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“Depression Levels Correlate With Intelligence”: 48 Facts People Wish They Didn’t Know
Facts make the world go round. They keep us engaged, informed, entertained and can even help us feel a little more interesting or smarter when we're forced to make small talk with strangers.
While some facts quench our thirst for knowledge like a glass of ice water on a hot day, others are like accidentally stepping on a piece of Lego and wishing we’d had the foresight to go the other way. They’re the ones you randomly come across by chance and immediately want to unlearn.
Someone recently asked, “Tell me the scariest fact you wish you didn’t know,” and people didn’t hold back. From realizations like the brain named itself and is studying itself, to the freaky thought that one day (if we haven’t already), we will unknowingly pose for the photograph that will be used at our funeral… These are just a few of the unsolicited facts people would rather not think about.
Bored Panda has put together a list of the best answers for anyone brave enough to explore the cold, hard facts of life that make some others want to run and hide. We've also included some info on how your brain filters out unwanted information. You’ll find that between the images.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
We are not scared of being alone in the dark. We are scared of not being alone there.
Crystalwitch60 3 days ago
Well some of u might be but im not ,i love the dark the peace n tranquility of it ,its bliss , often Hours of a night in winter on the farm i grew up on , then when i had my own horses after my gran I grew up with died , n kept them on farms getting them in mucking out etc , also walking my dogs , honestly the dark dont scare me ,
Little Bit 3 days ago
I must be the exception to the rule. I find being in the dark relaxing. I also love being alone.
Cuppa tea? 3 days ago
At the back of our mind, there's that little creeping thought - uhm, what was that noise, movement.
Did you hear or read something that you no longer want to know? Just remove it from your brain. Yes, apparently it's as simple as that.
Researchers have recently revealed that people can consciously remove specific information from their memories by "dampening the brain circuits that initially stored it."
Jiangang Shan and Bradley Postle, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are the experts behind the study, which looked at how the brain actively removes memory content it doesn't need.
RELATED:
#2
I just read a neuroscience article that said the brain holds on to negative comments for 20 years but compliments start to fade after 6 weeks.
Tucker Cahooter 3 days ago
I think they need to revise that. I can pinpoint negative comments in my head from 50 years ago
pandamonium 3 days ago
But positive reinforcement is still the more efficient way to influence a child's behaviour.
Dirk Daring 3 days ago
I don't know, I'm still riding high on the energy from a compliment a woman gave me ~10 years ago.
BeesEelsAndPups 3 days ago
This sounds like psychology, not neuroscience. Unless they're mapping the place where these memories are stored. I tend to remember compliments more than insults myself. But I get so few of either.
Bartlet for world domination 3 days ago
I remember compliments from 35 years ago. I don't get that many. I think, but I may just not remember :)
Michael Largey 3 days ago
I remember compliments longer than insults due to the added element of astonishment.
#3
There is no guarantee that everyone sees the same color.
Tucker Cahooter 3 days ago
Well because colour blindness is well known, we already know they don't
CP 3 days ago
You are assuming it is just between color blind and not. A brain could theoretically shift the color spectrum process in the brain and all greens you see are what others see as red. You aren't color blind but you don't see the same colors. Think of a brain flipping what your eyes see upside down to right side up but instead flip colors.
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Billo66 3 days ago
I have tried to explain/debate this with friends. Albeit it's no Algonquin Circle. What you see and call green may look a different color entirely than me but we both call that shade green because that's what we learned it as. Our eyes may be tuned completely differently. They always just looked at me like I had two heads.
Jack 3 days ago
The best illustration I can think of, is when you'd go to best buy or any department store with a tv section. Sometimes they have all the TVs showing the same thing, yet each picture looks slightly different, color, contrast, brightness, tone, saturation. People are like that, in the sense that we can all be looking at the same thing, but it will look slightly different to everyone.
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Sally-Ann 1 day ago
My mother and I once had a ridiculous and over long argument about the colour of a pair of shoes. I said they were brown, she said tan. Finally I yelled "You're right, they aren't brown. They're BURNT SIENNA". The 'brown argument' became something of a family joke/touchstone for disagreements "Don't turn this into a brown argument!"
Chrystina Sumpter 3 days ago
I read a short story in 5th grade (50 years ago) about a new invention that allowed people to see through the eyes of other people and in fact we see colors, and everything else, completely differently. Made a huge impression, although I don’t remember the title or author.
General Anaesthesia 3 days ago
White and gold or blue and black? The Dress: slate dot com/technology/2017/04/heres-why-people-saw-the-dress-differently.html
Unicorn 3 days ago
Of course there's such a colour as purple; but it's a mixture, not a spectral colour.
Load More Replies...Their paper, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, explains how they got 30 participants to perform a memory task while recording their brain activity. The group was first given two items to remember.
"Experimental conditions either did or did not encourage participants to actively remove the memory of one of these items. Following these conditions, they were given a third item to remember," reports Neuroscience News. "Finally, participants were tested on their memory of the relevant first and final items."
