Someone Asked “What Is A Fun Fact That Is Mildly Disturbing?” And 35 People Delivered
The internet is a powerful tool. There are seemingly no limits to the amount of information, both relevant and completely irrelevant, you can look up on your screen at any given time. Whether we’re talking history, wildlife, or downright amusing bites of wisdom nobody even asked for, the web makes it look like the world is a truly fascinating place. Well... usually. Because every now and then, your curiosity takes you to unfamiliar places where you wander into some terrifyingly creepy collections of trivia.
But facts are facts, no matter what. And to really see the whole picture, we sometimes have to roll up our sleeves and venture down the knowledge rabbit hole filled with darker tidbits of information. "What is a fun fact that is mildly disturbing?" asked Redditor chilloutjack and immediately kicked off a thread that is not for the faint of heart.
We've gathered some of the most 'unfun' responses from the thread to share with you all, so continue scrolling! Upvote your favorite entries and let us know which ones creeped you out the most below in the comments.
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The rescue dogs from ground zero on 9/11 developed PTSD and needed therapy afterwards because there were so few survivors and so many dead recovered that they thought they'd screwed everything up and done a bad job.
If we held a minute of silence for every victim of the holocaust we will be silent for eleven and a half years
Just counting the Jews (6 million). If we count all the victims of the Holocaust, we would be silent for over 25 years. (525600 minutes in one year)
A brief scroll through this thread proves that the world is both fascinating and frightening. After reading the uncomfortable revelations users typed out in this 'Ask Reddit' thread, those pieces of trivia are bound to keep you awake at night. And you’re definitely not the only one, as the post has amassed over 40k upvotes with over 15k people sharing their little nuggets of wisdom.
But where does this universal drive that pushes us to explore the unknown come from? It seems to draw us into the unfamiliar, urging us to venture into the shadows to uncover the dark facts we never knew about before.
Turns out, this mysterious driving force is something we’re all familiar with — it’s our curiosity. If we allow our craving to know and understand to roam freely, it can take us to exciting places. As Mario Livio, an astrophysicist and best-selling author of Why? What Makes Us Curious, explained to The World, humans are innately curious creatures. "Other animals are curious, but only humans are worried and curious about reasons and causes for things. Only humans really ask the question, 'Why?'"
The entire Universe outside our galaxy could have completely disappeared over 20,000 years ago and we still wouldn't know it yet. Our view of the Universe is actually what it looked like anywhere from thousands to Billions of years ago -with no way to see what it actually looks like "right now". Imagine if you looked out your front window and saw your yard as it was 6 months ago, neighbors house across the street a year ago, and houses a block or two away as they were several years ago. Also off in the distance you see the glaciers from the last ice age. That's what it's like looking out at the Universe.
If Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin got stuck on the moon the official policy was to cut communication and let them suffocate in silence, Nixon even had a speech prepared in case this happened.
The phrase "shoot for the moon. If you miss you'll land amongst the stars."
The next nearest star is 4.3 light years away. If you miss the moon, you're absolutely f****d
To put that into perspective, that is about 25370000000000000 km or about 195153850000000000000 bananas
According to him, this eagerness to understand is something we’re born with. "There are many studies that have shown that there is a strong genetic component to curiosity," he said.
"It is also the case that some people are more curious than others, in the same way that some people have a talent for music and others don’t or some people are smarter than others. But all people are curious, with the possible exception of people who are very deeply depressed or have certain kinds of brain damage."
Snow White is 14 years old, and Walt Disney instructed animators to make her look "old enough to marry".
There's a condition in which people become blind, but deny their blindness. The brain creates false perceptions to fill in for the lack of sight.
It's called the Anton Syndrome
I'm curious; are the false perceptions in any way accurate? This is incredibly interesting.
There are an estimated 35-50 active serial killers in the US. Famous serial killer Edmund Kemper (I think?) said he thinks that number is way higher because it was so easy not to get caught (he turned himself in).
There also seem to be two basic types of curiosity: perpetual and epistemic. We feel the former when we see something that surprises or puzzles us or doesn’t match up with our existing knowledge. "It is felt as a sort of uneasiness, an unpleasant situation, a bit like an itch you need to scratch," Livio explained.
The latter one, epistemic curiosity, is our love of knowledge and our desire to learn new things. "Our brain and our mind assign value to this knowledge, so this is usually experienced as a pleasurable thing, with an anticipation of reward in the form of what we learn," Livio added.
