Ferdio is an infographic agency in Copenhagen, Denmark, and they're on a mission to inform the Internet about just how incredible our world really is.
To do so, Ferdio launched Factourism, a project dedicated to sharing facts that are 100% true and 100% fascinating. Tailoring them to fit online, Ferdo is illustrating the facts too, and the pictures are really cool.
Continue scrolling to check them out and fire up Ferdio's earlier submission to Bored Panda if you want more interesting trivia.
More info: factourism.com | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
This post may include affiliate links.
Guard Geese
Geese have excellent hearing, exceptional eyesight, are very territorial, aggressive, and loud. For all of these reasons, some police stations in rural parts Xinjiang Province now have geese guarding at night.
"In a world where fake news, misinformation, and biased content are on the rise, it can be hard to separate truth from fiction. This shouldn’t be the case," a Ferdio spokesperson told Bored Panda. "Actually, the world is fascinating without faking it. Therefore, we created Factourism -- a place to explore all of the amazing facts of our world, combining our love for strange facts with our love for illustration."
Ferdio wants everyone to have zero doubt when it comes to their facts' legitimacy, so it provides the source for each one of them.
Mary Kenneth Keller
Born in 1913, Sister Mary Kenneth Keller professed her vows with the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the 40s, before proceeding to get a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in mathematics and physics in the 50s. Finally, she completed her PhD in computer science in the 1965, one of the first two of its sort in the US, with her thesis “Inductive inference on computer generated patterns”.
"Sure, there already are a lot of fact-based websites and SoMe accounts, but most of these simply lack quality. When it comes to design and creativity, they often use stock images and/or text in a very generic way. The main problem, however, is that these facts are either doubtful or, even worse, non-existent in the first place."
There really isn't a theme that Factourism likes the most. "Our facts can both be hilarious, mind-blowing, horrifying and surprising covering all kinds of topics like nature, culture, brands, science, climate, history or technology," the spokesperson said. "We like that you can explore all sort of things from farts, selfies, pizzas, sweat, Ikea, Nutella, sex toys, you name it."
Power Of A Batman Costume
Kids aged four and six were asked to perform a repetitive task, but offered the option to take breaks playing video games instead. No need to say that they didn’t persevere much at the assignment. But across both ages, they did spend more time working in the case they were impersonating Batman.
Ferdio is constantly collecting and looking for new facts in order to present their followers with the most interesting stuff. "Our ... list is massive, and we actually tend to skip more facts than we use for various reasons. But basically it comes down to whether or not a particular fact is surprising and trustworthy, as well as how much visual potential does it have."
Pioneers Of Agriculture
Several species of ants, attines, started farming 55 to 60 millions of years before humans did. They favourite food? Fungus. They organise themselves around cutting grass and leaves, bringing them back to their colony, watching after fungus growing on the harvested crop, and then collecting and eating the fungus. The fungus species evolves along with each ant species.
Everyone in Ferdio has developed a keen interest in Factourism and the whole team is involved in one way or the other. Be it researching, designing, or publishing. "We're a small team of eight people, mainly consisting of graphic designers. The concept of Factourism is established, but we like that everyone has a different take on each fact. Currently, we add 2-3 new facts every week, but we also have a business to run, so we often plan a big batch of facts for the upcoming month."
Calendar Configurations
Seven configurations for each of the days that can start the year, times two for leap and non-leap years, it’s that simple.
2020 started on a Wednesday and is a leap year, as we will get a February 29 like almost every 4 years. The last leap year to start on that day was 1992, as were 1964 and 1936, so search your attic and explore your local thrift shops, see if you can excavate a calendar to recycle for the new year!
Ambidexterity
Prolific in sketches and notes-taking, Leonardo da Vinci was ambidextrous. He was able to draw and write (in his infamous backwards script) with both his left and right hands.
Pop-Up Ads
In the nineties, Ethan Zuckerman was working for a website named Tripod. The website was displaying advertising, but the ads were getting in the way of the content and announcers were not always happy with the pages their banners ended up appearing on. When a big car manufacturer was not that keen of having their ad displaying on a page about sodomy the website was hosting, Ethan came up with a solution: a simple piece of code that would open the ad in a separate window. The invention took on, and spread far more than anyone would have wanted, becoming one of the most hated form of online advertisement, and leading browser vendors to implement pop-up blocking features. Ethan finally went public with an apology: “I’m sorry. Our intentions were good”. He believes that “advertising is the original sin of the web” and is now the director of the MIT Center for Civic Media.
That’s why I am grateful to the person who invented ad blocker.
