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No matter how many all-nighters you pull devouring volume after volume of dust-laden encyclopedias, it will never be enough. Because learning is a process, and there’s no end visible on the horizon.

But most of us are just fine with one or two "did you know that?" facts always ready to be served at a dinner table. Except they get old fast and nobody wants to listen to another “banana is a berry,” like, ever.

Luckily, one Reddit user who goes by u/RyanBlitzpatrick did everyone a favor and asked people on r/AskReddit “What's a fact that just blows your mind?” 3.6K upvotes and 3.5K comments later, the results are in and you’d better get your notebook ready, 'cause these are some of the hand-picked knowledge bites that may honestly surprise you.

#1

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones When you dream, one part of your brain is making up the story, and another part is experiencing those events and is genuinely surprised by all the twists in the plot.

jayantadey1996 , Quinn Dombrowski Report

#2

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones 2006, which doesn’t feel THAT long ago, saw the death of two colossally old tortoises. The first, Harriet, was reportedly collected by Charles Darwin when he visited the Galápagos on the HMS Beagle. She belonged to Steve Irwin at the time of her death. Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin shared a “pet.” Estimated to have lived 176 years.

The second, Adwaita, was born before the United States declared its independence from England. Think of it: just 14 years ago, there was a land creature alive that was older than our country. Just incredible.

harpo-polo , wikipedia Report

#3

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones November 2, 2000 was the last time all humans were on the planet together. Since then at least one person has remained on the international space station

theguy4785 , nasa Report

I wish it was as easy to remember these facts as it was to scroll through. In reality, we do learn things every day, but not much of that information sticks with us.

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But memory is a very complex function. It turns out, much of it is generated not only through recollection, but also through the emotions that are attached to it. Shahram Heshmat, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Springfield, believes that “emotion affects all the phases of memory formation.”

For example, “Attention guides our focus to select what’s most relevant for our lives and is normally associated with novelty.” And nothing focuses the mind more than a surprise which escalates emotional intensity.

#4

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones Martin Luther King, Jr. and Anne Frank were born in the same year.

Also, that same year, Betty White was already 7 years old.

Rob_Vegas , wikipedia Report

#5

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones The oldest living tree in the world methuselah is 4851 years old

social-shipwreck , Matthew Dillon Report

#6

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones That the Oxford Univeristy is older than the Aztec Empire

TheRhinoMonk , Samuel M Report

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Kit Tan
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Oxford University established in 1096, the alliance of three city-states forming the Aztec Empire occured in 1428.

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Another interesting thing which escalates long-term memory is not the recollection of a fact itself, but rather the so-called mood memory. Prof. Heshmat explains that “Our current emotional state facilitates recall of experiences that had a similar emotional tone.”

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For example, being in a bad mood primes us to think of and remember unpleasant moments.Having said that, most of the things we forget easily have to do with our inability to put them in our long-term memory.

#7

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones The sound made by the Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883 was so loud it ruptured eardrums of people 40 miles away, travelled around the world four times, and was clearly heard 3,000 miles away.

That's like you standing in New York and hearing a sound from San Francisc

armagoei , NASA Goddard Space Report

#8

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones If time travel were possible, you would need a time-and-space-machine to survive the trip, otherwise when you travelled back in time, the planet would be at a different point in its rotation around the sun and our solar system would be at a different point in space as it rotates, which means you'd travel back in time and be in an empty part of space

brad-corp , Herman Rhoids Report

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#9

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones The International Space station is closer to the earth than San Francisco is to L.A

BareassedM , NASA Report

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Johnny
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You can bike from SF to LA in 42 hours, less than the typical 2 day trip to the ISS (though some have been shorter)

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Meanwhile, forcing yourself to memorize things is likely not to be very effective because our brains are not capable of making sense of dense information quickly and forming strong associations.

It's better to use super simple tricks such as visualization (imagine what you are trying to remember), repetition (boring but effective), and learning the opposite things (create associations in your head).

And never underestimate the power of understanding that which you’re learning, because you'll never be able to remember something you can’t explain yourself.

#10

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones Arctic foxes can survive temperatures as low as -70 degrees Celsius

Weeneem , Tambako The Jaguar Report

#11

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones If an underwater bubble is collapsed by loud sound, light is produced and no one knows why

1 -Mark_YU5MAV- , AleGranholm Report

#12

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones Some people don’t have an inner monologue, like they literally don’t have a voice in their head.

DublD96 , Matt Gibson Report

#13

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones A woman once jumped off the 86th floor of the Empire State Building but the wind pushed her back and she fell on a ledge on the 85th floor. She survived.

reddit.com Report

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#14

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones The fact that nobody knows that if we all see colours the same way

anime_fan77 , oh_debby Report

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Dorothy Parker
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I think about that. It's more than just how you identify a color. There are colors in the aqua family I see as blue and my husband sees as green.

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#15

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones That there are people in the world who don't like music. Not one specific type, but music as a whole.

That both blows my mind and disturbs me

IncertRandomNameHere , Eugene Peretz Report

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Madison Feehan
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Hope I don't run into any of these people, because we wouldn't be vibin'!

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#16

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones I still can’t get over the fact that teddy roosevelt got shot and continued to give a three hour speech

stevew32 , wikipedia Report

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Hunter
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

i remember learning about that i think it went like I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose

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Thinairgal
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I can't get over the fact that anybody would sit through a three hour speech

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Meyer Weinstock
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Lamentably, we are now stuck with the 8-second sound bite... -Rev Dr M, retired historian & former politician

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Hello it Smee
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

To the person that down voted this comment educate yourself. Teddy Roosevelt used the word "Bully" as in "good for you". Words change meaning all the time.

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Gwinevere von Ludwig
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The speech is what saved him. He had it in his suit jacket and the bullet hit it... it was so thick that the bullet was slowed considerably.