The researchers found that the brain uses a "mechanism" to consciously remove information from a memory. "Brain scans showed that removing memory content involves reduced excitability in the neural circuits tied to the unwanted information," explains the site.
#4
Depression levels correlate with intelligence. So basically if you know too much you’re going to permanently struggle with depression because you can’t forget things.
Michael Largey 3 days ago
" The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
BrunoVI 3 days ago
Not actually true. What is true is that high intelligence confers protection against neuroticism, and only after that negative association is statistically eliminated, a positive association between intelligence and depression emerges. Which is really like saying there are TWO equal, opposing tendencies between depression and intelligence, and this chooses to focus on only one of them, creating an untrue assertion. Seriously, I believe I have yet to read a single true factoid about neuroscience on the internet EVER.
#5
The human mind is so easily influenced, that you (or someone else) can create memories in your mind that never even existed.
azubi 3 days ago
He even creates memories in my mind I wish they never existed right now.
Load More Replies... Daniel Atkins 3 days ago
This si why the book 1984 is so scary. Winston's job was scrubbing old facts from publication. For example the amount of chocolate being rationed went down he was removing any mention of it being more and was writing stories praising it as being a raise in the amount rationed. Politicians from all parties are doing this using 1984 as guidebook and not at a cautionary tale.
Saltypepper 3 days ago
You did ,think really good and hard i gave it to you and i took the red pill
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Child of the Stars 3 days ago
It's a trade-off for our highly adaptive thinking. Our brains evolved to adapt to new circumstances extremely quickly. The downside is it makes us extremely easy to manipulate. That's how otherwise intelligent and well-educated people can be sucked into things like cults. It's also why I don't believe in over-the-top conspiracy theories like Bill Gates and the Jehovah's Witnesses conspiring to create Covid so they could inject us with 5G trackers. It's way over complicated.
For All Pedernity 3 days ago
We do this all the time, actually. Things we are told we did as children, for instance, or things we have read about can often become our own memories. Also, every single time we 'pull up' a memory we change it slightly, so that over time an old memory can change significantly.
#6
"We are either alone in the universe or we're not, both are equally terrifying."
Francois 3 days ago
Not terrifying at all. Very likely there is life somewhere and even if it is intelectually superior to us the vast distances makes it improbable that there will be direct physical contact ever.
Glix Drap 3 days ago
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
Load More Replies... Serial pacifist 3 days ago
It is highly unlikely that we are alone. Not sayin' that there is some specific superior alien species out there, but some life form is more than probable. And, having in mind the stage humanity is in now, it is highly likely that whatever is out there is more intelligent than us.
Corwin 02 3 days ago
We might as well be , there is no further life in our solar system and the nearest star is 4 light years away so pretty much impossible to reach even if we ever manage to approach light speed. Lets face it we live in the slums of the spiral of our milky way and everything is very far away.
Load More Replies... Charles Kormos 2 days ago
We are not alone but everyone else is so far away that any contact is impossible.
Cuppa tea? 3 days ago
I know for science perspective this is probably the most important question. But from mundane daily grudge point it's the least significant, pointless.
For All Pedernity 3 days ago
The probability of us being alone in the universe must be statistically impossible. I'm convinced that we are not, and that does not scare me one bit. Rather, I find it exhilarating!
#7
Some people don’t have an internal monologue & that’s so bizarre to me.
Did I say that out loud? 3 days ago
I found this strange too when I first learned about it, and some people can't picture images in their heads either. I have both going on constantly.
Crystalwitch60 3 days ago
Wait they can’t ? Wow you learn something new every day , my minds on Duracell bunny all sodding day lol and night if I let it , I can for eg look at a room I want to decorate n picture it totally as I know how it needs to look kinda thing , see things before they happen , plus more so others really don’t have this kinda mind , ?.
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HellsBells 3 days ago
I have a friend that has no minds eye. They cannot picture anything/one in their head.
K Barnes 2 days ago
My best friend can't either. I've always been an avid reader and she's never enjoyed it. She thinks it's because she can't picture what's being described in her head when she reads. Could be.
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Serial pacifist 3 days ago
What am I doing here? Maybe I should do some work instead. Yeah, that's what I'll do. Thanks, that was a good advice!
Stephanie Did It 3 days ago
After learning this, now I can much more easily figure out who they are.
Saltypepper 3 days ago (edited)
I don't understand how that is even possible,8 have one at least every 30 minutes or so.
#8
If you have PTSD (like me) you can pick up on bad people or bad vibes quicker then most and also can kind of like sense danger before it happens.
Angela B 3 days ago
Which, can be a blessing or a curse. Being hypervigilant (in what I experience) and highly anxious is truly exhausting most days.
RomanceRadish 3 days ago
It may partially be because of a heightened sense of awareness from anxiety.
Lee Gilliland 3 days ago
Because we know people who focus on us so quickly because we give off vibes.
#9
The fact that there is no purpose in existing itself.
BeesEelsAndPups 3 days ago
The purpose of "existing"? As in the existence of something, rather than nothing? Such a thing needs no purpose. It exists because of it didn't it wouldn't. If it's your own purpose, it's to find what happiness you can find on your short time on this planet.
