Today, you can learn anything on the internet. Whether it’s historical, psychological or just plain weird bites of information, people can’t seem to get enough of the tantalizing trivia being shared online. But if you want to see the whole picture, some knowledge might be as interesting as it is disturbing. However, facts are facts, no matter how uneasy they might make us feel.
So when someone on r/AskReddit asked what is a not fun fact, redditors quickly rolled up their sleeves. The thread went viral, amassing more than 82.4K upvotes and 35.1K comments full of the most strangely fascinating pieces of information.
We collected some of the best answers this thread had to offer, so continue scrolling! And after you’re done, don’t forget to share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below.
This post may include affiliate links.
The search and rescue dogs on 9/11 were getting so sad from finding only deceased bodies, the human helpers buried themselves in the rubble so that the dogs could find them and be happy.
This began at the Oklahoma bombing. I had a friend go. He came back so traumatized that he did not speak for years. People love to over generalize and rag on police officers and other first responders. There are more good cops than bad ones, some have witnessed some truly horrific scenes in the line of duty
There are more deaths due to mental health issues than all forms of violence combined. People are struggling.
Bored Panda reached out to Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and author, most recently, of Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy. He was kind enough to share some insights about why humans are so drawn to learning new facts and how we benefit from them.
According to the professor, one reason why we find facts interesting is that they are very context-specific. “For example, if I said ‘Would you like to know how guitars are made?’ you wouldn’t necessarily say ‘Yes!’ immediately. You’d more likely say ’Uh … maybe. Is it interesting?’”
“What’s odd about facts is that the content matters less to whether or not you’d like to learn about it than you’d think,” he explained. Being a psychologist, Willingham is absolutely fascinated by human memory but sometimes it happens that when he goes “to professional meetings and attend talks about human memory that I find boring.”
“And then sometimes, I watch a documentary on something—for example, making guitars—that I didn’t think I’d find interesting in the least and find myself fascinated.”
That your brain erases your nose from your vision, until you actively think about it. You nose is obstructing your vision 100% of the time, but your brain interrupts it as useless information, and removes it. When you start thinking about it, or close one eye, you can see your nose again.
This might seem harmless until you realize the implications.
Your brain, without asking, erases something very real from your awareness. Imagine the possibilities of other things it's doing on it's own like that. There could be a literal 2nd world right in front of us, and it might just be being erased as useless information.
People who survived the Holocaust and get Alzheimer's often think they are back in the camps. So they escape one of humanity's greatest horrors only to die in it 50 years later.
I had the honor of taking care of several people who had been in concentration camps(they had the tattooed numbers) and this is very true. One guy with dementia could only get baths, no showers because just the word shower sent him into a horrible memory sequence. Their stories were heartbreaking to say the least.
Curiosity is an innate drive we share with many other species, he told us. It prompts us to learn about our environment, which obviously helps individuals to survive: “We are not curious about everything—we are curious when we think a little exploration will lead to a lot of learning.”
Still, what we gain from learning new information depends on what we already know: “Suppose you say to me: ‘Would you like to know which, of all the bottled sauces made in Kenya, is the most popular?’ I can’t name even one … so if you tell me, that fact isn’t very informative.”
“But suppose I knew a lot about African cuisine. Now that information would be informative, because I have some context to put it in, some existing knowledge to connect it to,” Daniel T. Willingham explained.
If 2 male flat worms meet, they will sword fight with their penises until one loses. The loser will become female and they will mate.
People with extreme scurvy start to have ALL of their old wounds open up. Everything with a scar is held together via an active process with collagen and without vitamin c just sort of...stop.
Also, bones that have broken and healed come apart at the site of the break. It's an amazingly horrific disease.
Quokkas, the worlds happiest animal, will throw their babies at attackers if threatened.
However, some say that taking the time and energy to learn interesting facts is a waste of time since this information is accessible with a few Google searches and quick clicks on the links. The professor disagrees, saying that factual knowledge is a really important driver of reading comprehension and other high-level thinking skills, like problem-solving.
“Think about how much easier it is to read a passage if you’re familiar with the general topic—I don’t care how ‘skilled’ a reader you are, if (like most Americans) you’re unfamiliar with the game of cricket, you will not be able to make sense of a newspaper account of the game,” Willingham elaborated.
