Take the dull out of Christmas lunch conversation with these ten strange facts that you can whip out at the table. Here's the lowdown.
This year, instead of rinse and repeating rugby anecdotes or yawns of football conversation, try spicing up chinwagging at Christmas lunch. And, as an added benefit, you may just impress everyone while getting a jab or two in, too.
There’s a strange factoid for almost every situation.
Instead of just sipping on a glass of still or sparkling water, share this little anecdote as you decant the water into your glass.
Here’s the script: “Isn’t it incredible that water can boil and freeze at the same time?” you quip. Then, after a moment of piqued interest, you can share that at a specific balance of temperature and pressure, water exists as ice, liquid and vapour at the same time.
It is known as the triple point and is one of the strangest states of matter ever discovered.
Water is a weird element; you can tell the curious guest sitting next to you.
“Did you know that it’s not technically wet under certain scientific definitions?” Watch their expression, and when your table neighbour is ready, continue. “Wetness is actually the relationship between a liquid and a solid surface, meaning water makes things wet but does not qualify as wet itself.”
It sounds like semantics, but wetness arguments can set a table alight for a bit and a bob. Until the chat’s extinguished at Christmas lunch.
Clouds and people
Later, when there are some clouds in the distance, share with anyone who would listen that a large cumulonimbus cloud, those that look like the cauliflower on your plate, can exceed half a million kilograms.
This, of course, is thanks to the billions of droplets contained inside.
“Imagine that something so heavy in that cloud can drift through the air, and not smash anything that flies through it, either,” you can share.
Don’t remove your gaze from the skies. You can then tell anyone that “speaking about the skies, did you know that there has not been a single day since the year 2000 when every human was physically on Earth.”
Wait for your audience to ask you why? “Well,” you continue then. “Someone has always been aboard the International Space Station, which means there has been a continuous human presence in orbit for more than two decades.”
Clever Christmas chatter.
If a moth can drive a robot…
Next time a bee wants to have a sip of your soft drink, contemplate this. Research shows that Honeybees can count to four. It may not be a good idea to compare this to your cousin’s toddler on Christmas day, but you can share that bees recognise numerical differences, use landmarks to navigate, and handle basic maths with cognition surprisingly great for a brain the size of a pin head or smaller.
Then you can add that another insect has actually driven a robot. Male silk moths can steer robotic devices in laboratory setups. The silk moths were guided by pheromones and managed to drive a tiny robot.
A brewery in your body
Your beer-swilling loud uncle might like this one. You can tell him that some people were born brewers.
There is a medical condition called auto-brewery syndrome that enables the body to brew alcohol internally. And yes, you read right. Certain yeasts consumed by some people ferment carbohydrates into ethanol, leaving people intoxicated without drinking.
You should tell Uncle this after a few cold ones on Christmas Day. Cases of auto-brewery are rare, but believe it or not, they seem real.
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You should also tell your uncle that his day job at the office may be damaging his health.
And it’s not by smoking, vaping or babelaas.
Apparently, neckties can reduce blood flow to the brain. Studies found up to a 7.5 per cent drop in this when the tie is too tight, which explains the sudden discomfort or dizziness people may feel because of it. The impact of neckties has been measured by people in lab coats, who do not wear them.
Glow-in-the-dark mother-in-law
If you’d like to see your mother-in-law glow in the dark at Christmas, feed her a lot of bananas.
A lot. Bananas contain a tiny amount of a radioactive substance called potassium-40. The dose in bananas is harmless, but only tell her that once you’ve created a quick fake green glow on AI to make her think twice.
Of course, you can also share with your mom-in-law that the strongest muscle relative to its size is the jaw. Do that when she’s wrestling with the biltong you hid to enjoy Boxing Day cricket.
The masseter, as it’s affectionately known, delivers an impressive bite force and beyond over-talking, the jaw is one of the body’s most effective muscles.