Bunnies actually have the ability to scream, but they will only scream if they feel they are about to die.
Dolphins can and will pick stuff up and move it around using their penises
Also, they get high on pufferfish and they were filmed passing it around. Its poison, if digested, is 40,000 times deadlier than meth. Luckily, dolphins don't inhale, they just "puff". Taking the term "seaweed" to a whole new level!
Male giraffes will headbutt a female in the bladder until she urinates, then it tastes the pee to helps it determine whether the female is ovulating.
This particular drive pushes us to become rounded and well-informed citizens by striving to know more about our planet. Even if this means stumbling upon slightly disturbing truths we may immediately want to forget. Because life isn’t just about amusing tidbits of knowledge you can whip out during your weekly dinner party. It is also full of uncomfortable historical and scientific facts that allow us to build a broader perspective.
Unfortunately, our eagerness to learn and understand tends to diminish as we grow older. While we still share our love of knowledge, it’s harder for us to take risks to find that novelty. But that shouldn’t stop us from picking up a few tips and tricks on how to become better at sparking our curiosity.
When you're cremated, your teeth explode from the heat.
Chimpanzees just flat out love to eat monkeys.
They love it so much they’ve feasted on certain breeds to local extinction.
Always found this mildly (moderately) disturbing because of the similarities in the species, like if wolves sought after puppies.
Wolves will totally go after full grown dogs. Careful if you're ever walking through wolf country with a dog.
When a male lion takes over a pride he will engage in infanticide and kill (and/or eat) all of the cubs that the previous male breed.
I know more disturbing facts than I care to admit.
Humans do that too. New kings would often kill (not eat) the opponent’s children, potential challengers for the throne.
To gain some insight on the topic, we reached out to Nancy K. Napier, Ph.D., a Distinguished Professor Emerita at Boise State University and author of Unfolding Curiosity: Wrinkles and Surprises from Business and Beyond. According to her, when it comes to curiosity, she’d offer the idea of "just a little".
Napier explained that previously she hadn’t realized that curiosity can be like an upside-down U-shaped curve. "We need to know just a little about something to make us curious to know more," she told Bored Panda. "If I've never heard of pro wrestling, I'd never even think to ask about it. So a bare minimum sparks curiosity."
Christopher Mintz-Plasse's mom had to be on set during the filming of his (attempted) sex scene in *Superbad* because he was only 17 at the time it was being filmed.
Want to ruin Finding Nemo?
Clownfish live in groups that are all male except for the biggest and most aggressive fish who is the Dominant Female. The next biggest fish is the Dominant Male, and these two are the only ones who breed. When the dominant female dies, the dominant male changes gender to become the dominant female. All the other males then fight to become the dominant male, and the cycle continues.
If you keep a Clownfish male on his own for long enough, he will become female.
There was a series of movies during the 1980s called the “Guinea Pig” films that were so gory that the director of the movies was actually investigated by the cops and had to show how he did the effects
Another thing that immediately awakens an interest is personal connection. "For me, at least, if there is a human connection, it's much easier to become curious," Napier revealed.
"A few years ago, a coach of Australian Rules Football (huh?) wrote to ask about an article on culture and American football that he'd seen with my name in it. We corresponded, we met, they invited me to do a creativity workshop, I watched the game and because I'd met some players and coaches, I was MUCH more curious," she added. "I'm not a sports fan but when I know someone who's on/in the team, that makes me curious."
If you have a boob job, the database for implants is so well-kept and readily available across the country that they can identify your body based on the serial number of your implants.
If there’s anything humans are good at keeping track of, it’s boobs 👍
If you contract rabies it can lay dormant in your body for years until one day you get a headache, and by then its already too late and you will slowly go insane and grow an erratic fear of water and Inability to swallow - then you die.
Burnt humans smell like smoked Texas barbecue.
Before anybody calls me a serial killer, I worked in a trauma ER and the bad burn victims smelled exactly like this.
Working in a hospital and being a serial killer aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
Interestingly, shyness and boredom also pique our interest, the professor argued. "If I'm in some setting where I don't want people to know me OR if I'm bored, then I play a game with myself to shift the spotlight to someone else."