Rick Murray 3 days ago
The purpose is to spread your genetic code. We're just all a little bit lost because we're so good at adapting the world to fit us (rather than the other way around) that we are overpopulating the planet. That said, our effectiveness means that men don't need to jump a girl the first chance they can and keep her pregnant all through her life to make dozens of children (the fate of an unsterilised female outdoor cat), we can instead learn to play the piano badly, travel, fall in love, and bring all sorts of other purposes to our existence above and beyond the "pass on the quaternary" that nature expects of us.
Tabitha 3 days ago (edited)
While I agree somewhat, I do believe it’s more layered than that. When you’ve lived long enough, you get to see the other side/the results of things that occurred/were said when you were younger. You have more influence on others than you know. I have run into people I knew briefly decades ago, and they mentioned that a small encouragement I gave them, just in normal conversation, changed their life—-thankfully for the better in those cases, as they said they had been making bad choices at the time and whatever I said made them realize it, stop it, and turn their lives around. Granted, the opposite may have happened too (I can only hope not), but I haven’t found out about it so far. So maybe our purpose is not only to preserve and pass on our genetic code, but also to spread some influence—-preferably positive—-on others to maybe change the trajectory of their lives for the better. Put all the small positives together and you have a society that improves and moves forward. Yes, we have individuals who try to wreck all that and yank us backwards, but it doesn’t last. We have no stomach for it and rise up to stop it. I hope we’re on that road now, because the most recent crop of knuckledraggers have gone too d****d far for even the most indoctrinated to be able to stomach.
Load More Replies... For All Pedernity 3 days ago
Not scary at all. Live while you can and don't wait for some silly paradise no one can prove exists.
Luke || Kira (he/she) 3 days ago
Speak for yourself. I have many purposes for my existence and I fulfill them every single day. Nihilism is a disease.
Michael Largey 3 days ago
Sometimes it's a starting point. Clear everything away, and begin the re-evaluation.
Load More Replies... Child of the Stars 3 days ago
"We are a way for the universe to know itself."--Carl Sagan. Framed that way, it gives my tiny little experience of life some meaning.
Michael Largey 3 days ago
If I thought existence had no purpose, obviously I would never have signed up for it.
Michael Largey 3 days ago
But hard-shell or soft-shell? It can't be both.
Load More Replies... #10
Around 85% of the universe’s mass is dark matter, and we have no clue what that is or what it’s made out of.
Child of the Stars 3 days ago
Very cool, isn't it?? All the progress we've made in tens of thousands of years, and there's still whole aspects of reality left to study!
BrunoVI 3 days ago
More accurately: known types of cosmic objects would account for only 85% of the amount of gravity that we see. The easiest thing to imagine is that there's about six times more stuff in the universe than we can see, but it's also possible that gravity or time-space don't work the same on massive scales that they do on local scales. Or that something besides matter creates gravity.
Rick Murray 3 days ago
Dark matter is souls/spirits floating around waiting for a body to inhabit for a while.
#11
The older you get, the more familiar you become with the passage of time, so it seems to move faster. Think how long a year or a summer seemed when you were a kid.
Phantom Phoenix 3 days ago
The older you get, the smaller a year is as a fraction of your life... You're also more aware of more events. People's birthdays, anniversaries of all types of events, public holidays etc. that as an adult you're in on the planning for and you're already busy so there's not enough time, and what time there is just evaporates and it's not helped by the supermarkets who put up Christmas decorations in September/October that for your sanity you have to ignore but before you know it, you've ignored them a little too long and it's mid-December and somehow Christmas and New Year's all in a blink, it's time to get back to work; that was your break. It's done. Breathe. Breathe.
Michael Largey 3 days ago
I just turned 75, and time does seem to move faster. Two weeks ago, when I was 70, the pace felt a bit slower.
#12
For me it’s the dark history of brutal experimentation behind the medical knowledge and procedures we learn.
Corwin 02 3 days ago
The N**i's and Bayer did horrible experiments on people , but we still use the knowledge and swallow the aspirin.
CP 3 days ago (edited)
I think it would be criminal to the people that suffered to not use what we learned.
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#13
Pseudocyesis, also known as a false or phantom pregnancy, where the body shows real pregnancy symptoms (like a growing belly, missed periods, morning sickness) but there's no fetus. The brain is INSANE.
Serial pacifist 3 days ago
Wait, I have a growing belly, no periods and some morning sickness from last night. I am a guy though, but still...
Reemerger 3 days ago
The brain is our "reality" as we perceive it. Mess with the brain, mess with the person's reality. It's not like we have any other ominous senses outside our bodies to be in touch with our environment. A simple numb nerve gives you a small preview of how tentative our connection to / perception of our surroundings is.
#14
Honestly the fact that the brain named itself and studies itself scares me.
van_shika_708:
Brain is the most important organ of our body according to the brain...
