This is interesting. Blog. "A little bit of everything."

1. The Alaska flag was created by a 13-year-old boy.

2. Military honor in no country is given with the left hand.

3. The international dialing code for Antarctica is 672.

4. Captain Cook was the first person to set foot on all the continents of the Earth except Antarctica.

5. The West African Matami tribe plays football with a human skull.

6. In Australia, the fifty cent coin initially contained two dollars worth of silver.

7. Most often, the Guinness Book of Records is stolen in English libraries.

8. National Orchestra Monaco is bigger than its army.

10. Canada is larger in area than China, and China is larger than the United States.

11. The only country where not a single birth was registered in 1983 is the Vatican.

12. The Nile froze twice - in the 9th and 11th centuries.

13. In Siena, Italy, you can't be a prostitute if your name is Maria.

14. In ancient Rome, a man taking an oath or making an oath would place his hand on the scrotum.

15. Tickling was prohibited by law in some ancient countries of the East, as it was considered a sinful arousing activity.

16. There are no clocks in Las Vegas casinos.

17. In the Eskimo language, there are more than 20 words for snow.

18. There are more Barbie dolls in Italy than there are Canadians in Canada.

19. In France, the law prohibits the sale of dolls with non-human faces, such as “alien girls.”

20. Canada has been declared the best country to live by the UN 4 times over the past 5 years.

21. B Ancient Rome If a patient died during an operation, the doctor's hands were cut off.

About culture

22. As X-rays have shown, under the “Mona Lisa” we know, there are three more of its original versions.

23. John Lennon's song "I'm a Walrus" was inspired by the sound of a police siren.

24. Most often sung song in the world - “Happy birthday to you” - is protected by copyright.

25. There is only one Western directed by a woman.

26. George Harrison's toilet seat sang "Lusy in the sky with diamonds."

27. During World War II, in order to save metal, Oscar figurines were made of wood.

28. The original title of “Gone with the Wind” is “Be-be, black sheep.”

29. In Cameroon's film Titanic, the most frequently spoken word is "Rose".

About little brothers

30. A cat falling from the 12th floor has a better chance of surviving than a cat falling from the 7th floor.

31. When Europeans first saw a giraffe, they called it a “camelback,” thinking that it was a hybrid of a camel and a leopard.

32. The animal with the largest brain in relation to its body is the ant.

33. About 70 percent of living creatures on Earth are bacteria.

34. When young, Black Sea perches are mostly girls, but by the age of 5 they radically change sex!

35. The elephant is the only animal with 4 knees.

36. The Tokyo Zoo closes for 2 months every year so that the animals can take a break from visitors.

37. Anteaters prefer to eat termites rather than ants.

38. When a giraffe gives birth, her baby falls from a height of one and a half meters.

39. Despite the hump, the camel’s spine is straight.

40. Female dogs bite more often than male dogs.

41. Every year, more people die from bee stings than from snake bites.

42. Sharks are immune to cancer.

43. Birth control pills work on gorillas.

44. A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.

45. Starfish can turn your stomach inside out.

46. ​​The animal that can go the longest without drinking is the rat.

47. The only animals that suffer from leprosy, besides humans, are armadillos.

48. Hippos are born under water.

49. Orangutans warn of aggression with loud burps.

50. A mole can dig a tunnel 76 meters long in one night.

51. A snail has about 25,000 teeth.

52. A black spider can eat up to 20 spiders a day.

53. When there is a lack of food tapeworm can eat up to 95 percent of its body weight - and nothing!

54. Crocodiles are responsible for more than 1,000 deaths on the banks of the Nile per year.

55. The ancient Egyptians taught baboons to serve them at table.

56. Saint Bernards, the famous rescuers of mountaineers, do not wear a flask of brandy around their necks.

57. It takes 4 hours to hard-boil an ostrich egg.

58. Within a pride of lions, 9/10 of the prey is supplied to the “family” by lionesses.

59. Sloths spend 75% of their lives sleeping.

60. Hummingbirds cannot walk.

61. A moth has no stomach.

62. Europeans, having arrived in Australia, asked the aborigines: “What are these strange jumping animals you have here?” The Aborigines answered: “Kangaroo,” which meant: “We don’t understand!”