Napier challenges herself to see how long it takes in asking someone questions before his/her/their eyes light up and she has found what excites them. "I once talked with a super boring accountant and used this challenge — it took me about three minutes to learn he's a world-class fly fishing expert and we were off and running for 45 minutes. I learned a lot and he was thrilled to talk about that rather than having to talk business," she mentioned.
Meerkats are adorable creatures. They even started in a show called Meerkat Manor.
But they are, by far, the most murderous species of any animal, killing more of their own species with greater frequency than any other animal
In medieval times, diabetes was known as the honey sickness and to test for it a physician would have to taste your urine.
And with ladies, they checked if they were ovulating while they were at it
And sometimes, you don’t even need to step out of the house to achieve this. The internet is a place of knowledge where picking up intriguing tidbits of information is something you simply can’t avoid. And if you consistently uncover new intriguing facts every day, you’re bound to reap the benefits in no time.
A lion’s tongue is so rough it can lick your skin off. I learned this valuable piece of information from a toy in a Arby’s kids’ meal when I was younger.
Penguins will often work as prostitutes for other penguins to get stones for their nests
If you die while late into a pregnancy the build up of bodily gases can push the dead foetus out of your body. Its called postmortem fetal extrusion.
With a sudden traumatic death of the mother the fetus lives for a few minutes and can be extracted alive.
Anne Frank’s diary had lots of masturbation that later got cut out
So she was a perfectly normal teenager who probably never intended to let anyone else read their diary, not sure what is disturbing about that.
Octopuses have what is called, “decentralized intelligence” which essentially means that their limbs have their own “intelligence”. For example, if a severed human limb touches acid or fire or anything that would cause pain, nothing would happen however if an octopus limb touches acid or fire, it would recoil and avoid it, even though it’s been severed and is no longer attached to the octopus.
There is a chance that the octopuses lungs are smarter than me.
Two out of three people have herpes. So, you probably have herpes. There are tons of herpes viruses. Not all of them cause sores.
Yup, Epstein Barr (glandular fever/mono) is a herpes virus. Varicella Zoster (chickenpox) is a herpes virus. If you’ve ever caught one of those you never clear it from your system so you have (technically) herpes.
Moths will vibrate their genitals as a way to prevent bats from locating them
It isn't your sweat that smells, it comes from bacteria living on your body essentially s******g stuff out after they feast on your secretions
Yup, they feed off the lipids in sweat. There’s a gene that controls whether or not you sweat lipids so it’s possible to have sweat that doesn’t smell bad. Having said that, still need to wash!
They couldn't give the firefighters from Chernobyl morphine, because their veins were literally melting.
Not entirely true. They tried to give as much pain medication as possible to the patients (the initial firefighters on the roof of the turbine building got an absolutely ridiculous level of radiation - like no way are you surviving) but because of the burns, the body’s entire stock of bone marrow turning into paste (so you cannot replenish blood cells at all) and other really nasty effects there is no way for the body to process enough to have an effect. They definitely tried morphine though.
The world record for most kidney stones passed is 6,504 by Don Winfield, the most being removed is 172,155.
The largest kidney stone ever removed. was 20cm long and weighed 4.4 pounds, another being 13 cm.
Nutmeg was used as a hallucinogenic before modern drugs. It can also kill you if more than a tablespoon is eaten at once."
A Rat King happens when multiple rats become congealed together in a tangle of tails, dirt, hair and blood.
And another urban legend on here. Rat kings don't form without some seriously disturbing human with too much time and a bunch of dead rats
Your a*****e can stretch up to 8 inches without permanent damage and a raccoon can fit in a 4 inch hole
Glad we don't have racoons here. This sounds like the animal hell from Aus
There was something in the 1960s called Project Acoustic Kitty where basically the CIA wanted to put microphones and transmitters inside of cats and use them to spy on the Soviets. It cost about $20 million and was a huge failure, with the first cat supposedly getting hit by a car and killed immediately after being released. Even though it failed the thought of my own pet being used by the government to spy on me is pretty unsettling.
Owl wing feathers are unique in having comb-like leading (front) edges that change the way air moves over the surface and allows for incredibly silent flight. This is why owls are able to fly right at you, or prey, without the tell-tale 'whoosh' noise that you would hear if something like a hawk did the same.
My wife and I had a great horned owl fly less than ten feet above our heads once on a quiet night. It glided past us in perfect silence. It was an amazing moment!
