When someone refers to something as the cost of doing business these days, they generally refer to something that sounds out of line or unfair. It’s an indictment of how we view business in general that this has become a turn of phrase that can be used in everyday life. We recognize that business, no matter what kind of business it may be, is going to cost you. How much it costs can be surprising.

10. Item Returns Cost US Retailers Over $816 Billion 

When was the last time you returned something to a store? Maybe it was broken, food that had gone bad, or something you just didn’t like once you got it home and looked at it. Have you ever considered what that means to the business that accepts the return? Most of us don’t, but the cost of retail returns to businesses is an almost baffling $816 billion per year. That works out to more than what the US government spends on education training and employment programs in a year.

In many cases, there are multiple levels to how a return item costs a company money. For instance, if you return your Amazon order, Amazon pays the postage to take it back. A number of things can’t be restocked and sold to somebody else for various safety reasons. Other items are so inconvenient to restock that they’ll throw them out instead. 

About 16.5% of all retail sales are returned by consumers. Holiday returns alone account for $171 billion in losses. Fraudulent returns make up around $84 billion in yearly losses. 

9. The Original Xbox Cost Microsoft $4 to $7 billion 

The console gaming market was worth $37.9 billion in 2022, and it’s only expected to grow year over year. The market would be nowhere near as big as it is without the Xbox versus PlayStation battle that has fueled for decades now. 

Microsoft’s decision to join the console Wars and create the Xbox looked completely foolish when it started back in 2001, but it began to make a lot more sense. This is all because Microsoft lost between $4 billion and $7 billion on the original Xbox. 

Microsoft worked quickly to push out the original Xbox. It wasn’t designed to be cost-effective or efficient; they just wanted it done as soon as possible. Every piece of hardware they sold was a loss for the company. The idea was that they could make up money later on the software, which is clearly what they did as the Xbox gave way to the 360 and later generations that have all been huge money-makers. 

8. Friday the 13th Costs Businesses Hundreds of Millions

Paraskevidekatriaphobia is possibly the most costly fear for business in America. The fear of Friday the 13th may sound silly, but when you get to the bottom line, it’s no joke. People take this so seriously that it has a multi-million dollar impact on the economy every single time the 13th falls on a Friday.

An estimated $700 million to $800 million in productivity or revenue is lost every Friday the 13th due to people refusing to go to work or shopping. One survey in Britain showed that one in 20 people won’t leave their house on the unlucky day. 

Considering that there could be up to three Fridays the 13th on the calendar in any given year, the potential business loss could be over $2 billion in total.

7. CVS Lost $2 Billion in Annual Sales by Dropping Cigarettes

For many years doctors would endorse the smoking of cigarettes. TV commercials would feature someone in a nice white coat smoking their Marlboro and explaining how it helped relax you and take you to flavor country, or whatever the medical reason might be for smoking a cigarette in the 1950s. Later, this advertising method was dropped, but cigarettes were still not far removed from the world of healthcare. For decades you could buy cigarettes at a drugstore.

CVS drug stores stopped selling tobacco products in 2014. Remarkably, this did a great service to the world at large. 38% of CVS customers who were smokers stopped smoking altogether rather than inconveniencing themselves by going to another store to buy cigarettes. 

On the financial side, the company took a massive hit of around $2 billion by dropping tobacco. Their overall sales were $139 billion at the time, but a $2 billion loss is nothing to sneeze at. 

6. Sunny Delight Saw Its Sales Cut in Half by a Scandal

Sunny Delight was a childhood staple for many people of a certain age. It wasn’t exactly orange juice, but it was orange. That has to count for something. It became a huge hit when it made its way to the United Kingdom. Sunny Delight was the third best-selling soft drink in the UK in the ’90s, right after Coke and Pepsi. It was also the 12th best-selling grocery product of any kind in the country. However, that didn’t last long.

Though it sounds like an urban legend, there was a story in 1999 about a 4-year-old girl who drank so much Sunny Delight she turned yellow. This was true because of the amount of beta carotene added to Sunny Delight to give it the bright yellow color it was famous for. Although it was harmless, it faded soon after, and the girl had to drink 1.5 liters a day to achieve it; once the story hit the news, the damage was done.

