useless facts

[Platapus]

Chock Full o' Nuts coffee does not contain nuts. It's named for a chain of nut stores that the founder converted into coffee shops.

[Jimbuna]

When you light a match in zero gravity, the flame will be round and blue instead of tall and orange.

[Platapus]

Each year, 40,000 tons of space dust settles on the Earth.

[Jimbuna]

There are poisonous minerals. One of the most poisonous is thallium. It’s often called the “dark twin” of lead. Skin contact can lead to serious illness, loss of hair, and in many cases, death.

[Platapus]

Green eyes are extremely rare: only 2 percent of the population has them, and they’re more common in females than males.

[Jimbuna]

Scientists guess that there are more than three thousand minerals spreading on the earth. Most of these minerals haven’t been identified yet.

[Platapus]

The longest case of hiccups lasted 68 years.

[Jimbuna]

The most common mineral found in the earth is quartz.

[Platapus]

Bangladesh has six seasons: Grishmo (summer), Borsha (rainy), Shorot (fall), Hemanta (cool), Sheet (winter), and Boshanto (spring).

[Jimbuna]

Dry air is only twenty one percent oxygen. The rest is seventy-eight percent nitrogen, and the remaining one percent is a variety of other gases.

[Platapus]

Green Eggs and Ham was banned in China from 1965 to 1991 for its “portrayal of early Marxism.”


(facepalm)

[Jimbuna]

There are three types of solar eclipses: a total solar eclipse, an annular solar eclipse, and a partial solar eclipse.

[Platapus]

The Hass avocado was patented in 1935 by Rudolph Hass, a mailman from California.

[Jimbuna]

The longest amount of time that a solar eclipse can last is only seven and a half minutes.

[Jimbuna]

The longest solar eclipse of the century was on July 22 over India, Napal, Bhutan, and China. It lasted six minutes and twenty-seven seconds.

[Platapus]

“Q” is the only letter of the alphabet that does not appear in any U.S. territory or state name.

[Ostfriese]

A rightwing, fascist politician and blogger from Austria, 84.year-old Herbert F., ranted for years that Afghanistan was a safe country because the Taliban now make it safe, and that Afghan refugees therefore should be refused asylum and deported back to Afghanistan.


To prove his point he travelled to Afghanistan in June 2023, where he was promptly arrested and thrown to prison, into a windowless cell without furniture or blankets and without medical care. He is accused of espionage and faces the death penalty.

[Jimbuna]

Watching an eclipse with a naked eye is extremely dangerous and will harm your vision, it can also potentially make you blind.

[Platapus]

In 1916, Adeline and Augusta Van Buren became the first women to travel across the country on two solo motorcycles. They made it despite frequently being arrested for wearing pants.

[Ostfriese]

Arnold Schwarzenegger once claimed to be interested in the lead role in "Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot", only to trick Sylvester Stallone into taking the role after Schwarzenegger had read the script and found it to be horribly bad.



"Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot" was a major box office bust and is commonly cited as one of the worst movies ever made.

[Platapus]

Sea cucumbers eat with their feet.

[Platapus]

The evening prior to Thanksgiving is one of the busiest evenings for Pizza shops

[Jimbuna]

The colours in the Aurora Borealis are from different kinds of protons and electrons slamming into the Earth’s magnetic field.

[Platapus]

A “contronym” is a word that’s its own opposite.



For example: if you seed the lawn you add seeds, but if you seed a tomato you remove them.

[Jimbuna]

The Aurora Borealis is visible from space.

[Platapus]

Bloodcurdling isn’t just an expression. Research shows that watching horror movies can increase a certain clotting protein in our blood.

[Jimbuna]

The Aurora Borealis is only in the North Pole. The South Pole has it’s own set of lights, called the Aurora Australis.

[Platapus]

Beethoven went out of his way to ensure his morning coffee was made with exactly 60 beans per cup.

[Jimbuna]

The country with the most tornado touch downs is the United States of America. Each year, about a thousand tornadoes touch down.

[Platapus]

King Charles III technically owns all the dolphins in UK waters.

[Jimbuna]

There have been people who have been sucked into a tornado and lived to tell the tale.

[Platapus]

F. Scott Fitzgerald's full name is Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. He was named after his distant relative Francis Scott Key, who wrote the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner."

[Jimbuna]

A tornado that originated in Oklahoma destroyed an entire motel. The motel’s sign was later found in Arkansas.

[Platapus]

Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima for work when the first A-bomb hit, made it home to Nagasaki for the second, and lived to be 93.