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MiraiJack
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

How boring was his speech that someone had to shoot him to make it stop?

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Luisa Vasconcelos
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And never the less he continue with it. Probably person give up and kill himself insted.

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CatWoman312
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

He was a pretty avid hunter and very outsdoorsy so I’m not surprised.

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BingeFest1
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

He was saved by his 50 page speech and eyeglass holder. The bullet put a dime sized hole in his chest but it didn't reach his heart

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Iapetos
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My local catholic priest finished his mass during which he had a heart attack. He pulled it through and kept the emergency service on distance.

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Shaurya Joshi
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

i do, he had his glasses case in his chest pocket, and the bullet slowed down significantly when it hit the case, therefore he got mildly injured

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Lara Smith
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

More than that, he was such an experienced hunter that he knew the placement of the wound wouldn't be a fatal injury.

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KatHat
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

He hated the nickname "Teddy" so we should be calling him "Theodore", as he preferred.

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Marnie
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Well, I knew someone who shot himself in the head twice, then took a leisurely walk around a lake in a local park listening to his walkman (until someone called 911 after seeing brains leaking from his head).

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Verona Bingham
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

He was also largely responsible for the decimation of the Buffalo He encouraged their shooting and left the carcasses on the plains to rot and the Indian people's of the time to starve as they couldn't find Buffalo to eat.

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Cathy Gaines
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

He really was tough! His life after presidency was amazing! He scouted an uncharted river in the Amazon as chronicled in the book A River of Doubt!

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Guy MacGregor
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

So, I didn't knew who "Teddy Roosevelt" was, so I Googled it. I learned that he continued his speach for 90 minutes after being shot, not 180 as OP suggested.

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Dianna Siever
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I up voted you. Thanks for the education and don't worry about the down votes. Maybe English isn't your first language, you're still doing great. English is my only language so I commend you. If English IS your first language, please double check your work. 😊

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Jonathan Cardenas
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The speech lasted close to 90 minutes after he got shot not 3 hours

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somnomania
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

can we get him back by november, and just get him installed for a couple of terms

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Tiffany Marie
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

He probably loved to talk. I can imagine how long his prayers would be before it was time to eat dinner. x_x

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Harold Houfek
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

False witness. I read his bio book two times and he was a total fake, monster, and liar

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#17

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones Ant biologists still don't know the maximum life span of most ant queens. They just live too long to keep track, and they're not too easy to keep in captivity. The longest one on record is like 30 years old, and there could easily be species that live longer than that

Broflake-Melter , yokohamayomama Report

#18

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones There is a termite colony in the Amazon Rain Forest that is the size of Great Britain and is almost 4,000 years old. There are also hundreds of millions of termite mounds

Redditor_2017 , cell Report

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#19

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones The U.S government has an official for a Zombie apocalypse. CONPLAN 8888 also known as Counter-Zombie Dominance was written in 2011. And just in case you think it's weird bureaucratic humor, the first line reads, 'This plan was not actually designed as a joke.'

sdsanth Report

#20

There are more trees on Earth then there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

Confirmed by NASA.

Spajster Report

#21

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones A neutron star is so dense that a teaspoon of material from one would weigh around 10 million tons

ladies-pmme-nudespls Report

#22

If the timeline of the universe (up to now) was compressed into a year starting on new year's day, Homo sapiens would appear at 11:54 pm on December 31st

vsbobclear Report

#23

Mitochondria is only passed down by mother so there's a concept of mitochondrial eve, all humans today have their mitochondrial dna derived from her

k110111 Report

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Dorothy Parker
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Hold onto your hats if you're a white supremacist. The place or origin is believed to be East Africa.

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#24

Strawberries aren’t berries.

But bananas are

CallumDudo Report

#25

The Fermi Paradox.

With the number of potentially habitable Earth-like planets in our galaxy alone, it’s very strange that we haven’t detected alien signals of any kind so far.

There’s lots of theories as to why that is, but my favorite is called the great silenceDark Forest (which sounds way cooler). Basically everyone else out there is being quiet and not transmitting because they know of some danger that we are unaware of, and they don’t want it to find them. Gives me chills.

Edit: It’s interesting that most of the replies here, joking or serious, correspond to legitimate theories on the Fermi Paradox.

azermanus Report

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Scagsy
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

They may be transmitting in an entirely new form which we don't possess

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#26

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones That the biggest bacteria species known, Thiomargarita namibiensis, can have a maximum diameter of 0.7 millimeters, which is big enough for you to see it without a microscope.

That's insane if you consider that your average bacteria species has a diameter of 0.001 millimeters.

Cachuchotas , wikipedia. Report

#27

How a computer does what it does. Blows my mind how 1's and 0's can do so much. Maybe I'm uneducated, but still mind blowing

VeryAutisticWeeb Report

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Johnny
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The 1's and 0's aren't so amazing, binary math is easily understood -- the amazing thing to me is the timing, the fastest CPU's can reach 5Ghz, that's so fast that light can only travel around 2 inches with every CPU clock tick.

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#28

A pig will eat a whole human body except for the teeth

TheTommyKnockerZ Report

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#29

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones The way the human brain works. These cells that are powered by tiny jolts of electricity are collectively having conscious thoughts, coming up with morals and empathy and every human behavior

pigeon_q , Jerimee Richir Report

#30

People Are Sharing Facts That Blew Their Minds And Here Are 30 Of The Most Interesting Ones That Neutrinos have mass and every second of every day about a billion of them are going through every square inch of your body - but the space between your atoms is so huge there's pretty much a 0% chance they will ever hit you

ProbablyNotArcturian , Ryan Report

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Jus
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm more amazed that we consist of atoms with huge spaces in between and we are still in one piece. Wow.

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