Sales of the beverage were cut in half in the aftermath of the yellow girl scandal. This led the company to attempt rebranding in 2003, then a reformulation in 2009, and another tweak in 2010. Sales never fully recovered.

5. The Movie Sideways Cost Merlot Wine Makers $400 Million

Sideways was a 2004 comedy-drama about a trip through wine country. It was nominated for several Academy Awards and was generally well-liked by audiences. Most audiences, at least. But probably not the people who make Merlot wine.

The lead character in the film is something of a wine snob. At one point, he angrily exclaims that he has no intention of drinking merlot and insults the wine. You’d think a character in a movie doing that wouldn’t be a big deal, but you’d be wrong. This had a devastating effect on the real-world Merlot market. 

Sales of Merlot began to tank immediately after the film was released. Ten years on, the estimated loss was $400 million. Farmers lost about 7,650 acres of merlot grapes in favor of something else, in many cases pinot noir, which saw a huge boost after the film.

4. Tropicana Lost 20% of Their Sales After a Package Redesign

Have you ever wondered how important branding is for a product? Tropicana can tell you. In 2009, Tropicana decided to redesign its orange juice cartons. The juice stayed the same, all they did was change the package, which backfired miserably. 

For whatever reason, Tropicana felt the old look, which was just an orange with a straw in it under the product name, was not good enough. They spent $35 million on a rebranding campaign complete with a new design that was a close-up image of half a glass of juice. Not very complex stuff, right?

The company had about $700 million in annual sales before the redesign. Sales dropped by 20% after customers began to criticize the new look. That worked out to around $30 million on top of the $35 million they spent on the campaign in the first place.

The failure was blamed, at least in part, on Tropicana losing its connection with its customer base. Their old logo, which they went back to, was famous and iconic. It also has some personality. But they switched it to an incredibly generic redesign with little appeal, and customers rejected it very strongly. 

3. Halo 3 Was Blamed for a  27% Drop in Box Office Returns 

The box office success of movies is something that people find endlessly fascinating. Whether or movie does incredibly well or incredibly poorly, you can count on a hundred articles about it on entertainment websites for weeks to come. What’s far less common is when you find an outside reason for a drop in box office for all movies. But that happened in 2007 with the release of Halo 3.

Box office returns had plummeted 27% in October 2007 following Halo 3’s release, and it was the only thing analysts could think to blame for the massive slump. It was the worst October since 1999.

Analysts are often wrong, so you can take this all with a grain of salt, but the numbers were still awful. The Heartbreak Kid, a movie that reunited Ben Stiller with There’s Something About Mary directors the Farrelly Brothers, was expected to make as much as $25 million on its opening weekend. Instead, it took in $14 million. 

The link to Halo was established with Xbox Live numbers. 2.7 million people played the game in its first week, more than a third of everyone who was an Xbox Live member at the time. The game logged 40 million hours of play in its first week. Both Halo 3 and The Heartbreak Kid were looking to appeal to the same 18-34 demographic. Still, Master Chief seemed to win the battle handily. 

2. SC Johnson Lost a Huge Market Share by Changing Saran Wrap

Sometimes doing the right thing is a one-way trip to financial loss, something SC Johnson learned when they removed a dangerous chemical from Saran Wrap. Saran Warp famously contained something called polyvinylidene chloride. This compound was chiefly responsible for the cling quality of the plastic wrap that allowed it to stretch and stick over bowls ad plates to keep all your leftovers fresh.

It was actually news when the formula changed because people complained that their Saran Wrap didn’t cling like it used to. Clinging was the only thing people wanted Saran Wrap to do, so if it failed at that, it was a waste of money. The problem was that PDVC is very toxic and carcinogenic. 

SC Johnson dropped the chemical from the formulation, and their control of the market dropped from 18% to 11%,

1. Beavis and Butthead Destroyed Album Sales for the Band Winger

Beavis and Butthead started as a short cartoon before they got their own series on MTV in 1993. While the show mostly focused on Beavis and Butthead themselves, there were a couple of supporting characters who became memorable. One of these characters is Stewart, a nerdy kid from the neighborhood that Beavis and Butthead often mock. Like the two main characters, Stewart is always seen wearing a band shirt. That band was Winger. Winger believes Beavis and Butthead ruined their careers.