JB 3 days ago (edited)
All the organs of the body were having a meeting, trying to decide who was the one in charge. "I should be in charge," said the brain , "Because I run all the body's systems, so without me nothing would happen.". "I should be in charge," said the heart, "Because I circulate oxygen all over so without me you'd waste away.". "I should be in charge," said the lungs" Because you wouldn't even get that oxygen of it weren't for me!" And on and on they argued, until the little rėctum piped up, "I should be in charge," said the r****m, "Because I'm responsible for waste removal." All the other body parts laughed at the rėctum and insulted him, so in a huff, he shut down tight. Within a few days, the brain had a terrible headache, the stomach was bloated, the legs got wobbly, the eyes got watery, and the blood from the heart was toxic. They all decided that the r****m should be the boss. It goes to show, even though the others do all the work.... The ásshole is usually in charge!
Lil be lil 3 days ago
😂😂😂😂 and we can see it in real life too on live t.v.
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 3 days ago
"If you examine your mind with your mind, how can you avoid confusion?" - Buddhist saying
Billo66 3 days ago
"If you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself" Bob Marley saying.
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#15
The Titanic sinking was in pitch black because there was no moon that night. It wasn't like it was in the movie.
CP 3 days ago
One shouldn't need a moon in the shot to properly light a scene.
Load More Replies... Norfolk and good 3 days ago (edited)
The men in the boiler and engine rooms gave their lives to continue working to keep the electric on and to keep the ship afloat for as long as possible. The lights went out only a few minutes before it completely sank.
Lee Gilliland 3 days ago
It was a bright clear night with almost no wind but there were an unusual number of meteors, and the sky is quite bright at sea.
Lee Gilliland 3 days ago
That was the Californian. They were close enough to respond to the rockets and didn't.
Load More Replies... #16
One day you will unknowingly pose for the picture that will be used for your funeral.
BeesEelsAndPups 3 days ago
I have left instructions that my funerary and obit picture will be a still of Brad Pitt from Thelma and Louise. Unknowingly, Brad Pitt has posed for a picture used in my funeral
Blue Bunny of Happiness 3 days ago
Good luck to anyone trying to find a photo of me after the age of 15. I’ve carefully avoided photos since then.
General Anaesthesia 3 days ago (edited)
So have I. I mean mine, not yours :)
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SnackbarKaat 3 days ago (edited)
At a family gathering my dad was about to take a picture of his mother and said "this will be the picture for your funeral mom!" She and all siblings laughed. The other family present was horrified lol Edit: ended up using another picture tho
#17
Our bodies constantly create cells with potential to become cancerous, and the immune system usually detects and eliminates them before they can form tumors. The first time I heard this, I was scared because what you mean every day is a potential day to have cancer.
Bonnie Blue Bird 3 days ago
Also means that your body is constantly healing. Your body from a few years ago is not the same one you have today. There is positivity there also.
George Costanza 3 days ago
Not even that the immune system kills them, most "cancerous" cells k**l themselves. There's myriad genes called tumor suppressor genes that go into action when other genes start causing a cell to replicate too fast or too often. The tumor suppressor genes cause the cell to k**l itself off. The ones that get through this selection process may/may not be caught by the immune system. But yes, every time a cell divides there is a non-zero chance it mutates enough to become cancerous. Live long enough and you will absolutely get cancer of some kind.
BrunoVI 3 days ago
More precisely: cells mutate frequently, but mere mutations don't mean you have cancer. Cancer comes from a failure to contain mutated cell lines, which is an important distinction because people have been led by popular media to equate mutagenic with carcinogenic. But organisms which didn't allow mutation would cease to evolve, so we're designed to allow mutations. Some things which are mutagenic (like brief exposure to moderately high levels of radiation) can actually suppress cancer.
#18
Some serial offenders don’t feel fear or guilt at all, and their brains never light up where empathy should be.
Norfolk and good 3 days ago
That's why they can continue to do what they're doing. What makes them scarier is the fact that they can be very charming and outgoing, and do a very good job of seeming "normal." You can find videos on YouTube of the British spree killer Joanne Dennenhy, where she's at the police station being booked in after having just stabbed three people to death and attenpting to k**l two others. She's laughing and joking with the officers, and even flirting with the male officers.
CP 3 days ago (edited)
They pretty much train the empathy out of you. It sadly makes sense. Getting recruits at age 18 is key to that process.
Load More Replies... #19
It takes light to travel from the sun to the earth in 8 minutes. That means if the sun exploded we wouldn't know until 8 minutes later.
StPaul9 3 days ago
I thought the blazing light followed by the immediate freeze would tip people off. But we'd almost immediately feel the deadly chill.
For All Pedernity 3 days ago
I'm not sure it's the time it took that would be scary with this scenario...
David Paterson 3 days ago
Light takes about 100,000 years from the core to the surface of the Sun. So if the core exploded ...
Michael Largey 3 days ago
If the sun exploded, eight minutes later some people would be taking a selfie with it to post on Facebook.
JB 3 days ago
Would be true if it weren't for gravity. The loss of the sun's gravity would be felt instantly.