Tiny Dinosaurs
It’s no secret that today’s birds are descendants to what used to be dinosaurs. To study the locomotion of dinosaurs, researchers from the faculty of science of the university of Santiago realised that by moving backwards the centre of gravity of common birds, chickens, from their hatching to their adulthood, they could get the birds to walk more or less like dinosaurs used to. How? By having the chickens wearing artificial tails.
Oh yeah! Pretty sure the chicken is related to the t-Rex. I read that somewhere?
Apple Varieties
We know more than 7,500 cultivars of apples. Some are good for eating, others are better for cider, jelly, or ornamentation, certain are quite old and not fit for mass production.
Then why do they sell only the utterly tasteless ones in stores these days?
First On The List
Rabbit Abilities
Not only rabbit can recognise the smell of faeces of known predatory species, but it has been found that they are also able to distinguish the ones that has specifically been eating other rabbits. If an area houses an animal a little too fond of eating rabbits in the near past, then it is probably best to avoid this place for a while.
Microwaved Grapes
When grapes are put in a microwave oven, especially when cut in two, their shape and material refract the waves in a way that eventually ionise the sodium and potassium content of the fruit and create plasma that ignites and takes fire. A popular science-fair/YouTube trick, Canadian scientists have since studied the phenomenon and reproduced it using artificial water beads. They note that the science behind it could serve as a base to develop wireless antennas and superresolution imaging. All thanks to someone who once wanted to eat warm grapes.
Emotional Cows
A researcher from the University of Sydney who studied a herd of cows for five months established that each cow was expressing themselves individually, voicing their emotions: excitement, arousal, engagement, or distress. In the context of farming, the research concluded that by understanding the different moos, farmers can give their attention to the individual cows who need it.
Giant Mushrooms
Cheese Addiction
The Dangers Of Cleaning
Cleaning exposes your lungs to chemical sprays and other cleaning agents, which causes damage to respiratory health in the long term. It is especially true for people doing cleaning as their job. A study found out that over time, the impairment caused by cleaning is similar to smoking cigarettes: “This study suggests that […] long-term respiratory health is impaired 10–20 years after cleaning activities. […] The effect size was comparable to the effect size related to 10–20 pack-years of tobacco smoking.” (A pack-year being the number of packs smoked in a day multiplied by the number of years spent smoking)
US Flag
The US flag, stripes and stars, has been having a similar design since the 18th century. But with the number of states changing all the time, the number of stars had to change too. And who says a different number of stars says a different arrangement, so that they all fit satisfyingly in the blue rectangle. With the addition of Alaska and Hawaii in early second half of the 20th century, there was a need for a 50-stars design. The designer of the winning arrangement, 9 lines of alternating 5 and 6 stars, is called Robert Heft and came up with it as part of a school project. He spent a weekend cutting and sewing his flag proposal, which was accepted as an official flag by congressman Walter Moeller and finally adopted in 1960.
He was the only person legally allowed to write on the flag. My parents met him years ago and got me an autographed flag. Pretty stinkin cool when you think about it.
Diamonds Inside Diamonds
Or rather, a diamond can grow around another diamond, although there is only one instance of the rare phenomenon known to us. In 2019, miners in Yakutia, Russia made a curious discovery: a diamond with an internal cavity, holding another diamond. It might be over 800 millions years old and geologists have been coming up with hypotheses concerning how it was formed.
Voting Rights
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station, and previously the Mir station, are not exempt of voting duty. They get their ballot as an encrypted PDF in their e-mail inbox, can cast their vote from one of the onboard computers, and send it back to their voting clerk. It initially required some adaptation in the law down back Earth to accommodate for this derogation, but now people in space can voice their political preference almost like anyone else.
Face Touching
A small study, performed in 2008 in California on ten persons being recorded performing everyday office tasks, showed that they were on average touching their face 15.7 times an hour. If we consider a sleeping time of 8 hours, that’s about 250 times a day during waking hours.
I never realised how much I touched my face until i was told not to because of corona virus.
World's Wealthiest
Billionaire Jeff Bezos, entrepreneur behind Amazon and richest person in the world, is worth $110 billion. He earns $2,489 a second. In 15 minutes, he earn as much as what an American with a bachelor’s degree earns in their lifetime. In the meantime, many are the Amazon workers who are edging the threshold of poverty. Bezos is notably using some of his money to launch manned space programmes.
So he could easily spend that money on people who are struggling to survive, without it negatively affecting his finances at all. He just chooses not to.
It boggles the mind that there are those who defend billionaires like Bezos. He and people like him have more money than they can spend in several lifetimes and it's money made by exploiting employees and other shady business practices (essentially it's stealing). No one needs that much money.