Winger guitarist Reb Beach once said the band had just released what he considered to be their best album. They were on tour to promote it when someone showed them an episode of Beavis and Butthead where they hung up Stewart by his underwear. They go to Stewart’s house, and all of his family, even the dog, are losers. And they’re all wearing Winger shirts.

The band’s tour sank immediately. People stopped buying tickets, and album sales went into the toilet. Radio stations stopped playing the band’s latest single because they were embarrassed. One stupid cartoon ruined them, costing Reb an expected $200,000 publishing advance.

In 2011, Kip Winger made amends with Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge and admitted the show had hurt them a lot, but they had buried the hatchet and moved on.

Adding new characters to a long-running television show is no easy task. In fact, there’s an entire trope called the Cousin Oliver, named after the character from the 1970’s classic The Brady Bunch. This is an extensive list of TV characters that were created late in the game to “spice things up.” This trope usually has a negative connotation, but not all late-stage characters are denounced by fans. For every Scrappy-Doo, there’s a gem that goes on to become a fan and critics darling.

Let’s look at ten fan-favorite TV characters who weren’t a part of the show’s original cast. But be warned, there are a few spoilers as well.

Related: 10 Iconic Characters Who First Appeared In Ads

10 Frank Reynolds: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The hit FX show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is one of the longest-running comedies on television. As of 2022, it has 15 seasons under its belt, with no sign of slowing. Considering its humble beginnings, it’s easy to call this the little show that could. In the early 2000s, Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, and Rob McElhenney were aspiring actors who crossed paths while auditioning for other films and TV shows. They eventually started shooting their own home movies on a Panasonic DVX100A, out of which the idea for It’s Always Sunny was born.

After shooting a pilot on a camcorder, it was picked up by the cable channel FX. The show was slow to attract an audience at first, but the execs at FX believed in it. They realized something was missing from the cast and decided to add a big name.

Enter Danny DeVito.

Despite the cast’s initial hesitation, Devito was added in season 2 as Dennis and Dee’s stepfather Frank Reynolds. The character is the polar opposite of the lovable persona DeVito is known for publicly. Instead, Frank is crass, profane, and cynical, making him the perfect addition to this dark comedy. This addition pulled the show back from the brink of cancellation. Most long-time fans of the show agree that DeVito’s character was the cherry on top that elevated a good show into greatness.^[1]

9 Ben Linus: Lost

For fans of the hit ABC show Lost, it’s almost hard to remember that Benjamin Linus was not part of the original cast. This serialized drama had audiences hooked from the get-go with its unfolding mysteries. Beyond its successful first season, the show only continued to grow in popularity with its sophomore outing. And much of that growth is thanks to the addition of actor Michael Emerson in the role of Ben.

For most of the second season, Ben was held prisoner and fooled the main group into thinking he was a man named Henry Gale. When his lies are unearthed at the end of the season, it’s revealed that Ben is actually the leader of The Others, a shadowy group that inhabits the unexplored side of the island. Worst of all, Ben spent most of season 2 exactly where he wanted to be—observing the group. Ben’s grey morality, thirst for power, and often murderous tendencies are just a few of the qualities that make him a fan favorite.^[2]

8 Fin Tutuola: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Much like Danny DeVito in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Ice-T was a well-known entertainer before joining the cast of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit at the beginning of its second season. In the show, he plays Odafin “Fin” Tutuola, a street-wise cop who transfers to the SVU from narcotics. His character has a tough exterior but a passion for helping abused children and victims of rape and assault. He is initially paired with Munch, a cynical and jaded older detective with a penchant for conspiracy theories. Despite being polar opposites on the surface, many SVU fans felt these two characters had a chemistry that matched that of Benson and Stabler, the show’s leads at the time.

Currently, Fin has been a main character on SVU for 22 years, making him the longest-tenured non-orignial castmember on this list. After Elliot Stabler left the squad back in 2011, Fin became the now-Captain Benson’s right-hand man and longest-running supporter.^[3]

7 Rafael Barba: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

The role of the assistant district attorney on Law & Order: Special Victim Unit has long been a revolving door. It’s tough to say which has been the most popular with fans, considering how loved Alexandra Cabot and Casey Novak were, but Rafael Barba easily gave them a run for their money.

