Fun Fact: giraffes have black tongues.
Not so fun fact: there will be no fun facts featured in this article.
Why? Cause folks on Reddit have actually been sharing "fun facts" that are anything but "fun". But don't you worry, it's not the fun that makes a fact interesting, but the educational factors or just the straight up "I never thought about it that way" element.
So, strap yourself for it's gonna be a peculiar ride as you scroll down the top submissions found on the now-viral Reddit post. Be sure to upvote, comment, and tell us your not-so-fun facts about everything that truly matters in this life.
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Crows are currently in their own Stone Age. They’ve been seen making very articulate tools.
Imagine how advanced they'd be by now without the asteroid.
Load More Replies...why is this a fun fact that is "anything but fun"? I think it's super cool!
Crows are smart, they have the intelligence of a 4 yr old child apparently.
And when I act like a 4-year-old, I'm "immature" and "stupid" - crowful double standards!
Load More Replies...your money and complacence are enough, in fact they would refuse anything else no matter how much you try. but maybe not before letting you fall for it few times.
Load More Replies...Imagine how they'll evolve. That would be so awesome to see. If only we could have lived to see it.
‘Money can’t buy happiness.’
A phrase taught that you don’t need money to be happy, conveniently though those on $50k + salaries tend to live longer than those on the bread line.
Money buys plenty of things that make me happy
Load More Replies...Money absolutely buys happiness. Struggling financially causes overwhelming stress, since the struggle is tied to survival. You can't be happy when your survival is threatened 24/7. Having excess income eliminates that stress.
Samuel L. Jackson said, “Whoever said money doesn’t buy happiness obviously never had a lot of money”
Either they've never had a lot of money or have always had a lot of money and doesn't realize how much happier money makes them
Load More Replies...Studies have shown that money does buy happiness up to the point where you can comfortably feed yourself (and your family), have a reasonably sized place to live, can afford healthcare and a few 'luxuries' (spending money on non-necessary things and activities), plus knowing that the risk to lose these things is very low and/or the social net will help you out. Beyond that point, money becomes addictive - you get a bit more, are happy for a short amount of time, and once this effect wears off, you want more. So - shaping society in a way that everyone can afford to live well without burning themselves out and preventing people from becoming filthy rich money addicts would be in the best interest of everyone, according to research (and intuition).
Maybe money can't buy happiness but it PREVENTS a lot of unhappiness.
Speaking from personal experience here, but your body can randomly decide to become allergic to damn near everything edible at any time. Not very fun.
Same! It sucks because I used to love eating prawn cutlets as a kid. Now it’s a trip to hospital if I eat one :(
Load More Replies...Had a ferret, a year later, became allergic to ferrets. Had a cat, 1 1/2 year later became allergic to cats. Had a dog, 4 years later, I'm allergic to dogs. I've learned the Zyrtec is my BFF so I can keep loving on my pets!
My uncle can eat little more than rice and beans. He works for the gov. And builds jets and goes to Europe a lot but Two stories abt him going to Europe: one time he ate at a farmers market and he was like oh this is really good what’s in it and it contained some kinda nut flour and he was all out of Eppi pins so he had to go the hospital story two: one time he went to Europe and one of the people on his team got covid so the entire team was on lockdown in another country and my uncle didint eat anything but rice for a few weeks cuz they didn’t have food for him
You can reduce this by trying not to let food proteins get into your bloodstream. Once it gets there your body can learn to mount an immune response against it. If you have ulcers, that can introduce food proteins into your bloodstream. If you have an allergy like to gluten, while inflamed from eating that other proteins can leak into your bloodstream and add new allergies to you. If you take a lot of NSAIDs (aspirin, etc) that ruin your mucous lining this can lead to food proteins getting into your bloodstream.
This is interesting if true. (Not doubting you, it's just always good to check a source). If this is the case then another thing that can damage stomach mucosa is excess soft drinks/soda... they can irritate your stomach. My ex used to drink a ton of soda (2 cans a day) and rapidly got stomach issues-- he'd often get nausea, and acid reflux etc, he couldn't digest certain things.... if he'd kept it up I'm sure he would have gotten an ulcer.
Load More Replies...I've learned that whenever you're immune system is on the fritz, allergies get worse. It might be something you're usually not really allergic to, or are only slightly allergic to. Ironically, allergies also tend to make other allergies worse, since that's a hit to your immune system, too. Inflammation can also do it. Even something as simple as a sunburn, or eating too much junkfood for days on end. Or having a cold can suddenly cause your shampoo to give you a rash. It's almost as if the immune system has invisible hit points, and there's only so much it can take before it just starts wigging out. Once it's restored, those random allergies go away again
Almost everything period. I got pollen allergies in my teens. Doesn't have to be edible.
I used to eat strawberries all the time when I was young. One day I randomly became allergic to strawberries. I just recently got over my allergy.
The worst part was I couldn’t have anything if ti could have been cross-contaminated with strawberries. For example: If a fast food place had a strawberry milkshake, I couldn’t have any other of their milkshakes.
Load More Replies...I became allergic to aspirin at 35. VA told me to take ibuprofen for the swelling in my face and throat. Took a year and a half to figure it out
I became allergic (or at least sensitive) to paracetamol in my 20s- I used to take it regularly for migraines as ibuprofen and asprin would make my chronic gastritis worse but now it stuffs up my sinuses. Thankfully my gastritis has cleared up, and I don't get many migraines either.