On the other hand, “a ten-year cricket fan in India or other cricket-mad country would have no problem.”
A blue ringed octopus, found in the Pacific, is a tiny and cute little guy, but one painless bite gives enough venom to take the lives of 25 male adults.
In countries that require you to opt-in to organ donation, fewer than 15% of people register. In the US (an opt-in country), 18 people die every day waiting for an organ transplant.
“Opt-out” countries see over 90% of their population registered for organ donation.
The image that most people have of blobfish is based on a misconception.
people think that’s what they look like all the time but blobfish adapted to live in deep waters, which means the deeper you go, the more water pressurethere is. Their bodies are not meaty like fish but more gelatinous because they adapted to the water pressure. if you accidentally pull them to higher levels but with less water pressure, their bodies don’t handle it well bc there’s nothing keeping their bodies in tact, so their bodies explode.
Basically, every photo you’ve seen of a blobfish where they look big and pink and, of course, blobby is a photo of a dead blobfish.
Merchandise and cartoons designed after what they look like dead. Hell, they’re referred to as what they look like dead.
While many blame the internet for overloading our brains with tons of information, we are the ones putting the knowledge into context. When the time is right, we can connect the dots and come up with brilliant ideas. So if you catch yourself wondering if you're ever going to use this stuff, just remember—someday you actually might.
Men's belts are the dirtiest item of clothing. Touched after pooping and before washing hands, never washed, and worn daily for years.
If you are an identical twin it is possible that you and your siblings identity’s were swapped and your parents never caught it.
There is more slavery in the world right now then at any time in history.
You can smell your own lungs. Your brain just filters out the smell.
If you shine a flashlight/smartphone on a newborn sea turtle for too long (which could be only minutes), it will start crawling around in circles. Known as the "Ring of Death", it means that the turtle's eyesight has been permanently damaged due to mistaking your lights for the moon that guides it to the sea. By doing this, you have doomed the sea turtle to death right after birth.
Vasily Arkhipov was a Soviet navy officer who was the second in command of a B-59 submarine equipped with nuclear weapons at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. When the ships commander was told to launch the entire nuclear arsenal onboard, Arkhipov refused to authorize the attack, after realizing that the launch from the US was an error in their system.
If he wasnt on that submarine, the United States and Russia would be a big, grey spot on the globe.
There is a (genetic) disease called FOP where your muscles and tissue turn to bone. Often called "human statue disease"
Eventually people may have to decide whether they want to become "frozen" in a sitting or flat/standing position.
Your intestines will “wriggle” themselves back into the correct position.
Doctors who do any type of intestinal surgery don’t have to worry (too much) about how they put the intestines back in.
Horses can't throw up.
So if they eat something bad or get a bad gas bubble, they just lay down and die.
Between 10 and 20% of US adults are functionally illiterate (this does not mean they can't read or write at all, but that they cannot comprehend what they are reading at a high enough level to do many basic tasks, like filling out a form). To make matters worse a very large proportion of these people do not realize they have a problem with literacy and self report as being fine at reading and writing.
Migraines and strokes carry a lot of the same symptoms so if you suffer regular migraines you may not notice you're actually dying one day.
No, they don't. But they can act as a warning sign if you are in a risk group and suddenly develop migrane with auras or just auras.
Load More Replies...
Yep have a weird condition where I get the aura but not the migraine. I had childhood migraine (headache plus aura) which stopped when I was around 19, then the aura re-emerged in my 50s. At first I thought it was my eyesight going wonky because I had no headache but the optometrist told me that’s what was happening. Just had one this morning, goes for 20 minutes then fades away
That happens to me too. Freaked me the f**k out the first time it happened. I've never actually had the headache.
Load More Replies...
My gran had what we thought was a stroke, she was unable to talk and had facial droop. We called her GP who attended and got very annoyed with us because it was a migraine. My mum had to point out we weren't medically trained to distinguish between a stroke and a migraine. He apologised after that.
I hope you will find a better GP, he had no right to be annoyed. Even he apologised, that's no behavior for a GP. Alarming symptoms have always to be taken serious, and you were right to be alarmed.
