A list of curious facts

One: This is the Indian oakleaf butterfly. Now you see a leaf, now you see a titli… Also, did you know that it’s our national butterfly? The video may contain more oakleaf butterflies than you need to check out—or just the right amount of pretty you need today :)

Two: Remember that saying? When life gives you lemons… Well, when life gives you insane number of cicadas, this Ohio restaurant decided to make ‘Spicy Thai Cicada Pie’—“with miso hoisin sriracha sauce, mozzarella and provolone, blanched and sautéed locally foraged cicadas, mushroom, cabbage, green onion, mango, cilantro, spicy Thai sauce, and a crunchy cicada wing crust.” It looks surprisingly edible.

Three: Alcohol is very bad for our body—and many experts have described it as poison. But a new book daringly suggests that booze may have been an evolutionary motivation for humanity’s most critical invention: agriculture!

“At sites in eastern Turkey, dating to perhaps 12,000 years ago, the remains of what appear to be brewing vats, combined with images of festivals and dancing, suggest that people were gathering in groups, fermenting grain or grapes, playing music and getting truly hammered before humanity had even figured out agriculture. In fact, archaeologists have begun to suggest that alcohol wasn’t merely a byproduct of the invention of agriculture but actually a motivation for it. The first farmers, on this view, were driven by a desire not for bread but for beer—no civilization without intoxication.”

Ok, wow! That puts our drunkenness in a whole new light! Read this Wall Street Journal op-ed by Edward Slingerland who puts forward this provocative hypothesis—or check out a review of his book ‘Drunk’ in Inside Hook.

Four: Did you know that there are 12 levels of friendship in Arabic? If not, Taariq Ismail’s fascinating Twitter thread lays them out for you. We are big fans of Jalees: “someone you’re comfortable sitting with for a period of time.”

Five: There is no good reason to discuss the fact that the penis of an echidna has four heads, BUT only two become erect at any one time. OTOH, a very detailed description of this significant discovery was published in the very respectable Guardian—which FYI also has a photo of the said anatomy (that we have kindly not shared here). Yes, sometimes we do items just to entertain ourselves. In any case, here is a very PG-13 image of an echidna just so you know what this well-endowed creature looks like.