This year, I was poked in the arm three times, I found out my neighbor invented the Pumpkin Spice Latte, and I talked to people, a lot.
Here’s some of what I learned from conversations in a pandemic-ridden world:
- In 2012, at a busy Seattle beach, a teenager dove 85 feet underwater to catch an 80-pound Giant Pacific Octopus by hand. He wrestled and punched the nine-foot octopus for 25 minutes, eventually dragging it to the surface; he then brought it home, cooked it, and ate it. His hunt was completely legal and part of a school project. [Marnie Hanel]
- The summit of Mount Everest is about the size of two Ping-Pong tables. [Kai Schultz and Bhadra Sharma]
- Japan’s legal system has a 99% conviction rate. [Vivian Yee and Hwaida Saad]
- “Kalsarikännit” is the Finnish tradition of getting drunk at home in your underwear. [Alyson Krueger]
- Rat teeth grow around four to five inches a year, forcing them to gnaw constantly. [Caity Weaver]
- If cows were a country (as ridiculous as that sounds), they would be the world’s sixth-largest emitter of methane gas, releasing more methane than Brazil, Japan, and Germany. [Adam Satariano]
- A quarter-mile increase in distance from a polling booth reduced voting rates by 2 to 5 percent. [Sendhil…