63. The easiest way to distinguish a vegetarian animal from a predator: predators have eyes located on the front of the muzzle to see the prey. Vegetarians have them on both sides of their heads to see the enemy.

64. Bat- the only mammal that can fly.

65. 99% of living creatures that lived on Earth became extinct.

66. To make a kilogram of honey, a bee must fly around 2 million flowers.

67. Blood of a grasshopper white, lobster - blue.

68. The only animals that have sex for pleasure are humans and dolphins.

69. Over the past 4,000 years, not a single new animal has been domesticated.

70. Penguins can jump more than one and a half meters in height.

71. The only pet that is not mentioned in the Bible is a cat.

72. Chimpanzees are the only animals that can recognize themselves in the mirror.

73. The word “orangutan” means “jungle man” in some African languages.

74. Emu means "ostrich" in Portuguese.

75. Elephants and humans are the only mammals that can stand on their heads.

76. Crocodiles swallow stones to dive deeper.

77. Polar bears can run at a speed of 40 km/h.

78. Dogs have elbows.

About the great ones

79. “The Thinker” by Rodin - a portrait of the Italian poet Dante.

80. Singer Nick Cave was born with a ponytail.

82. English Writer Virginia Woolf wrote most of her books standing.

83. Sarah Bernhardt played 13-year-old Juliet at 70 years old.

84. When Walt Disney was a child, he tortured an owl. Since then, he decided to bring animals to life in cartoons.

85. Beethoven was once arrested for vagrancy.

86. Buzz Aldrin, one of the astronauts who walked on the moon, maiden name mother Moon (Moon).

87. When Einstein died, he last words died with him: the nurse did not understand German.

88. Julius Caesar wore Laurel wreath to hide the beginning of baldness.

89. D. Washington grew marijuana in his garden.

90. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, never called his mother and wife: they were both deaf.

91. Saint Patrick, the patron saint of the Irish, was not Irish.

92. Leonardo da Vinci invented an alarm clock that rubbed the feet of a sleeping person.

93. Napoleon suffered from ailurophobia - fear of cats.

94. The nose grows throughout a person’s life.

95. Only one child out of 20 is born on the day prescribed by the doctor.

96. The ancient Greeks believed that boys grew up in right side belly, and girls - in the left.

97. If you remove space from all atoms human body, then what remains will be able to slip through the eye of the needle.

98. In the Middle Ages, in the dark spots of the Moon, people saw the figure of Cain carrying an armful of brushwood.

99. A sperm is the smallest single cell in the body. The egg is the largest.

100. If a real woman had the proportions of a Barbie doll, she would only be able to walk on 4 limbs.

101. Blonde beards grow faster than dark ones.

102. In Russian and English languages there is no word for the back of the knee.

103. In the 15th century, it was believed that the color red heals. Patients wore red and surrounded themselves with red things.

104. Tongue imprints are individual for all people.

105. When you blush, your stomach turns red too.

106. There is enough body fat in the human body to make 7 bars of soap.

107. 80% of the human body’s heat leaves the head.

108. A person has fewer muscles than a caterpillar.

109. At the time of death, Lenin's brain was a quarter of normal size.

110. The world's highest IQ scores on standardized tests belong to two women.

111. Most people lose 50% of their sense of taste by age 60.

112. House dust consists of 70% shed skin.

113. The tooth is the only part of a person that lacks the ability to repair itself.

114. The brain is 80% water.

115. More living organisms live on the body of one person than there are people on Earth.

116. One hair can support a weight of 3 kg.

117. The average human head weighs 3.6 kg.

118. Over the course of his entire life, a person produces so much saliva that it would be enough for 2 large swimming pools