Load More Replies...Flora. Fauna. Vegetables. Fruits. I take an antihistamine every day and sometimes it's not enough so I carry activated charcoal with me all the time. Good thing too, I've needed them a time or two, like when my 3rd brother offered me orange juice. My husband's looking at my lips and they are getting swollen like I've been kissed (and he knows he didn't kiss me in the near past). He gets me some AC with water and then ask my brother for the juice so he can take a look at it - it was mixed with mango. That could have escalated fast.
Deaf schizophrenics don't hear voices, they see hands or lips as mental images that tell them what to do.
I think this is super interesting. Mental illness isn't cool to have to deal with but the way the brain adapts to different methods of operation is fascinating.
Load More Replies...I'm Schizophrenic myself and get visual, auditory, tactile and even taste/smell (one for me is to taste mint when there's no mint welp) so would Deaf Schizophrenics have the other types of hallucinations minus auditory? Much like a Blind person may still hear things? or feel things? Would a deaf/blind person feel tactile hallucinations? o.o
I would think so. But I'd love to hear from a professional
Load More Replies...It seems lot of the response to schizophrenia is cultural. In some cultures where schizophrenia is taken as a blessing from angels or some such, schizophrenics hear voices telling them positive things. In cultures such as Western ones where it's treated as a curse, they tend to hear voices telling them horrible things.
"Dear Schizophrenics, don't hear voices"... is that the new version of telling a depressed person to just "cheer up"? lmao xP
Load More Replies...My cousin is schizophrenic, who isn't deaf, didn't get "voices " but he said their lips were moving rapidly. On bad days he would see people's head shake back and forth like they do in horror movies. He started to take his meds regularly and fought hard to tell him its not real. He is not suffering any more and is in a good place. :)
This is dependent on the person, and the extent of their deafness.
I know one deaf guy, who actually hears voices in his head. And I think, that must be really terrifying.
Maybe it depends om whether they were born deaf of lost their hearing later in life? Just a thought...
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The oldest person alive was born with an entirely different set of humans on the planet.
I would love to talk to the oldest person alive just to hear their stories.
rephrased: no one who was alive when the oldest person alive was born is still alive today
Your brain blocks you from feeling your organs moving around inside you.
Not always. After major surgery I am very aware of my organs jostling to regain their rightful positions.
My mom would mention she could feel her organs moving after roller coasters. She made that mistake a few times and gave up. The woman had a LOT of surgeries and internal staples
Load More Replies...Why the hell is "r e c t u m" censored? BP is getting up its own bum!
Thanks goodness we have someone keeping us safe from being exposed to the medical terms for our universal anatomy!
Load More Replies...Really BP Censors? R****m? Really?! -- The only thing stupider was one of the MMOs I was on starred out the name of a day as profanity... >sigh<
I definitely felt all my organs shift down when I stood up for the first time after delivering a baby. It's very unpleasant.
That first move from labor bed to regulate hospital bed is very unpleasant
Load More Replies...After my second pregnancy I have occasional feelings that are comparable to the feeling of a baby moving/kicking. My youngest is seven, so I would assume this is my organs moving around.
I feel much more aware of my belly organs since the emergency C-section with my twins. It started when I had to have a weighted pillow on my lower belly right after. Maybe it's to do with the fact that my abs are still that weird pregnancy shape like they haven't slipped back to the middle yet, and my twins are 18 months old now... Anyway, I recently had a stomach bug and I kind of felt the p*king develope from deep down, that was absolutely new for me... Urgh.
Load More Replies...I was told there simply aren't nerves connected to our internal organs. I don't know if this is true, but why would the body bother the make nerves if it never uses them?
Gas and active bowels will let you know they are there. Gurgle, gurgle.
Thanks to pregnant women, the average skeleton count per person is higher than one.
And at least a few(several? idk) men. Downvotes get 0 fuqs.
Load More Replies...Thanks to the f*****g supreme court, there's gonna be a whole lot more!!
50% of Americans diagnosed with cancer will lose their life savings.
if you ever had the chance to accumulate savings, that is. Not an easy tasks with student loans, mortgages, low minimum salary, costs for medical treatment of any sort..
I’m a millennial American and im pretty sure I’ll never even have a savings account to begin with
Load More Replies...Surely it's higher than 50 percent, with medical bills costing what they do
This Country f*****g sucks on so many levels, and now they're trying to make us into Iran but with using Christianity rather then the Muslim faith .... anything to control f*****g freedom of women to their core - give it 50 years, we're f*****g heading to absolute disaster - well, I mean, for women. We would be better off just going ahead and obliterating every f*****g Conservative Republican in this goddamn wasteland to avoid the impending disaster
Guess what almost everyone who lives long enough to end up in a nursing home in the U.S. will also lose everything they own paying the bill for the home. Many people end up having to divest themselves of all of it to their loved ones before going in so that at least it doesn't all get wasted on strangers.
I am the youngest in my family and am single with no kids. I have no savings, but multiple health conditions. So I’ll either be homeless or in the potter’s field with no headstone.
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If you are an identical twin it is possible that you and your siblings identity’s were swapped and your parents never caught it.
This is why I think Elvis may have died in infancy, and all of us have actually been listening to the rock-and-roll stylings of his twin, Jessie.
pretty sure i just read that his twin brother was stillborn, so no chance of swapping babies...