Barba, played by Broadway vet Raul Esparza, first appeared in the season 14 episode “Twenty-Five Acts,” making him the latest season-joining character on this list. The actor was bumped up to a series regular the following season. Barba was known for being a no-nonsense strategic thinker who looked sharp in a three-piece suit. Fans of the show quickly embraced him for his wit, sass, and charisma. His character was the first male ADA to join the main cast.

In 2018, Esparza decided to leave the show and revive his stage career. His character received a rather divisive send-off in the episode “The Undiscovered Country” but has since made guest starring appearances across the 21st through 23rd seasons.^[4]

6 Desmond Hume: Lost

Desmond Hume is one of the most enigmatic characters to come out of the show Lost, and that’s saying a lot. His first scene alone is considered one of the show’s most iconic when he is revealed to be among the contents of the hatch, one of the central mysteries of the show’s first season. Despite appearing in the first scene of season 2, his character takes off and isn’t seen again until the season finale. Desmond becomes a regular cast member the following year.

At first, Desmond appears to have lost his sanity, which is unsurprising since he has spent years in solitary confinement, thinking the world outside the island no longer exists. But as the series progresses, we learn more about his backstory, and a beautiful love story between him and his wife Penelope unfolds. His character is the main focus of the much beloved season 4 episode, “The Constant.” This surreal episode ties “Through the Looking Glass” as the top rated of the entire series, according to fans on IMDB. Desmond’s story is quite different from the vast majority of characters on Lost, but that uniqueness, paired with his affable and kind nature, is what makes him a favorite.^[5]

5 Tommy Oliver aka the Green/White Ranger: Power Rangers

The first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers became a surprise smash hit with millennials back in the mid-1990s. Kids flocked to these five karate chopping, color-coded superhero teens. But the show shocked fans when it introduced an evil ranger in the 17th episode of the first season. Tommy Oliver was the new kid on the block, who also happened to be under the spell of Rita Repulsa, the arch nemesis of the show’s heroes.

What made Tommy popular with audiences was not just his long hair and bad boy looks—Power Rangers fans also empathized with his quest to find family and belonging. Beyond this, the show’s writers flexed their skills by crafting a great redemption arc in which he eventually regains control of his mind and goes on to lead the group as the White Ranger. The character also had an epic romance with Kimberly, the Pink Ranger.^[6]

4 Michonne: The Walking Dead

Michonne Hawthorne is one of the most popular, and most lethal, characters from the hit AMC show The Walking Dead. However, many long-time fans of TWD forget that this katana-wielding assassin was not part of the original cast—despite making a brief cameo as a cloaked figure at the end of season 2. However, she does not become a regular cast member until the following season.

In the beginning, Michonne travels with Andrea, one of the main characters from the first two seasons. But the two quickly part ways when Andrea decides to stay in the mysterious suburban community of Woodbury, which Michonne rightfully doesn’t trust. So she goes out on her own and happens to cross paths with Rick Grimes and the rest of Andrea’s original group of survivors. Despite initial hesitance to trust her, Michonne quickly befriends Rick’s son Carl and eventually ends up in a relationship with Rick himself.

Michonne, played by Black Panther star Danai Gurira, remained a main cast member on The Walking Dead until its 10th season. She is believed to have a kill count that rivals that of Rick Grimes and Daryl Dixon.^[7]

3 Lexa: The 100

There aren’t many characters on this list whose death almost tanked the entire show. The 100 is a post-apocalyptic teen series that aired on the CW from 2014 to 2020. The show focused on a group of 101 juvenile delinquents sent down to Earth from a space station 97 years after the end of the world. While never becoming a ratings juggernaut, the show maintained a fairly healthy viewership and garnered a passionate online fan base throughout its seven-year run.

In its second, and arguably best, season, The 100 introduced what would eventually become their most iconic character—a warrior queen named Lexa, played by Alycia Debnam-Carey. Lexa is introduced in a similar manner as Ben from Lost. The audience is led to believe she’s a limping servant girl, but it’s soon revealed that she is the leader of the grounders, the main antagonists (and eventual allies) of the first 2 seasons.