[Jimbuna]

That sure is one lucky fella.

[Platapus]

Or unlucky

[Platapus]

Andrew Jackson's parrot was kicked out of his funeral for swearing.

[Jimbuna]

A tornado in Mississippi picked up an eighty-three ton train and tossed it eighty feet away from the rails.

[Platapus]

Born in the USA was the first commercial CD made in America.

[Jimbuna]

Once in Oklahoma, a herd of cattle was picked up by a tornado and then set down across the countryside. None of the cattle were harmed.

[Platapus]

In 2010, Nickelback approached Dark Horse Brewery about having their beer featured in a video, which would have meant great exposure for the small Michigan brewery. They declined, however, as “none of us at the brewery really care for the band.”


Sick burn!

[Jimbuna]

When a tsunami happens in the deepest part of the ocean, the waves are only one to three feet tall.

[Platapus]

Female bats give birth while hanging upside down, catching the baby in their wings as it drops.

[Jimbuna]

Right before a tsunami (up to half an hour before), the ocean will appear to recede. This is called a “drawback”.

[Platapus]

The first operational use of the Washington-Moscow hot line was to announce the assassination of President Kennedy.

[Jimbuna]

Some animals have the ability to detect tsunamis, such as elephants, flamingos, dogs, and other creatures.

[Platapus]

Kea parrots spread warbles when they’re in a good mood, making them the first known non-mammal species to communicate with infectious laughter.

[Jimbuna]

Two people will never see the same rainbow. This is because every human sees colors a different way. The same shade of red you see might be a completely different shade for your brother or sister.

[Jimbuna]

The word “rainbow” in Latin is arcus iris or arcus pluvius, which pretty much means a “rainy arch”.

[Jeff-Groves]

So. The Rainbow flag means rainy arch flag.
Now what's the meaning of Arch in this context?

Something resembling an arch in form or function?
especially : either of two vaulted portions of the bony structure of the foot that impart elasticity to it.

I'd think the elasticity part is important.

[Ostfriese]

Unlike the flag an actual rainbow has no clear color borders, but rather a smooth transition.


A rainbow also does have an infrared and an ultraviolett component, but of course we cannot see either.

[Jimbuna]

Australia is wider than the moon.

[Platapus]

Over the course of her sixty-three-year reign, Queen Victoria survived eight assassination attempts.




She was not amused

[Jimbuna]

Wearing headphones for just an hour could increase the bacteria in your ears by 700 times.

[Platapus]

According to some testing, it appears that a horse can generate about 5.7 Horsepower

[Ostfriese]

The most famous serial killer of the Victorian age was and is Jack the Ripper, but he killed only five (canonical) to seven (probably) people.
The worst English mass murderer during the Victorian age very likely was a woman, Mary Ann Cotton, who killed 21 people, including three of her husbands (for the insurance money) and eleven of her 13 children, poisoning them with arsenic. She was hanged on March 24th, 1873.

[Jimbuna]

The Eiffel Tower gets taller in the summer.

When the iron heats up, the tower can be up to 15 centimeters (6 inches) taller due to thermal expansion.

[Platapus]

Paul Weitz was the first person to take a shower in space. It was aboard Skylab 2. Even though the shower only used 2.8 liters of water, the shower took him two and a half hours to complete.

[Jimbuna]

Human teeth are the only part of the body that can’t heal themselves.

[Platapus]

Madam C.J. Walker is thought to be America’s first self-made female millionaire. Born to sharecroppers in 1867, she made her fortune selling beauty products for black women.

[Jimbuna]

Switzerland prohibits the ownership of just one guinea pig.

[Platapus]

Blood makes up about 8 percent of your total body weight.


I guess I have fat blood

[Jimbuna]

Tigers have striped skin.

[Platapus]

Marie Curie remains the only person to earn Nobel prizes in two different sciences.

[Jimbuna]

A shrimp’s heart is in its head.

[Platapus]

The ancestor of the modern chainsaw was invented to facilitate childbirth.


(You really don't want to know the details)

[Jimbuna]

In 1905, young Frank Epperson left water and soda powder outside overnight with a wooden stirrer in the cup. When he discovered the mixture had frozen, the “Epsicle” was born.

[Platapus]

The patent for the aforementioned “Epsicle” read



“A frozen confection of attractive appearance, which can be conveniently consumed without contamination by contact with the hand and without the need for a plate, spoon, fork, or another implement.”

[Jimbuna]

Sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins.

