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Whether we're gathering knowledge for our next DIY project or reading up on the country we're about to visit, learning is a lifelong process. However, it's not always just sunshine and rainbows.
Last week, Reddit user Throwrapis3ces invited everyone on the platform to share the disturbing facts they wish they didn't know, and they have already received nearly two thousand replies.
From human biology to waste management and social customs, continue scrolling to check out the stuff people think they would be better off not knowing.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
I just heard about this one. A hospital in Kentucky pronounced a man brain dead so they could harvest his organs after he overdosed in Oct 2021. They began their routine viability checks. He woke up during a viability cardiac cath, which sent some personnel over the edge and speaking out. They were quickly dismissed by KODA (Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates). His sister also reported that she saw him crying with his eyes open as he passed her during his honor walk to OR for harvest. Her report was also dismissed. In OR, some of the operating physicians refused to continue with the procedure as they reported he was thrashing and bucking the vent. KODA was not pleased and requested additional surgeons to proceed despite this calling his behavior involuntary. There was no one available to step in. Surgery was canceled. The man is alive and well today. Many of the staff, including physicians, reportedly needed therapy after this experience.
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#2
Definitely on the most horrifying facts I've ever learned is that a mute mail order bride is ten times as expensive as one who has the power of speech. It's very disturbing and becomes more and more horrifying the more you consider the implications.
Family's_disappointment 1 year ago
I really want to punch that man in the face who first came up with this "order a bride" bullsh*t But wait I'm genuinely curious which country do these brides come from?? (This is genuine curiosity)
#3
Child slaves in the Congo mine the cobalt used in our phones.
Yayheterogeneity 1 year ago
I recommend getting a Fairphone. They do a remarkable job in trying to get all the resources for our phones under fair conditions even in the Congo. And it's a great phone! Look it up!
#4
The Holocaust that occured in world war 2, was NOT the last.
Cambodia, Serbia, child soliders, and the Hutos, Tibet,
All with in my 57 years on the planet.
Large portions of humanity are horrible people whose only redeeming quality is to be a bad example.
cerinamroth 1 year ago
No, the Holocaust was the Holocaust. The word I think you’re looking for is genocide.
#5
It's illegal in India to find out the gender of your baby, because so many prefer boys over girls.
#6
Every hour, an average of 12 children go missing across India. Every day that average is 296 children missing across India.
#7
That people regularly abandon animals and/or children all over the world.
#8
The youngest recorded mother is Lina Medina. She gave birth at the very (IN)appropriate age of FIVE YEARS, SEVEN MONTHS, AND TWENTY ONE DAYS OLD.
#9
Domestic violence rates go up when a big sporting event is on. And a team loses. (Obviously a team loses).
But, say England is playing France in football. The losing country will see a spike in DV.
#10
"call of the void" When you stand over a high place, and you just want to jump even though you're not going to jump that's what it called.. Interesting and disturbing at the same time...
#11
The lil dog in space Laika died terribly and afraid in an oven above the earth..
#12
Fatal familial insomnia. Super rare, but also super scary. Basically, you stop being able to sleep, then you go mad, then you die. No cure.
#13
That covid infections harm every system in our body.
Our
hearts,
vascular systems,
brain,
immune systems
connective tissue
stays behind in our guts
and reproduces in our bone marrow.
This can't end well.
Adam Zad 1 year ago
That COVID is no joke! There was one patient who was so brain damaged he thought he won an election that he actually lost by more than seven million votes!
Ghostpotato 1 year ago (edited)
Had covid in the beginning of the year, wasn't that bad, like a bad cold pretty much... but then I got stuck with post-covid/long-covid (same thing, different names). Constant high body temp with fever spikes a few times a week, exhausted all the time, my puls rises and I get winded by the smallest thing, aches that move around to different parts of the body, digestive issues, headaches... Pretty much the whole body is affected. And no one knows when or even if it will get better. Edit: oh and I forgot to mention the weird feeling of anxiety and dread I feel whenever my body temp is about to go up! I've had my fair share of medical issues but this is by far the strangest.
Myoviridae 1 year ago
Been dealing with long covid for a few years after a few infections. I can tell you it gets better over time, but it seriously SUCKS! I have been lurking on the longhaulers reddit site and have found a few hypotheses for the effects. Itaconate shunt hypothesis can explain the fatigue and meshes with the evidence for "mitochondrial dysfunction" seen in research (https://www.healthrising.org/blog/2023/12/23/itaconate-shunt-hypothesis-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-fatigue/). Digestive issues can be explained by alterations in the gut microbiota and also vagus nerve damage from the virus (which also explains anxiety issues) (https://x.com/CoRESinai/status/1803126863805685999).