Lexa quickly became the love interest of Clarke, the show’s main character. In the third season, her character was killed by a stray bullet meant for Clarke soon after the two consummated their relationship. Off-screen, Debnam-Carey was simultaneously cast as a lead in the AMC series Fear the Walking Dead and was unable to continue shooting The 100. Unfortunately, many fans were furious and the show received a lot of public backlash. This also resulted in a drop in viewership and the show losing sponsors. Despite limping on for four more seasons, The 100 never quite regained its popularity.^[8]

2 Spike: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is easily one of the most critically acclaimed supernatural teen dramas to ever grace the airwaves. The show originally was conceived as a retooled version of a movie of the same name, both by writer and director Joss Whedon.

In the third episode of the second season, the hit WB show introduced a handsome, bleach-blond vampire named Spike, played by actor James Marsters. Spike is a fast-talking, charismatic bad boy who dons a leather jacket and rides in on a motorcycle. He is, in many ways, the antithesis of his old friend Angel, who is Buffy’s boyfriend and the only vampire with a soul. While Angel tries to live up to his name, Spike, on the other hand, revels in being bad.

Despite his edgy exterior, Spike is a hopeless romantic at heart who believes in the beauty of love and poetry. Spike also has a contentious and controversial romance arc with the lead character Buffy, which is something that continues to divide the fanbase decades later. The character not only spent six seasons on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but he also spent time as a lead character on the spinoff show Angel.^[9]

1 Klaus Michaelson: The Vampire Diaries

Rounding out the list is yet another vampire—well, hybrid, to be correct. The Vampire Diaries quickly became must-see television for teens when it premiered back in 2009. And despite its successful and fast-paced first season, this CW outing massively upped its game in season two by centering the plot around a family of vampires called the Originals.

Klaus is essentially the patriarch of the Originals, who are the original family of vampires within TVD lore. This makes him different from your run-of-the-mill vampire. While most vampires in The Vampire Diaries universe can be killed with any wooden stake, original vampires can only be killed with a stake made of wood from an ancient tree. Klaus also becomes part-werewolf, making him the first hybrid in this cinematic universe.

Power and strength aren’t the only things that made Klaus such an unforgettable character. For one thing, he’s played by classically trained actor Joseph Morgan, who many say is one of the best actors to grace the CW. On top of being a dominant alpha, Klaus is a tortured artist who puts family before everything. His character became so popular that he was chosen to star in his own spinoff series, aptly titled The Originals.^[10]

Back once again by popular demand, today we bring you 10 more facts that sound totally made up, but are actually true. We highly encourage you to take these tidbits to your friends and family, just to get a “WTF” reaction. They’ll probably go to Google to confirm it later, only to realize that you were actually right. We promise you that these are completely true facts, even if it sounds stranger than fiction. Seriously… you can’t make this stuff up.

10. Polar Bears are Invisible to Night Vision Equipment

Polar bears are amongst nature’s most fearsome and impressive predators. They can lay claim to being the largest land carnivores in the world. A male bear stands up to ten-feet tall on its hind legs and weighs well over twice as much as a large male African lion.

The popular idea that they use their paws to cover their black noses whilst hunting seems to be a myth. However, they still manage to remain very effectively camouflaged in their icy habitat, and this has made it extremely difficult to track their movements from the air.

Attempts to follow the animals by night proved even less successful when scientists discovered, to their considerable surprise, that angry polar bears, or indeed polar bears in any other kind of mood, are almost entirely invisible to sophisticated night vision goggles.

Exactly how polar bears manage this rather neat trick has been the subject of some debate. There’s no doubt that polar bears are excellent at conserving heat, or they wouldn’t survive for long. However, night vision goggles don’t pick up heat so much as the infrared radiation given off by that heat.

Quite how the polar bears prevent this radiation from escaping is rather more difficult to account for. What is known is that these huge animals come equipped with an unlikely stealth capability.

9. The United Kingdom is a Tornado Hotspot

A typical tornado is a swirling funnel of rapidly air stretching some 2,000 feet from the ground into the sky. They are formed when warm, humid air collides with cold, dry air, and even a relative tiddler releases huge amounts of energy.  By some estimates enough to power all the world’s electrical devices at once.

