The idea that there are wrecks full of treasure, sitting on the ocean floor waiting to be salvaged, might seem fanciful, but it’s entirely true. And it is estimated that there is around $60 billion of unclaimed treasure still out there. UNESCO has said that there are as many as three million shipwrecks at the…
This “fact” was repeated in many places recently when the world’s population reached the seven billion mark. It was a significant moment and some sought to emphasise the population explosion by repeating this startling piece of information. For the statement to be true, however, there would obviously need to be fewer than seven billion people…
Bizarrely there is some truth in this, but it’s a lot more complicated than one person initiating the trend. The tradition of pink and blue as gender specific colours doesn’t actually go back that far – it wasn’t until the 1950s that the two colours became commonly associated with boys and girls. Until the end…
It seems that it’s pretty much the case. Research by scientists at WWF and the Zoological Society of London concluded that we destroyed half of the vertebrate animal population on Earth between 1970 and 2010. The Living Planet Index (LPI), which measures more than 10,000 representative populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, has…
If you are wearing something that has a zip, have a closer look at it and there’s a fair chance that you’ll see the letters YKK embossed on the puller. It doesn’t matter if it’s a high-end designer brand or cheap high-street label, the YKK legend appears with astonishing regularity. And it’s not just on…
It has been claimed (by Michelle Obama and Jamie Oliver, among others) that the current generation of children will have a shorter lifespan than that of their parents due to the increase in childhood obesity. So is there any truth in that? No. Over the last four decades life expectancy globally has risen by 11…
It seems staggering, but based on the most recent figures from Marine Policy, who say 100million sharks are being killed every year, it would appear that this daily rate of slaughter is indeed the case. The recent Marine Policy report stated that the exact number of sharks killed could actually be anywhere between 63 million…
Does playing Tomb Raider really improve your IQ? It’s not as daft as it sounds. We may be in an era where we constantly bemoan the dumbing down of culture, but there is strong evidence to suggest that the huge increase in our daily exposure to technology — from using the Internet and smartphones to…
Is it true that in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones plays no real role in the outcome? This was posited by the character Amy in an episode of The Big Bang Theory. She claimed that: “Indiana Jones plays no role in the outcome of the story. If he weren’t in the film it would…
If you are wearing something that has a zip, have a closer look at it and there’s a fair chance that you’ll see the letters YKK embossed on the puller. It doesn’t matter if it’s a high-end designer brand or cheap high-street label, the YKK legend appears with astonishing regularity. And it’s not just on…
Matt Pomroy 