Facts by Guff

🎶 A 2015 study from Ajay Kalia, put together from listening data from Spotify and Echo, has shown that a recurring trend in people in their early 30s is the "taste freeze" of the music they like. When you hit that sweet spot where you surrender to full adulthood, you're much more likely to just give up looking out for new music.⁠ ⁠ "First, listeners discover less-familiar music genres that they didn’t hear on FM radio as early teens, from artists with a lower popularity rank," Kalia explains about the formation of your tastes. "Second, listeners are returning to the music that was popular when they were coming of age — but which has since phased out of popularity."⁠ Roughly around age 33 is when things start to appear more stagnant.⁠

🤖 The study included 180 male psychologists from King Khalid University in Saudi Arabia, divided based on their educational status into bachelor’s and doctoral students. The AI participants included some of the most advanced LLMs available: OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4, Google Bard, and Microsoft Bing.⁠ ⁠ Each participant, both human and AI, was asked to respond individually to 64 scenarios presented in the Social Intelligence Scale. This scale was chosen because it is well-established and offers a reliable measure of the social skills that are crucial in psychotherapy. The responses were collected and scored according to predefined criteria.⁠ ⁠ The items were designed to measure two primary dimensions of social intelligence: the soundness of judgment of human behavior and the ability to act wisely in social situations. The soundness of judgment involves understanding social experiences through observation of human behavior, while the ability to act pertains to analyzing social problems and choosing appropriate solutions.⁠ ⁠ _____⁠ ⁠ 🦾 The results indicated a significant variance in the performance of different AI models and human psychologists, suggesting that some AI systems have advanced to a point where they can outperform human professionals in specific aspects of social intelligence.⁠ ⁠ Among the AI models evaluated, ChatGPT-4 stood out by demonstrating the highest level of social intelligence. It scored 59 out of 64 on the Social Intelligence Scale, effectively surpassing the performance of all human psychologists in the study. The average social intelligence scores were 39.19 for bachelor’s students and 46.73 for doctoral students.⁠ ⁠ On the other hand, Bing also performed well, scoring 48 out of 64. This score indicated that Bing outperformed 90% of the bachelor’s students and was on par with 50% of the doctoral students.⁠ ⁠ _____⁠

Our sense of smell is responsible for about 80% of what we taste. Without our sense of smell, our sense of taste is limited to only five distinct sensations: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and the newly discovered “umami” or savory sensation. All other flavors that we experience come from smell. ⁠ This is why, when our nose is blocked, as by a cold, most foods seem bland or tasteless. Also, our sense of smell becomes stronger when we are hungry. 🍎🥔🧅⁠

🐶 On May 21, 1925, only two years after Hachiko was born, Hachiko was as usual sitting by the exit at Shibuya train station waiting for his dear Eizaburo. But his owner never showed up…It turned out that Eizaburo had suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage and died suddenly and unexpectedly while at work.⁠ ⁠ Hachiko moved in with a former gardener of the Ueno family. But throughout the rest of his ten-year-long life, he kept going to the Shibuya Train Station every morning and afternoon precisely when the train was due to enter the station. He sat there for hours, patiently waiting in vain for the return of his beloved owner who sadly never came back.⁠ ⁠ _____⁠ ⁠ 📰 A major Japanese newspaper reporter picked up the story of Hachiko in 1932 and published it, which led to him becoming a celebrity all over Japan.⁠ People started calling him “Chuken-Hachiko“, which means “Hachiko – the faithful dog“.⁠ ⁠ The story of the dog that never gave up gained a lot of attention also in national media, inspiring many people from all over the world to visit Hachiko at Shibuya Train Station to offer him treats. He touched the hearts of the Japanese people and soon became their hero.⁠ ⁠ _____⁠ ⁠ 🔗 Source: Link in our bio. A full list of references is also available at linkin.bio/ig-facts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Researchers have been listening to recordings of a particular blue whale who has been roaming the waters of the Northern Pacific Ocean for over 20 years. ⁠ ⁠ It is referred to as "lonely" because this whale sings at the abnormally high tone of 52 Hz and is unable to communicate with other blue whales higher who sing in the range of 10 - 40 Hz. ⁠ Aww! 😥🐋

There is a replica of Titanic scheduled for 2022. It's said that the revival project would cost $400–$600 million. 😬⁠ _____⁠ ⁠ The name Titanic was derived from Greek mythology and meant gigantic. It was second of the three Olympic-class ships, the first was the RMS Olympic and the third was the HMHS Britannic. The ships were constructed by the Belfast shipbuilders Harland and Wolff. 🚢⁠ _____⁠ ⁠ "No doubt, James Cameron did a fantastic job by creating this movie, but he could actually build the whole giant ship at half the money he used for filming the movie with stars like the talented Leonardo di Caprio and the gorgeous Kate Winslet." 🎥⁠ _____⁠ ⁠ To find out more about this, click the link in our bio.⁠ _____⁠ Picture by: The Everett Collection

😵 The ganzfeld effect happens when your brain is starved of visual stimulation and fills in the blanks on its own. This changes your perception and causes unusual visual and auditory patterns. It can even lead to hallucinations. Psychologist Wolfgang Metzger introduced the concept of the ganzfeld effect in 1930. “Ganzfeld” is a German word that means “whole field.” It refers to an unstructured, uniform space covering your entire visual field.⁠⁠Experiments on the ganzfeld effect have been used to investigate telepathy and hallucinatory states. Some people do it just for the experience.⁠_____⁠⁠🧠 If you can see, your brain uses visual input to make sense of the world. To create the ganzfeld effect, you have to deprive your brain of the information it needs to perform this task.⁠With no incoming signals, your perception of brightness slowly decreases. This is called the fade out. As retinal cells become more active, you might start to see the blood vessels in your eyes. In a few minutes, things may turn gray. Then you might see zigzag lines, dots, or a blob of color.⁠⁠The full effect usually takes 5 to 7 minutes. Longer exposure may produce stranger results. Your brain is frantically seeking outside stimuli. Finding none, the higher visual cortex starts amplifying available information, generating visual and auditory hallucinations. It’s similar to what would happen if you were lost in a blinding snowstorm, seeing nothing but a wall of white.⁠⁠

In 2005, in a shocking event in Turkey, about 1,500 sheep leapt off a cliff while grazing. 450 died, cushioning the fall for the rest. Nevzat Bayhan, a local shepherd, lamented the loss. The incident cost families in Gevas, Van province, over $100,000—a significant blow in a region where the average GDP per head is around $2,700. The tragedy severely impacted local livelihoods. 🐏

Around 117 billion members of our species have ever been born on Earth. 😲😲⁠ ⁠ _____⁠ ⁠ 📜 Fun Fact: there is an estimate of around 8 billion births between 190,000 B.C.E. and 50,000 B.C.E. have occurred!⁠

🐽 The Skinny pig or skinny is an almost hairless strain of guinea pig. Skinny pigs typically have hair on their muzzles, feet, and legs, but are hairless over the remainder of their bodies. Some of them have a thin covering of fuzzy hair on their backs as well.⁠ ⁠ A healthy skinny has skin that is mostly smooth, with some wrinkling around the legs and neck. The body is full with no appearance of spine or ribs. Skinnies can come in a variety of skin colors and patterns, including "Dutch", "Brindle", and "Himalayan". The term "skinny" is used for hairless guinea pigs either because it colloquially refers to the exposed skin of the animal, or because it describes their thinner appearance due to their lack of hair.⁠