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69 Facts About The World That People Somehow Know So You May Want To As Well
What's the wildest random fact you know, Pandas? Have you ever heard that flour is insanely flammable, especially when dispersed and thrown into the air? Or did you know that Subway bread contains so much sugar in it that, in Ireland, they're not allowed to legally call it "bread?"
We just found out about these and more interesting gems from several threads online. In one of them, one netizen asked, "What is [the] most 'Why the [heck] do you know that?' fact?" In another, a Threads user wrote: "Teach me something new today. Drop a fact [that is] useless, funny, random… let's share what we know."
And people didn't disappoint, as their brains seem like sponges for useless but fascinating facts. We've gathered the most interesting tidbits of knowledge from these online threads and present the wildest to you here. For example, read on to find out what distance it takes for a human to hear a blue whale's heartbeat!
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#1
Opossums are not related to rodents they are North American marsupials and are related to kangaroos. Also! Their natural body temperature is so low that the rabies virus can barely survive in their system. They can’t get lyme disease. And! They eat approximately two thousand ticks a week. They are immune to most snake venom. They’re the best. 🖤
Jeff White 2 hours ago
I just learned about them eating so many ticks. Opossum's have become my new super hero. If they just didn't do the "HHhhiisssssssss" noise, they'd even by cute(ish).
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#2
My mid school teacher was explaining about Spanish exploration of the New World, and he asked us if we know about the Aztec. I promptly raised hand and tell the class about their brief history until their demise under the Spanish, in which my teacher was impressed. Little did he know that all i did was just recites the entirety of Moctezuma campaign from Age of Empires 2.
#3
An internet modem is named that because in the early days of the "internet" you'd use a modulator and a demodulator to send and receive signals. When engineers figured out how to put it in one unit, they shortened the name to MoDem, short for modulator/demodulator.
Howl's sleeping castle 33 minutes ago
Lol, I am so old. We used to get this question in our 'computer exams'
#4
There are 4 suits in a deck of cards, 1 for each season
There are 52 cards, for the 52 weeks in a year
If you number each card with ace as 1 up to 13 then add all the cards together you get 364.
Add one joker and it’s 365, for the days of the year.
Add the other joker and it’s 366, for a leap year.
#5
Polar bear livers should never be eaten, they're so full of vitamin A that it'll poison you.
Edit: This fact broughy to you by The SAS Survival Handbook, which takes the concept of "survival" way beyond your average hike in the woods.
#6
Human bodies do not produce farts, that comes from the bacteria in our intestines, we are merely the chimney.
Robin Roper 4 hours ago
Without that bacteria, our guts would not function proper resulting in severe malnutrition, chronic digestive distress (diarrhea and some gas), and a significantly weakened immune system.
#7
The bread in a Subway sandwich has so much sugar in it, that in Ireland it's legally not allowed to be called bread.
Legally, it's confectionery.
Robin Roper 3 hours ago
The majority of bread produced and sold in the US has way more sugar than bread produced and sold in other countries.
#9
If you mix 95% water and 5% potassium hydroxide, in a metal tube with a body inside and heat it up for four to six hours, all that will be left are squishy bones. You can run that through a cremulator and pour sulphuric acid on it to get rid of the bones. It's alkaline hydrolysis. The sulphuric acid thing I added for spice- but yeah. It's actually alot more eco-friendly friendly option than cremation so xD.
Robin Roper 4 hours ago
Aquamation uses a mixture of potassium hydroxide (KOH) and/or sodium hydroxide (NaOH) is used to break down tissues, commonly referred to as "lye." I know a person who chose this over traditional cremation. It's less expensive, uses less energy, and the waste water is not toxic.
#10
Every Kentucky Derby winner since 1982 has been descended from Man o’War, with the exception of 1994 winner Go For Gin.
Michael Largey 4 hours ago
First tell me what percentage of racing thoroughbreds are descended from Man o' War.
#11
I have many but the first of which is probably: Life wouldn't give you lemons because lemons are *not* a naturally occurring fruit.