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BeesEelsAndPups 1 year ago
COVID is a hoax, and the millions who died are paid actors /s
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Dina 1 year ago
Not good to hear as I had Covid early March 2020. The first strain. Was on vacation in Miami end of Feb 2020 beginning of March where it first showed up in US before we really knew too much. Fortunate to have made it through but really wondering if my strange health problems are a result of it. 🤔
Tabitha 1 year ago
My husband and I both had it early too.we didn’t end up in the hospital, it we were both flat on our backs for n entire week, and not up to speed for weeks afterward. I swear our lingering sinus and other breathing issues, which also affect our stamina, are a result of it. I think they call it long COVID.
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Evagating Beewolf (she/they) 1 year ago
This is why it's unfair to blame Trump - he got brain damage from COVID, we can't expect him to be coherent! /s /but seriously I could totally see maga making this argument
Tom Brincefield 1 year ago
They would have to admit covid is real and that there is something wrong with Trump. They don't believe either of those things.
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Scrappychick 1 year ago
Thus far I have been lucky not to have contracted Covid (touch wood). Not knowing how a virus affects people's health in the long term is scary. Many people will now say thing like remember covid, remember lockdown, but the scary truth is we aren't free and clear, no where near it. Not only do we not know the long term effects on those who "got better/survived", it has had detrimental effects on how we interact with people, education, employment and economics. It's a scary beast
G 1 year ago
Since getting COVID 3 years ago, everytime I get a cold or flu, I'm unable to speak for months
Mason Kronol 1 year ago
My voice goes immediately. You would think my husband would be happy. But yeah, no one can hear me on the phone. I can speak but I sound like a smoker. No tea helps %100
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talliloo 11 months ago
this is an interesting thing to read. i had covid - it was a mild case but the test still showed positive. very fatigued and had some respiratory symptoms but overall wasn't too bad. two weeks later a fairly large kidney stone was discovered. i am not implying that covid caused the stone as that is ridiculous. however, the very common procedure of having the stone broken up via laser ended up being the. beginning of a two week life threatening nightmare. 12 hours after the procedure i was in hospital with high fever which ended up with my being medevac'd 100 miles away to the main hospital for observation/treatment. was released 24 hours later as fever dissipated. 24 hours after coming home was back in ER and again medevac'd back to hospital due to becoming septic & it affecting kidneys and heart. that was the remaining part of the two weeks. have had several surgeries/illnesses in my life but i don't wish sepsis on my ex-husband - it is such a nightmare.
Joseph Arnold 1 year ago
Never been the same since I got it. My resting heart rate can spike 30-40bpm just standing up. Blood pressure went through the roof. Winded all the time. Etc. Never had issues before. Had to quit my job and get another because of it.
lisa_l_ross58 1 year ago
I had covid but didn't know it until someone else in my house got sick and tested positive. I tested positive as well but no symptoms.
Rich Black 1 year ago
And people are still being told this epidemic was caused by eating bats on Chinese new years. Because we will believe ANYTHING!
Bartlet for World Domination 1 year ago
Yes, vaccine injury exists. Now compare to the occurrence of myocarditis in Covid survivors.
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CP 1 year ago
Yawn! This is old news and well known. Now ask what COVID does to you instead of fearmongering about the vaccine.
Load More Replies... #14
I am not the same after reading King Leopold's Ghost, about King Leopold II of Belgium's f*****g regime of terror and torture in Congo in the nineteenth century and what traces it still leaves today.
TribbleThinking 1 year ago (edited)
This needs to be more widely known about. The Catholic church sponsored him, and happily accepted the riches that were extorted by hacking the hands off children when their parents failed to deliver.
#15
Unit 731 was a Japanese “””research institute””” during WWII where they committed atrocities that would’ve made even the coldest of Nazis blush.
They would test the efficacy of different explosive devices by having live prisoners stand close to the blast and then see who survived the blast.
They would infect prisoners with STDs to see how the disease would develop if left untreated. Sickeningly, they sometimes would infect new prisoners with the STD by forcing an already-infected prisoner to rape them at gunpoint.
They forced other prisoners to strip off all their clothes and stand out in the cold until they died of frostbite, just to see what happened.
Perhaps worst of all, nobody was ever tried for war crimes and the man behind it all, Shiro Ishii, died peacefully in 1959. The United States knew of Unit 731, but they requested their “findings” in exchange for not investigating or prosecuting those responsible. Because of this, we don’t even know how many people actually died there, estimates range from 23,000-300,000.
