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52 of the most interesting things I learned in 2020:
1. The bacteria RB41 is known to exist in only three places: showerheads, dog noses, and paleolithic cave paintings.
*The Great Indoors* https://amzn.to/3aSWBiq
1. The bacteria RB41 is known to exist in only three places: showerheads, dog noses, and paleolithic cave paintings.
*The Great Indoors* https://amzn.to/3aSWBiq
2. An average pair of jeans requires 6 miles of thread. In the not-too-distant past, it would have taken 110 hours to spin this much fabric. The time cost of clothing meant owning lots of clothes = extravagant wealth.
*The Fabric of Civilization* https://amzn.to/3hlXfWX
*The Fabric of Civilization* https://amzn.to/3hlXfWX
3. Cities with public libraries in the early 20th century had patenting rates 8–13% higher by the end of the century.
“Knowledge Access: The Effects of Carnegie Libraries on Innovation”
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3629299
“Knowledge Access: The Effects of Carnegie Libraries on Innovation”
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3629299
5. Tractors transformed American agriculture during the 20th century:
- replaced 23 million draft animals
- increased cropland 79 million acres
- 956,000 farms gone
- 1.7 million farm jobs replaced by machines https://www.nber.org/papers/w7947
- replaced 23 million draft animals
- increased cropland 79 million acres
- 956,000 farms gone
- 1.7 million farm jobs replaced by machines https://www.nber.org/papers/w7947
6. In the 1860s, half of all fish caught in British waters and one-sixth of all potatoes grown in Britain were consumed in the form of fish and chips.
*Cuisine and Empire* https://amzn.to/3hmBpmh
*Cuisine and Empire* https://amzn.to/3hmBpmh
7. The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets:
- Put the cheapest food at the beginning because 75% of customers eat whatever is there
- 66% of all food consumed comes from the first 3 trays https://thehustle.co/the-economics-of-all-you-can-eat-buffets/
- Put the cheapest food at the beginning because 75% of customers eat whatever is there
- 66% of all food consumed comes from the first 3 trays https://thehustle.co/the-economics-of-all-you-can-eat-buffets/
8. People spend $7.00 on average for every hour they’re in an airport. Spending goes down 30% for every 10 minutes they wait in a security line. https://thehustle.co/airport-food-expensive/
9. In the mid-1960s, one in twenty-seven adult women in Spain was a prostitute.
*The New Spaniards* https://amzn.to/3mPYxur
*The New Spaniards* https://amzn.to/3mPYxur
10. Plastic bag bans lead to more sales of garbage bags. These thicker garbage bags must be used between 9 and 26 times to offset the impact on climate change. https://apnews.com/article/85f82130fa0b272485d335153bed862f
11. Blowing out candles on a birthday cake increases the bacteria content on it by up to 1,400 percent.
*The Body* https://amzn.to/3mTS5mc
*The Body* https://amzn.to/3mTS5mc
12. Raising your body temperature 3 to 4 degrees—getting a fever—to fight off microbes comes with a 20% increase in energy requirements.
*The Body* https://amzn.to/3mTS5mc
*The Body* https://amzn.to/3mTS5mc
13. You’re more likely to die if it’s the surgeon’s birthday.
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4381.full
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4381.full
14. Passionate kissing results in the transfer of 1 billion bacteria... along with “0.7 milligrams of protein, 0.45 milligrams of salt, 0.7 micrograms of fat, and 0.2 micrograms of ‘miscellaneous organic compounds.'”
*The Body* https://amzn.to/3mTS5mc
*The Body* https://amzn.to/3mTS5mc
15. In sixth century Teotihuacán (near present-day Mexico City), it was both legal and socially permissible for old women—and only old women—to get drunk in public.
*Cuisine and Empire* https://amzn.to/3hmBpmh
*Cuisine and Empire* https://amzn.to/3hmBpmh
16. More people from dry counties die from alcohol-related traffic deaths than people from wet counties. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12850064/
17. A 10% increase in highway miles within a city causes a 5% increase in the weight of its exports. A 1% drop in travel distance between cities increases the value of trade between them by 1.4%. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228465875_Roads_and_Trade_Evidence_from_the_US
18. Corn Flakes became a commercial success only after W.K. Kellogg changed the name. Previously, the cereal had been called Elijah’s Manna.
