Esoteric Meandering Shouting Into the Void

There are few individuals in European history as influential as Napoleon Bonaparte. The historic leader is remembered for his iconic bicorn hat, his allegedly short stature (a bit unfairly, since he was actually of average height for his time), and his singular military skill. During his lifetime, Napoleon went from a student in a French military academy to the ruler of an empire that spanned nearly all of continental Europe. By the time he was finally defeated in 1815, his series of conquests, known as the Napoleonic Wars, had changed the European continent forever. Here are seven facts about Napoleon Bonaparte that offer a small glimpse into his spectacular rise and fall.

French Wasn’t His First Language

Despite the central role Napoleon played in the history of France, he didn’t start learning to speak French until he was 9 years old. Napoleon was born on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, where most people spoke a regional dialect of Italian, and this was the language he grew up speaking. He spoke with a Corsican accent throughout his life, and even after he became emperor of France, this accent continued to mark him as a foreigner on the French mainland and served as a reminder of his Mediterranean origins.

Sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins can.Sloths are masters of living life in the slow lane. These tree-hugging mammals, split into two-toed and three-toed varieties, travel only about 125 feet a day — so slowly that moss and algae grow on their fur. This lethargic lifestyle is actually a survival strategy suitable for their slow metabolisms and low-calorie diets, which are mostly based on tree leaves. In fact, three-toed sloths have the slowest metabolism of any mammal (followed closely by pandas and two-toed sloths). 

Their sluggish metabolism, as well as their ability to slow their heart to one-third its normal rate, give sloths an unexpected superpower — they can hold their breath for an impressively long time. With estimates suggesting that some two-toed sloths can hold their breath for upwards of 40 minutes, this makes sloths better at conserving oxygen than even some marine mammals such as dolphins, who can only hold their breath for 15 minutes, max. The sloth breathing technique, aided by the design of their lungs, helps make sloths excellent swimmers. So while their leisurely lifestyle may seem a bit lazy to the untrained eye, don’t blame the sloth — they’re just built that way.

There’s a spot on Earth that’s nearly as sunny as Venus.Compared to other planets in our solar system, Earth is filled with impressive landscapes, including snow-capped peaks, lush rainforests, and vast oceans. But some places on our planet are so extreme, they’re otherworldly — like Venus otherworldly. The Atacama Desert in Chile is one of the driest places in the world, so it makes sense that such a parched ecosystem would get its fair share of sun. But in the summer of 2023, scientists discovered that some parts of this immense plateau in fact get far more sunlight than any other place on Earth. While taking measurements of solar irradiance (light energy from the sun) on the Chajnantor plateau, researchers discovered — via a complex meteorological process known as “forward scattering” — that this area was nearly as sunny in summer as the surface of Venus.

Despite some key differences between the two planets, scientists often call Venus Earth’s twin. Venus is roughly the same size as Earth, formed in the same area of the inner solar system, and is composed of much the same material — scientists even theorize that Venus was just like Earth some 3 billion years ago. But it is definitely not Earthlike now; it’s a sweltering hell planet thanks to an atmosphere of thick carbon dioxide that traps all greenhouse gases. If you somehow found yourself on Venus, high levels of solar irradiance would be the least of your immediate worries, considering its surface temperatures of 900 degrees Fahrenheit and sulfuric acid-filled clouds.

As we celebrate the first day of 2024, consider it a testament to the longevity of one of civilization’s oldest staples: the calendar. The earliest means of measuring days and weeks dates back 10,000 years, and timekeeping techniques adopted by the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and Romans slowly evolved into the calendar we use today. Yet the emphasis here is on “slowly.” The evolution from charting moon phases to separating seasons to measuring fiscal years was one of controversy and chaos across centuries. Still, humans never stopped working to perfect how we mark the passage of time. Here’s a brief look at the fascinating history of calendars, just in time to start a new one.

The First Known Calendar Is From Prehistoric Scotland

In 2013, British archaeologists discovered what they consider the world’s oldest calendar, dating back to around 8000 BCE. The prehistoric calendar, located at Warren Field in Scotland, consists of 12 pits believed to have contained wooden posts representing months of the year. Positioned to chart lunar phrases, the pits are aligned with the southeast horizon and were likely used by hunter-gatherer societies to track seasons. The site precedes Stonehenge by several thousand years.