Load More Replies...Chris, respectfully, what I'm referring to with 'tax tricks' are maneuvers that are legal, I'm not talking about anyone who's actually breaking tax laws. I'm talking about the majority of rich people, who both try to minimize their tax bill and are paying what they are legally required to pay.
Load More Replies...This makes me sad. He’s only rich because of us, the consumer. Time to share OUR money
Meaning that stingy bastard could easily afford to pay his warehouse staff more, but being the a*****e he is he chooses not to.
When you're old, what are you gonna do with all that money? At least when you stay young, spend it to help people. Their are people less richer that you that spend their whole lifetimes to help people.
To those who claim Bezos is so ridiculously rich because of his unique management skills and vision - read this article. It talks about companies from Fortune 500 lists that paid 0 ( and I mean it) federal taxes in 2018. Guess who’s on the list. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/these-91-fortune-500-companies-didnt-pay-federal-taxes-in-2018.html
He himself is not "worth" money. His companies, including all assets, are worth 110 billion.
He's only that rich because so many continue to buy stuff from him. It boils down to responsibility, you can't change Jeff, you can't force him to be a good leader to his workers. But you can stop giving him your money and allowing him to continue on his merry way. But that requires thought and choice making. As you spend more with decent companies, they will hire more people, allowing the Amazon-poor to find better work. It all starts with us-the consumers.
Cool! When he realises, he'll start paying his employees living wages. Oh wait...
And this is why I ditched Amazon and no longer shop there. I couldn't be part of supporting a man who is so full of greed that he refused to pay his workers for being sick due to Corona. Amazon will also quite literally work their factory workers in the ground, offer little to no protection and/or benefits. Amazon is the Walmart of the Internet and I've been boycotting Walmart for well over 25 years. Once I started working from home, I realized that I hardly ever need anything the next day, so eBay, Etsy and other online stores make welcome replacements for the evil empire.
As usual posters confuse wealth as a function of the price of stock held in a company with liquid cash. As CEO of Amazon, Bezos will want to limit his personal level of stock dilution when distributing his wealth. The envious are always with us (as are the greedy).
Maybe he'll man a spaceship to another planet and live there with all his paper.
Funny how the billionaires are so silent while so many are desperately struggling due to the pandemic. They could help so much if they chose to
There is...literally no need for that kind of wealth. None. At all. Whatsoever. At a certain threshold it stops being affluence and just becomes plain avarice, and it's disgusting. I'm no Christian, but in the Bible Jesus was against exactly this--he didn't want people to be poor or without, he wanted the rich to stop being so wealthy because their excessive wealth was really just hoarding much needed resources away from everyone else. And that's exactly what Bezos and others like him do, but the media glorifies them and politicians let them line their pockets in exchange for favors that only benefit the super-rich, and that's why our damn oligarchy-disguised-as-democracy is as f****d as it is.
And he's one of the main people who benefited from Trump's tax breaks.
He donated $10m to look for a vaccine. Big whoop. That's money he could take off his taxes if he paid ANY (he doesn't) and is less that 11 days of his income (at the pre-Covid rate). But he still won't insure safe working conditions for his employees and will only cover 14 sick days even for someone who has tested positive for the virus. One of his underlings who runs Whole Foods suggested that employees donate THEIR sick days to those in need. He's one white Persian cat away from being a Bond villain.
Yeah, I know it might be "his" money, but he made it by destroying other people's livelihood just to make a buck. First, he ruins their live, and now he won't even spend a tiny portion of his money to help them? That's just awful
I would be surprised if Jeff Bezos was as happy as I am. So I am forced to feel sorry for him and discount the importance of wealth when it comes to real happiness.
I am disappointed he is not using that wealth in ways to make better lives for the world's residents.
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos could potentially become the worlds first trillionaire as early as 2026, at which point he will be aged 62, says a study. Despite losing an estimated $38 billion as part of his recent divorce, Bezos is still by far the world’s richest person and his net worth has grown by 34% on average over the last five years, said the study by Comparisun, a company which helps organisations compare different business products. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg could gain trillionaire status almost a decade later than Bezos. But Zuckerberg’s current rate growth would see him worth $1 trillion aged 51, said the study. India’s Mukesh Ambani could become a trillionaire in 2033 when he will be aged 75, according to the research which said that Chinese real estate tycoon Xu Jiayin will follow Bezos to become the second trillionaire in the world in 2027. Alibaba’s Jack Ma could become a trillionaire in 2030 when he will be aged 65. https://www.thehindu.com/business/jef
So if he doubles or triples his employees salaries he won't even notice. He's simply greedy. I don't understand people who defend billionaires. It's proven that human greed knows no limit and I fail to understand why people are against setting a limitiation at people's wealth. I remember before the ugly capitalism took over my country - it was forbidden to be insanely rich noone was starving back then.