Load More Replies...When I was younger, I stayed with a friend who had two tortoiseshell cats. It took me like 3 days to be able to tell them apart. Since then,I always think about this with humans, haha!! Like when I see twins or twin babies, it's like, 'those first few days after birth are iffy, right? If someone put you in the wrong crib/clothes would you ever even know?' I always thought there has to be some criss-crossed twins out there somewhere.
I just recently brought that same scenario up to my roommate! Lol
Load More Replies...My husband is one of identical twins and i asked him 'what if your mum put you down and your dad picked up the wrong one?' He kind of shrugged, which is exactly what his twin would respond with....
I have a few friends that are identical twins and they really hated being dressed alike as kids. They all went out of their way to looks as different as their sibling as possible when they got older. A really interesting but sad documentary "Three Identical Strangers" tells the story of an adoption agency in NY that was splitting up multiples and adopting them to different families without telling the parents they were a twin or a triplet. All to do a "study". SO horrible!!
I've seen that one and multiple ones attached to it too. Horrible. Great that they all came back together but one mother just couldn't take it - it was too much.
Load More Replies...Back in the day, babies were switched by accident by nurses. I imagine with the lack of sleep and everything else that goes on with multiple births it could be easily done.
Could be true. I have never had the faintest idea if I am my twin brother or not. I mean, I know I'm me. But who of us got our respective name and social security number? Nobody knows.
Honest question: Does that bother you, or do you just shrug it off/don't care?
Load More Replies...Most twin babies born in the past maybe 15+ years, I'm a mom of twins, we are td by Gyno to bring nail polish bracelet or whatever identity labeling to the hospital so that don't happen... My boys are 11.5 right now and I was told that over and over by a nearly retired old Dr couple I was their last twin birth. I don't know but don't think this happens much anymore
The united states has misplaced or lost 6 nuclear weapons over the years.
There have been 32 "Broken Arrow" incidents, which are unexpected incidents involving a nuclear weapon. Of those 32, 6 were lost and never found.
I live in a town in NC where 2 were accidently dropped jan 1961. By some lucky mishap they didn't go off. Look up Goldsboro B-52 mishap.
As long as its not armed, it won't explode, but it might scatter nuclear material over a wide area.
Load More Replies...Whoops haha, misplaced my nuke . Guess i’ll find it later, it always turns up eventually ( ◠‿◠ )
We'll just add that factoid to the old nightmare rolodex...what the ___?!!
“Uh sergeant we lost one of the… ummm how do I say this….. weapons……” “What weapons” “ummmm… the nuclear ones” “YOU DID WHAT?”
Load More Replies...There was a documented incident with John Travolta in '96 that account for 2 of them.
Fun fact there's a team of highly trained special forces nuclear technicians for retrieving nuclear weapons. For many years they didn't realize that in most plane crashes the heat from the fires would melt the plastic explosives from the nukes all over the floor of the aircraft remains. These expensively-trained guys after hiking miles to get to the site would take one step onto the goo and the static charge they'd built up would detonate the explosives - vaporizing the technicians and the bomb. So problem solved, I guess, no one had a nuclear weapon to retrieve any more.
And no one was there to retrieve them anyways since they all went "poof".
Load More Replies...There were 6 incidents resulting in unrecovered nuclear weapons, with a total of 8 weapons lost. We know precisely where 3 of those weapons are, and the rest are otherwise at the bottom of the ocean.
Butterflies, if necessary, will happily drink blood.
Ok the butterfly's are metal thing is definitely picking up speed.
Load More Replies...When forest service is looking dead bodies one of the things they look for is swarms of butterflies. Anything wet and salty, like blood, will draw them from miles around
I prefer the Black List episode myself. Super creepy.
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That Washington Sqaure Park in New York is essentially a graveyard, with an estimated 20,000 bodies buried below the surface; many were yellow fever victims, wrapped in yellow sheets and buried by the poorest residents. When the foundation for the famous arch was dug, a number of these were exposed.
Cross-rail (the new Elizabeth line) in London has unearthed several graveyards. A significant proportion of the budget for the project went on archaeology. It is almost inevitable that such things will be found when digging in highly populated areas.
Same in Edinburgh. Archaeologists have found many skeletons whilst the latest tram lines have been constructed. We do have mass plague pits here.
Load More Replies...Curiously enough, Washington Square Park in PHILADELPHIA also is the final resting place of yellow fever victims, along woth many revolutionary war soldiers. Of course, the Philly victims were buried in the 18th century, while the NYC ones were decades later making this another example of NYC following Philadelphia's lead.
Boston Common is the largest unmarked graveyard in Massachusetts. You could look it up.
Washington Square in Philly is a graveyard from the Revolutionary War!
Around all the ancient churches in England, like circa 1000 to I don't know when, the grass and ground is higher than the church itself. Mostly the churches are tiny and the parishes are large. The grounds are full of bodies six feet deep going back years and years. No wonder the burial rights have to go elsewhere these days.
Guests love to dump the ashes of their loved ones on the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland. In theory, this seems fine and like an okay place to do that, but when the ashes get dumped custodial cast members come in and vacuum up the ashes.
If you are ever tasked with spreading ashes somewhere, do it anywhere but Disneyland. Because their ashes will not be in the park for long.
Great ..so what you think is just random chalk dust blowing in your face in the Haunted House is actually someones' grandads ashes ..:O
There is also this thing going around where people believe that giving birth in Disneyland will give the baby a free lifelong pass to the park. (it does not.)