Ace 3 days ago
Err, no, it would not. Anyway, an exploding sun is quite possible, whereas the idea of its gravity suddenly ceasing to exist is not possible within the laws of physics as we know them.
Load More Replies... #20
While giving birth, women think to themselves they are never doing that again. However, their brain slowly forgets about that pain only bringing the desire to go through the process all over again.
Blue Bunny of Happiness 3 days ago
Happily, I chose to be child free and so never needed to discover if this was true.
Gingersnap In Iowa 3 days ago
I was in labor for over 60 hours! Long story, health problems, baby born 3 and half weeks early. He'll be 30 in June. He is an only child.
CooperDooper81 3 days ago
Studies have shown that we are programmed to not remember extreme pain. You remember that you've experienced extreme pain but we can't remember what it actually felt like.
AP 3 days ago
in regards to giving birth or just in general? I clearly remember what sciatica felt like as well as the aftermath of my c-section: searing burning flesh for both
Load More Replies... Samantha H 3 days ago
After I had my Daughter I said I am never doing that again and meant it. I don't like sweeping statements like that.
K.A. Hansen 2 days ago
This is a trite, condescending belief. Some of us remember very distinctly how painful it was, yet consciously choose to go through it again for all the reasons one would want to have another child.
Corwin 02 3 days ago
Thankfully humans cannot remember pain our you would feel every scrape and every paper cut you ever had
Samantha H 3 days ago
I can clearly remember horrendous pain after various Surgeries, so I disagree.
Load More Replies... SnackbarKaat 3 days ago
During giving birth to my second I was like, I never want to go trough this again! 11 years later and I kept my word
#21
If we look back around 25 to 30 generations in our family tree, we start to all share common ancestors, meaning everyone one of us are very distantly related to each other.
Corwin 02 3 days ago
Around the year 1400, the global human population was estimated to be between 350 to 400 million people so that common ancestor thing is a bit of a myth that short ago now 900,000 years ago breeding numbers dropped to roughly 1,280 individuals for over 100,000 years, potentially due to climate collapse so yeah there we have a lot of common ancestors.
BeesEelsAndPups 3 days ago
Homo sapiens weren't around 900,000 years ago. We showed up around 150,000-250,000 years ago.
Load More Replies... Stephanie A Mutti 3 days ago
I love that there is a LUCA: Last Universal Common Ancestor...but it's an amoeba or something.
Aileen Grist 3 days ago
Yes, the 'others' that we are so keen on k*****g - because they're different are us, our relatives, family. There's only one human race, yet we label one another, illegal, or just plain killable.
Mike F 3 days ago
And be sure to keep it in mind when you win the lottery, cuz!
Load More Replies... David Paterson 3 days ago
What's scary about that is recessive mutations. They spread unobserved throughout the population until two people meet who have the same ancestor.
Apatheist 3 days ago
It's usually said that all Europeans are related to Charlemagne, and probably a king or queen somewhere along the line - but quite possibly a scullery maid and largely illegitimate.
Pferdchen 3 days ago
It was said that if you were a Capetian (House of Capet), who were descended from Charlemagne, you were related to 75% of the royal houses of Europe.
Load More Replies... #22
We can psychologically condition people to be scared of something or love something.
#23
Prion diseases, like mad cow/rabies/brucellosis/chronic wasting disease, etc, can live dormant in your body for over 10 years depending on the disease. So you could be currently infected and you wouldn't even know it. Not until you start showing symptoms... and there is no cure for any of them. It's crazy cause we don't have "absolutes" in medicine, but one of the only exceptions is that Prion diseases are 100% fatal..
Salla Jaakkola 3 days ago
Rabies is caused by a virus, and brucellosis is a bacterial disease.
Shark Lady 3 days ago
My gran had CJD, the doctors believed it was due to the offal she ate during the war, if that was the case it was dormant for about 50 years.
Sarah Belt 2 days ago
Prion diseases are creepy for being misfolded proteins. It's a glitch that spreads.
#24
The fact that worms live inside the body.
Samantha H 3 days ago
I worked as a Doctors Receptionist. A Mother brought her young Son as he had internal worms, she said it quietly however he had different ideas and announced to the packed waiting room 'Miss I have loads of worms in my b*m' his Mum looked horrified, I couldn't help but grin.
George Costanza 3 days ago
There's more cells within your body that aren't you than are you. Mostly bacteria and fungi/yeasts.
#25
Crows can memorize your face.
Corwin 02 3 days ago
Oh they hold grudges and they will reward you if you did something for them , and they remember their entire life and sometimes will pass it on.
Child of the Stars 3 days ago
When my oldest was in 2nd grade, they and a friend started saving bits from their lunches and giving it to the crows at recess. It didn't take long before the crows were bringing them little shiny rewards. My kid was always very excited to bring home and show me whatever little bit of what was usually trash (like foil gum wrappers) the birds brought!
Load More Replies... CooperDooper81 3 days ago
Lots of birds can. I have a magpie family that visits me numerous times a day and they know me well. They know when I come and go, they know my car, they know me when they see me in the street.
