Why you should read this aloud and other #FridayFunFacts

You just moved your hand to click this link, right?

Well, did you know that the conscious decision to move your hand is preceded by electrical activity in the hand area of the brain. Nobody has yet provided a satisfactory explanation for why that is.

In 2013, nine babies born in the UK were named Cheese. We can only wonder how many babies were named bacon?

Whether you like cheese, bacon, avocado feta enough to name your child after these foodstuffs, you can still be impressed that Pizza Hut made a delivery to the International Space Station in 2001.

We tend to think of reading as the introvert's escape, but until very recently, it was actually the norm to read aloud. From tempus immemoria (ie, always) reading was a social activity because texts were somewhat sacred and hard to come by. After the popularity of the printing press spread worldwide, reading silently became something that the rich started doing, and it was seen much in the same way as we see reading texts and giggling when you should be socialising with a group.

In the mid-90s, a boy scout named David Hahn took interest in chemistry to the next level. After a couple of explosions and learning a thing or two from his dad's college chemistry books, the teenage David invented a false identity as a highschool science teacher and started correspondence with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, asking for advice on isolating and obtaining radioactive elements. With this knowledge, he attempted to make a nuclear reactor in his backyard shed and exposed his neighbors to 1000 times the normal amount of background radiation!