Steven Spielberg did not originally intend to shoot Schindler's List himself!

Based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a man who risked his life to save 1,100 people from the Holocaust, Schindler's List is widely considered to be Steven Spielberg's best film. It earned him his first (of two) Best Director Oscar in 1993. However, his original intention was to pass on making the film!

In 1983, Spielberg convinced Universal Studios to buy the rights to the novel "Schindler's Ark," and met with the writer. He told the writer he would get started on the movie "ten years from now." At first, Spielberg was unsure of his maturity as a director to take on a movie about the Holocaust. 

He first asked director Roman Polanski to film it, who turned it down because his mother had been killed at Auschwitz. Later, Martin Scorsese was attached to the film, but Spielberg decided to do it himself, because he didn't want to let go a chance of making a movie for his children and family about the Holocaust.

Clownfish can CHANGE their sex! Why?

A deaf woman influenced an Ukrainian election by refusing to sign a false news report!

On November 2004, the official script that state-run channel UT-1 was running would declare Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych as the winner of the presidential election. However, the sign language interpreter Nataliya Dmytruk decided to follow her conscience, and deviated from the script by signing this on air:

"I am addressing everybody who is deaf in Ukraine. Our president is Victor Yushchenko. Do not trust the results of the central election committee. They are all lies.... And I am very ashamed to translate such lies to you. Maybe you will see me again."

This brave act inspired her colleagues and the media in the Ukraine to stop reporting fake news reports and have a more balanced approach. The eventual winner of the election was in fact, the man that she had declared on air as the winner, and not the Prime Minister.

(Sources: 1 and 2) 

Reattached fingers don't wrinkle with water!

Researchers saw this as a paradoxical response to fingers being immersed in water. The reason fingers wrinkle is because blood flow to the fingers is reduced, causing the bodies that regulate body temperature to lose volume and they pull the skin structure downwards. 

However, when they found that a reattached finger didn't act the same way, it made the scientists think that maybe the skin shrinking was not triggered by an inherent property of the skin itself, but rather it's activated by nerves! When a finger is reattached, the nerve endings don't function in the same way anymore, so this suggests that the nervous system triggers the response to wrinkle!

Check out the full study.

Keanu Reeves gave up most of his Matrix sequel money and gave it to the special effects and costume teams!

Keanu Reeves is considered to not be motivated by money among the Hollywood circles. He usually compromises with movie studios to star in big budget movies in order to be able to make smaller, quirky films. 

In 2011, he signed away $35 million from the back-end deals he had made from the Matrix sequels and gave it to the special effects and costume design teams because he felt that "they were the ones that made the movie and they should participate." He did, however make $10 million upfront for the sequels. 

This wasn't the first time Reeves has done something like this. It has been reported that he took paycuts on the Devil's Advocate and The Replacements so that he could work with Al Pacino and Gene Hackman. 

(Source)