Kira Okah 3 hours ago
Now now, citrus are very well known for being filthy fruits that will happily breed with any other citrus. Given that the exact origin of the lemon is unknown, we don't know if they are human created or if the citron decided to be filthy dirty with a bitter orange, because they will just do that.
#12
If you really want to get your hands on some industrial or commercial grade explosives, robbing a construction company is the way to go.
#13
Mantis shrimp have a punch so fast that it boils the water around the punch. With a speed roughly that of a .22 caliber bullet, it can stun some fish instantly and even break a man's finger.
#14
Whoever coined the term, “coined the term,” coined the term, “coined the term.”.
#15
Wood is considered far rarer in the cosmos than diamonds. NO where else in the entire galaxy but Earth do you find wood.
#16
Back in high school my human geography teacher had a map of European ethnicities on the board and questioned out loud why the Hungarian people were called "Magyars", to which I promptly raised my hand and told him it was because in Hungarian the country is called Magyarorszag (don't remember how it's spelled). Needless to say the room was very impressed.
But I didn't have the heart to tell him it was because I was a Hetalia fan.
EDIT: I guess some people didn't take "Human Geography" in school, but it's the name of the subject. Nonetheless my instructor was indeed of the homo sapien species... or so I was made to believe.
#17
Flour is flammable and too much vanilla essence consumed by a child will be fatal to them.
#18
Recycling of plastics is useless.
The time, money and energy used to do so are are no more green than producing raw plastic from crude sources, and are mainly done because many people don't know what else to do (we gotta do something, right?). And the plastics that are successfully recycled tend to be lower grade than raw, their hydrocarbon chains are weakened, Of course there are compromises, trade-offs and uses for these recycled plastics, but they aren't applicable large scale. The best solution is to reduce the amount of plastics used in the first place.
The cost/benefit of recycling paper, glass and metal is worth it, but not so for plastic.
#20
1 million seconds is approximately 11 days, while 1 billion seconds is roughly 31 years.
#21
Bears like to take in views and will site in front of a vista for a bit
#22
Kushim (Sumerian: 𒆪𒋆 KU.ŠIM) is the oldest documented name in human history. It is found on several circa 5,000 years old Proto-cuneiform claytablets from Mesopotamia.
#23
Not the coolest, but just baffling...There has never been a record of a blind schizophrenic...
#24
When bees fall asleep they cuddle each others little toes.
#25
Corpses at the bottom of Lake Superior (they don't float to the surface like in other bodies of water) stay preserved for much longer than normal because the conditions of the water are ideal for preserving corpses. Some are still in recognizable condition even decades after getting in there.
Michael Largey 4 hours ago
That's probably why they have such great high school reunions up there.
#26
Your bones aren’t white like a spooky skeleton. They’re a pinkish Grey.
#27
The person's that invented Pringels remains were put in a pringels can
#28
The smell when you file your nails is the same smell as if you were to file or cut through your bones.
#29
It’s pretty common for types of jellyfish to be used as cheap food fillers all over the world. chances are,if you’ve eaten a cheap eggroll or something from a random place,you probably ate jellyfish filler without knowing since they take on and absorb the taste of whatever they were added to so easily.
Kira Okah 3 hours ago
Easily absorb taste? Ha! Hahaha! So why has every jellyfish I have eaten, and I have actively eaten jellyfish and consider it to be the most vile thing I have ever eaten, been completely flavourless jelly goo? Stuff was marinaded, went out of my way to make sure that it should have a flavour, and it has never picked up a thing.
#30
Bananas are berries, but strawberries aren't, and strawberries, cherries, peaches, and roses all come from the same family, no wonder why they are all romanticized
#31
You can hear a blue whale's heartbeat from 2 miles away
#32
The word “run” is one of the most complex words in the English language, having ~645 different meanings. ETA: it takes up ~75 columns of text in the Oxford English Dictionary.
WindySwede 15 minutes ago
According to Guinness world record, its SET, with 430 meanings...? 🤷♂️
#33
The act of throwing somebody out of a window is called defenestration.
The act of of throwing somebody into a fire is called decrepitation.
Floccinaucinihilipilification is the act of judging something as worthless.