None of the “findings” were even useful to the United States as it became clear that the experiments were carried out merely because the researchers thought they’d be fun.
Nakagawa Yonezo witnessed experiments and executions at Unit 731 and later testified, “Some of the experiments had nothing to do with advancing the capability of germ warfare, or of medicine. There is such a thing as professional curiosity: ‘What would happen if we did such and such?’ What medical purpose was served by performing and studying beheadings? None at all. That was just playing around. Professional people, too, like to play.”
#16
One way many states departments of corrections try to anticipate the number of prison cell will be required in 20 years is based on how many third graders fail the state reading assessment.
#17
Quokka mothers will eject their babies from their marsupial pouches at predators to escape.
Omni-Man rules. "I can always make another kid".
#18
When I body falls from a building, they don’t go ‘splat’, they bounce, unless it’s a very very high fall. Also if you’re driving over 80km/h and hit a horse or large animal, you can inhale its intestines and suffocate on them. Some factual stories from my ex-police father.
#19
Microplastics are found in human blood, organs and even placentas. These tiny plastic particles, which come from things like degraded plastic waste and synthetic fibers, are so persuasive in our environment that they’ve made their way into our bodies through te food we eat, the water we drink and even the air we breathe. While the long-term health impacts are still being studies, the idea that plastic is now part of our biologic system is pretty unsettling….
Chocolate llama 1 year ago
I'm a barbie girl, in a barbie wooooorld. Life is plastic, it's fantastic!
#20
The sheer power and devastation of hurrucanes. I watched an interview with people who survived the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. Their accounts were just awful. Some highlights:
- One man, who at the time was a teenager, was trying to get to their storm shelter out back. He was holding his toddler sister. Once he got outside, debris hit the girl in the head, smashing her head against his face. She died instantly. He said he just stood there, holding his sister's body for several seconds.
- One man watched their refrigerator fall on top of and pin their mother, breaking her back and paralyzing her. She was alive when he left her.
- People climbed trees to get away from the storm surge. Once it receeded, they had to crawl over bodies caught in lower branches.
- Several people were wandering around town naked afterwards. The storm had stripped them of every piece of clothing.
#21
A pig will eat every part of your body except teeth, there were several farmers who went missing and the only thing left was a pile of teeth in the pig pen. Pigs have also been known to walk in to farmhouses and eat people's babies, so yeah pigs are crazy.
#22
The 6 missing nuclear bombs that we know of.
General Anaesthesia 1 year ago
6 American bombs. I don't believe for one second that all Soviet Union/Russian bombs are accounted for.
#23
Child ab*se is more common than you think. If it’s not happening in your house, it’s definitely happening on your street.
Luke Branwen 1 year ago
Horrifying number of people where I live still condones child abuse as a necessary and effective method to raise a child.
#24
The human brain is the same consistency as room temperature butter.
#25
Organophosphates, including the chemical weapon Sarin Gas, work by inhibiting your muscle's ability to relax. Your muscles basically constrict and can't unconstrict, causing what feels like a muscle cramp through your entire body - your arms, your chest, your eyes, your tongue, everything. It most frequently kills via asphyxiation, because you can't exhale. Surviving means a permanent, irrecoverable loss of motor function, even with rapid medical treatment.
#26
Likely most of the 9/11 jumpers were conscious throughout their fall. That’s just the most heartbreaking thing to imagine.
#27
Approximately 50% of murders are unsolved every year. Was closer to 90% unsolved in the 70’s.
#28
That your organs know where they're supposed to be and move on their own.
During surgery, doctors will just stuff them back in and they'll rearrange themselves back to their proper spot.
#29
The Yellowstone Caldera, sometimes referred to as the Yellowstone Supervolcano, Under Yellowstone park that has the power to change the climate globally as well as end everything when it erupts.
#30
Currently whatever I am reading about the Diddy case has got me disturbed.
That stuff is just insane.
WonderWoman 1 year ago
Rich and powerful men - do disgusting things because they are rich and powerful
#31
I used to work at the coroner's court and attended hundreds of inquests. I had to become pretty numb to hearing about the deaths and seeing the reactions of the families and witnesses, but there's one that'll always stick with me.
It's the new baby's first Christmas, only a few months old. The family are eating their Christmas dinner, laughing and telling stories. Granny is holding the baby, and feeds her a little bit of the chicken so she can try it for the first time. The baby chokes to death.
Every time I think about this one, I wish I hadn't been there and hadn't heard it. It's always in the back of my mind for the rest of the day.