This one is actually dangerous. There are often complications during pregnancy that can be extremely harmful without the help of a trained medical professional.
Load More Replies...**"What do you mean Uncle Fred is in the Orange County landfill?!"**
The pic is the Haunted Mansion at Disney World, which is a whole different design than the one at Disneyland. I am sure both see way too many ashes. Fun fact, if you are caught doing this you will be immediately escorted off the property and not allowed to return. Not a fun way to remember your loved one.
They actually train the cast members to look for people dumping ashes, and regularly catch people trying. Not only will they get vacuumed up immediately, you'll get kicked out of the park and maybe arrested.
Yes - I don’t think it can ever really happen anymore. Not with the security at the entrance gates, etc. They might question a bag full of ashes.
Load More Replies...Ok, i have to ask. So is it legal in the US to just spread somebody's ashes anywhere you want? Cause it's illegal where I live.
I don't know about other places but my mom's family smuggled my grandfather's ashes over the border from upstate NY to Quebec because he loved Lac Sainte-Marie so much. We would go there in the summer and stay in rented cabins on the lake. My grandfather died when I was little, and once I was older my mother told me that they scattered his ashes over the water that he loved to fish from. Thank you Canada for all the great memories!
Load More Replies...Thank god when I get my remains scattered over Disneyworld, I won't have been cremated first.
Antarctica smells like penguin poop.
Antarctica is a desert, it is too cold for bacteria to live. Nothing there to clean up penguin droppings. If you are close enough to see penguins, you will also smell them.
Um. It may smell like penguin poo, and maybe not the right sort to break down said poo, but there are plenty of bacteria in Antarctica. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_microorganism
Yeah, I don't get why they say this. Where there is life, bacteria is there, first.
Load More Replies...There are bacteria that thrive in extremely cold temperatures too. Where do they get these facts??
Exactly. Bacteria can live in clouds and down oil wells. I'm sure Antarctica isn't that much of a challenge
Load More Replies...But the air's very dry there so you don't really smell things that strongly.
I'm not disputing the penguin smell but the musing about Antarctica being too cold for bacteria is such an utter b******t I can't even. The lab I work in literally samples and studies ALGAE that live and thrive in the Antarctic. (They have cool ice-binding proteins that prevent them from being torn by ice crystals from the inside, among other things!) Every cubic micrometre on Earth is full of life and especially bacteria and fungi are EVERYWHERE and can live on almost any energy source you can think of including goddamn rocks. I really hate the confidence with which these "facts" are stated, ugh.
In the zoo you can always smell the penguins and there are a lot of bacteria there.
The smell off poo comes from the bacteria in it anyway
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In the books, Stuart Little was never explicitly called a mouse. He's pretty much described as a deformed mouse-esque person born form human parents.
IIRC, he wasn't explicitly born from human parents. He "arrived," though it's not said how.
Coincidentally that's what my parents said about me
Load More Replies...In the books he's described as "looked very much like a rat / mouse in every way" so it's easier for us to just imagine a mouse/rat than a deformed mouse-esque person. xP especially since it IS a childrens book. But yes, he is in fact still a human.
The OG book cover shows him as a mouse rowing a wee boat... stuart-lit...0a2272.jpg
And in one of the sequels he hooks up with a tiny woman who doesn't resemble a mouse.
I know - that scared the s**t out of me when I read it at first. I was like 13 years old. When people took the book out of the library, thinking it was like the cute movie, I warned them that Stuart was not what they thought.
the doctor they take him to is "delighted to see someone have a mouse as a pet(paraphrased)"
I always felt that the mom in that film was well and truly schizophrenic….she actually believes that this mouse is her son?
Only one in a thousand sea turtles born actually make it to adulthood.
My brother (he’s seven) learned that most turtles don’t make it to adult hood and he got so mad at birds for eating them (he loves Moana) and he had a full on life crisis about if he should hate birds or not and if we killed the birds (had to explain how the ecosystem/food chain works so he knew the implications of taking a species out) how that would effect the environment
It's actually due to the activation of a gene that that takes effect just before they move into adulthood. This gene causes sea turtles to mutate becoming bipedal and to migrate inland, most will take up some form of martial arts you can find these Teenage Mutation Turtles living in the American sewer system.
I can't believe I actually read your comment thinking oooh really .. til I got to the end lol
Load More Replies...In Florida the local power plant had a program for free at night they'd teach you about conservation then they'd take you on the beach to see a sea turtle lay it's eggs. They keep you at a respectable distance. That was years ago. Don't know if it's still done.
It actually said "a fun fact that isn't so fun at all" I'd say this qualifies.
Load More Replies...I've seen a conservation station in Sri Lanka. They take the eggs from the beach and keep the turtles for a few days after hatching before they are released to increase their chances. They let us hold a few 1-2 day old ones 🙂
A Teratoma is a kind of tumor that can grow hair, teeth, or even eyes.
"Now, you are family. Okay. All my life, I had a lump at the back of my neck, right here. Always, a lump. Then I started menopause and the lump got bigger from the 'hormonees.' It started to grow. So I go to the doctor, and he did the bio... the b... the... the bios... the... b... the 'bobopsy.' Inside the lump he found teeth and a spinal cord. Yes. Inside the lump was my twin."