[Platapus]

Flamingos aren’t naturally pink; they’re born a sort of grayish color. It’s their diet of brine shrimp and algae that turns them pink.

[Jimbuna]

Froot Loops are all the same flavor despite their different colors.

[Ostfriese]

The average temperature of the universe is about 2.73 kelvins (-270.42°C or -454.76°F).

[Jimbuna]

Most wasabi paste isn’t real wasabi.

If you’ve always thought that your store-bought wasabi tastes more like horseradish, you’re probably right. It’s often used as a substitute since real wasabi is expensive.

[Platapus]

The corpse flower was the official flower of the Bronx for 60 years.




figures

[Jimbuna]

People used to say “prunes” when taking pictures.

[Platapus]

The cubicle did not get its name from its shape, but from the Latin “cubiculum” meaning bed chamber.

[Jimbuna]

Nutmeg is a hallucinogen.

[Platapus]

Although the bobcat is rarely seen, it is the most common wildcat in North America.

[Jimbuna]

McDonald’s serves spaghetti in the Philippines.

[Platapus]

Ada Lovelace, the daughter of poet Lord Byron, wrote the first algorithm created specifically for a machine.

[Jeff-Groves]

Linda Lovelace (born Linda Susan Boreman) was NOT related to Ada Lovelace.

[Sean C]

Linda Carter was a woman who was a wonder to behold. ;)

[Jimbuna]

Competitive art was once an Olympic sport.

[Ostfriese]

Competitive art was once an Olympic sport.


So was tug of war (from 1900 to 1920).

[Platapus]

In 1985, the Chicago Bears recorded a hit rap song called “The Super Bowl Shuffle,” which was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Rhythm and Blues Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal. Ultimately, they lost to Prince’s “Kiss."

[Jimbuna]

The Spanish national anthem has no words.

[Sean C]

Henceforth, I will be stating on my resume the fact that I know all the words to the Spanish national anthem.

[Ostfriese]

Contrary to popular belief performing the first two stanzas of the German national anthem is not illegal in Germany.

Only the third stanza is the official German anthem, however.

[Platapus]

Which is different from the USA National Anthem. It has four stanzas but only the first is used.


I would opine that a lot of US Citizens are unaware of the other stanzas

[Jimbuna]

Cat urine glows under a black light.

[Platapus]

Paraskavedekatriaphobia is the fear of Friday the 13th.

[Jimbuna]

Before we had toilet paper, Americans used corn husks.

[Aktungbby]

...two Pekingese and one Pomeranian dogs survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

[Platapus]

The Eiffel Tower leans slightly toward the shade on sunny days.

[Jimbuna]

The Statue of Liberty was once a lighthouse.

[Platapus]

Modern brunch was first proposed in 1895 as a post-hangover meal.

[Jimbuna]

Jennifer Lopez inspired the creation of Google images.

After she wore her infamous green dress at the 2000 Grammys, the search engine added the function because so many people were looking for pictures of her outfit!

[Aktungbby]

Canadian citizen Frances Stephens was aboard the Lusitania when it was sunk, and her body was recovered and on route back to Canada aboard the RMS Hesperian when the SM U-20 then sank the Hesperian, making Stephens twice a victim of the German SM U-20

[Platapus]

Lobsters' bladders are in their heads.

[Jimbuna]

You can see four states from Chicago’s Willis Tower.

[Platapus]

Japan is home to about a dozen "cat islands"—places where cats significantly outnumber people.




Think I found where I want to retire to

[Ostfriese]

Point Nemo is the most remote place on Earth, being 2,688 kilometers away from the nearest land. It's in the south Pacific, about halfway between Chile and New Zealand, and the closest land are three uninhabited Islands (Ducie Island in the Pitcairn Islands; Moto Nui in the Easter Islands and Maher Island off the coast of Antarctica).

Point Nemo is quite lifeless, with little (if any) nutrients from coastal waters getting there.

It's being used as a spaceship graveyard - hundreds of decomissioned satellites, spacecraft and even space stations can be found on the seabed, and these wrecks will be joined by the ISS (planned crash in 2031).

[Jimbuna]

Walt Disney has won the most Academy Awards.

[Platapus]

Point Nemo is the most remote place on Earth, being 2,688 kilometers away from the nearest land.




If you are on Point Nemo, your closest human neighbor is on the ISS

[Platapus]

It turned out that Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt was allergic to moon dust.

[Platapus]

Humans have always had priorities


We invented booze before we invented the wheel.

[Jimbuna]

A blue whale’s heartbeat can be detected up to 2 miles away.

