Many things in life require careful planning and preparation. No one becomes an expert at anything overnight; you need to invest time and effort in learning skills to succeed. But that doesn't mean happy accidents don't happen all the time. People win the lottery or narrowly avoid getting hit by a car. However, for the most part, we recognize the difference between these things. Skills and behavior tend to develop over time, while things that happen spontaneously are often random and unpredictable. But every now and then, some wires cross, and some amazing things can happen completely unexpectedly.
10. Richie Havens spontaneously composed "Freedom" on stage at Woodstock.
Songwriting is one of those things that most people actually have to work at to achieve success. The Beatles never freestyled at all during their career. You have to work on creating a hit song most of the time. But as Richie Havens proved, most of the time isn't all the time.
Havens' song "Freedom" is arguably his biggest hit. You might remember it from the movie «Django Unchained» , if you're not familiar with it yet. He debuted with this song in 1969 in Woodstock , and there's a hell of a story behind it. The video is also stunning, especially when you watch Havens, literally drenched in sweat, playing his guitar and dancing while the crowd rises to their feet along with him. It's all even more amazing when you realize he did it on the spot.
Havens had no songs to sing at this point in the show. He was on stage. three hours straight , and he had nothing left. He had to go to the theater after Woodstock to watch the recording his games so he could learn the song, music, and lyrics, since he didn't remember any of it. From then on, he had to play it in almost every show he ever did.
9. Wild mice run on wheels
If you've ever had a hamster or gerbil as a pet, you've likely had a walking wheel where the little guy could run around. Mice and other rodents also love these toys and will happily run on them for as long as they're young, with little to no prompting. What you may not have considered is how and why these animals do it. There's nothing in nature quite like a wheel, something these animals can instinctively operate. So how do they learn to do it?
It turns out that mice spontaneously run on wheels Without any real reason. Wild rodents have never been exposed to wheels, like their ancestors, suggesting this is a learned behavior during domestication, and they will jump and run to their hearts' content. They do this even without any reward. They will also work for a period of time. , equivalent to time keeping mice in captivity.
The consequences of this aren't world-changing, but if you've ever feared your pet escaping because they were a bored captive with nothing better to do, don't worry. They'd do the same in the wild if they had the chance.
8. Nicaraguan Sign Language
Sign language has proven to be an invaluable communication tool for the deaf and hard of hearing, but not everyone knows that is used in the world more than 300 various sign languages. One of them was developed by children on the playground without any prompting or influence from adults. This is the only one spontaneously developing language , which has ever been fixed in the form in which it developed without any influence from other languages.
When this language was developed in the 1970s, children from all over the country came together, but they I couldn't read lips in a school setting. This is how they began to communicate independently in a language that isn't a direct offshoot of Spanish. Language researchers have even discovered how language shapes our thoughts, thanks to tests that show a significant difference in spatial perception between those who developed these languages and those who grew up with them and never knew anything else.
7. Spontaneous facial expression
In addition to spoken language, humans have developed the ability to communicate through visual cues. Body language and facial expressions convey a great deal of meaning. Something like a smile is obviously considered a sign of happiness, while a frown is a sign of sadness. A frown can indicate anger, and a raised eyebrow can indicate curiosity or confusion. But how do we know what facial expressions mean?
It seems likely that we learn facial expressions by seeing facial expressions, but research has shown that spontaneous facial expression in people who cannot see at all and therefore could not learn these expressions from others, is congenital .
Researchers studied the spontaneous facial expressions of athletes, some of whom sighed, some of whom were born blind, and others of whom lost their sight later in life. During matches, after victories or defeats, and during awards ceremonies, spontaneous facial expressions were largely the same in all three groups, suggesting that the way we express emotions such as sadness, anger, disgust, and joy on our faces is not a learned behavior.
6. Spontaneous combustion of pistachios
Pistachios are one of the most popular There are plenty of nuts you can buy, and for good reason, they're quite tasty. But unlike most other nuts, pistachios pose a hidden danger that can strike at any moment. Pistachios are known to spontaneously combust.
Pistachios are high in fat and low in moisture. They can be up to 55% fat content . If you pack a large number of pistachios together at high temperatures, this fat will begin to decompose and break down when exposed to air. Moisture and oxygen can cause them to produce carbon dioxide through an enzymatic reaction, which also releases a significant amount of heat.
