded the patent in 2005, there do not seem to be any companies actually using his design yet.

The largest rotating globe in the world, named Eartha, is in the lobby of the Garmin Building in Yarmouth, Maine.

Samuel Beckett used to drive André the Giant to school.