And a little more

119. Repellents don't repel mosquitoes - they hide you.

120. Substances contained in repellents block the receptors with which mosquitoes find their prey.

122. No sheet of paper can be folded in half more than seven times.

123. Every year donkeys are killed on earth more people than die in plane crashes.

124. You burn more calories while sleeping than while watching TV.

125. The first barcoded product was Wrigleys chewing gum.

126. The wingspan of a Boeing 747 is greater than the distance of the Wright brothers' first flight.

127. American Airlines saved $40,000 by removing just one olive from the salads served to first class passengers.

128. Venus is the only planet solar system, rotating counterclockwise.

129. Apples help you wake up in the morning better than coffee.

130. The plastic things at the ends of the laces are called aiguillettes.

131. The first owner of the Marlboro company died of lung cancer.

132. Michael Jordan received from Nike more money than all the workers in the factories of this company in Malaysia.

133. Marilyn Monroe had six toes on her feet.

134. All US presidents wore glasses. It’s just that some people didn’t like to appear in public wearing them.

135. Walt Disney, creator of Mickey Mouse, was afraid of mice.

136. Pearls dissolve in vinegar.

137. Among people who publish marriage advertisements, 35 percent are already married.

138. The three most expensive brand names on earth are Marlboro, Coca-Cola and Budweiser, in that order.

139. A cow can be made to go up the stairs, but it is impossible to make it go down.

140. Duck croaking does not echo, no one knows why.

141.The reason American firehouses have spiral staircases dates back to the days when pumps and other heavy objects were lifted by horses. The horses crowded below, unable to figure out how to climb the straight flights of stairs.

142. Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president to have all the letters of the word “criminal” in his name.

143. The second was Bill Clinton (William Jefferson Clinton).

144. On average, 100 people die every year from choking on a ballpoint pen.

145. 90 percent of New York taxi drivers are immigrants.

146. The elephant is the only animal that cannot jump.

147. One person in two million has a chance of living to 116 years old.

148. Women, on average, blink twice as often as men.

149. It is anatomically impossible for a person to lick his own elbow.

150. Building main library Indiana State University is sinking one inch each year because engineers did not take into account the weight of the books it contained during construction.

151. Snails can sleep for up to three years.

152. Crocodiles cannot stick out their tongues.

153. The lighter was invented before matches.

154. Every day, US residents eat 18 hectares of pizza.

155. Almost everyone who read this text tried to lick their elbow.

It is more convenient to stuff meat with garlic and bay leaves without removing the knife from the slot.
All fat from meat should not be cut off when preparing for frying or baking: it will retain moisture and the dish will turn out juicier.
15 minutes before the meat is cooked, the foil should be opened slightly so that the meat is baked on top.
It is better to prepare minced meat assorted - from pork and beef.
When preparing lula kebab, it is important to knead the minced meat for a long time - then it will become viscous, dense and will hold firmly on wooden skewers.
It is best to defrost meat in air, not in water; you can defrost it on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.
Meat intended for storage should not be washed, otherwise it will quickly spoil.
Water or milk added to minced cutlets gives the finished product juiciness.
Raw meat will stay fresh for 24 hours if soaked in vinegar.
Before beating, the meat needs to be leveled: cut off the thickenings so that the layers are as uniform in thickness as possible.
To prevent the meat from tearing when beating, it should be covered with plastic wrap.
Chops and schnitzels will be softer and juicier if you brush them with a mixture of vinegar and vegetable oil an hour before frying. oil
There is no need to turn the meat frequently during frying: this releases a lot of juice, which prevents the formation of a crust.
Chopped cutlets will not stick to each other if you add a little potato flour to the minced meat.
Meat dishes Steamed ones have a particularly delicate taste.
Meat boiled in small pieces will be less juicy and tasty than meat cooked in large pieces.
Meat - raw, boiled or baked - must be cut across the grain.
Minced meat will be juicy if you add a little very cold water while kneading it and let it rise. oils
If the beef is tough, then you need to cook it like this: bring to a boil, skim the foam from the broth and, after cooking the meat for half an hour, pour 2 tbsp into the broth per 1 kg of beef. l. vodka and cook the broth with it until fully cooked. The beef will be very soft, and the smell of vodka will completely evaporate.


