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.
‘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.
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 :(
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
It happened to me, but not with edible things. My body decided that after 28 years of having no allergies, suddenly "the cold" was bad for us. I'm not even kidding; look up Cold Urticaria. I am literally allergic to a *temperature* and there's nothing I can do about it.
Pineapple for me, at age 50. Was hard to figure out what was happening because it was so foreign.
My dad, me, my son all sneeze 3 times whenever we walk outside on a bright, sunny day. There's a scientific name for it, but I can't remember what it is. Oh, and I live in Florida so that's fun.
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I became allergic to shellfish in my mid 20's...and I love shellfish! :(
I'd never got the chance to try much shellfish until my late teens because my dad wouldn't let it in the house. I had eaten prawns before and been fine, but when I had to peel one myself the first time I came out in hives! I know I can eat a certain amount and be okay, but I also had soft shell crab for the first time and had the same reaction!
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RIGHT!? Hit 45 and BOOM! You're allergic to everything, except horses and cats. Oh! and you have allergy triggered asthma. Food? Anything that has, or contributes to yeast, is also bad. And pinto beans! You can have any other beans you want, but pintos might kill you... WTF?!
Yup, I developed skin allergies to mangoes, avocados, and tomatoes in my 30s and 40s. And I'm vegetarian, so it sucks.
Beer in my 20s. Not a great loss as I didn't much care for it, and judging from some aqauintances, I have saved a fortune over the years :)
White wine at 23, then all alcohol by late 20s. I don’t miss it or the hangovers, but alcohol is in surprising number of things that I now cannot have. Like some really good ice cream, learned the hard way. I have to make my own now.
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I relate. This started 3 years ago, started with tomatoes then red meat in the same year. That allergy disappeared and I developed another and it disappeared before I could figure what I was allergic to. Now I think I may be allergic to milk. Haven't been to the doctor's yet to prove it. It's just the worst!
My friend was in line for vaccinations. He was in the Army in Japan. The guy ahead of him, got his shot, took a few steps, & collapsed. His heart stopped. My friend did CPR & bounced him back. The guy had a severe allergic reaction to the flu vaccine that he never had an issue with ever before that day.
I didn’t have seasonal allergies until after 35! Serves me right for laughing at my brothers!
My allergist gave me a great allegory for allergies. Imagine an empty barrel with a something slowly dripping, a single drip at a time into the barrel. Big empty barrel is no problem but eventually the barrel will fill up, it can take years. Once it does it overflows, the barrel can't hold anymore. That's what can happen to our bodies, we can deal with something for years and years until one day the body says "Nope".
Sometimes it may not be the food you have developed an allergy to but the chemicals found on it. This is often true with strawberries and citrus fruits. With citrus fruits chemicals are absorbed into the skin of the fruit and may even reach the soft pulp which you then eat. It is impossible to remove all of the traces of citrus pesticides for this reason.
Also from personal experience: hearing putin's voice on radio or tv causes tinnitus in my ears just at the very edge of what frequencies I can hear so in the car my mum turns the radio off as soon as putin speaks. The thing must not even be edible to get allergic.
Yup, I've always been allergic to nuts (all), eggs, and shellfish then all the sudden I'm allergic to tomatoes, apples, and bananas... wtf
It can also stop being allergic. I was quite allergic to citrus for a very long time and am safe from it now.
I have an auto immune disorder that causes exactly this. e.g I and not actually allergic to strawberries. I never have been and really like them....However, on day my immune system decided that I was. And by allergic ,I mean throat closing, full Anaphylaxis needing hospitalization and large doses of adrenaline....Have eaten strawberries since, no issue. But it can happen with literally anything .Fun times.
Not sure if it works with animals but it happened to me. At age 19 I randomly developed a severe allergy to cats that had never occured before. I was visiting friends abroad and their house cats for some reason caused me a very scary allergic reaction. From that day on, I can't even be in the same room with a cat without my throat closing, and when I pet them I must immediately go and wash my hands and face afterwards, otherwise my skin gets covered in pimples. I like cats but I must always stay away :(
Happened to me, used to eat peaches nectarines and all melons now im allergic to all of them severely, like 6 minutes to get me to the hospital or I could die
My daughter's been having this issue. Everything sets her off into hives!
Cinnamon. . . Though, now that I think about it, my mouth always burned then went numb and tingly after eating big red gum lol
My body has a fairly mild but annoying reaction to most raw/fresh produce. It just started happening in elementary. I hate it
Cherries, apples, plums, peaches, spinach, hazelnuts, leech, some very green salads....and lawn on skin contact
I’m like the opposite of kids who grow out of their nut allergies, mine have gotten worse with age. For a long time something like a cookie with walnuts would make my mouth a little itchy. Last time I accidentally had some I got hives all over my body!
My brother was allergic to raw egg as a toddler but not cooked. We found out making french toast he pulled the raw egg down on himself and broke out in hives. Benadryl saved the day
Yeah, it's strange. When I was a kid, I had no problem being around cats, but suddenly in my late 20s, early 30s, I was. And now I'm in my 40s and it seems to be gone again :P
It's hard to know if I'm becoming allergic to more things or if they are just ones I hadn't narrowed down yet, since I couldn't afford to do the full allergy testing...
Deaf schizophrenics don't hear voices, they see hands or lips as mental images that tell them what to do.
The oldest person alive was born with an entirely different set of humans on the planet.
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.
Thanks to pregnant women, the average skeleton count per person is higher than one.
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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Only one in a thousand sea turtles born actually make it to adulthood.
A Teratoma is a kind of tumor that can grow hair, teeth, or even eyes.
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?
There's a bird that feeds its younger offspring to the eldest.
[FYI, roadrunner].
Sloths sometimes mistake their arms for tree branches and fall to their [doom].
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
The TSA missed 96% of contraband during an inspection in 2015.
Otters look cute but are pretty vicious animals that often threaten their own family if food is scarce.
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
When you're four months pregnant, the baby starts to pee inside you.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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].
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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!
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I tried to make a witty comment on one or two of these, but now I'm just left alone and afraid.
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.
If a bear has been eating human flesh, their scat will be white. You learn some strange things in Search and Rescue.
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.
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.
If a bear has been eating human flesh, their scat will be white. You learn some strange things in Search and Rescue.
They're not-fun facts. Says it in the title
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