Load More Replies...
Me too. It took me months to get diagnosed correctly. The doctor at the hospital who 1st treated me said I needed to do yoga because there was nothing wrong with me. 1st neurologist told me I needed a psych eval. My pcp told me I had hysteria. Thankfully I transferred doctors and got correctly diagnosed because my new doctor had the condition herself.
Load More Replies...
I has a migraine that cause difficulty speaking and numbness/loss of coordination on my right side. It was absolutely terrifying because I didn’t know those could be migraine symptoms. I thought I was dying.
A year ago I went to Emergency with symptoms of a stroke. Nothing on MRI or blood tests although staff believed everything I said about symptoms of loss of sensation and weakness in half my body. ED docs were clueless about the cause, then they called down a neurology consult. Similarly unable to arrive at a diagnosis so was escalated up through seniority in the neuro dept. At a more in-depth subjective history taken that day, I noted I got migraines 3-4 times a year. This was the missing bit of information. One of the most senior consultants had read about hemiplegic migraines but never seen one. So I had temporary stroke symptoms that lasted 6 hours acutely but were gone completely after 2-3 days. Pretty scary at the time as I was a trained physiotherapist who treated stroke patients and didn't want that for myself at 40 years...
Those could be absence seizures!! I start to see an aura around things for anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes before I have the seizure!! I actually lose consciousness for a few seconds to a couple of minutes from them and then, when I regain consciousness, my head comes apart!!! It’s like a migraine headache times 10!!! Believe me on that because I have both types of headaches!! Please consult a neurologist!!
Migraine sufferer here...had one for days and I couldn't get it to stop. Then I woke up in a hospital...after suffering a burst brain aneurysm that caused a stroke. After learning everything all over again (from writing my name to driving a car) I hyper-react to any headache. But it's just a regular ol' headache and I'm doing everything I can to make sure that the worse case scenario doesn't happen again.
My mother had a stroke and thought she was just having a really bad migraine. She didn't seek medical attention until the next day when the pain became more than she could bear.
I had aura migraine for years, they stopped all of a sudden after i had a heart attack and are on meds to thin blood now NEVER ignore aura migraines !
If you suspect you're having a stroke, try to stick out your tongue. Apparently it's not possible & you should seek medical attention immediately.
I am 50 and started getting migraines at 19. My mother had strokes. It scares me that one day I might think it’s a migraine, but it’s not
I can understand your fear! It scares me aswel, especially when the migraine is at its worse. Had them since i was 12 (now 38) and always said that this cannot be good for a persons health.
Load More Replies...
My husband suffers from migraines thanks to a car crash when he was a child. Thanks for this.....
Sadly i get migraines & have a family history of strokes. I worry about this
When I get a migraine (actually often) it turning into a moment of death might be a good thing at that point
I get horrible migraines and I'm one of those types that gets scared when I smell burnt toast.
With a stroke, symptoms usually come on suddenly. With a migraine, they happen gradually; the headache usually starts small and gets more painful. A stroke is more likely to have what are called "negative" symptoms such as you might lose sight in one eye or lose feeling in one of your hands or feet. A migraine is more likely to have "positive" symptoms. That means added sensations, like flashes in your vision or tingling in your skin. If you're young, it's more likely to be a migraine. If you're older, it's more likely to be a stroke.
Usually, a life threatening stroke is vastly different form migrane. The reason that you might not notice is rather because you're going to be unconcious or your brain can't process information about the damage due to the damage.
There is a type of migraine that mimics all of the stroke symptoms. People who have this condition have a higher likelihood of having an actual stroke at some point. So basically this fact is true but only if you already have hemiplegic migraines which are rare, occurring in about 1 out of 10,000 people. They come with paralysis and muscle weakness or numbness usually on one side, loss of vision or difficulty seeing, confusion, problems with speech or understanding speech, and loss of coordination. Some people even have face drooping. They're called hemiplegic migraines. Because there are similarities to stroke it's recommended to avoid any medications that constrict the vessels and to not take hormonal birth control.
