I'm pleased to announce the release of my new book: The Encyclopedia of Science Oddities. It features more than 160 sub-chapters dedicated to topics including neutron stars, quantum mechanics, & the human brain. Available on Amazon in paperback & ebook: mybook.to/scienceoddities

The Killers’ 'Mr. Brightside' has never reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart; its peak is only No. 10. Despite this, it has spent a record 10 years in the UK Singles Chart Top 100.

Serious crimes are overwhelmingly committed by fare evaders. LA Metro: 97% of violent-crime suspects had evaded fares. Washington, DC: 99.5% of Part 1 crime (homicide, rape, robbery, arson, or motor vehicle theft) suspects had evaded fares. (Source: City Journal)

Google Trends data from 2004-2020 found searches for skin tanning were relatively more common across much of Europe and the Americas, while skin whitening dominated across large parts of Asia and Africa. (Image source: Google Trends/India in Pixels)

The Zammit family refused to sell their five-acre property in Sydney’s west, despite being offered up to $50 million by developers. As the surrounding land was sold off and developed, an entire suburb was built around their home.

Attractiveness changes how funny we think people are. According to this study, physically attractive people were rated funnier on video than in audio. Less attractive people showed the opposite pattern: they were rated funnier in audio than on video. (library.scottbarrykaufman.co…)

Dentists recommend that after brushing your teeth, you should spit out the excess toothpaste and avoid rinsing with water. This allows the fluoride to stay on your teeth for longer. Despite this advice, surveys have found that three-quarters of people still rinse after brushing.

This is Cymothoa exigua, a parasitic isopod often called the tongue-eating louse. It enters a fish through the gills and attaches itself to the tongue, feeding on its blood until the tongue eventually wastes away. The parasite then stays there, taking the tongue’s place.

The etymology of the word 'bikini' is wild when you think about it. It was named after Bikini Atoll, where the US tested atomic bombs in 1946. Designer Louis Réard hoped his new swimsuit would make an equally "explosive" impact.

Flying has become significantly safer over the past half-century. Worldwide aviation fatalities fell from 6,581 per billion passengers in 1970 to just 42 in 2023—a decline of more than 99%. (Source: US Stormwatch, using data from Aviation Safety Network and the World Bank.)

Believe it or not, this is the most efficient known way to pack 11 identical squares into a larger square. It was discovered by German mathematician Walter Trump in 1979, and no denser arrangement has been found since.

An eagle’s talons can reach around 12 centimetres (5 inches) long. That's roughly the size of a grizzly bear’s claw!

One year after Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong’s name was already fading from public memory. A 1970 Philadelphia survey found that 70% of people couldn’t name the first man to walk on the Moon. Similar polls in other US cities found surprisingly low recall.

In 1968, the Soviets pulled a Cold War space prank with Zond 5. Cosmonaut Pavel Popovich transmitted his voice through the unmanned spacecraft as it flew around the Moon, making US listeners think Soviet cosmonauts might already be on the Moon.

Visual Snow Syndrome is a neurological condition that affects around 2% of people. It causes constant TV-static-like dots across the entire field of vision, and some people can even see the static with their eyes closed.

This photo shows Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914—the day they were assassinated. His last words to his wife were "Don't die darling, live for our children." The event triggered the First World War.

Fermat’s Last Theorem is famous partly because Fermat claimed he had a proof, but wrote that it was "too large to fit in the margin" of his book. Mathematicians then spent more than 350 years trying to prove it until Andrew Wiles finally did so in 1995.

This study found that four days in the wilderness, without screens, improved creative problem-solving by around 50%.

A 1976 study may have found life on Mars. NASA’s Viking landers detected a response in Martian soil that some researchers argue could be biological. Fifty years later, we still can’t rule out the possibility that Viking found signs of life. (More info: iflscience.com/nasas-viking-…)

Mount Everest is enormous by Earth’s standards, but next to Olympus Mons on Mars, it looks almost modest. Everest rises about 8.8 km above sea level. Olympus Mons stands over 21 km high and is so broad that, from its summit, its slopes would stretch beyond the horizon.

One of the biggest myths in psychology is that positive reinforcement means 'good' and negative reinforcement means 'bad'. In reality, positive means adding something, while negative means removing something. Reinforcement means the behaviour becomes more likely to happen again.