Fish breaded in breadcrumbs is often not always sufficiently fried inside, so it needs to be cooked in a preheated oven for 15-20 minutes.
To get rid of unwanted aftertaste when cooking pike, add more spices and seasonings to the water.
Never pour frozen fish hot water, otherwise it will lose its taste.
To make fish cutlets tastier and more aromatic, add finely chopped and fried nasto to the minced meat. oil onion.
If you add a pinch to the cutlet mass baking soda, the minced meat will be fluffy.
Do not cook the fish over high heat; it will become tough and the broth will become cloudy.
To prevent the fish from sticking to the pan when frying, pour it into the vegetable oil. butter a little salt.
If bile accidentally spills while cutting fish, you need to wipe the places where it got in with salt and rinse the fish cold water.
To prevent the fish from falling apart and curling when frying, before cooking you need to make several transverse cuts on the carcass or pieces of fish, then add salt and let stand for 10-15 minutes, then roll in breading. The taste will be more delicate if you put the fish in cold milk for 15 minutes before breading. or grease with sour cream. I advise you to first roll the fish that you will fry in batter in flour, and then dip it into the dough: it will stick in a more even layer.
It is better to cook fish in a small container: it is less boiled.
Lake fish will not smell like mud if the carcasses are washed in a cold, strong salt solution.
Some types of fish are very difficult to remove scales from. I advise you to pour boiling water over the fish carcass; it will clean much faster.
It is better to salt the fish before cooking, it will be tender and juicy.
Before frying fish, place slices of raw potatoes in the frying pan; this will remove the smell of fish.
If the fish has a lot of small bones (for example, crucian carp), then before frying, make a number of cuts on the carcass, especially in the tail area, where there are most small bones, add salt and fry like this. All small bones will be well cooked. You need to add less salt than usual.
To add some piquancy to fried fish at the end of frying, add sunflower oil, on which the fish was fried, finely chopped garlic. Fry it a little and pour this oil over the finished fish. You can also add lemon juice.
Before frying, the fish should be sprinkled with lemon juice, salt, and sprinkled with special seasoning.
It is recommended to fry fish in vegetable oil.
Fresh and high-quality fish have bright red eyes.
After defrosting, fish should only be washed with cold water.
During cleaning, the fish will not slip out of your hands if you first rub it with salt.
Fish should only be defrosted at room temperature.
If bile spills during gutting, the fish must be washed immediately and the area where the bile came in should be rubbed with salt.
Stuffed fish tastes much better cold. It is served with vinegar, mustard and grated horseradish.
To ensure that the fish is well-fried, cuts should be made in the thickenings.
Boiled fish should be served hot.
Small fish are best cooked under marinade.
Large fish is used for jellied dishes.
When cooking fish with the head, the gills must be removed.
Fish oil is healthier than animal fat.
Fatty fish are best baked or grilled.


It is better to cut raw vegetables on a plastic board, since a wooden board absorbs the juice.
Boiled vegetables cannot be kept in water for a long time, as this will cause them to lose their taste.
The salad will be fragrant if you add more dill.
IN vegetable salad You can put a crust of bread rubbed with garlic for a few minutes. The salad takes on a light garlic flavor.
To make cooked vegetables softer and more pleasant to taste, you need to add a little sugar to the water.
Vegetables for salads should be boiled in their skins - this way they retain vitamins better.
To reduce the loss of vitamins, vegetables should be placed in boiling water and cooked in a sealed container.
Smell and taste of raw onions The salad will become softer if you finely chop the onion and lightly pour boiling water over it.
Vegetables should be washed only with cold water.
Carrots and potatoes should not be cooked in the same pan with beets - they lose their taste and color.
Carrots, beets, and cucumbers will remain fresh for a long time if they are stored in a closed plastic bag in the refrigerator.
The salad should be prepared and stored only in enamel and glass containers.
Beets chopped for salads should be stored separately from other vegetables, seasoned with vinegar, and grown. oil
Potatoes boiled in their skins will be easier to peel if they are immediately covered with cold water.
A cut onion will last longer if the cut area is greased.
The onion will brown well if you add 1/2 tsp to the oil when frying. granulated sugar.
To prevent the onion from burning during sauteing and become golden, it must be rolled in flour.
To make the potatoes crumbly and tasty, they must be boiled in salted water over low heat.
To make the potatoes cook faster, you need to add a little plum to the water. oils
Boiled potatoes will taste better if you add dill, a small onion or 2 cloves of garlic.
Vegetables should be boiled in salted water - this will improve the taste and retain more nutrients.
Wilted greens can be refreshed if you leave them for 1 hour. V cold water with the addition of vinegar (1 tbsp vinegar per 1 liter of water).
Potatoes boiled in their skins will become freshly boiled again if you steam them.
You can have fresh vegetables all winter if you prepare them like this: add 1 kg of salt, 1 kg of onion, 1 kg of carrots, 1 kg of ripe tomatoes, 1 kg of bell pepper, 300 g each of parsley and dill, finely chop and mix. Place the mixture in jars and cover with plastic lids. One st. l. There will be enough mixture to season the borscht.
The process of preparing beets can be speeded up as follows: boil them for at least 1 hour. 10 minutes, drain the water in which the beets were boiled and fill it with cold water. In 10 minutes. drain the water again.
Boiled vegetables should not be left in the water in which they were boiled, as they will become watery and tasteless. They should be drained in a colander.
White cabbage will not darken when fried if you salt it after cooking, when it has cooled.


