The University of Alabama conducted a study and got an unexpected result: tattoos can be useful. Tattooing can enhance immune responses and increase the ability of our body to resist infections, for example, with a cold.

In addition to Samuel Morse himself, other scientists and inventors worked on Morse code. For example, the American Elijah Howe, together with Morse, developed a telegraph and a message transmission system. Charles Wheatstone, Wilhelm Weber, Alfred Vail, Joseph Henry and many others also participated in the work.

In the XVIII century, the French agronomist Antoine Parmentier developed potato production to combat hunger, but many Frenchmen did not dare to cultivate potatoes, fearing diseases and thinking that it was inedible. Then Parmentier came up with a trick: he hired armed guards for the day, and at night the guards left, allowing people to «steal» potatoes. The thieves did not know that this was literally a state program, and everyone was satisfied.

The word «parka», meaning a long warm jacket with a hood, comes from the Nenets word. Initially, among the peoples of Northern Siberia, outerwear made of deer skins was called «porkha» or «porga».

John Paul Scott is the only person who managed to escape from the famous Alcatraz prison. He made inflatable armbands out of rubber gloves and swam to Fort Point, where he was discovered by local teenagers the next morning. Scott was very weakened and hypothermic, so he was sent to the hospital and then returned to prison.

According to research, excessive consumption of sugar can depress the immune system, because it can cause inflammation and cell damage. So, if you want to get sick less often, it is logical to reduce the consumption of sweets to a moderate amount.

One of the common subjects of medieval engravings is knights fighting with snails. This is a folklore motif with a symbolic meaning. Snails are associated with melancholy and slowness, and the fight against them symbolized the victory over laziness and inaction. In addition, the knights could also fight with other small animals in the engravings, such as frogs or toads, which also have a semantic meaning.

J.R.R. Tolkien first met Edith Mary Bratt, his future wife, when they were teenagers. They liked to spend time in the tea room, throwing sugar cubes from the balcony onto the hats of passers-by until the sugar bowl was empty.

Cats don't have a certain number of nipples. Different cats can have different numbers of them — from four to eight, and in some cases even up to ten. But most often a cat has six or eight nipples.

All the displays at New York Central Station showing the departure time are in a hurry for exactly one minute — so that passengers are not late. In the 50s, the station served almost 40% of the entire population of the United States, but then, when planes and cars competed strongly with trains, they wanted to demolish the station. One of the most active fighters for the preservation of the architectural masterpiece was Jacqueline Kennedy. As a result, the building was listed on the Register of National Historic Landmarks.