And how is he able to make all that money? Because of the highways we pay for, the low wages of the people who do the actual work, Etc. Pay your fair share!
actually he probably could use his gains to benefit more of his employees, if only from the tax benefits it would yield him.
To everyone who thinks they have good ideas about how he should spend his money: YOU are probably richer than someone else who think you waste your money in stupid ways.
Rich people, I don't get how they get Bezos rich. I just want to pay off my school loans, and can't seem to figure that out lol.
He actually is no longer richest, he divorced his wife and had to pay a HUGE divorce settle ment
It is appr. 2.2M and is correct only if you make 50k per year for 44 years....
Amazon reached the maximum size it ought to be allowed to have a long time ago. It hardly pays any taxes anywhere, pays its' workers as little as it can possibly get away with, ditto with the work environment, and has forced countless small shops and businesses to close. I prefer to pay a bit more from a shop close to where I live.
This one is misleading. He doesn't just have his trillions in cash in his pocket. His property includes investments and infrastructure that are part of Amazon among other projects, which employ millions of humans and contribute to society. If he liquidated all his stocks to cash out, even to give to charity, it would tank markets impacting negatively the pension and retirement plans of everyone else.
Don't be jealous, folks, aspire to do well too....Rich people can do whatever they want with their $$$.....if you are gamefully employed and making "ends meet", to the homeless, desperate person you are wealthy and should be sharing your income.....it's all relative. Just sick of people expecting other people to share their wealth. So easy to b***h about the rich "doing for others"....while you do nothing. (btw I'm far from rich)
This is false. It confuses wealth with income when it says "Bezos earns 2,489 a second" (which is calculated by dividing 110 billion by the seconds in a year). The income Bezos receives are the dividends from the Amazon shares he owns. Those 110 billion are the value of his Amazon shares. If he sells those shares he wouldn't receive that money again. He's very rich but that's not his income.
This is a misnomer. He's a billionaire because of his assets. His assets are very valuable and are what make his net-worth so high. In terms of actual cash we have no idea how much he has, but his salary is 80,000 a year so its unlikely that its thaaat high. Yes he's stupid rich because of his assets, but no he cant just spend a million dollars like we can spend 1 dollar, he'd have to sell stock to spend 100 million like we might spend $100. But yes, he's stupid rich and I guess that's the point anyway.
Human Skin Bindings
Anthropodermic bibliopegy. That is the proper name for binding books with human leather rather than another animal’s. A morbid practice that was occasionally done in the 19th century and earlier. Some of the resulting books are now conserved in the Harvard Library at Harvard University.
It happened. I don't know how many books were originally bound that way, but I know it happened more than people thought. There was minimal difference to using human v.s. animal hide. The human skinned books creep me out less than what happened during the holocaust. Some of the Jews who had tattoo's were killed and their skin was used for lamp shades. Their hair was used to stuff pillows, and trust me when I say that you do not want to look to much further into that. It got pretty disturbing, especially Ilse Koch. Man, google at you're own risk, but there are more Human remains used for things than a lot of people know. Not like Ed Gein, but still, you'd be surprised.
Strip Club Church
From outside, “the Manor” in Guelph, Ontario could look like any other strip club. But it isn’t: it offers social housing to people who are recovering from addiction, live in poverty, or are just out of prison; its owner has taken the endeavour to help the poor; and a Christian pastor has been hosting a weekly service there for the past six years.
Gate Tower Building
Osaka is home of the Gate Tower Building (Gēto Tawā Biru), a 16-storeys tower opened in 1992 and designed by architects Azusa Sekkei and Yamamoto-Nishihara Kenchiku Sekkei Jimushō. Three of it floors are crossed by a motorway, going through a large hole in the building. The road does not touch the building and is held by a bridge, while the elevator go straight from level 4 to level 8.
Visiting Stonehenge
The prehistoric monument of Stonehenge in South West England was built around 5000 to 4000 years ago and believed to have been a burial ground and to have been used for spiritual purposes. It has since become one of the most well-known landmarks, and has been forever attracting visitors. It’s very recently that the site has been protected: the land has had many owners before finally becoming public, buildings – now removed – has been built near to it, people would chisel off bits of rocks to take home as souvenirs, and until 1977 indeed, it was allowed to climb on the rocks.
