A list of curious facts
One: The world's 'biggest and deepest' swimming pool is being built in Cornwall, UK, and it will be 164 feet deep, 164 feet long, and 131 feet wide. No, this isn’t the kind of pool you kick in on a Sunday afternoon. ‘Blue Abyss’ is set up to test the latest underwater technology and train astronauts and deep sea divers—extreme environment testing taken to the limit. CNN has the story. Here’s a one-minute snippet of the promo video.
Two: Have you seen Earth rising over the moon? No? Here’s brilliant footage taken by the space probe Kaguya, Japan’s second unmanned mission to the Moon.
Three: Sony has created a new device called Motion Sonic—a wearable Fitbit-sized device that can change the sound of an electronic musical instrument based on your gesture. Here’s a fascinating demo of how it works with a guitar.
Four: Did you know that crows take ant baths? As in they deliberately spread ants on their feathers and wings. No one knows exactly why they do it, but it may be about cleanliness: “Ants have defensive secretions, chemical weapons they use to fight off other insects and fungi, so if you smear what they've got all over your feathers, you're stealing their fungicides, miticides, insecticides and biocides.” While we’re talking about ants, humans are no less peculiar in these matters. Has anyone told you antkeeping is a thing? This is where people build cutting-edge homes called formicariums, aimed at breeding lots and lots of ants. National Geographic has that strange story.
Five: This is an old-fashioned map of the internet—which visualizes thousands of the world’s most popular websites as “countries.” And each website’s ‘territory size’ is based on its average Alexa web traffic ranking. Digital Trend has more on the fascinating methodology.
