An Olympic rower stopped mid-race to let a family of ducks pass.

It’s hard to say whether this was a reflection of his kindness or his confidence. Henry Robert Pearce was an Australian-Canadian sculler, who competed in the amateur sculling championships in 1927, 1928, and 1929 and won each year. 

His victories bought him the opportunity to compete in the 1928 Olympics. Pearce won all his races with incredible ease, beating his competitors by up to 12 lengths. In the quarter final, he was in the midst of brutally defeating his French opponent when a family of ducks decided that it was the right moment to hop on over to his lane. 

He stopped momentarily to let the ducks pass, and still won by 20 lengths and broke the course records. Kudos to him for extending the Olympic principals of cooperation and tolerance to even our warm-blooded brethren. 

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Deaf Babies Can Babble in Sign Language!

Teaching sign language to both deaf and hearing babies is a growing trend in North America. It appears that babies who are exposed to sign language are able to also babble in sign language. 

The typical age for hearing babies to start making vocal noises is anywhere from 6-9 months. Researchers believe that this is the time when babies begin to process language by trying to match sound and rhythm to the surrounding language. 

Babies taught sign language do the same, but instead they match action to the surrounding language. 

In a study involving six hearing infants (3 with hearing parents and 3 with deaf parents), researches tried to discover whether or not the baby’s hand movements had any linguistic qualities. 

The 3 children with deaf parents hand movements similar to the rhythm of their parent’s signing whereas the hearing infants’ hand movements had no resemblance to the American Sign Language rhythm. 

Toddlers can have a signing vocabulary of 80 words but understand up to 300. Furthermore, learning sign language is incredibly stimulating, as it has been shown to cause toddlers to create their own new words in sign. 

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Swedish wasn’t the official language of Sweden until 2009!

While many people think it must be common sense for Swedish to be the official language of Sweden, it wasn’t until 2009! Swedish is a North Germanic language that is extremely similar to other Scandinavian languages such as Danish and Norwegian.

Because of the prevalence of other languages, Swedish was not made official until 2009. While today most everyone speaks Swedish as at least a second language, almost as many people speak English. Almost everyone in Sweden speaks English because of the trade links established after World War II and a strong Anglo-American influence that was established. 

English became a mandated course taught in schools because it was so prevalent in the country. Because it is so popular, many people called for the strengthening of Swedish, thus it was officially made the language of Sweden! 

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Mickey Mouse's fifth finger has saved Disney millions of Dollars!

You're probably thinking that Mickey Mouse only has FOUR fingers, and you'd be correct. Disney explained that the reason Mickey only has three fingers and a thumb is for both artistic and financial reasons. Disney said if Mickey had five fingers, his hand would look weird, "five digits are too many for a mouse, it would look like a bunch of bananas."

The second reason for Mickey only having four fingers is financial. Disney also said if you multiplied the time that animators saved by not having to draw a fifth finger in every one of the 45,000 drawings that make up a 6 1/2 minute short film, you would reach the conclusion that the studio saved millions of dollars. All of that just for a little finger!

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There’s a record for the number of tennis balls held in a dog’s mouth!

The world record is 5 tennis balls. It’s held by a golden retriever named Augie. He lives in Dallas, TX with the Miller family. The record was set in 2003, when Augie successfully held 5 standard sized tennis balls in his mouth. I don't know what's more interesting... the fact that Augie held 5 balls in his mouth, or that they keep track of these things.

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