So technically you could do all three in just a few seconds. You could floccinaucinihilipilificate a person and choose to both defenestrate and decrepitate them in response if there is a fire lit underneath the window you plan to throw them from. Don't do that tho, I just like silly words.
#35
I learnt that you cannot/ shouldn't pick up a human head, as its very unbalanced and will most likely roll out your hands.
That and the skin by your neck is so stretchy, you can rotate your head I think 3 times before the skin rips.
Both I learnt in reddit threads. Both got me weird looks at gatherings when I bring it up.
#36
The buried treasure of Montezuma is most likely near Kanab, Utah. Misfortune has met nearly anyone who has tried to get into the underwater cave it is suspected to be in.
People have tried to drill through the ground above the cave and they found gold on the drill bit, but the driller and his wife passed away from heart conditions and such that night. The hole was sealed with cement afterwards. Divers who searched for the treasure reported seeing ghosts of Native Americans and such guarding the area while others had their oxygen tanks shut off and their regulators ripped out.
Montezuma was known to have his men sacrificed when they buried treasure so that their spirits would guard it. I have personal connections to one of the first divers who went down there, but he, like most of the other divers, refuses to talk about what happened down there. He just warns people to leave it alone, and he hasn't been the same since he went down there.
I've been to that exact lake a few times in my life. It is the most eerily still place I've been to in that state and it has a highway right next to it for crying out loud. Something or someone wants the blood money of Montezuma to stay far away from modern human hands as possible.
#37
If you brush your teeth twice a day and 2m each then you would spend 0.28% of your lifetime brushing. For some reason I had it in note.
#38
Mummy parties, where people unboxed and ate Egyptian mummies, were a thing in Victorian England.
Kira Okah 3 hours ago
The eating thing is bs in this case, and mummy powder was nowhere near as widespread as urban legend claims. Mummy parties were high society mummy unwrappings. It was a show of wealth, the mummy was 0% eaten, usually put into private collection or sold to a museum after unwrapping.
#40
Your brain consumes about 20% of your energy, even when you’re doing nothing… Thinking is one of the most expensive things you do. So make sure whatever you’re thinking about is literally worth the effort.
Robin Roper 3 hours ago
I have two cochlear implants. "Hearing" with these takes far more energy than natural hearing. First my brain has to process the sounds then has to process the meaning of what I am hearing - it's twice the amount of work. The device that attaches to the skull is called a "processor." This device turns sound waves into digital signals which are then sent to the internal receiver which converts these digital signals into electrical impulses which are then sent to electrodes surgically placed in the cochlea. If I'm in a setting where I have to process a lot of conversation, such a meeting or family/friend social event, I become exhausted and have to sleep to recover. I once slept 19 straight hours after a particularly long (4 hours) extensive "mapping & tuning" (adjustment) of my processors.
#41
Your mouth heals faster than most parts of your body - saliva is basically a natural “repair fluid” with proteins that speed up healing and fight bacteria.
#42
A Portuguese Man of War isn't technically a jellyfish, but is actually a siphonophore, where several organism comprise themselves to create a larger collective of one.
Edit: As u/refaelzat pointed out, the Portuguese Man of War is still a jellyfish while also being a siphonophore. I'm not exactly sure what the correct classification is for this, though.
Con O Cuinn 3 hours ago
However there is no evidence in them taking up citizenship or being included in any Portuguese census.
#43
Injecting elemental mercury into your veins to become a superhero, while colossally stupid, is not typically fatal. Mercury in its elemental form is not water-soluble and therefore doesn't get absorbed into the bloodstream.
#44
Humans can become more flexible based on the visual field.
Most of this stuff how freely you are to move your muscles is center brain region controlled which gets info from our visual field.
If you do a wide stretch. And then you turn your gaze there, and try to go further out. Your brain will allow you more muscle movement.. next time you do the stretch you will be more flexible. In fact 25-40% more in some cases.
In fact visual system is hella interesting it's nuts how much it directs from time perception to how focussed and awake we are because we also have cells in our eyes that are angled Slightly upwards that just scan for light intensity. They literally dictate if we are awake and alert or not... It's why skylights work and why desk ergonomics tell you to offset your screen. Because you get sleepy if you look down on the screen more or less because you drown out those cells.