I've heard of a case where a teratoma had - among other things - cancer cells. So basically a tumor that had a tumor. Cancer within cancer.
A teratoma isn't cancer it self. It is a benign tumor. And it is not your twin.
Load More Replies...I feel bad for them but NOPE I'm not look nothing like that up
Load More Replies...Do. Not. Google. Images. I did and for the love of everything...don't do it.
My sister just had a very large one removed. It was 8 inches long and weighed 12 pounds. I did not get to see it after it was removed, but the surgeon said it had hair and teeth. Because of the size, it could have been a twin. My grandmother had 2 sets of twins, back to back. I find them fascinating, but they are gross.
Fun fact: the giant tortoise was so delicious, it caused not only itself to be hunted to extinction, but also the dodo.
Giant tortoise meat was supposedly better tasting than chicken. Its fat tasted better spread on bread than butter. Also, it was the perfect food for sailors at the time, as their bladders stored 1 litre of purified water, and they could survive without food in hibernation for almost a whole year in the hull of a ship. Not to mention, because they evolved without humans, they were easy to hunt. You could tie one to your back, and roll another to the ship and they would just let you. It was so delicious, they went unrecorded for a long time because expeditions to bring living samples of wildlife to Europe kept eating them on the way.
Conversely, the dodo, while as easily captured by sailors, tasted awful. It was completely unpalatable. HOWEVER, one day, someone discovered if you cooked dodo meat in the more delicious tortoise fat, it tasted just like chicken. So now, sailors were hunting a few tortoises at a time for their fat and water, storing them, and then hunting dodos on the daily.
Overhunting, plus the introduction of rats to the environment (because sailors) which would eat eggs, led go the population to decline at a rate they could not breed to keep up, leading to both animals going extinct.
"leading to both animals going extinct" You sure? What's in the picture then?
Yeah, the dodo is extinct. I think the giant tortoise is extinct in the wild, one step away from joining the dodo
Load More Replies..."the giant tortoise was so delicious, it caused not only itself to be hunted to extinction" No, no, no! This was most definitely not something giant tortoise were responsible for. They didn't ask to be eaten, and certainly not to extinction. It was humans all the way. Humans did this. Language is important. It was not the tortoise's fault.
if the turtle wasnt meant to be eaten, why was it made out of food then? /j
Load More Replies...They just re-released a Radiolab episode about the Galapagos tortoise and the impact of goats. Fascinating stuff.
It's one of my fav episodes of radiolab - did you see the YouTube video of the helicopter going around shooting the goats?!
Load More Replies...Europeans kept sending ships to pick up these tortoises but they were so delicious most of the tortoises got eaten before the ship could return home.
i like all the comments saying "people suck" when the people eating the turtles were just hungry, like any normal human gets, and at the time the turtles were food. are we just hating humans for anything now? i get that the overhunting thing was extreme and its sad that the turtle is endangered now, but some people are acting as if people dont get hungry
There's a bird that feeds its younger offspring to the eldest.
[FYI, roadrunner].
We had a couple of non-fixed female cats when I was a kid, one of which wasn't in the best health and gave birth to a sickly litter. I remember being horrified when she ate some of her own kittens after they died.
Load More Replies...I didn't know roadrunners ate meat until I saw one chasing a rabbit in my backyard. It was my rabbit. I chased the roadrunner and thus became a coyote.
According to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum (one of the greatest organizations on earth!), this happens only during times of food stress. It makes sense, since otherwise none of them would survive.
Staggered hatching. Owls and many other birds do it. The eggs hatch on different days so if there's a shortage of food, the younger, usually the weaker, gets eaten by its siblings
Reminds me of Tiger Sharks. The mother will have many fertilized eggs inside her but will only give birth to 1 or 2 young as the rest are eaten by the fittest before they're even born.
Chickens will also eat eggs and their own young. Most egg / chicken farmers have to enforce behaviour to stop them doing this. If you've ever thrown eggshells into a free-range chicken run and watched them greedily gobble up those shells, you'll definitely know about this
Sloths sometimes mistake their arms for tree branches and fall to their [doom].
Sloths are incredibly light, and unless they hit a rock with its head, they will survive. It happens all the time, I put back some in a tree trunk so can slowly climb back. Not to confuse with a sloth coming down to use the bathroom, they can do it only on the ground.
I don't write this so do kill me "We don’t know exactly where Douglas Adams got this information from when writing “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” but it is unfortunate and completely wrong. Sloths are actually very careful when they move about in the trees. Before they move, they need to be sure that the branch they are holding onto is strong enough to carry their weight. Also, their grip is incredibly strong (stronger than any human), and so they would probably notice if they grabbed onto their own arm! Sloths may not have big brains, but they are certainly not that slow-witted!"
Sloths falling from a tree isn't unusual, their bodies are designed to survive a fall and can even fall 100 ft and still survive. Infact when two male sloths are fighting over a female the aim is to knock the other one out if the tree.. must be a very slow fight haha. They're faster in water though! Sloths a really good swimmers and can swim 3 times faster than they can move on land :)
Well they are definitely not quick enough to try grabbing another branch.
When North Koreans defect to the South, one of the biggest struggles reported by them is often how many English words there are in South Korea (like coffee being 커피/ko-pi) that they just do not recognise. That’s because South Korea takes a lot of linguistic influence from English speaking countries (namely the US), while North Korea creates new words based off Russian/pre-existing Korean words
Not overly depressing in general, but you can never really count a fact about North Korea as ‘fun’.
