77 New Facts People Recently Learned And It Made Them Rethink Everything They Know (New Pics)

Today I learned that newborn babies have accents. It sounds wild since they can't even speak yet. But scientists say that because they're already listening while in the womb, once they're born, babies will cry in distinctive ways that reflect the language spoken by their parents.

"Human fetuses are able to memorize auditory stimuli from the external world by the last trimester of pregnancy, with a particular sensitivity to melody contour in both music and language," reads a study published in Current Biology.

The researchers recorded the cries of 60 newborns: 30 French and 30 German. They found that the French group produced cries with a rising melody contour, while the German group produced falling contours.

"Newborns are probably highly motivated to imitate their mother's behavior in order to attract her and hence to foster bonding," said the researchers. "Because melody contour may be the only aspect of their mother's speech that newborns are able to imitate, this might explain why we found melody contour imitation at that early age."

I'll also admit that I was today years old when I found out that ostriches find humans attractive to the point that some even lose interest in their own species. Dr. Charles Deeming from Lincoln, England, was the first to notice this phenomenon in 2002 and received the Ig Nobel Prize for his work on the topic.

"The males literally get down on bended knee when a farmer approaches - while the female click their beaks seductively," reported Wales Online.

Deeming, along with four other researchers, began investigating the birds' behavior after farmers reported that their ostriches were hardly laying any eggs.

"The farmers couldn't understand why every time they went to check on their ostriches they saw them engaging in courtship [behavior]," said Dr Charles Paxton, a statistician and ecologist at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. "What we found was that these animals were mostly displaying courtship [behavior] directed at the farmers. When human beings weren't around, their level of sexual [behavior] went right down."

Basically, the giant birds were more interested in their people than their mates.

Another really interesting fact on this list is the one about Parkinson's, and how your risk of being diagnosed with the disease is 126% higher if you live within a mile of a golf course.

"One reason why individuals living near golf courses could be at higher risk for PD has to do with pesticides," says medical writer and editor Dr. Naveed Saleh. "Golf courses use various pesticides to treat their greens, including organophosphates, such as chlorpyrifos; herbicides, such as 2,4-D; and historically persistent organochlorines. These pesticides have been associated with the development of PD."

But some experts are weary of the research...

“This study suggests an association between pesticides and Parkinson’s, however there are some important limitations in the methodology to be aware of. Firstly, Parkinson’s starts in the brain 10-15 years before diagnosis and the study didn’t only use subjects who permanently lived in the area," says Professor David Dexter, Director of Research, Parkinson’s UK. "This would not only affect participants’ exposure, but also suggests their Parkinson’s could have started before they moved around a golf course."

Dexter added that the population was also not matched for location. 80% of the Parkinson’s subjects lived in urban areas, compared to only 30% of controls, he said; hence, other factors like air pollution from motor vehicles, etc could also account for some of the increases in Parkinson’s incidence.

"Additionally, no analysis was made of the drinking water for pesticide levels," notes the expert. "Once again, this lessens the validity of the claim of pesticide exposure because the studies have not been carefully controlled.”