[Jimbuna]

There’s a fruit that tastes like chocolate pudding.

Native to Central and South America, the fruit is called black sapote and it tastes like a combination of sweet custard and chocolate.

[Ostfriese]

Humans have always had priorities


We invented booze before we invented the wheel.


Booze is naturally occuring, while wheels are not.

We also invented the tin can (for food) before we invented the can opener, so sometimes we get our priorities wrong :D

[Jimbuna]

Mickey and Minnie Mouse’s voices got married in real life.

Wayne Allwine (Mickey) and Russi Taylor (Minnie) were married from 1986 to 2019.

[Platapus]

Jerry Springer was born in a London tube station during World War II.

[Jimbuna]

Queen Elizabeth II was a trained mechanic.

[Platapus]

The world’s first underwater mailbox was installed just off the shore of Susami, Japan.

[Jimbuna]

The real name for a hashtag is octothorpe.

[Platapus]

After passing a kidney stone, in 2006 William Shatner sold it for $25,000 to an online casino. The casino wanted the ensuing publicity; Shatner donated the money to Habitat for Humanity.

[Jimbuna]

The Easter Island heads have bodies.

We’ve seen those iconic stone heads, but did you know that in the 2010s, archaeologists found that two of the Pacific Island figures actually have torsos.

[Platapus]

Sometimes it snows on Mars—but the snowflakes are made out of carbon dioxide, not water. The flakes don’t fall, but create a fog-like effect.

[Jimbuna]

M&Ms are named after their creators.

Two businessmen, Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie, came up with the sweet treats.

[Platapus]

Marie Curie’s notebooks are still radioactive.

[Aktungbby]

homo-sapiens above 44 kg are technically megafauna.

[Ostfriese]

Ebenezer "Eben" McBurney Byers, an American socialite, industrialist and golfer, was the most prominent and one of the most fervent users of "Radithor", a "medicine" made of distilled water and radium (both Ra-226 and Ra-228).
Byers started using radithor in 1927 and stopped after around 1.400 doses in 1930, after his teeth began to fall out. In 1932 he died from cancer.
His body had to be buried in a lead coffin. When exhumed in 1965 his remains still produced 225,000 becquerels. The average adult human body usually produces about 4,000 to 4,500 becquerels (one becquerel equals one decaying nucleus per second).
To this date his body, similar to those of other victims of the "radium craze", is technically nuclear waste and must be treated as such, and as Radium 226 decays with a half life of 1600 years nothing will change about that in the forseeable future.

[Jimbuna]

Vatican City is the smallest country in the world.

[Jimbuna]

The letter “J” was the last added to the English alphabet.

[Platapus]

December 5 is Krampusnacht (Krampus Night), when the half-goat, half-demon of Christmas folklore visits homes to punish naughty children, armed with a bundle of sticks and a chain to take them back to the underworld.




Gulp!

[Jimbuna]

In the Netherlands, Saint Nicholas' Eve, 5 December, became the chief occasion for gift-giving during the winter holiday season. The evening is called Sinterklaasavond ("Sinterklaas evening") or Pakjesavond ("gifts evening", or literally "packages evening").

[Platapus]

In the 1880s, a baboon worked as a signalman for nine years on a South African railroad. He was paid in brandy and never made a mistake.

[Jimbuna]

The moon has moonquakes.

[Jimbuna]

The longest walking distance in the world is 14,000 miles.

[Platapus]

On average, people in India spend 10 hours and 42 minutes a week reading, the most time of any country on Earth.

[Platapus]

Nerf balls are made from Non-Expanding Recreational Foam (NERF)

[Jimbuna]

Humans are the only animals that blush.

[Platapus]

The first pair of Nike running shoes was made in a waffle iron.


They tasted terrible

[Jimbuna]

Pigs can’t look up into the sky.

[Platapus]

25% of all animal species ever discovered on this planet are beetles.

[Platapus]

Novelist Patricia Highsmith kept about 300 snails as pets. She carried them in her handbag to parties.

[Jimbuna]

There are more than 200 Kit Kat flavors in Japan.

[Jimbuna]

Humans have tongue prints.

[Platapus]

The first item sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer.

[Jimbuna]

The Eiffel Tower was supposed to be in Barcelona.

When Gustave Eiffel’s design was rejected by the Spanish city for being too ugly, he pitched it to France. The locals weren’t in love with it either, but tourists from around the world flock to Paris to see it!