They basically have to relearn Korean. And since their accents will give them away, some find it hard living in SK and decide to locate to other countries. The linguistic aspect is super interesting to me, I wrote a paper about the differences between Pyongyang and Seoul accents in college. Extremely limited sources, understandably
Interesting. I love linguistic differences like that. Is your paper available to read?
Load More Replies...And once they are repatriated to the South, defectors have said they felt that had crossed into the future. They have zero concept of the rest of the world. Many are driven to cross the Yemen river due to hunger. And once they are in China, they have to be careful of not getting caught or else china will send them back to North Korea to be sent to concentration camps or execution. If they are caught and sent to concentration camps, they take three generations of family along with the defector to the concentration camp. These people are terrorfied if they aren’t seen as being overly overly patriotic…they may be sent to jail. D factors once in China have to travel hundreds of miles with a broker all the way around to safety in Thailand. If they are caught in Laos they will also be sent back to North Korea. Once in Thailand they are sent to the South Korean embassy awaiting patriation. Even then because they can not function in modern society, they are housed in an education
….center that teaches them how to use the bus, how to shop, how to get a job (because in North Korea the government tells you what job you are going to have) and they struggle learning that their governments Juche policy is all a lie. They are then taught the truth about the Korean War in that the North was really the aggressor and not the Imperalist American bastards (they are taught that at age five to say American bastards). Some North Korean defectors find this is overwhelming that feel their entire existence was a lie. Please read the book by Yeomi Park: In Order to live. And check out YouTube videos on the organization Liberty in North Korea. Thank you for reading my verbose montage.
Load More Replies...I'm a professional Korean linguist from South Korea and it is immensely easy how easy it is to tell a North Korean and other Koreans apart. Usually the Korean government supports them with classes but I can easily tell the difference between Chinese from Yanbian that speak Korean, North Korean, Korean Russians and South Korean
One of my last gigs doing medical transcription, my all-time, hands-down FAVORITE doctor's notes to transcribe were by a doctor originally from Korea (he was a U. S. Naval officer at the time, so I presume he was originally from South Korea) - the man had THE most PERFECT diction, pace, enunciation, etc. Conversely, a civilian female doctor I transcribed for, another person from somewhere in Asia, drove me up the bloody wall, because SHE didn't use "period" as punctuation - no, for HER, it was "point". So I'm transcribing along, thinking she's giving a lab value - NOOOO-OOOOO, SHE'S ending a freakin' PARAGRAPH!!
The TSA missed 96% of contraband during an inspection in 2015.
I accidently took 3 knives through TSA, but couldn't get a packet of clover seeds through customs 🙄
They sure got my fingernail clippers and deodorant, though. Hooray for the false sense of security!
Every inspection I ever heard of had ludicrous failure rates like this.
Otters look cute but are pretty vicious animals that often threaten their own family if food is scarce.
Holy c**p. It's true! I was so hoping it was a myth. Ugh. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/otter-rape/
Load More Replies...They threaten them? Like "I'll turn this floating mass of otters around if you kids don't start hunting for food!"
From the family mustelidae, so related to stoats, badgers, and wolverines. All vicious predators. Otters are just cute predators.
Have you ever seen a strategy? Also super cute. Like a squirrel and a ferret had a baby. I also thing badgers and wolverines are cute, but in a decidedly more threatening way.
Load More Replies...The late Terry Nutkins (nature TV presenter and author) lost several fingers to otters yet still loved them up until his death.
Alzheimer's disease can cause you to pass away since your brain will no longer be able to chew, swallow, breathe, etc.
Many alzheimer and dementia patients end up dying from pneumonia and other infections. It becomes a quality of life issue and the medical care staff usually bring up DNRs and withholding medications (except pain killers) to let them pass peacefully. Alzheimers is rarely a COD on paperwork
I had to withhold food from a lady assigned to me. It was heartbreaking. Eventually couldn't swallow water and I could only gently wet her lips with it. I was the last person to wash her and brush her hair, she died an hour later. That messed me up for a bit, I lost 3 clients in 2 weeks. My line of work is heartbreaking in general.
Load More Replies...My mother passed away in 1999 from Alzheimers. She was only 66. She started forgetting us around 1993. My father took care of her until he got cancer. I remember we were giving her some water to drink around 1995 or so and she would take a drink but would not swallow. She would open her mouth to say she didn't understand and all of the water would come back out. We had to put bread in a bowl of water and she would eat the bread but would not swallow. This went on for only a couple of days, then she started drinking again. My father sent her to live in a house with an RN and they took very good care of her until she died in 1999. My father never missed a day visiting her, even the days he had chemo he had to go sit with her for an hour each day until she died. My father beat his cancer and died in 2007. Sorry this got long. I wish I could find my mother's caretaker, she and her daughter were wonderful to my mother.
My Nan passed from Alzheimer’s, and I remember my mother calling me to tell me that the nursing home had called her to let her know my Nan had reached the stage where she could no longer eat or swallow. It wasn’t long before I got a call the next morning at 1am from my mother telling me Nan had finally passed on. I felt so sad and yet so relieved that she had finally found peace. It’s an ugly disease and it robs so many people of a good life.
My grandma was constantly afraid. She almost got my grandpa arrested after she started running and screaming down the street and told the police she didn't know who he was or why he was keeping her in his house.