The apple peel will come off easily if you immerse the apples in cold water before peeling.
To prevent baked apples from cracking, I advise you to prick them with a fork before baking and pour a little water on the baking sheet.
Lemons can be preserved by cutting into slices and adding sugar to the glass jar. You can also cover whole lemons with sugar if you peel them in advance.
Before squeezing juice from citrus fruits, soak them for 5 minutes. V hot water. You will get more juice.
Compotes prepared for the winter from fruits with seeds should be stored for no more than a year.
You may have heard that it's best to store apples separately from other fruits and vegetables because they produce a gas that speeds up ripening. But this same gas can sometimes be very useful. An apple slice will soften the hardened brown sugar overnight. Also, apple slices will prevent potatoes from sprouting.
If a recipe says to add citrus zest to a dish, that means you only need to add the outer colored part of the peel, not the white inner part, which can ruin the taste of your dish. It is the outer part of the peel that contains all the aromatic oils of citrus fruits and will add “zest” to your dish.
The easiest way is to grate the fruit using a grater with small holes.
Another tip to squeeze out every last drop of juice: take the fruit and roll it on a hard surface, pressing down firmly with your palm. Press as hard as you can. Roll like this for a few minutes. Then just cut it in half and squeeze it out. You will see that you will get several times more juice this way.
To prevent fruits from losing juice when baking, they must first be doused with boiling water.
The seeds are removed from washed and dry fruits. Place fruits and berries from which you want to remove seeds for a few minutes. in the freezer. Then they will become harder and the seeds will be easy to separate.


The rice will be white and will not boil if you add a few drops of lemon juice to the water during cooking.
Rice should always be salted at the very beginning of cooking.
If you want to rice porrige(pilaf) were crumbly regardless of the quality of the rice, stir the porridge well several times while cooling.
Beans and peas do not need to be soaked before cooking. To make them cook faster, add half a cup of cold water to the pan several times while boiling.
All semolina dishes will be more fluffy and airy if you soak the semolina in milk or water half an hour before cooking.
If the peas do not cook for a long time, you need to pour 4-5 tbsp into the pan. l. cold boiled water: one every 5 minutes.
There is a lot of garbage in cereals such as millet, rice, buckwheat. Scatter the cereal into a flat plate or directly onto the table, take it in right hand cotton swab, moisten it in water, poke it into the garbage and put it in your left palm. Very convenient and fast.
When cooking rice, do not pour water into the sink; it is good to use this water to make yeast dough.
It is better to store cereals and starch in glass or earthenware jars, putting gauze bags with salt in them.


