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We might not know each other personally, pandas, but if there’s one thing we can guess about you—it’s that you’re probably a curious soul. After all, you found your way here, ready to discover something fascinating or put your knowledge to the test.
That’s perfect, because we at Bored Panda love feeding curious minds. And this roundup of posts from the Instagram page Mind Blowing Facts might just do the trick.
Scroll down, enjoy, and let us know which one surprised you the most. See you in the comments!
This post may include affiliate links.
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The great thing about fun facts? You can never have too many. The not-so-great part? You probably won’t remember them all. That raises a curious question: is there a limit to how much a person can actually know?
Turns out, there is. Sort of. But it’s not as straightforward as a fixed number.
#3
TerathNinir 1 month ago
US soldiers have an express *duty* to refuse any unlawful order. Hopefully they remember that.
Let’s start with a rough idea of our brain’s storage. There are about 100 billion neurons in the brain. But only around a billion of them are involved in long-term memory storage. These are called pyramidal cells.
If you assumed each neuron held just one memory, your mental storage would fill up surprisingly quickly.
“If you could have as many memories as neurons, that’s not a very big number,” Paul Reber, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, told the BBC. “You’d run out of space in your brain pretty fast.”
#6
April Pickett 1 month ago
That's because the upper 10% disregard people not of their standing. Lower income individuals realize just how lucky they are to have a home, food, clothing, and are willing to share to help others.
But memory doesn’t work like saving files to a USB stick. Instead, researchers believe memories form through the connections between neurons, not just in the neurons themselves. Each neuron is connected to thousands of others, like train lines branching out from a central station.
#7
ॐBoyGanesh 1 month ago
When I was in my late teens (1980s) I’d often use the HOV/Carpool lane when traffic was bad. I figured the chance of actually getting caught was slim & even if I did it was only a $187 ticket. As a cōcky, somewhat entitled teen it never occurred to me that might be a lot of money for a provider of a family of 4. Today, with such huge wealth disparity, many infraction/misdemeanor laws only apply to those who can’t afford the fine. For wealthy folks, who wouldn’t pay the equivalent of pennies to ignore inconvenient laws? My 75yo mom rides her bike around SF. I tell her to use the sidewalks when there aren’t dedicated bike lanes to stay safe. She can afford the tickets if ever cited.
#9
April Pickett 1 month ago
Oh, fudge, we could have had peace, probably global peace, and those arms manufacturers would be in the army.
This web-like structure means bits of a memory can be spread across the whole network. That’s why something like the idea of a blue sky can appear in countless different memories of being outdoors.
#10
TerathNinir 1 month ago
Since only men could vote, that meant 60% of the men did the right thing. Proof that we men CAN do the right thing if we put our minds to it.
Reber refers to this system as “exponential storage,” where the brain’s capacity isn’t just big, it’s massive.
“Under any reasonable guess, it gets into the several petabyte range,” said Reber. One petabyte equals roughly 2,000 years’ worth of MP3s.
#13
April Pickett 1 month ago
That should be a law in every state, because stupid isn't just in Arizona.
#14
Surly Scot 1 month ago (edited)
When I get cancer I want the doc to call it my "mortal combat", so everytime we're discussing my treatment I can feel like a Game of Thrones character and refuse to bend the knee.
#15
April Pickett 1 month ago
That's so sweet. I'd have to get divorced a lot and marry again because I'd want more than one cat.
Of course, we don’t know exactly how many connections a single memory requires, or if memory even works like a digital system at all, so it’s worth taking those comparisons with a grain of salt. Still, as Reber puts it: “You have tonnes and tonnes of space.”
So why don’t we remember everything we ever come across?
That’s where things get more nuanced, argues Russell Poldrack, professor of psychology and neurobiology at the University of Texas at Austin.
First, there’s the issue of attention.
“We can only pay attention to a small number of things at once, and paying attention is usually necessary to create new memories,” he wrote. “Because we have only so many waking hours (and a good night’s sleep is necessary to create lasting memories), this limits how many new memories we can form.”
#20
troufaki13 1 month ago
Cats do that too! They will also purr to alleviate any pain, physical or mental.
#21
Another key factor is the order in which we learn things. The first time we learn something tends to leave the strongest impression. What comes later often sticks less.
Take phobias, for example. Once a fear of snakes is formed, it’s hard to undo. Even after therapy, that fear can return.
#22
Louise Clarke 1 month ago
I need to see a drawing of him, next to the reaper, dressed in the same outfit.
#23
#24
SleepSycho 1 month ago (edited)
Amazing! 🤯 better than building bombs. Incidentally they are a matrilineal society, with family property passed down to youngest daughters.
There’s also the brain’s changing sensitivity over time. Research on language learning shows that the sounds we hear in our first year of life shape how we perceive speech later. That’s why it can be tricky for adults to learn sounds that don’t exist in their native language, like a Japanese speaker distinguishing “r” and “l” in English.
#27
Blue Bunny of Happiness 1 month ago (edited)
Brains are weird. It fries mine to think he can do that, yet my Mum can’t recognise if the stairs directly in front of her as she comes out of my bathroom are the same ones she went up to get to it (topographical agnosia) and struggles to draw a stick man.
So rather than imagining the brain like a simple hard drive with a storage cap, it’s more like a constantly evolving, highly individual system. What we remember depends on attention, timing, development, and plenty of other factors that vary from person to person.
In the end, it’s not really a matter of hitting a limit. We just keep learning, and that’s the fun part. There’s no need to stress about not knowing everything. Just enjoy collecting cool facts along the way.
#28
#29
SleepSycho 1 month ago
Beautiful story--lifted him out of homelessness, reconnected with family and made him "feel human again." Money doesn't solve all problems but it's a need, and so many good people wasting away in need. Glad for him.
#31
April Pickett 1 month ago
That look (I know it's not the same dog) says someone is going to be guilted for a long time.
#32
SleepSycho 1 month ago
The struggle is real. But when you need a nap to survive people just think you're lazy.
#38
#43
Disgruntled Pelican 1 month ago
Our dog is half Shiba and my lord are they sassy and rambunctious little creatures.
#46
#48
ॐBoyGanesh 1 month ago
I’d struggle & suffer if I lived further than feet/meters from the ocean. I can abide to temporarily have an extended stay within 10-15 miles, but feel a sort of claustrophobia if much further than that.
#49
Brian Leahy 1 month ago
Just one of the many facts that negates any SF plot about aliens invading earth to take its water.
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