Load More Replies... The reason you’re supposed to contact a doctor if you have an erection lasting longer than four hours is because prolonged priapism can lead to gangrene of the penis. Blood goes in, deoxygenates, but can’t leave, so there’s no way for fresh oxygenated blood to come in, causing the tissue to turn black and die.
Don’t worry, though! This can be treated by using a big syringe to suck the trapped blood out.
Spider - Rain (you read that right) is a real and naturally occurring phenomenon.
It’s a rare phenomenon where thousands of spiders use tiny strands of webbing to float thousands of feet into the air, landing several miles away.
A third of the world's population live in areas that are projected to suffer extended periods of unsurvivable heat by 2070.
The reason dogs love squeaky toys is because they sound like small animals dying.
Bed bugs procreate by traumatic insemination. Males literally stab females with their genitals. So, just another reason to hate them then.
Bed bugs can burn for all eternity in the deepest, darkest pits of hell.
There is a mysterious illness called the 'sweating sickness' that hit in multiple small epidemics in the early modern era. It was incredibly contagious and massively deadly, with about a 50% average death rate, but it could be higher. It began with an ominous sense of apprehension, followed by severe pains in the neck and giddiness. They then abruptly stopped and switched to heavy sweating, headaches and delirium. Finally, the person was hit with an extreme urge to sleep, and it was thought to be fatal if you fell to it.
We know almost nothing about it, nothing about how it spread, how it was caused, only that if you got it you were either surviving or dead within 24hrs. There are horror stories of people leaving town on hunting trips and returning the same day to find almost everybody in the village dead, with only a few scattered survivors.
The worst thing was, you did not gain immunity. You could live through the sweating sickness once, and then get it a few days later and die. Or live through it two or three times, and then get it and die. It was horrific, and we don't know why it disappeared and we don't know if it will ever return.
Happened in the British Isles. a mysterious and contagious disease that struck England and later continental Europe in a series of epidemics beginning in 1485. The last outbreak occurred in 1551, after which the disease apparently vanished. It occurred near the time of The War of the Roses, speculation includes it was linked to the outrageous living conditions and bad sewage disposal or a hantavirus virus type of disease. All very fascinating
The glaciers of the Antarctica shelves have melted (and continue to melt) at so fast a rate that even if we enacted radical and worldwide climate change laws today, it's going to take hundreds of years to recover them to their pre-industrial levels.
It was once thought for birds (parrots, magpies) to learn to talk, you had to release their tongue. This was done by cutting their tongue completely or partly off, of course without any anesthesia or pain killers. The tongue release plays absolutely no role in the birds' ability to talk.
There is a non-zero maximum threshold for the amount of cockroach that can be present in ground coffee because it is literally impossible to keep them out entirely.
The accepted level is apparently 10 mg per pound of ground coffee. Time to get a coffee grinder and switch to whole-bean coffee!
In Australia there is a plant called the Gympie-Gympie which has such a severe sting that horses who brush against it throw themselves off cliffs because they’d rather die than continue to experience the pain
It’s the same with trying to explain science to antivaxxers. Several scientists have reportedly jumped off a cliff rather than experiencing the pain. Antivaxxers believe they just fell off the edge of the Earth.
The threat of a deadly bird flu spreading to humans is always there. It takes just a little bit of negligence in screening chickens for this to happen.
A man once had a tapeworm get cancer. That cancer metastasized, and the man passed away from tumors of tapeworm throughout his entire body.
I heard about that story: the man involved was already immunocompromised from hiv and must have picked up tapeworms. Rather than the worm itself getting cancer, it is thought one of their eggs penetrated the lining of his intestines, mutated and ultimately became cancerous. By the time doctors discovered the cause, he’d become too sick to treat.
Live Chat support agents can see what you type before you send it, so they can reply quicker.
If they could see what I type before I think it, I’d be more impressed
Note: this post originally had 80 images. It’s been shortened to the top 35 images based on user votes.
Jees this isn’t Encyclopaedia Britannica. If you are THAT tired either a) don’t read ‘em or b) head off to one of the thousands of alternatives that are on the internet.
Load More Replies... Jees this isn’t Encyclopaedia Britannica. If you are THAT tired either a) don’t read ‘em or b) head off to one of the thousands of alternatives that are on the internet.
Load More Replies...