RomanceRadish 3 days ago
I wonder if they realize clothing is removable/changeable or if they think our bodies morph daily.
#26
Ovarian cysts can grow hair and teeth, saw images on Google and I'm forever traumatized.
George Costanza 3 days ago
Teratoma. They can grow into any cell line in the body. Teeth is rather rare, skin the most common. But there's almost always some neural/brain tissue in there as well. Do they think? We don't know. But the teratoma knows.
Lee Gilliland 3 days ago
YOU'RE traumatized? They took one out of me and showed it to me! I still have the tooth.
#27
A cockroach can live without its head for weeks.
Tucker Cahooter 3 days ago
That's why I deal with them using a big shoe and not try to delicately remove their head with a scalpel
#28
Human perception. Everyone perceives things differently, interprets it differently, even what you think you see/perceive may not be real, it's always distorted.
Nicola Roberts 3 days ago
Everything is mediated. Including our own first hand experience because we understand what we hear and see based on what we already know. Add bias of whichever media stream you engage in and we have no hope of truly knowing the truth about anything. On that note I'm going back to work.
#29
An item or feeling can be the peak of happiness one moment and absolutely nothing in an hour.
David Paterson 3 days ago
I'll always remember the happiest time of my life. It was right before my near-fatal accident.
#30
You cannot imagine a color you've never seen before.
Grace Sssssss 2 days ago
I keep imagining a light orange-pink that somehow isn't the color "salmon". D**n it, it must exist! I want to pain my bedroom that color! But it does not appear on any paint swatch I can find. But I can see it in my mind's eye.
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Child of the Stars 3 days ago
Literally that we can't conceive of what a color beyond the limited range our eyes/brains can process would look like. For example, some animals can see in the infrared or ultraviolet spectrum, but because we don't, we either experience it differently (such as heat) or we need special tools to "see" it (like a black light).
Load More Replies... #31
Black holes aren't stationary. They can move in any direction.
Ace 3 days ago
That's either an orange hole or an ârse hole, or both, depending on which way you look at it.
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David Paterson 3 days ago (edited)
They can't accelerate. You can't push them because there's nothing to push. And pulling them is a very slow process. Basically, whatever a black hole is doing when it's formed, it's going to keep doing until the end of time.
George Costanza 3 days ago
They simply move according to gravity or the acceleration forces that resulted in their creation (supernova, etc). They don't "move" voluntarily in any way.
#32
The fact we know more about our Galaxy above us than about our Oceans.
Sarah Suelzle 3 days ago
Both are true...per Google :: We have a better observational understanding of space's vastness, but humanity has physically explored a greater percentage of our own ocean's floor and its immediate environment. The deep ocean remains Earth's last great frontier, with more unknown species and phenomena than currently understood.
Ace 3 days ago
That's a distortion, and uses "better understanding" as a relative measure, whereas to "know more" is an objective term. Just because there's still a lot we don't know does not mean we don't know very much.
Load More Replies... Bored Sailor 3 days ago
Agreed I think we have not learned enough about either to know how much we do not know.
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#33
The fact that if we try and put the whole story of the planet earth in one book, us humans would only appear at the very last page, and just a tiny little piece of bottom right corner.
Grace Sssssss 2 days ago
The difference between a happy and sad story is just about where you choose to stop telling it.
Load More Replies... RomanceRadish 3 days ago
And look at all the good we've brought to our planet's well-being in that time.....oh.
George Costanza 3 days ago
Similar analogy is a 12 month calendar. Humans don't show up until 12/31 in like the last minute or even less.
CooperDooper81 3 days ago
We're like one second before midnight on a 24 hour clock. Maybe two seconds.
#34
I once got CPR while fully conscious. I can't even describe it. Did you ever hit that funny nerve in your elbow? Imagine that in your whole body and head+the pain and you feel like your neck is gonna burst open.
Samantha H 3 days ago
I am an ex EMT. I defibrillated a lady who came back and told me 'I would rather die than have that again'.
Ace 3 days ago
OIC, they meant defib when they said CPR. Yeah, I imagine it would be very painful, never really occurred to me.
Load More Replies... #35
The fact that when we're looking at the stars, we are most likely looking at their past when in reality, theyre probably not there anymore because their light takes so long to reach us. This is kinda scary to think of.
ƒιѕн 3 days ago
Thee is no 'most likely', we are in fact looking at the past in everything we see. Our own star, 8 mins 20 seconds, the moon 1.3 seconds, seeing what I'm typing, 2 nanoseconds.
Bored Sailor 3 days ago
My work computers have glitches and it takes me about a minute too see what I am typing.
Load More Replies... For All Pedernity 2 days ago
"(W)hen in reality, theyre probably not there anymore". What's the average life span of a star, you think, 1000 years?
#36
Trillions of neutrinos are passing through our body every second right now from the Sun, distant supernovae, cosmic rays, and we can’t feel them, stop them or detect them in any way.
David Paterson 3 days ago
Quite weirdly, exactly the same is true of photons - radio waves, gamma rays and similar. Trillions passing through our body every second from the distant universe.