Male angler fish breed by attaching itself to the bottom of the female and inserting all of its insides inside of her
Pineapples have an enzyme that dissolves meat, meaning that when you eat one, it's technically eating you back.
Pineapple: I will digest you! Human: Not if I digest you first!
The sea cucumber will disembowel itself when it feels threatened. It will projectile vomit its digestive system to scare off a predator.
The organs do grow back. I feel like this is an important detail in a survival mechanism.
Coke (cocaine) was in Coke (the soft drink) and that's why it's called Coke.
Brain Aneurysms have little to no warning (Headache) and are only diagnosable by CT Scan. Roughly **1 in 50 people in the US have an unruptured Brain aneurysm right now that could rupture at any time.** A quarter of BA cases were misdiagnosed and 75% of those we're no CT scans ordered by the doctor.
Enjoy your next Headache.
I had a Brain Aneurysm, and the thing that made me go to my Doctor was a very intense migraine which lasted 8 days, one eye was half shut also. He sent me for an MRI where a large bifurcated one was found. My Surgery was extremely unpleasant but highly likely saved my life. Any one who has any questions about this please leave me a message.
There’s a condition out there that when tissue get damaged, them body replaces the damaged tissue with bone instead of regenerating the organ, as the person ages, they become slowly encased in a prison of bone until they cannot move anymore, the organs inside them turn hard, and eventually they die at the age of 11, the longest reported life of someone who had this condition lived to 13
This sounds like fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva. The first “flare up” usually happens before 10 years of age. The median survival age with proper medical care is actually about 40 years, though lack of treatment or late diagnosis can reduce life expectancy.
Humans produce enough saliva in their lifetime to fill two swimming pools.
Surinam toads gives birth from holes on their back. Seriously, it's so painful to watch...
When a fly lands on your food it vomits on it to prepare to eat it
"How's the food, dear?" "Looking at it made me throw up." "Oh, I'm so glad you like it!"
Everyone has demodex, or eyelash mites, living in their eyelashes. They are microscopic and typically do not cause any issues. People may get skin problems if their demodex population gets out of control, but that can be avoided with proper hygiene.
They feed on dead skin cells, but they've apparently also started taking a liking to mascara.
Edit: I stand corrected. According to another user (I apologize, if you're reading this, I don't remember your username), only about ~1/5 of the population has them, but considering there's over 7 billion humans on the planet, that's still a lot of people lol
I briefly tried to Google it and got all sorts of different numbers. Basically, not everyone has them but a looot of people do. Bedtime for me 🥱
If you get bit by the right(wrong) fly, you can get worms in your eye(s).
They can live up to 17 years.
If it weren't for a layer of snot lining the inner walls of your stomach, the acid would burn through you and your insides would fall onto the floor.
The Romans used crushed mouse brains as toothpaste.
Okay, I literally cannot find a source on this that's not a half-sentence, buzzy, "fun fact". In fact, if I exclude "mouse brain" from the search about Roman dentistry, it gives me urine, goat milk, crushed bones, and stuff like oyster shells as the ingredients of their toothpaste, nothing about brains, so I'd love to see a real source...
He song hotel California is actually about drug addiction. For example, the “pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends.” Are actually he side affects. And “You can checkout any time you like. But you can never leave.” When I learned it, I was shocked.
When whales get too old to swim to the surface to breathe, they sink into the ocean and suffocate.
People believe everything they read on bored panda. I kNOW, it is shocking, but true.
You must mean SOME people believe everything they read whether on bored panda or any other place. Some checks up on the facts they read.
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Tell me you've never read Marx without telling me you've never read Marx. Calling a bird a horse doesn't make it a horse.
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Every drop of water you've ever drank, probably went through a dinosaur at one time. Still weird to think that we're drinking dino pee though.
Just be glad homeopathy is b******t and water doesn't have memory.
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When whales get too old to swim to the surface to breathe, they sink into the ocean and suffocate.
People believe everything they read on bored panda. I kNOW, it is shocking, but true.
You must mean SOME people believe everything they read whether on bored panda or any other place. Some checks up on the facts they read.
Load More Replies... Tell me you've never read Marx without telling me you've never read Marx. Calling a bird a horse doesn't make it a horse.
Load More Replies... Every drop of water you've ever drank, probably went through a dinosaur at one time. Still weird to think that we're drinking dino pee though.
Just be glad homeopathy is b******t and water doesn't have memory.
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