Load More Replies...My father had Alz.'s. I spent the last 30 days of his life with him, 24/7. It can also cause your personality to reverse itself. My dad was a kind soul who tried to kill me. I was his baby. Had my ex husband and a nurse not been with us, I would be dead. I was even on Oprah, discussing, with Gary Zukov, author of Seat of the Soul, my inability to deal with that situation. I had no problem with his attempt to kill me, but rather the aftermath. As soon as I got away from him, he realized what he had done. He started crying, asking my ex if I was OK, sobbing that he didn't mean it.He would never hurt his baby. George kept reassuring him that I was fine, and other than bruises around my neck, I was fine. It took me a few minutes to recover, and be able to talk. He died 23 years ago, and I still haven't mentally recovered knowing how badly he suffered when he realized he physically hurt me. Crying as I write this. I never went back home while he was in the hospital/nursing home as I lived 2
hours away. I had to go back home to a doctor's appointment that I cancelled numerous times. He had a heart attack just after I left, but his stupid nurse called 911 even though he had a DNR. He did not want me there when he died. But in the end, I was, he just didn't know it. I then had a nervous breakdown, and moved to Scotland. A 3 year old named Leah, saved my life. She was a neighbor who I met the first day I was there,
Load More Replies...No-one's brain can do that anyway. However, you may mean the signals from your brain telling you to chew, swallow, breathe will no longer be transmitted.
Just a thought, please be kind to the elderly. One day, if you’re lucky enough you’ll get old too. I see horror stories of abused Alzheimer’s patients being abused in nursing homes. Many of it caught on video. It breaks my heart. The very young and the very old are vulnerable to abuse. If you are a nurse or a caregiver or a cna…. Please be compassionate with our loved ones.
Alz kills when the part of the brain that controls breathing, respiration, and heart beat all disintegrate & die...
All I know is it's absolutely devasting to watch someone slowly succumb to this disease. I wish no one would ever have to experience this disease ever again.
I worked with all kinds of dementia patients for years. Every single one is different. For many, they are still in there but lost underneath the disease. Many can still learn new things. They often come up with new meanings for common things. People in dementia units can come up with their own culture. And for the love of God, yes, they still feel pain. I've seen doctors try to do procedures on dementia patients while under the impression they won't feel it. Never tell an Alzheimer's patient that their spouse, parents, or other loved one has died. They could be dead 40 years but each time you tell them, it's like hearing it for the very first time.
my grandma died from alzheimers. she spent over 12 years in a nursing home slowly getting worse. at the end she couldn't even swallow on her own or hold her head up. horrible way to go. and she was a teacher for 40ish years b4 that
When you're four months pregnant, the baby starts to pee inside you.
And the hair on the baby's body can be digested by the baby and comes out as baby's first poo. See https://www.pampers.co.uk/newborn-baby/care/article/meconium
Baby elephants are covered in hair when they are born.
Load More Replies...*Fetus, not baby. Especially now we should pay attention to terminology.
The Supreme Court didn’t do what they did because a Lithuanian published the “wrong” word in their second language. Leave them alone.
Load More Replies...It’s not pee as we know it, it’s amniotic fluid, basically the baby has it’s own eco system inside your belly and it practices breathing and peeing and using all the newly formed organs basically.
When they are born, are able to pee, poo and be sick on you if your unlucky enough as well
My youngest peed all over me after she was born, lol she was still attached to her umbilical cord!!
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Malaria is the #1 cause for human [mortality] of all time.
I think this post is referring to Sonia Shah's research, which found that malaria is most deadly infectious disease in history. That doesn't mean it's the leading cause of mortality. Heart disease is now responsible for almost 1/4 deaths in the US. Historically, heart disease was probably less likely to be the cause of death, but was definitely a leading cause of death even in the ancient world (we see signs of plaque build-up in Egyptian mummies).
I think there could be an argument for malaria being the number 1 cause of global deaths historically, though not these days. It's certainly in the top 10 of all time, maybe even the top 5.
Load More Replies..."Mortality" is a strong trigger word for me. I would prefer the word "death", please.
I'd argue this comes right after stupidity. I'd even go ahead and say most of them starts with the words, "nah, it'll be OK" or "check this out"
There is a philanthropy organization that gives people in malaria prone regions nets to cover their sleeping area at night. Saves hundreds of lives. Just wish I could remember what organization it was.
BP will see its death when I get forty years old for censoring simple common words like death
In some regions of Australia, 90 percent of koalas have chlamydia, which poses a threat to the species' extinction unless a vaccine is created or widespread koala culling takes place.
From what I understand, these cute fuzz buckets ar extremely dumb. Literally have smooth brains. Maybe mother nature is trying to do something...
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Load More Replies...Except on Kangaroo Island, where they are an introduced pest with no chlamydia.
'Threat OF the species extinction' a threat TO the species extinction would be a good thing!
Vending machines [are more lethal] than sharks [are].
Good to know. Next time I’m scuba diving and see a vending machine, I’ll flag down the nearest shark and hitch a ride to relative safety.
I see nothing wrong with this plan. Everybody knows vending machines are creatures of the devil.
Load More Replies...I’ve encountered way more vending machines than sharks in my life, so the odds make sense.
As ridiculous as the censorship is on this site, I understand where "are more lethal" comes from. But what got censored to "are"?