And pancakes too!
Stale pie, muffin, bread will become fresher if you wrap them in foil and place them in a preheated oven for 5 minutes.
The cake will not burn if you place a sheet of medium-sized salt sprinkled on it under the baking sheet.
To prevent pancake batter from dripping onto the stove, you can pour it into a teapot and carefully pour it into the frying pan.
To bake puff pastry pies, it is better to grease the baking sheet not with oil, but with cold water.
It is better to cut the airy cake immediately, while it is hot, taking it out of the oven, and always with a hot knife. Then it won’t wrinkle or sag.
While rolling out the dough on the table, grease the surface with the dough. oil so that the dough does not stick.
When kneading the dough for pancakes, you first need to mix soda with flour, and then add separately beaten eggs and other ingredients. Then donuts, crumpets, and pancakes will not absorb fat during frying and will turn out very fluffy and tasty.
If your baked goods are burnt, don’t worry in advance. After all, this can be easily corrected with an ordinary grater. It turns out very smooth and almost imperceptible. This method is suitable for both cookies and sponge cakes.
Egg whites need to be beaten in a glass bowl; they darken in aluminum.
A small collection of tricky tips!

Crazy geniuses

Society has always had an unhealthy interest in madmen, especially in great madmen.

"Genius" - Latin word(genius) and means highest degree giftedness and versatility. It is customary to admire geniuses, but contemporaries, as a rule, do not like them, sometimes even hate and envy them, so that for every Mozart there is, at least, one Salieri.

It is believed that a gifted person, who has received abilities from nature, blithely enjoys the gift he received for free all his life. But how did such people actually get along with their creative abilities?

What is a genius: a normal person or a sick person?

“For a long time, for example, the controversy surrounding the name of Jonathan Swift, the author of the immortal Gulliver, did not subside. Eventually, doctors diagnosed him: Mad! "
"In support of this theory, three pieces of evidence were usually cited. First, the appointment, shortly before the death of the writer, of an official trustee to supervise his affairs due to mental incapacity."
Secondly, progressive memory loss, inability to recognize even close friends and acquaintances. And finally, the efforts to create the first psychiatric hospital in Ireland, to which he bequeathed all his considerable fortune and in which, if you believe evil tongues his contemporaries, hoped to enter as the first patient.

The German composer Schumann began to suffer from bouts of insanity at the age of 24, and at the age of 46 he completely lost his mind.

He was haunted by talking tables, he saw sounds that formed chords and musical phrases.

The Swedish naturalist Linnaeus fell into a paralytic and senseless state by the age of 60.

The English writer Harrington imagined that thoughts were flying out of his mouth in the form of bees and birds, and grabbed a broom to disperse them.

The Italian philosopher Cardano imagined that all governments were spying on him, and the meat that was served to him was specially impregnated with wax and sulfur.

Mozart suffered from persecution mania, also believing that the Italians wanted to poison him.

Exaggerated and concentrated sensitivity is characteristic of both great people and madmen, as is temporary amnesia in both. Brilliant people, like crazy people, are alien to moderation in everything. Many of the geniuses abused and abuse alcoholic beverages.

So, Ibsen, after drinking too much, began to crumple and tear everything that came to hand, often destroying what he had just written.
Van Gogh painted for days, drank buckets of absinthe, cut off his left ear and painted a self-portrait in this form, and at the age of 37 he committed suicide. After his death, by the way, doctors published over 150 medical diagnoses that were given to the great painter during his lifetime.

Among other serious illnesses, doctors found Van Gogh to have epilepsy, a brain tumor, manic-depressive psychosis, schizophrenia, magnesium deficiency and even digitalis poisoning, which was used to treat mental illness at that time...

“Schopenhauer wrote: Geniuses are not only unbearable in life, but immoral and cruel, it is difficult for them to have friends. At the heights of thought, loneliness reigns. At the same time, Schopenhauer himself once beat an old woman and had to pay her a pension for the rest of her life.”

“One can say about brilliant people, just like about crazy people, that they remain lonely, cold, and indifferent to the responsibilities of a family man all their lives.
Heine wrote about himself: My mental excitement is more likely the result of illness than of genius. To console the suffering at least a little, I wrote poetry. On these terrible nights, mad with pain, my poor head rushes from side to side and makes the bells of my worn-out stupid cap ring with cruel gaiety. And he concluded his thoughts on genius and madness with the words: Creativity is a disease of the soul, just as a pearl is a disease of a mollusk. "

Geniuses are already unusual in appearance for their habits and eccentricities.