That Can't Be True! #4

True! It’s hard to imagine a country without crime, but it actually does exist. Liechtenstein, wedged in between Austria and Switzerland, has a total prison population of just ten people in its single prison, and any criminal requiring a sentence of more than two years is sent to Austria.

True! The backgrounds in Disney’s Bambi were inspired by landsape paintings of the Song dynasty. It was an innovation by the film’s lead artist, the Chinese immigrant Tyrus Wong. Despite its celebration as an animation classic, Wong himself, according to the New York Times, “endured poverty, discrimination and chronic lack of recognition, not only for his work at Disney but also for his fine art, before finding acclaim in his 90s.”

True! Russia has a surface area of 17,075,200 square kilometers, while planet Pluto was estimated to be 16,647,940 square kilometers. After the New Horizons mission, Pluto was found to be slightly larger than estimated, making its surface area 17,646,012 square kilometers, which is just a bit larger than Russia.

True! While being mind-controlled by aliens, Kirk and Uhura (played by William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols, respectively) made television history by having the first-ever interracial kiss in a 1968 episode of the Star Trek television series.

True! Of all the organs in the human body, the liver is the only that can regenerate. As researcher Richard Bowen explains, “The liver has a remarkable capacity to regenerate after injury and to adjust its size to match its host. Within a week after partial hepatectomy, which, in typical experimental settings entails surgical removal of two-thirds of the liver, hepatic mass is back essentially to what it was prior to surgery.”

True! That sounds like a weird title of a rock album, but it’s true. In the jungles of Madagascar, lemurs get a buzz by chomping down on a particular species of millipede that causes toxins to release, leading them to salivate and appear intoxicated. Besides getting them high, the bugs may also have another positive effect: acting as an insecticide.

True! In 2005, Neil Armstrong threatened legal action against his barber, who had made an estimated $3,000 by selling his famous customer’s hair. The barber refused and both the hair and the barber’s comb and scissors went on sale on Amazon in 2016 for $38,611.

True! The tension between cats and dogs goes back millennia. According to researchers, some 20 million years ago, ancient cats and dogs battled for scarce food, and the cats won out. “When various species of cats first appeared in North America, there was a steep decline in the number of canine species in the same area,” as Daniele Silvestro, a computational biologist at the University of Gothenburg and lead author of a paper on the subject, explained to Quartz.

True! Created by a quirky American inventor and backed by Jeff Bezos (to the tune of $42 million), the 10,000 Year Clock is being built under a mountain in the middle of a Texas desert, which will tick just once every year, with a hand that moves once a century and a cuckoo that emerges every 1,000 years. Its purpose is to make “long-term thinking more common.”

True! In 1923, Frank Hayes was hailed the victor at a race at Belmont Park in New York. The only problem? The jockey had suffered a heart attack and died in the middle of the race, so he wasn’t exactly able to celebrate his victory.

True! The long arms of Mongolian herdsman Bao Xishun—who at 7′, 8.95″ was the tallest man in the world in 2006—saved the day when a pair of dolphins were found to have swallowed plastic shards that other instruments were unable to extract from their stomachs. Bao’s unusually long arm proved a more effective tool and saved the lives of both creatures.

True! According to Guinness, the honor of having the longest continuous tire skid on a road was earned by Norman Craig Breedlove, whose jet-powered Spirit of America went out of control at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in 1964. At almost six miles long, the record remains on the books.

True! Stretching 105 stories into the sky, construction on the pyramid-shaped Ryugyong Hotel began in 1987 and stopped in the early 1990s due to economic depression. Though attempts to finish and open the building for business have been made in fits and starts, the hotel (which was originally intended to house five revolving restaurants and 3,000 to 7,665 guest rooms) remains unoccupied and earned the nickname, “Hotel of Doom.”

True! Vikings were some of the toughest dudes in history, but also cared about their appearance enough that makeup was a standard part of their look. According to the National Museum of Denmark, “A Spanish Arab who visited Hedeby around the year 1000 described how both men and women in the town wore make-up to look younger and more attractive.”

True! Earwax has anti-herpes, anti-micrococcus and anti-staphylococcal properties. Apply earwax directly on a cold sore and in time it’ll stop the tingling and pain.

True! It might seem like he was in the wrong line of work. Harrison Schmitt, from the Apollo 17 mission, found out that he had a severe allergy to moon dust.