BeesEelsAndPups 3 days ago
Very high energy photons, like gamma and x-ray radiation, get blocked in the earth's upper atmosphere. If they didn't, life could not exist on earth, and DNA molecules would be torn apart constantly. Low frequency radio waves do pass through, however they can be absorbed or scattered by a body at higher frequencies. Visible light photons do not pass through, except for the invisible man.
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#37
Humans can see light from ~380nm to 700nm. This is less than 1% of the existing light spectrum. We’re basically blind.
Ace 3 days ago
No. It's 1% of the EM spectrum, but by definition if we cannot see it, it is not what we define as light. Some animals have a slightly different range, so a different definition of what is light and what is not.
Anony Mouse 1 day ago
Yeh, I’m with you, except that ultraviolet and infrared parts of the EM spectrum are normally considered ‘light’ but not ‘visible light’. Some animals can see parts of these, so UV or IR is visible light to them too. So it depends on the definition.
Load More Replies... BrunoVI 3 days ago
A neuroscience fact that is neither true nor false. Any portion of the spectrum is a finite portion of a spectrum with no defined upper or lower limits. On the other hand, above and below certain points far less than 100 times the range of our viewing ability, the electromagnetic spectrum isn't regarded as light.
#38
Early onset schizophrenia is a thing and can begin in childhood. It's characterised by fatigue, forgetfulness and lack of motivation, so is often diagnosed as depression.
Lee Gilliland 3 days ago
You worry about schizophrenia until you get old enough for early onset dementia.
David Paterson 3 days ago
Different mental illnesses have different minimum diagnosis ages. The later the diagnosis, the less severe the mental illness.
Lil be lil 2 days ago
Not true,late onset is more severe and the outcome is poor.
Load More Replies... Lil be lil 2 days ago
Yes it's called late onset schizophrenia. Of course if you're female it might just be menopause.
Load More Replies... #39
Your skin is constantly shedding cells, turning pieces of you into dust without you ever noticing. It’s a slow, invisible process almost like Sandman dissolving into grains.
Every day, parts of you disappear… and are quietly replaced
Geoffrey Scott 3 days ago
If this concerns you, NEVER have a Kirby vacuum salesperson do a demo.
David Frost 3 days ago
Never let a Kirby vacuum salesperson into your home. They are a nightmare to get rid of!!!
RomanceRadish 3 days ago
They are. Kirbys are outstanding vacuums though!
Load More Replies... #40
The blind people can’t see a dream.
Clown fish 3 days ago
People born blind can't see a dream. People who become blind can and my friend said it's weird to wake up not seeing again
#41
History is nothing but someone's pov we are manipulated into believing.
SM 3 days ago
And sometimes they do that a hundred years after the event.
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 3 days ago (edited)
The same could be said about any body of human "knowledge".
For All Pedernity 2 days ago
Very simplified. There's a difference between actual facts and interpretations of events or developments.
David Paterson 3 days ago
Always go back to contemporary documents and evidence. Always. Never rely on a history book.
BeesEelsAndPups 3 days ago
Easier said than done. Writing hasn't been around that long, and much early writing has been lost. Also a lot of that was propaganda. I was a history major. And I can tell you from experience tracking down primary sources can be very hard. Then you have to learn to read it. There are maybe ten people who can read Babylonian cuneiforme. And from that you have to figure out how much of what they are saying is true, because people were as good at lying 5000 years ago as they are today. I have personally spent countless hours reading 12th Century Latin and it is a slog. We can't all be experts at everything.
Load More Replies... #42
You never see the present.
Your brain shows you the world about 80–100 milliseconds late so it can edit reality.
You are always living in the past, just enough to survive.
David Paterson 3 days ago
Consciousness can sometimes be seconds behind unconscious observations.
#43
The more you know, the less you actually know.
SM 3 days ago (edited)
Nope, the more you know the more you realize that there is more to know than you first thought. You don't know "less".
Mike F 3 days ago
Isn't it like putting marbles in a bag? There's only so much room and when it fills up, you have to take some out to put some in? 😂
Load More Replies... David Paterson 3 days ago
Well, yes and no. Brain capacity is limited so there's a very definite limit on how much I can know.
SM 3 days ago (edited)
Even though brain capacity is limited, there isn't a correlation between how much you learn to how much you forget. And even if there was a direct trade off of how much you learn to how much you forget, then you wouldn't know "less" you would know exactly the same amount. The only way you would "know less" if the faster you learned stuff the faster you forget other stuff.
Load More Replies... Anony Mouse 1 day ago
One of the most important things I learnt when I did a masters in engineering, wasn’t what I learnt, but what I realised that I still didn’t know.
#44
That everyone is doing struggle for the life that can be ended at any point and he doesn't even know the time when it will happen.
Michael Largey 3 days ago
I never though I'd live this long. Decades ago, when I turned 53, I set the record for male longevity in my family. Both of my younger brothers are gone.
CP 3 days ago
There are enough botched ones for that one to not even be true.