Explaining why this is true is way more complicated than "we see more vending machines than sharks", and relies on fundamental processes, such as human stupidity and misplaced rage at inanimate objects failures. Sharks are usually only curious, and kill us through bloodloss thanks to a mouth full of razors that also doubles as its sense of touch. Think "playing with a cat with just your hand" but on a bigger, life threatening scale. Far more often than sharks get curious about what we are, we find people angry at a jammed vending machine that think rocking it will get back their dollar. Small footprint, tall build, high weight....easy to topple, hard to catch without being crushed. The vending machine kills more people because there's way more stupid and angry people on land than there are sharks stealing cash in the water from people with no plan wearing scuba gear.
Because it said kill or dead or some other horrific word that can't be uttered. Feel free to post a picture of a gun though. Who could a gun hurt?
Load More Replies...What the [hell] is going on with the [random] brackets. If this is your post, can't you just write clearly rather than editing to add context?
You do realize that the writers aren't the ones doing the brackets and the censorship? Maybe not. The writers aren't the ones doing the brackets and the censorship.
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A gamma ray burst could [unalive] everyone on Earth within a few seconds and because it's just a beam of light coming from space, nobody would find out until we would be cooked.
Radiation, not light. And it will terminate you and every other living thing.
the best way to hide generational genocides is by giving them a cute name.
Load More Replies...The censorers have exposed themselves with too much blue, purple and UV light
Load More Replies...gasp! bored panda please censor this my tiny little heart almost had an attack looking at this scary trigger word.
Load More Replies...advertisers don't like "controversial words". BP likes ad money.
Load More Replies...I remember when that movie came out years ago, Unalive Bill, with Uma Thurman.
Well, and no warning because we can't perceive it until it's happening! Though it might just unalive everyone on one side of the planet, depending on the duration...
Nope. Radiation on that scale wouldn't even know the planet was in the way. Everyone within its "beam" cooks, on any side of the planet.
Load More Replies...I'm being triggered by the censoring. Maybe that will counteract the people who were triggered by the language originally.
Clowns make $30/h on average. Who is the real clown?
In spite of the comments disbelieving that clowns can get work on weekdays I may just get one for my Monday D&D group now.
you think they'd stay around to answer you? :D
Load More Replies...Being a clown requires a lot of self-promotion. Also, as the post alludes to, this is generally a job where it would be unusual to work more than 10 hours a week.
I know of a clown who earns around £164,080 annually. >.> His name is Mr Bojo
It is weird since the last study I saw showed that almost no children like clowns. It always seemed to be a thing propagated by adults who just assume children love clowns.
Most professional circus clowns work everyday of the week, except in Winter Quarters, which are, of course, in Florida. I was married to a Ringling clown for 13 years.
Clowns are just really creepy looking. And after I saw a Netflix special about John Wayne Gacy who was also a clown on the side, the creep factor just amplified.
Real clowns made note of how his trademark clown face had a lot of sharp edges in the design, something that alarmed them, because they always stay away from anything that looks like that. They all do rounded edges on the mouth. I thought that was interesting!
Load More Replies...I remember seeing creepy winos who were Clowns at the California State Fair in the 1950's. It's something sick you can't forget.
They were cani clowns, short for carnival. Circus people and Carnis hate each other. As with everything in life, there is an hierarchy. Carnival workers are the lowest of the low. NOT MY OPINION. Their fights go back for centuries!
Load More Replies...Sweet jeepers BP, what is with all the chuffing censoring of words. For example, the original post on reddit said "Vending machines kill more people than sharks do", you changed it to say "Vending machines [are more lethal] than sharks [are]". This is getting quite quite daft, quite daft indeed.
Supposedly, their sponsors are making them do it. I say get some new sponsors - preferably ones who aren't [furry animal with wings]-[guano] [mentally unwell].
Load More Replies...So many of these 'facts' have a little nugget of truth, but have been badly expressed. This takes them from being facts into 'unfacts' - they are almost there, but not quite close enough.
Agreed. And some citation on each "fact" would be great!
Load More Replies...I tried to make a witty comment on one or two of these, but now I'm just left alone and afraid.
If a bear has been eating human flesh, their scat will be white. You learn some strange things in Search and Rescue.
I met a giraffe once. I gave it some rabbit pellets in a big coffee can. That tongue reached the bottom of it. Their tongue is a purple color. Safari horse. Was an amazing experience.
They're not-fun facts. Says it in the title
Load More Replies...Sweet jeepers BP, what is with all the chuffing censoring of words. For example, the original post on reddit said "Vending machines kill more people than sharks do", you changed it to say "Vending machines [are more lethal] than sharks [are]". This is getting quite quite daft, quite daft indeed.
Supposedly, their sponsors are making them do it. I say get some new sponsors - preferably ones who aren't [furry animal with wings]-[guano] [mentally unwell].
Load More Replies...So many of these 'facts' have a little nugget of truth, but have been badly expressed. This takes them from being facts into 'unfacts' - they are almost there, but not quite close enough.
Agreed. And some citation on each "fact" would be great!
Load More Replies...I tried to make a witty comment on one or two of these, but now I'm just left alone and afraid.
If a bear has been eating human flesh, their scat will be white. You learn some strange things in Search and Rescue.
I met a giraffe once. I gave it some rabbit pellets in a big coffee can. That tongue reached the bottom of it. Their tongue is a purple color. Safari horse. Was an amazing experience.
They're not-fun facts. Says it in the title
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