In the sixth century A.D., the Maya astronomers of Central America determined the length of the solar year to be 365.242 days.

The true length, established by modern astronomers, is 365.2422 days.

When a candle is burnt so long as to leave a tolerably large wick, blow it out; a dense smoke, which is composed of hydrogen and carbon, will immediately rise. Then, if another candle, or lighted taper, be applied to the utmost verge of this smoke, a very strange phenomenon will take place. The flame of the lighted candle will be conveyed to that just blown out, as if it were borne on a cloud, or, rather, it will seem like a mimic flash of lightning proceeding at a slow rate.

— Alfred Rochefort, Healthful Sports for Boys, 1910

Bill Gates is always being called an insect — now someone has called an insect Bill Gates.

Meet Eristalis gatesi, the “Bill Gates flower fly,” an insect found only in the Costa Rican forest. The epithet honors Gates’ contributions to dipterology.

After he’d been stung by almost everything, entomologist Justin O. Schmidt created the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, a four-point scale comparing the overall pain of insect stings:

• 1.0 – Sweat bee: “Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.”
• 1.2 – Fire ant: “Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch.”
• 1.8 – Bullhorn acacia ant: “A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.”
• 2.0 – Bald-faced hornet: “Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.”
• 2.0 – Yellowjacket: “Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W.C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.”
• 3.0 – Red harvester ant: “Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.”
• 3.0 – Paper wasp: “Caustic and burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.”
• 4.0 – Pepsis wasp: “Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath (if you get stung by one you might as well lie down and scream).”
• 4.0+ – Bullet ant: “Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail in your heel.”

The largest known flying animal of all time was Quetzalcoatlus northropi, a pterosaur that flapped around Texas 80 million years ago.

Its wingspan was estimated at 39.37 feet — the length of a school bus.

In 1998, Carol Weihrer was undergoing eye surgery when she woke up. Desperate and in agony, she could feel everything that was happening to her, but the muscle relaxants kept her from moving or speaking.

This happens to 4,000 people each year, largely due to anesthesiologists’ errors, and the psychological trauma can lead to years of nightmares, flashbacks, insomnia, and alcoholism. It’s called “anesthesia awareness.”

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