Tornadoes are commonly associated with the United States of America, with some states even enduring an official tornado season. The US is struck by more than 1,000 tornadoes a year, but the United Kingdom experiences more when measured by square mile.

This news would come as a surprise to most Britons who don’t realize they are living in the world’s tornado hotspot. However, European tornadoes tend to be far more modest affairs than their American cousins, allowing them to slip by largely unnoticed.  

Tornadoes are measured on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. This ranges from F0 tornadoes, which have a windspeed of 65-85 MPH, to F12 tornadoes, which have a windspeed slightly in excess of the speed of sound. The UK’s tornadoes tend to be at the F0 end of the scale. Fortunately for everybody concerned, F12s aren’t possible on Earth, at least under current conditions, and are confined to planets such as Neptune.  

8. Scientists Made Goats that Produce Spider Silk

Spider silk is one of the most extraordinary substances in the universe. It’s up to 1,000 times thinner than human hair, but it’s five times stronger than steel. On top of this it’s flexible, resistant to humidity, and retains its considerable strength even at extreme temperatures.

These properties make spider silk extremely useful for a wide variety of applications. The problem is that it’s difficult to obtain in any great quantities. Attempts to set up spider farms have met with limited success, since spiders tend not to mix well and have a tendency to eat each other. According to the chief executive of Nexio Biotechnologies, it’s like trying to farm tigers.

Scientists decided to get around this problem by implanting spider genes into goats. Genetically modified spider goats are considerably easier to manage, and their milk is full of silk proteins that can be extracted and put to a variety of uses.

The potential applications are vast, but some of the more remarkable suggestions have included the development of bulletproof skin and spider silk suspension bridges.

7. The Coldest Temperature Ever Recorded was in Massachusetts

The universe is characterized by being inconceivably huge and for the most part very chilly indeed.

With temperatures of around minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit, Neptune vies with Uranus for the record of coldest planet in our own solar system. Deepest outer space is colder still, with temperatures of minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit being deeply, and immediately, hostile to human life.

Massachusetts in the northeast United States of America, despite frequently being more than somewhat chilly, is for the most part considered altogether more agreeable, but it was here that scientists recorded the lowest temperature ever detected.

Theoretically the temperature can never go below absolute zero, or minus 460 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the point at which atoms lose all their energy. Absolute zero has never been recorded, and it may be a practical impossibility for anything to ever be quite this cold.

However, in 2003 researchers at the University of Massachusetts succeeded in chilling a cloud of sodium atoms to just a few billionths of a degree above this temperature. This placed the coldest temperature ever recorded, and quite possibly the coldest temperature the universe has ever seen, in Massachusetts.

6. The World’s Biggest Waterfall is Underwater

The Niagara Falls is arguably the most famous waterfall on the planet. More than 3,000 tons of water plummet over the falls every second of every day, and it attracts eight-million visitors each year.

As impressive as this undoubtedly is, it’s next to nothing compared to the biggest waterfall in the world. This distinction belongs to the behemoth that is the Denmark Strait Cataract, which has a two mile drop and a waterflow almost 2,000 times greater than even the mighty Niagara Falls.

Despite these impressive figures the Denmark Strait Cataract is largely unknown and seldom visited. This is in no small part due to the fact that it’s located deep underwater in the Atlantic Ocean between Greenland and Iceland.

The concept of an underwater waterfall seems somewhat strange, but it’s made possible because cold water is considerably denser than warm water. When the two meet at the Denmark Strait Cataract, the cold water plummets to the ocean floor producing what is by quite some distance the most substantial waterfall on the planet. Just don’t expect to see it on too many tourist postcards.  

5. The Longest Musical Performance in History is set to Last for 639 years

In musical notation the very slowest tempo marking is known as larghissimo, which typically indicates a tempo of a lethargic 10-20 beats per minute. However, compared to the longest and slowest piece of music ever performed, that sort of pace is positively manic.

At a church in Halberstadt, Germany, there is an organ that’s been playing the same chord since October 2013; it isn’t due to switch to the next chord until September 2020. This is the slowest section of the world’s slowest musical performance and the longest it will go without changing. However, even at its very liveliest there are only three chord changes in any given twelve months.  