#32
That praying mantis females usually eat the males during intercourse but the male can continue without his head.
#33
Bedbugs practice traumatic insemination. The females have a genital area but the males prefer to just stab their p*nis into the females' abdomen and ejaculate right into her abdominal cavity.
#34
Your eye lids are the same kind of skin as foreskin.
#35
Most processed meat is linked to cancer.
Ace 1 year ago
Very poorly worded. Some preservatives used in curing meat. specifically nitrate compounds, have links with cancer if used in large amounts, but are also naturally occurring in vegetables like celery, so celery salt is sometimes used in order to be able to claim "no added nitrates". Check the label.
#37
How the rest of the world lives. I've been to Uganda and India. Ugandan kids live in grass and mud huts, eat raw sugar cane and African potatoes, and just want to learn, but will probably work in a sugar plantation or die young.
Indian kids are taught to do anything to get a small amount of money and that carries through their life, even selling their younger siblings of they can.
And here I was growing up in suburban America complaining about school and listening to blink 182 on my disc man.
I still want to take my kids to Uganda though, so they can better appreciate what we have. And then reply to this thread "when my dad took me to uganda...".
София Харитонова 1 year ago
Somehow this post just reeks of white people privilege. I'm sorry, but it is. Uganda is not a display for your kids to watch, damnit! And it sounds like ALL of Uganda and ALL of India is just mud huts and beggars.
#38
Everything relating to the Ant-walking Alligator people of Hiroshima. That s**t is legit worse than any horror movie/game I've ever witnessed.
#39
The Astronauts on the Challenger were alive after the explosion while the capsule they were in fell back to the ground.
#40
Degloving….
misslostinlife:
One of our bunnies degloved another. The first vet we went to recommended putting her down without even looking at her. We went there because it happened late at night and it was the best 24 animal vet around. Took her to the small animal vet open the next day and she fully recovered. It was horrifying to look at.
#41
That there have been multiple women that have either died or nearly died because someone with a mental illness forcefully removes the baby from their womb by luring them in with the promise of baby clothes/supplies. Absolutely terrifying.
#42
1.
Scientists find that the weight of all human-created mass, including plastics, exceeds all natural living biomass.
2.
The weight of all remaining wild land mammals is less than 10 percent of humanity's combined weight, which amounts to only about 6 lbs of wild land mammal per person.
#43
Both Disney & Francis Ford Coppola hired Victor Salva after his prison sentence for being a predator.
(The Jeepers Creepers franchise creator).
Carl Roberts 1 year ago
Disney also had no problem working with Ezra Miller, even after all the despicable things he did. Disney is despicable.
#44
Many of the human organs trafficked on the black market in the United States come from narcos. There have been many cases involving medical professionals, and trucks that have been found with bodies are missing organs.
#45
I just found out that mankind k*lls more than a billion animals everyday for food. Sounds not too humane.
Stryker Tyger 1 year ago
Humans are more than just predators, more than just mere "apex" predators. We are top of the food chain. However, without tools? Pretty sure most other apex predators would annihilate us.
#46
When you die the morgue workers will shove 3 cotton balls up your r****m to minimize any leakage and foul odors emanating from your body.
#47
Male horses get a build up of smegma in their p*nis sheath that can form into a rock hard nugget that can be 4/5cms across. So it has to be kept clean and these ‘beans’ have to be removed manually by the owner, or a vet.
#48
The album cover of dawn of the black hearts by mayhem was a photo of pelle ohlins real s*icide scene taken by his band mate.
#49
You are not born with the bacteria that causes tooth cavities. Someone passed that bacteria to your mouth at some point in your life.
#50
In some places in the world where g*nocide and terrorism exist together, male neighbors will trade homes and sleep in the homes with neighbors’ wives/daughters. If homes are invaded and the marauders demand that the males in a household r*pe the females, they aren’t r*ping their own family members.
#51
In the late 1800s, the heir to the Jameson Whiskey fortune went on an expedition to Africa and came across a cannibalistic tribe. He was curious about them, so he purchased a 10-year-old girl and gave her to them to eat. According to witnesses, she had no emotion when they tied her up and began preparing to k*ll her. She knew what was about to happen and accepted it.
#53
What the inside of my bowel looks like, especially during a Crohn's flare (I have become fully concious half way through nearly every colonoscopy I've had).
Roger Haywood 1 year ago
You where sedated? In UK you get lubed up and take it like a boss. Not very nice tho. The worst part is drinking the laxatives that flush you out, before hand.
