Stuff You Notice

Fresh human brains smell like a mixture of very fresh, high-quality meat and Ivory soap.

The common daisy was used by the Romans in a poultice to slow bleeding and help heal wounds.

When a tendon snaps, it can sound like a pistol shot.

If you shine sunlight through a ruby it will throw a spot of red and a spot of blue light onto a white surface.

A ligament snapping makes less of a noise than a tendon and there is little pain, just a watery, weak feeling like the joint isn't there.

You can rappel with no equipment but a rope and ascend with nothing but a good pair of boot laces.

Bones make a dull snap noise when they break, and the pain of a hand is sharper than a rib is sharper than a leg. The pain of a healing bone is a dull ache, especially in the cold.

When you are a door gunner in a helicopter and the pilot is flying knap-of-the-earth and he banks hard, you have no sensation of movement: it looks like the earth just moved in front of you, turning into a wall.

The pain of circulation and sensation returning after severe frostbite is intense and it seems it will never end, it feels like a fire in a nightmare.

The Mayans never developed a true arch, so their walls are thicker and chambers smaller than we expect.

Crepitus is the crunchy sound of broken bone ends grinding against each other. There are other things that make that sound, too.

In an outer ring around every thermal is a downdraft.

There are different "flavors" of concussion. Some are fun, like being mildly drunk and hungover all at once.

Milking cows strengthens your grip like nothing else.

Your own bones look very white when you see them.

Right handed people tend to take slightly longer steps with their left legs.

The Spanish term for parasites is bichos. Not sure if that is spelled right.

Chichu is an Ecuadorian native chewed beverage. It tastes like weak beer mixed with milk.

Finger joints take forever to heal because they keep catching on things. I hate that.

Peacock tastes a lot like alligator (and neither tastes like chicken).

Once you get to the point that you can go hand to hand with a real criminal without the adrenaline effects, you get them again when it is time to shoot.

Water won't stick to a diamond.

What a cool world.