Timeline
We often think of dinosaurs as all living in a period far in the past. But the Mesozoic Era, as it is called, lasted from 250 million to 66 million years ago. In other words, it lasted almost three times longer than the time that separate us from it now. An early dinosaur like Stegosaurus lived about 150 million years ago. A later specimen like Tyrannosaurus lived around 67 million years ago. As for humans, the earliest australopiths appeared 4 millions years ago.
Mount Everest Casualties
More than 300 people have died on the Everest since it was first climbed about a hundred years ago. Since removing the bodies is a dangerous enterprise in itself, and a very expensive one, most are kept on the mountain, frozen on location. In recent years, climbing the mountain has become more popular and a record number of permits has been issued, leading the paths to be overcrowded and the risks of accidents higher – meaning even more fatal ascents.
The Origins Of Hello
“Ahoy”. The nautical greeting could have been the first thing you say on the phone if the preferences of Alexander Graham Bell were followed. Rather, it is “Hello”, preferred by Thomas Edison and printed in the How-To guides of many early telephone books, that was adopted by the first telephone users. Its use then escaped the telephone lines to become the word we know today. Until then however, “Hello” wasn’t used as a greeting. It could express surprise of call for attention, but was not meant to mean “Hi”.
Dirty Phones
Most people don’t clean their phone and most people touch about 3,000 times a day. That's a lot less cleaning and a lot more touching than what happens to a toilet seat or flush. A study found a higher amount of bacteria, yeast and mould on phones than on toilets. Keyboards, mice and trackpads are also concerned.
Nobel Peace Prize
No Nazi party forcing their way into it: it was a joke. Erik Gottfrid Christian Brandt, an antifascist member of the Swedish parliament, nominated Adolf Hitler as a satirical comment on the nomination of Neville Chamberlain, UK prime minister who had just declared war on Germany. Brandt didn’t mean for his nomination to be taken seriously, and as soon as it was, he sent a letter to withdraw the application.
I never understood why this is such an interesting fact. The nomination for the peace prize is open to anyone. That does not mean that the commitee has to consider it. If I'm not wrong I think Putin has been nominated each year the last six years
Note: this post originally had 108 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Yes - the one equivocating cleaning to smoking two packs a day is disgusting.
Load More Replies...The Jeff Bezos one is a common misconception: people that become super rich through their company have their wealth tied to their company's stock. They don't have that money available to spend. If they were selling their stock to get all as cash, the price would crash before they could do it. Essentially they can claim that amount of money as long as they don't try to spend it.
This is 100% true. Someone's worth and their actual wealth are two completely different things. I often see this about Jeff Bezos and the c**p he takes for having so much money and how he should give it all away, and think, but he doesn't HAVE that much money. If he cashed in his WORTH, the economy would collapse and Amazon and other companies would go under.
Load More Replies...I noticed Ching Chong Xhin always had something positive to say. If I ever meet him in real life, I’ll be sorely tempted to arrange a meeting with God for him. Racist little a*****e
nooo they took away 79 of the facts while i was in the middle of reading...it made me stop at 30
Between BP’s plead to follow them on a Google news and the last comment there is a note. In the note, click one the underlined word “109 images”. That will send you to the original post with all 109 images.
Load More Replies...There's a lot of these that are downright false. I posted sources on a couple of them, but it's just not worth it.
I don't like that Factourism's site has no information regarding their sources. I don't like to be a party pooper, but these could all be made up. They're cute though!
Yes - the one equivocating cleaning to smoking two packs a day is disgusting.
Load More Replies...The Jeff Bezos one is a common misconception: people that become super rich through their company have their wealth tied to their company's stock. They don't have that money available to spend. If they were selling their stock to get all as cash, the price would crash before they could do it. Essentially they can claim that amount of money as long as they don't try to spend it.
This is 100% true. Someone's worth and their actual wealth are two completely different things. I often see this about Jeff Bezos and the c**p he takes for having so much money and how he should give it all away, and think, but he doesn't HAVE that much money. If he cashed in his WORTH, the economy would collapse and Amazon and other companies would go under.
Load More Replies...I noticed Ching Chong Xhin always had something positive to say. If I ever meet him in real life, I’ll be sorely tempted to arrange a meeting with God for him. Racist little a*****e
nooo they took away 79 of the facts while i was in the middle of reading...it made me stop at 30
Between BP’s plead to follow them on a Google news and the last comment there is a note. In the note, click one the underlined word “109 images”. That will send you to the original post with all 109 images.
Load More Replies...There's a lot of these that are downright false. I posted sources on a couple of them, but it's just not worth it.
I don't like that Factourism's site has no information regarding their sources. I don't like to be a party pooper, but these could all be made up. They're cute though!