#54
Chemotherapy and/or radiation treatment (and also type-1 diabetes) really ruins your arteries and you may survive cancer but not your later heart attack, vision loss, or loss of appendages. By "ruins", I mean they don't just get blocked, they almost look shrunken or atrophied - thready. You can't thread a wire through them for stents and they are no longer good targets for bypass and so that won't help you either.
#55
When you are doing surgery and a patient on the table dies, they turn cold. Ice cold. FAST. Uncomfortably fast. I will never forget that sensation. Awful.
Mat Hall 1 year ago
Nonsense. As with all thermal exchange it's partly dependent on the difference in temperatures, but in typical circumstances (normal body temperature in a room temperature environment) a dead body takes about 12 hours to feel cool to the touch, 24+ to reach ambient temperature all the way through, and they will not get "ice cold" unless you're storing them in a freezer!
#56
That orphaned newborn kittens have to be carefully monitored because they seek out the nipple so aggressively they suck on the other kittens’ penises often to the point of removing the p*nis entirely. Thanks Ologies podcast!
Susie Elle 1 year ago
I wonder about the truth of this. A kitten's penis is so small that it's very hard to determine the sex of the kittens when they're under a certain age (or so I've been told). I can fully see how they would suckle eachothers tails, but penises?
#57
Everything that happened to Sylvia and the insufficient amount of things that happened to everyone involved.
Karma Black 1 year ago
Sylvia Likens, I'm guessing. Murdered by her supposed caretaker, the caretaker's kids, and the kids' friends. Only read about her case if you don't want to sleep tonight.
#58
Did a quick crash course to bacteriology. Using and dumping sanitizer back in the wild will inevitably give bacteria enough time have immunity to it. Which is something so dangerous that can break humanity.
Steven McDonald 1 year ago
No, this isn’t true. 1) Alcohol evaporates extremely quickly so it’s not just sitting around in the ‘wild’, and 2) Bacteria can’t evolve immunity to alcohol because it literally destroys the cell. It’s like saying that bacteria should’ve evolved resistance to fire by now
#59
Due to how polluted Vegas is,when they saw the sky clearly,they thought something was wrong.
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Diolla 1 year ago
Some of these are interesting, or scary. But quite a few of them sound like made-up stories.
Mike F 1 year ago
I agree. I believe that it's a thing from the site(s) the "stories" are harvested from. I get the impression that someone reads a tale then does the "well, if you think THAT'S bad listen to this..." Always trying to top another story.
Load More Replies... Brian Hawley 11 months ago
Missed chemotherapy. It damages your body as it damages the cancer. The hope is your body recovers but the cancer doesn’t. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes.
Susie Elle 1 year ago
Disturbing in a good way: there's a species of mealworm that can digest styrofoam and plastic. The monomers they poop out can be reused. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/superworms-eat-and-survive-on-polystyrene/
Emma S 1 year ago
I found out recently that when the space shuttle Columbia exploded on reentry in 2003, parts of the shuttle were found in three different states and 2/3 of it were never found.
UKGrandad 1 year ago
Columbia broke up over the Louisiana/Texas border, and the debris field was 250 miles long and 8 miles wide (2000 square miles) spread across the two states. Only 38% of the shuttle was recovered, so 2/3 is roughly correct.
Load More Replies... Rich Black 1 year ago
Bored panda. Because people will believe anything. Buy our products. Or subscribe to premium!
Diolla 1 year ago
Some of these are interesting, or scary. But quite a few of them sound like made-up stories.
Mike F 1 year ago
I agree. I believe that it's a thing from the site(s) the "stories" are harvested from. I get the impression that someone reads a tale then does the "well, if you think THAT'S bad listen to this..." Always trying to top another story.
Load More Replies... Brian Hawley 11 months ago
Missed chemotherapy. It damages your body as it damages the cancer. The hope is your body recovers but the cancer doesn’t. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes.
Susie Elle 1 year ago
Disturbing in a good way: there's a species of mealworm that can digest styrofoam and plastic. The monomers they poop out can be reused. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/superworms-eat-and-survive-on-polystyrene/
Emma S 1 year ago
I found out recently that when the space shuttle Columbia exploded on reentry in 2003, parts of the shuttle were found in three different states and 2/3 of it were never found.
UKGrandad 1 year ago
Columbia broke up over the Louisiana/Texas border, and the debris field was 250 miles long and 8 miles wide (2000 square miles) spread across the two states. Only 38% of the shuttle was recovered, so 2/3 is roughly correct.
Load More Replies... Rich Black 1 year ago
Bored panda. Because people will believe anything. Buy our products. Or subscribe to premium!
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