Heck did you know our peripheral vision literally runs on a higher frame rate of sorts. You can literally focus on more things and spot more stuff if you train yourself to focus on your peripheral vision.. the center focus in your eyes runs slower and is processing stuff with more detail..you can train yourself to be good at wheres waldo... In fact it's why it even works. Because if you spot something that looks like waldo there's small attention dips due to dopamine release where you will literally miss waldo if he's next to the thing almost looking like him.. because our focus literally tunnel visions Like that if we don't pay attention to the periphery.
#45
There are sugar free gummy bears that cause people to have wild violent diarrhea, and it is *still* available for sale.
Also has some entertaining reviews.
#46
Louis XIV's heart was mummified, outside his corpse, that is. It was taken from the tomb by plunderers during the revolution and came into the possession of Lord Harcourt, archbishop of York, in the first half of the 19th century. As if this isn't creepy enough, William Buckland, dean of Westminster, was given the heart in 1848 and apparently ate it!
#47
Venus flytraps are only native to the Carolinas in the US. They have to be imported to be found anywhere else.
#48
Quokkas may be the happiest animal on the planet, but throw their babies at predators to escape
#49
Sharks can’t swim backwards… I tell myself be a shark today. Keep swimming forward 💪🏾🥰
#50
A baby doesn’t know they’re their own person until 6 months out of the womb. They think they’re still attached to their mother
#51
Hummingbirds can fly backwards
Jeff White 2 hours ago
Bully for them. I don't really mean that, I just like using the word Bully! in a sentence (especially with and exclamation point).
#52
Your fingernails grow faster on your dominant hand.
poiplescales 4 hours ago
Mine also break a lot faster on my dominant hand so my non-dominant hand usually has longer fingernails
#53
Jupiters largest moon is bigger than Mercury
#54
Koalas have smooth brains. This is bc they are so low effort and only eat eucalyptus (which is actually toxic to them). When they are babies they can’t start eating the leaves as soon as they can eat solids they actually attach themselves to their moms rectum and eat their moms poop to start gaining the immunity to the eucalyptus poison.
Juls 3 hours ago
Rabbits eat their own p**p their entire lives. They eat grass and other vegetation, but don't have the chambered stomach like a cow does, so they can't digest it well. So the first time it exits the system, they eat it again, and their digestive system gets more nutrition from it. This is why it's hard to rescue a baby rabbit. They need to eat their parents p**p to get enzymes to digest properly. As soon as you try to wean a baby rabbit, without the help of an adult rabbit, the baby rabbit will unalive.
#56
IN TOTAL ALL THE HARRY POTTER BOOKS HAVE 1,084,170 WORDS
#57
With 20/20 vision... you can see a lit candle in pitch dark, 13 miles away
#58
Horses are obligate nose breathers. Plug their nose and they'll suffocate. Horses can't burp or vomit - the system is one way only. Horses can "passively breathe" while running at high speeds. Their guts slosh around back to front rhythmic pushing air out and pulling it in.
#59
The coolest thing I can think of is that Orca is a predator of Moose.
#60
Koala bears have humanlike fingerprints. Some are so similar they are confused under a microscope. I thought this was so interesting.
#62
The reason why most people always feel tired even when they get a full night of sleep is because over time we acquire a "sleep debt" that we rarely make even. It usually starts around preschool age when napping stops becoming part of our daily routine.
#63
It takes more energy to breastfeed than to power your brain
Cammy Mack 2 hours ago
Or, you can power your brain by regularly being breastfed. Hardwire that sucker
#65
Children between age 1 and 6 have both sets of their teeth in their skulls at the same time. Also, children only have 20 teeth, adults have 32. Where did the other 12 come from??
#66
The speed of sound varies with temperature of air. Sound travels slower in Antarctica than it does in Florida.
#67
Every minute, there is a supernova somewhere in the universe
#68
The brain named itself the brain and also our noses is always in view but our brains make us ignore them
#69
Macchu Picchu was abandoned by the Inca soon after Spaniards arrived, and Europeans didn't find it / know about it until the 20th century.
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