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An MLB player hated his hometown ball team because they prevented him from watching Saved by the Bell!
Curtis Granderson is a Major League Baseball player for the New York Yankees. He began in 2010 with the Yankees and played for the Detroit Tigers for five years before that. He’s a left-handed batter and throws right-handed. The center fielder won the Silver Slugger Award in 2011. Off the field, Granderson is known for his community work through charity organizations and outreach programs.
As a child, Granderson grew up a fan of the Atlanta Braves, choosing not to root for his hometown’s Chicago Cubs, because he often rushed home from school to watch Saved by the Bell and was disappointed when a Cubs game was on instead. Granderson is also an avid fan of WWE, and attended WrestleMania 23 in Detroit. He considers The Ultimate Warrior, The Undertaker, Junkyard Dog, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, and Hulk Hogan among his favorite wrestlers. He is also an avid fan of college basketball and the Kansas Jayhawks.
brunogarcia submitted this to OMG Facts
Mars Rover Curiosity was named by a 6th grader!
The rover sent to Mars is a robotic spacecraft with its own built in science laboratory. It can take samples of elements on Mars and analyze them. It’s one of NASA’s most ambitious missions yet. The rover, named Curiosity, landed on Mars on August 5, 2012. The fact that it landed at all is amazing all in itself. It had to be timed with such precision for it to actually ground on Mars. She’s about the size of a car and weighs 1,982 pounds.
The last two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, weighed about half of that and were only the size of a golf cart. NASA didn’t really name the rover, though. A 6th grader named Clara Ma wrote an essay on what to call the rover. Her essay was chosen from 9,000 entries and as part of her winnings, the name she chose was given to the Mars rover. Thus, Curiosity was born, er the name anyways.
brunogarcia submitted this to OMG Facts
A female dude is a dudine, not a dudette!
The Merriam-Webster dictionary is as official as it gets. It says dude can mean several things. First, it can mean a man extremely fastidious in dress and manner. It also means a city dweller unfamiliar with life on the range. Are many people familiar with the range these days? It also simply refers to a guy or a fellow. It was first seen in literature in 1883 making fun of fashion saying “dude” instead of “dud”. It is thought to be of Scottish origin.
The female version of dude is often said to be dudette and often used as so. Again, Merriam-Webster has the real answer, though. The fine dictionary says that the female version of a dude is actually a dudine. Your world is shaken at this point, and I understand why. Don’t worry, though. Dude is used as slang, and dudette is known and used in a slang manner, too. So, rest assured you can still say dudette and no one will get confused. Wow people at sophisticated parties and tell them the female version of dude is actually dudine. It’ll really impress the crowds.
brunogarcia submitted this to OMG Facts
A Monty Python sketch caused the word 'spam' to become synonymous with unwanted messages!
Spam was a popular Monty Python sketch first aired on television in 1970 and written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones. Palin is of no relation to the American ones. In the sketch, two customers are in a greasy café trying to order breakfast from a menu. Spam is in almost every dish on the menu. The sketch shows the woman trying to order something without spam, because she hates it.
She finally asks for the spam to be removed and the waitress becomes disgusted with her due to her request. Her husband gets mad at her, too, because he loves spam. The term spam for unwanted messages and electronic mail was derived from this sketch. It became so famous for being disgusted and unwanted, that it became a term for junk mail that no one wants, but you always get. The term stuck and became very popular for electronic junk mail in your emails.
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Cicadas have evolved 13 and 17 year breeding cycles making them rarely breed in sync with predators!
In southern U.S. states one of the largest broods of cicadas live, called the Great Southern Brood. Scientists don’t know how cicadas synchronize themselves across states for breeding and hatching simultaneously. They do, however, know why they do it. Since they hatch so infrequently, no predator can live solely off of eating cicadas. Plus, by emerging all at once, they have a better survival rate. Predators can’t eat a lot of them if they come out in masses. In southern U.S. the cicada breeds in 13 year cycles and in eastern U.S. they breed in 17 year cycles.
The reason is that both of these are prime numbers. The numbers can’t be broken down any further. This is a major advantage, because it makes them more elusive and therefore harder for predators to track and eat. It is a phenomenal evolutional tactic for survival. It is also extremely fascinating.
