Since I’m a curious guy, I often write down things that I notice during the day. Usually, at the end of the day I spend a few minutes to look these things up and write them down in my notes as TILT, Things I Learned Today.

This week was an especially curious week. I ran across a couple of interesting things… and of course, each thing I looked up led to another question. Here are three TILT questions from my week.

● There were several news articles about electric eels leaping out of the water to shock their prey. (This captured my fancy partly because it’s quite a striking image, but ALSO because of the connection with Alexander von Humboldt

An electric eel at rest, not leaping. But it could.

That made me wonder…

1. What other kinds of fish leap from the water to attack their prey?

● I also saw a YouTube video that mentioned the use of X-rays to destroy hair follicles to permanently remove hair from your body. (Note: This turned out to be a really bad idea.)

2. What other interesting / odd uses did people (unwisely) use X-rays for during the past 100 years? (You don’t have to list them all, just one unusual use that you didn’t know about before.)

● During a concert this week in a local church, I noticed something on the ceiling of the apse that was a surprise (see below). I didn’t recognize it, so I looked it up, and realized that there was a strong connection with the name of the church.

3. What’s the name of the church where the concert was held?

Can you figure these out?

They’re great examples of what it means to follow-up and satisfy on your curiosity.

When you figure them out, be sure to comment about WHAT motivated you and HOW you found your insights?

Stay curious, my friends. Search on!