*Cuisine and Empire* https://amzn.to/3hmBpmh
*Cuisine and Empire* https://amzn.to/3hmBpmh
19. Interest rates have been steadily declining for 700 years, from an average rate of 15% in 1310 to near 0% in 2018.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2020/eight-centuries-of-global-real-interest-rates-r-g-and-the-suprasecular-decline-1311-2018.pdf [PDF]
![19. Interest rates have been steadily declining for 700 years, from an average rate of 15% in 1310 to near 0% in 2018. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2020/eight-centuries-of-global-real-interest-rates-r-g-and-the-suprasecular-decline-1311-2018.pdf [PDF]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqV_2W_XEAAwb--.jpg "19. Interest rates have been steadily declining for 700 years, from an average rate of 15% in 1310 to near 0% in 2018. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2020/eight-centuries-of-global-real-interest-rates-r-g-and-the-suprasecular-decline-1311-2018.pdf [PDF]")
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2020/eight-centuries-of-global-real-interest-rates-r-g-and-the-suprasecular-decline-1311-2018.pdf [PDF]
20. It was popular to wear a hat and cape in Spain until 1766, because it made it easier to escape the scene of a crime without being seen.
They went out of style after the king selected them as the uniform of the executioners.
*Goya* https://amzn.to/3mPZNOb
They went out of style after the king selected them as the uniform of the executioners.
*Goya* https://amzn.to/3mPZNOb
21. If 1/n people are infected, a gathering of .7n people is likely to include at least one infected person. E.g., if there are 20,000 people infected in your area, then a gathering of 1000 people has a 5.9% chance of having 1 or more infected people. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/covid-19-event-risk-assessment-planner.html
22. People do not trust slow algorithms and they do not trust fast people.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331564859_Slow_response_times_undermine_trust_in_algorithmic_but_not_human_predictions
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331564859_Slow_response_times_undermine_trust_in_algorithmic_but_not_human_predictions
23. People who get a trigger warning actually experience *more* anxiety for a given stimulus compared to people who do not get a trigger warning. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2167702620921341
24. Despite the numerous benefits, being bilingual does not, in fact, make you smarter.
https://owenlab.uwo.ca/pdf/2020%20-%20Nichols%20-%20Assoc%20for%20psych%20science.pdf [PDF]
https://owenlab.uwo.ca/pdf/2020%20-%20Nichols%20-%20Assoc%20for%20psych%20science.pdf [PDF]
25. The crawling-through-air-vents-to-another-part-of-a-building trope in film first appeared in 1963 in Dr. No. https://twitter.com/TheCromulentMan/status/1255671668795555841
26. Swearing helps people cope with pain. People who yell the F-word can bear a 33% increase in pain tolerance compared to people who yell similar-sounding non-swear words, like “fouch”. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00723/full
27. On Tinder, men swipe right (i.e., like) on 60% of women’s profiles, while women swipe right on only 4% of men’s profiles. https://twitter.com/robkhenderson/status/1294628071174213635
28. You need silence to be productive.
A 10-decibal increase in background noise causes productivity to drop by about 5%.
https://joshuatdean.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/NoiseCognitiveFunctionandWorkerProductivity.pdf [PDF]
A 10-decibal increase in background noise causes productivity to drop by about 5%.
https://joshuatdean.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/NoiseCognitiveFunctionandWorkerProductivity.pdf [PDF]
29. 62% of people who brush their teeth rinse their mouth out with water, which actually makes tooth decay more likely.
The water removes much of the fluoride that would have lingered after brushing. https://www.dentalhealth.org/news/spit-dont-rinse-for-better-oral-health
The water removes much of the fluoride that would have lingered after brushing. https://www.dentalhealth.org/news/spit-dont-rinse-for-better-oral-health
30. In India in the 1970s, young men would carry around boomboxes and play loud music in public.
The trend became less popular after the government began giving away free boomboxes to anyone who got a vasectomy.
*Codes of the Underworld* https://amzn.to/3poAxjS
The trend became less popular after the government began giving away free boomboxes to anyone who got a vasectomy.
*Codes of the Underworld* https://amzn.to/3poAxjS
31. Blockbuster made so much money on late fees that when they removed them in 2007 to compete with Netflix, they lost half of their profits.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1085734/000119312507239499/dex991.htm
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1085734/000119312507239499/dex991.htm
32. When given the choice between keeping $5 or giving someone else $10, people usually opt to give someone else the $10.