Load More Replies... Ace 3 days ago
looks like a non-native English speaker, is all I can see from that.
Load More Replies... #45
Isn't it scary that we see memories in a third pov while it actually happens us to in first pov.
Michael Largey 3 days ago
In some dreams, I am having a third person view of me experiencing that dream in the first person. If that confuses you, think of what it does to me.
#46
About 3% of kids aren’t raised by their biological father, that’s terrifying to me.
Kirsten Kerkhof 3 days ago
Why? At least these kids have a father figure in their lives. Unless, of course, you are one of those men who will ask for a paternity test no matter what because "Men just can never be sure." in which case you have issues of your own.
pandamonium 3 days ago
It is true but the wording is misleading. About 3% of fathers do not know that the children they are raising aren't biologically theirs.
George Costanza 3 days ago
Being raised by any father is a blessing (for most). That man doesn't have to be your biological father to be an amazing father. Blood is meaningless if he's a good dad.
Michael Largey 3 days ago
A child who is raised by no father at all is a child not raised by their biological father. An adopted child is also a child not raised by their biological father. So 3% seems a bit small to me.
Emilu 3 days ago (edited)
*Raisehand* I wasn't. My "non-biological" father was the best man ever. Don't be terrified by that. Be terrified by the fact that, as @pandamonium says, the father may not know that the child isn't biologically theirs, or that the biological father actually never wanted the child and would prefer to see them dead. Be terrified that there are biological fathers out there that just want to marry off their daughters for profit, or that seek to keep their daughters in abusive marriages because of religious etc customs. Be terrified that there are biological fathers out there that see their children as sexually attractive. *That* is why you should be terrified.
#47
The fact that manifestation and placebo effect is real, they're proven with psychology and neuroscience. You actually have the power to shift realities just by thinking about it.
Ace 3 days ago (edited)
Nonsense. Literally. "Shift realities" does not make any sense. Edit and I've no idea what they mean by manifestation in this context, but I suspect my misreading of the line following as "pseudoscience" was not entirely inaccurate.
CP 3 days ago
Manifestation seems like nonsense, but the reality thing I can see. Imagine your reality is doom and gloom, but the placebo effect changes that. I realize I am being generous. Manifestation as far as I know is a form of magic, dreaming things into existence. Being really generous they could mean... nah I got nothing.
Load More Replies... Serial pacifist 3 days ago
Now, the question is can we call it fake treatment if it gives tangible, proven results?
CP 3 days ago (edited)
The placebo effect is used in medicine. People do get relief from homeopathy even though it is bunk. My ex-MIL has Lyme's disease and it progressed to where not much could be done to help. Her regular doctor sent her to an alternative doctor for assistance. He prescribed her a bunch of what I consider bunk, but it helped her. It is only my theory, but I think her regular doctor tried the placebo effect by sending her to the alternative doctor. I hate alternative medicine with a passion, but even I had to admit there is e benefit here.
Load More Replies... #48
In the 1980s, it was widely believed by medical professionals that babies could not feel pain, with medical procedures such as surgeries being regularly performed without anesthesia.
Blue Bunny of Happiness 3 days ago
Hasn’t this been debunked multiple times, in that doctors struggled to find safe levels of anaesthesia, of course they knew babies felt pain.
Ace 3 days ago
Yes. Stick a needle in a baby and it will scream. Of course they knew.
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Chocolate llama 3 days ago
I thought it was rather that the babies won't remember the pain and the safe amount of anesthesia was not known, so therefore the common approach was to skip the anesthesia ?
Lukas (he/him, it/its) 3 days ago
I could be wrong, but wasn't it more they didn't know how much anesthesia to give the babies without harming them and it was simply considered safer to operate without?
George Costanza 3 days ago
Many humans still think all sorts of animals don't feel pain. Like fisherman that think fish don't feel the pain of the hook ripping through their jaws.
SM 3 days ago
I think in reality they have always known that they feel pain but come up with excuses so that they don't feel bad about what they are doing.
Load More Replies... Kirsten Kerkhof 3 days ago
It's so weird doctors thought so. Mothers: "My baby is crying because his diaper rash is hurting him". Doctors: "Absolutely, makes total sense, it's harmless but painful. Anyway, meanwhile let me just cut this baby open without anestheasia because obviously they don't feel pain. I just wish they wouldn't squirm so much as I do so ..."
El Dee 3 days ago
This was so obviously wrong that I genuinely despair of the medical profession. Other such nonsense is the (sometimes still believed) myth that if you are black you don't feel pain as much and also lack buoyancy (difficult to swim) None of it makes sense to anyone but STILL these myths persist..
SM 3 days ago (edited)
The myth persists in the general public to believe these false unproven statements that some idiot came up with. The medical professionals have never believed that a baby doesn't feel pain.
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What do you think ?
CP 3 days ago
I would be curious if you could point out 5 non facts without being uselessly pedantic. Many of these things are just realities people can't accept.
Load More Replies... CP 3 days ago
I would be curious if you could point out 5 non facts without being uselessly pedantic. Many of these things are just realities people can't accept.
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