Episode 6

The One With The Empire State Building

Episode 6
Photo by Kit Suman / Unsplash

The Empire State Building

The Empire State Building is a 1,250 feet, 102-story tall building in the heart of Manhattan.
It cost $41 million ($595 million in today's money) and took 401 days to construct by 3,500 construction workers, finishing in 1931.
It has 73 elevators, an antenna that was added in the 50s (which now takes the height to 1,454 feet) and receives 4 million visitors a year, generating $43 million a year for the owners.

UFO'S

A 2022 declassified document by the Office Of The Director Of National Intelligence states that in 2022, there were 366 Unidentified Flying Objects reported for the year.
195 objects were able to be identified as balloons, plastic debris, drones and so on.
171 were unable to be identified and are still under investigation by the Pentagon.

Shaving

The average male spends approximately 20 weeks of their life standing in front of a mirror having a shave.

Brain Cells

Being completely silent for two hours every day encourages brain cells in the hippocampus part of the brain to develop.
The hippocampus is where memories are stored.

Paris Hilton

In 2011, a guy from Los Angeles called Paz managed to bluff his way into Paris Hiltons 30th birthday party.
After getting free drinks and dancing a little with celebrities, he noticed that nobody was being given any birthday cake. After asking someone when they may be dishing it out, he was told the cake was a $2,000 cake that would go into the bin after photos were taken with Paris next to it.
Realising they were going to throw the cake in the bin, he decided to pick the cake up, walk confidently past security so as not to raise suspicion and left the party with it.
30 minutes later he had helped himself to a nice big slice of the cake and then left the remainder of it with a group of homeless people to enjoy.

Takeaways

A Ghost Kitchen is an establishment that runs multiple takeaway services from the same premises. During the Pandemic lockdowns, many restaurants became Ghost Kitchens to remain open and trading,  providing different food services for delivery that all came from one commercial kitchen. Running multiple takeaways from one kitchen avoided paying multiple business rates, taxes and extra red tape.

Yellowstone Park Boat

In Yellowstone Park, there is a huge lake called Yellowstone Lake. The boat in the photograph, taken in 1871, is the very first documented boat to sail on the lake and took passengers over to Stevenson Island. It had the name, Annie.

Scribbling Out

If you have something written down you don't want people to see, instead of simply crossing it out as most people do, write different words over the top of what you want to hide.
It makes it much harder to decipher.

Cable Car

This is the first cable car to take passengers to the top of Table Mountain, South Africa.
It was officially opened in 1929, and while it has undergone many updates and replacements, there has never been an accident among the 20 million passengers it has taken up and down the mountain.

AI Prosecutor

Chinese scientists have developed an AI prosecutor that can press charges with more than 97% accuracy.
The machine was trained on more than 17,000 cases from 2015 to 2020 and can now identify and press charges for eight of Shanghai's most common crimes.
The AI prosecutor is still under development, but its creators say it will eventually be able to recognize less common crimes and file multiple charges against one suspect.
The use of AI in the justice system has raised concerns about bias and fairness, but the Chinese government says the AI prosecutor will be subject to the same checks and balances as human prosecutors.

New Body Part

Scientists have discovered a previously unknown body part in the human anatomy. The structure called the atlantoaxial joint capsule, is a small, fluid-filled sac that helps to cushion the top two vertebrae in the neck. The joint capsule was first identified in cadavers, but researchers have now confirmed its existence in living people using MRI scans.

The discovery of the atlantoaxial joint capsule could have implications for our understanding of neck injuries and pain. The joint is particularly vulnerable to damage in car accidents and other high-impact events. The capsule may help to explain why some people experience chronic neck pain after such injuries.

Alux

This unidentified creature was photographed in 2021.
According to local superstition, it is an Alux, a type of sprite or spirit in the mythological tradition of certain Mayan people.

SETI

The SETI Institute, which is looking for signs of Alien life in the universe has turned to A.I. to process data in seconds that a human would normally take hours to do.
A recent project with A.I. scanned and looked for unusual anomalies in the universe, that could represent alien technology being used.
820 star systems and 480 hours of data were analysed and the A.I. discovered 8 potential alien techno-signatures requiring further detailed analysis.