But when the choice is between keeping $8 or giving $10, people keep the $8. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-476-05353-4_25
But when the choice is between keeping $8 or giving $10, people keep the $8. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-476-05353-4_25
33. Streetlights reduce nighttime crime by 36% and reduce “serious offending” by 4%.
This is roughly the same reduction in crime you would expect from a 10% increase in policing. https://www.nber.org/papers/w25798
This is roughly the same reduction in crime you would expect from a 10% increase in policing. https://www.nber.org/papers/w25798
34. The relationship between the Road Runner and the Coyote was governed by a strict set of 9 rules, such as “No outside force can harm the Coyote—only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme products.” https://twitter.com/lebas_janney/status/1269776188517556225
35. If the lawyer and the judge went to the same school, the lawyer is 4.6 times more likely to win the case. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0001839220922133
36. The more time a city spent on the frontier of the American west, the more likely (slightly) the residents of that city today vote Republican, pay lower property taxes, and give their children unique names.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3065808
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3065808
37. When speed dating, women pick men who are on average 25cm taller, while men pick women who are 7cm shorter. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347213001590
38. Children born to first-cousin marriages have roughly the same increased risk of genetic abnormality as children born to women who are 41 years old instead of 30 years old. https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/go-ahead-kiss-your-cousin
39. People can’t keep secrets at predictable rates. Knowing how many people need to be in on a hoax means you can predict how long it take for a hoax to fail. E.g. the failure time for a moon landing hoax is 3.68 years. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0147905
40. People get in car accidents roughly once every 0.5 million miles, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, compared to once every 4.34 million miles for Teslas driven on autopilot.
https://ir.tesla.com/static-files/47313d21-3cac-4f69-9497-d161bce15da4 [PDF]
https://ir.tesla.com/static-files/47313d21-3cac-4f69-9497-d161bce15da4 [PDF]
41. Technically, planets don’t orbit the sun. Instead, all mass orbits the barycenter.
Though the sun contains 99.8% of the solar system’s mass, Jupiter contains most of the other 0.2%, and it’s enough to bump the sun out of the barycenter. https://twitter.com/physicsJ/status/1279082929566572545
Though the sun contains 99.8% of the solar system’s mass, Jupiter contains most of the other 0.2%, and it’s enough to bump the sun out of the barycenter. https://twitter.com/physicsJ/status/1279082929566572545
42. During COVID-19, white-crowned sparrows in San Francisco changed their song to optimize for variety instead of volume, since they no longer must compete with the normal background noise of urban environments. https://www.wired.com/story/how-the-pandemic-transformed-this-songbirds-call/
43. The homicide rate is lower among societies who believe in an afterlife that includes both heaven and hell. But for societies that believe in heaven only (not hell), the homicide rate is higher. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3377603/
44. Sorting email into folders wastes an average of 67 hours per year.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1978942.1979457
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1978942.1979457
45. As of 2018, legalized marijuana in the United States has led to a 17% decline in gun-related homicides in Mexico, compared to the years 1996–2017.
https://www.colorado.edu/economics/sites/default/files/attached-files/20-06_-_swanson.pdf [PDF]
https://www.colorado.edu/economics/sites/default/files/attached-files/20-06_-_swanson.pdf [PDF]
46. As of 2014, communities located more than 100 kilometers away from former Mountie forts have 45% more homicides per capita than communities located less than 100 kilometers away. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287330578_The_Mounties_and_the_Origins_of_Peace_in_the_Canadian_Prairies
47. 92% of top ten Billboard songs refer to sex, with an average of 10.49 reproductive phrases per song.
90% of them are made by males at their peak years of reproductive activity.
*Music: A Subversive History* https://amzn.to/2KYbTHU
90% of them are made by males at their peak years of reproductive activity.
*Music: A Subversive History* https://amzn.to/2KYbTHU
49. In work settings, people think you’re less competent when you use emojis. 
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550617720269
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550617720269
50. In the city blocks surrounding the United Nations headquarters in New York City, most of the parking tickets issued to diplomats go to diplomats from countries with high rates of corruption.
https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/mygsb/faculty/research/pubfiles/4140/fisman_corruption.pdf [PDF]
https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/mygsb/faculty/research/pubfiles/4140/fisman_corruption.pdf [PDF]
51. Trees evolved 360 million years ago, but the fungi that decompose them didn’t evolve until 300 million years ago—leaving a 60-million-year gap for dead plant matter to pile up.
Today, we mine this ancient carbon matter as coal.
*Symphony in C* https://amzn.to/2KDQILw
Today, we mine this ancient carbon matter as coal.
*Symphony in C* https://amzn.to/2KDQILw
52. The wisdom of the crowd—the idea that the average opinion from an uninformed group of people is more likely to be correct than the opinion from a single expert—works even when the crowd is drunk.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F1089-2699.12.3.179
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F1089-2699.12.3.179
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