The Color Of Money

by Samantha Weaver

• In 2018, Nataraj Karate set a new Guinness World Record by stuffing 650 drinking straws in his mouth at once. He had to keep them there for at least 10 seconds to break the previous record.
• All Human blood cells have different lifespans.
• Dollar bills weren’t always green. Colonial money, for example, was tan with black or red ink. The Civil War government began using green ink to print paper money because it didn’t fade or easily decompose, and was not easy counterfeiting.
• Auto manufacturer Volkswagen makes not just vehicles, but currywurst sausages.
• Following his successful bladder stone surgery, the relieved English diarist Samuel Pepys celebrated the anniversary of the event every year after.
• The first hot-air balloon flight, in 1783, took off with a sheep, a duck, and a rooster on board, as it was unknown how the human body would react to flying at high altitudes. (They landed safely.)
• A company in Poland makes dinnerware out of wheat bran.
• Queen Elizabeth II visited the set of the TV series Game Of Thrones but could not be seated on the throne due to an old rule that “the ruling monarch can’t sit on a foreign throne.”
• While it’s not the longest word in the English language, a study of 1.7 million samples of everyday English found that the longest word you’re likely to encounter on a daily basis is uncharacteristically.
• Ants leave pheromone trails when they walk that serve as maps for other ants.
• Although Saturn is the second-largest planet in our solar system, it’s also the lightest, and could float in water because it’s basically a giant gas ball—if we had a bathtub big enough to hold it.