They must be transported in cool, dry conditions to minimize the risk. Not only can they explode in these conditions, they can also strangle you , if you are in a confined space with them due to the carbon dioxide they produce.
5. Ambien may temporarily and spontaneously reverse neurological damage
Ambien has been a fairly popular sleep aid since it was developed in the late 1980s. Side effects range from fairly common things to sleepwalking, sleep eating, and even sleep driving. But there's another very rare side effect of Ambien that's even more remarkable. In several cases, Ambien has caused people with severe brain damage spontaneously regained the ability to move or speak after many years of being unable to do so.
In one case, a man who did not speak or move for 8 years Due to a lack of oxygen to his brain after suffocation, he began speaking again after being given Ambien. He called his father; he asked for fast food; he even walked with assistance, although he also had retrograde amnesia for three years before the accident.
Unfortunately, the effects were temporary, and each new dose gave him less and less time until finally it worked with a gap of several weeks between doses.
4. The lawyer's pants spontaneously caught fire
Sometimes the world is simply saturated with irony, and it seems that this story is no different. Lawyers, despite all the good they can do in this world, are often maligned and mocked. Lawyers are stereotypically viewed as unprincipled, predatory, and dishonest. The latter is a big shot. Lawyers are often considered to distort the truth, if not outright lie, in an attempt to win their cases. Whether true or not, they have a reputation.
With this in mind, the story of spontaneouslywith burning pants lawyer In the middle of a trial, it feels like a script for a Hollywood movie. The whole "liar, liar's pants are on fire" thing is just too much.
Adding another layer of charm to the story, the Florida defense attorney was in the middle of arson trial , defending his client when his pants began to smoke. The man had previously kept several batteries for his e-cigarette in his pocket, and they began to overheat.
A quick run to the bathroom where he dropped the battery into the water saved him from serious injury, and he even returned to work with slightly damaged pants.
People have been making sick jokes about artificial intelligence for years. Thanks to films like The Matrix and Terminator, we've all learned that intelligent machines could one day rise up and either destroy us or enslave us. But not all AI is pure doom and gloom, and we can look to Google for proof.
Back in 2012, Google was testing a neural network that connected 16,000 computer processors with a billion connections between them, forming an artificial brain. They did what anyone in the modern world would do with a computer brain: let it watch YouTube.
You may or may not be surprised to learn that the brain spent three days on YouTube and during this time looked through 10 million images . Even though the machine was never told what a cat was or what it looked like, it began identifying cat videos on its own, proving what many of us learned years ago: that the internet is simply a repository of cat videos and then supporting material. .
It started recognizing faces without being taught what faces were or how it should recognize them, and cat faces were right there alongside human faces. The programmers behind it never gave it any information about cats, so the brain learned everything on its own. cat concept .
2. Corpses can spontaneously open their eyes
For a long time it was believed that human hair and nails continue to grow after death, but In fact, this is not true . But that doesn't mean the human body won't spontaneously do some rather disturbing things after being extricated from this mortal coil. Far more disturbing than potential hair growth is the possibility that a human corpse might open and close eyes .
Known as cadaveric spasms , Muscles active at the moment of death may be stiff and rigid, then relax, giving the impression that the body is moving or adjusting. Rigor mortis sets in later, paralyzing the entire body, followed by secondary relaxation, which can create the impression that the corpse shifts and adjusts its muscles more than once after death.
1. The Spontaneous Orgasm Mushroom in Hawaii
This claim is a bit dubious because there's very little evidence to support it, but by the same token, there's nothing yet to refute it. It comes from a single study conducted in 2001 on a mushroom found in Hawaii. The study, conducted by a pair of medical students, suggests that the mushroom's scent may trigger a reaction in women. spontaneous orgasms .
The statement still stands not proven, because people were clearly skeptical of the claim, but since it's not really at the forefront of pressing scientific issues, no one made the effort to completely disprove it.
According to the study, the mushrooms grow in recent lava flows. Men who smelled the mushroom found it disgusting, but about half of the women had a spontaneous reaction. Only 16 women were included, so the sample size was initially small, and the actual species of the mushroom was never identified.