This is all part of a performance of the composer John Cage’s “As Slow as Possible” that began in 2001 and is scheduled to last for 639 years, which is about as long as the specially constructed organ is expected to survive in working condition.

Not all of the residents of Halberstadt are enjoying the performance, and the organ has had to be encased behind a Perspex screen after locals complained about the endless, droning noise.

4. Humans can Outrun Horses

Humans perhaps aren’t the most physically impressive members of the animal kingdom. We aren’t particularly fierce, quick, or strong. If it wasn’t for our oversized brains and opposable thumbs we would most likely have gone the way of the dodo a long time ago.

There is none the less one physical discipline at which humans excel: we are amongst the greatest long distance runners on the planet.

The cheetah is the fastest land animal in a sprint, but at extreme distances they’d have no chance against humanity’s finest. We’re even capable of running down animals specifically built for stamina such as horses and wolves.

This ability was of great help to our ancestors in chasing down lunch, and it came courtesy of our seven-million or so sweat glands. By contrast some mammals such as rhinos, hippos, and pigs aren’t able to sweat at all. Other animals, including our closest relative the chimpanzee, have far fewer sweat glands than us. This makes humans extremely efficient at cooling down our bodies on the move.

In the modern world few people need go to such lengths in pursuit of a meal, but there are endurance races that pit man against beast.

Every year a Welsh village in the United Kingdom sets man-versus-horse in a race over a 22-mile course. The horses currently have their noses well in front, but there have been two human winners, so they haven’t had everything their own way. If the event was held in a hotter climate, humans might well hold the overall lead.

3. Sloths can Starve on a Full Stomach

Long distance running can provide an evolutionary advantage, but sloths have managed to survive for tens of millions of years despite hardly moving at all.

Absolutely nothing about them is built for speed, and even going flat out it would take them around a month to walk a single mile. This is rarely an issue as they spend around 90% of their time hanging upside down in trees and up to 20 hours a day sleeping.

Even a sloth’s stomach does things at its own pace, taking as much as an entire month to digest its way through a single meal. This might seem like an inefficient way of going about things, but it generally works out pretty well for the sloth. It’s rarely going to be in a hurry to find a meal, so it can take life at its own pace.

Unfortunately, there is one major disadvantage to the sloths’ digestive system; at low temperatures their gut bacteria stop working entirely. The sloth will no longer be digesting its meal, will no longer be extracting nutrients, and will be at risk of accomplishing the interesting but unfortunate trick of starving on a full stomach.

2. Your Taste Buds Don’t Work Properly at Altitude

Airline food tends to have a less than stellar culinary reputation. This is at least in part because airline meals tend to be prepared at least ten hours in advance. However, freshness isn’t the only factor at play. Somewhat strangely, research has shown that human taste buds don’t work properly at altitude.

An airliner’s typical cruising height is somewhere around 35,000 to 40,000 feet. Meanwhile humans start to lose their sense of taste at 30,000 feet.

 Around 70-80% of what we think of as taste is actually provided by our sense of smell, and while it may not be a terribly appetizing thought our sense of smell relies on evaporating nasal mucus. At 30,000 feet, the interior of a pressurised aircraft has a humidity of less than 12%, which is lower than most deserts. This means there isn’t much nasal mucus evaporation going on, hence why airliner food tends to taste of cardboard.

1. Some of Your Atoms Once Belonged to William Shakespeare

Atoms are the fundamental building blocks that make up everything, including us. Each and every human is put together from around seven billion, billion, billion of the things, adjusting upwards or downwards based on the individual’s size.

What is perhaps more surprising is that a tiny fraction of the atoms that make up your body once belonged to William Shakespeare.

Atoms are indivisible and to all intents and purposes almost entirely indestructible. These atoms are constantly being recycled, and it’s an arresting thought that 99.999% of the atoms you were made up of seven years ago have by now moved on to do different things entirely.

None the less, most of these itinerant atoms, and indeed those atoms that once belonged to the great bard, will have remained in the rough vicinity of planet Earth. Some very clever people have used very complicated math to calculate that a tiny number of Shakespeare’s atoms, and indeed those of almost any historical figure you could care to mention, are within your body right now, simply by virtue of how extraordinarily numerous they are.