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The chances of accidentally insulting someone is greater when you travel internationally, thanks to differing customs and ideas of etiquette. Even common hand gestures can signal the wrong thing.

Mental Floss has gathered five hand signals that don’t mean what you might think, depending on the country you’re in. A thumbs up, for example, doesn’t mean “good job” in parts of Latin America, West Africa, Iran, and Sardinia—it’s more like giving someone the finger. Likewise, the peace sign is not so peaceful in the UK, depending on how your palm is turned, and the okay sign does not mean “okay” in the Middle East, Turkey, Germany, or Brazil.

Before you travel to a foreign country, it’s best to review the etiquette and customs, including when it comes to eating. Or, in case of doubt, just to avoid making hand gestures all together.’  (Lifehacker).

‘Watertown, New York is the last place you\’d expect to find a creepy, supernatural mystery. After all, they\’re mostly known as the birthplace of the safety pin and those air fresheners for your car that are shaped like trees – both safe, friendly things. But now, it seems that they’re finally ready to admit that they\’re becoming more well known for their local park’s nasty habit of eating people.

Last week, the city officials erected a sign in the park warning locals of the \”vortex\”. As it turns out, the Mayor himself felt compelled to acknowledge the rumors after digging up some recently declassified information linking Watertown to the infamous Area 51 base in Nevada.’ (Roadtrippers).

‘More than 7,000 Americans named John Smith have gone missing.  Smith is unchallenged as the most numerous surname in the U.S., some 28 percent ahead of second-place Johnson, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and WhitePages.com. And, based on the most recent available data from these sources, John heads the list of the most frequent first names. And yet, John Smith doesn’t even rank in the top 10 combinations of first and last name in the country. What happened? Where did all the John Smiths go?’ (Slate)

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