[Platapus]

Great white sharks rarely survive in captivity. Experts suspect the electricity in buildings interferes with the animals' electrosensory systems—though that hasn't stopped some aquariums from trying, and failing, to display them.

[Jimbuna]

The shortest commercial flight in the world is in Scotland.

The quick 1.7-mile journey between Westray and Papa Westray islands takes just 90 seconds by plane.

[Platapus]

During WWII, La-Z-Boy manufactured seats for tanks, torpedo boats, gun turrets, and armored cars.

[bweiss]

In 1964, George Wallace was a candidate in several Democratic primaries, scoring what were then surprisingly large vote totals in such states as Maryland and Wisconsin.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/images/daily/wallace_button1.gif

[Platapus]

The medical term for ice cream headaches is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.

[Jimbuna]

Dolphins give each other names.

[mapuc]

On 25 December 1937, the football match between Charlton and Chelsea was interrupted due to thick fog. No one told Charlton goalkeeper Sam Bartram that. For twenty minutes he stood staring into the fog, wondering why the game didn't come down to his end of the field. Only when a policeman emerged from the fog in front of him did he realize that the lane was empty.

Markus

[Platapus]

This just in: Your brain is eating itself!!!!!


But that's perfectly normal. Phagocytosis is a process whereby cells will envelop and consume smaller cells or molecules, in order to remove them from the system.

[Eisenwurst]

The Oozlum bird can fly backwards. :yep:

[Jimbuna]

There’s a Shell garage that’s actually shaped like a Shell.

In the 1930s, Shell built a series of shell-shaped service stations, but only one remains today, in North Carolina.

[bweiss]

On 25 December 1937, the football match between Charlton and Chelsea was interrupted due to thick fog. No one told Charlton goalkeeper Sam Bartram that. For twenty minutes he stood staring into the fog, wondering why the game didn't come down to his end of the field. Only when a policeman emerged from the fog in front of him did he realize that the lane was empty.

Markus


:k_rofl:

[Platapus]

Do you feel that the days are just dragging...


Well, it is not just you


Earth’s rotation is changing speed. It is actually slowing down. This means that, on average, the length of a day increases by around 1.8 seconds per century.

[bweiss]

While it is commonly believed that the fighting of the American Civil War ended when General R.E. Lee, surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia, at Appomattox Court House, VA., on April 9, 1865, and General Joseph E. Johnston's subsequent surrender of the
Army of Tennessee, on April 11, 1865, at Bennett Place, Durham Station, NC., with the last Confederate forces in Texas surrendering in early May, 1865, what is less well known is that the Confederate cruiser, CSS Shenandoah (https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/confederate_ships/shenandoah.html), continued to fight on,
if unwittingly, until early August, not surrendering until November 6, 1865.

The rich whaling grounds in the Bering Sea between Siberia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia) and Alaska (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska) had been a safe haven for Yankee whalers for most of the American Civil War. CSS Shenandoah arrived and captured 20 of the 58 Yankee whalers working there. These whalers were
destroyed more than a month after CSA President Jefferson Davis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Davis) was captured on May 10, 1865.

As Shenandoah stalked her latest target on August 2, 1865, however, Captain James Waddell’s men soon saw that the ship was flying the Union Jack rather than the Stars and Stripes. Waddell dispatched Irvine Bulloch to board and inspect the British bark Barracouta,
and after a half-hour the ashen-faced officer returned with the devastating news; the Confederacy had lost the war.

Preferring to surrender to His Majesty's Royal Navy, Captain Waddell plotted a course for Liverpool, and sailed from the west coast of Mexico via Cape Horn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Horn), a voyage of three months and over 9,000 nautical miles (10,000 mi; 17,000 km).

She anchored at the Mersey Bar at the mouth of the estuary awaiting a pilot to board her to guide the ship up the river and into the enclosed docks. Not flying any flag, the British pilot refused to take the ship into Liverpool;
the crew then hoisted the Stainless Banner (https://confederatemuseum.com/flag-collection/) version of the Confederate Flag.

CSS Shenandoah sailed up the River Mersey with the flag of the Confederacy fully flying to stunned crowds on the riverbanks, and dropped anchor next to the 1858 launched, HMS Donegal, a 101-gun Conqueror-class ship of the line.
Waddell then ordered the Confederate flag lowered for the very last time and surrendered to a contingent of British marines.

After several days of deliberation, the British government determined the Confederate sailors had not violated any rules of war and freed them unconditionally. CSS Shenandoah, however, was turned over to the United States.

The fighting of American Civil War was then, finally over.

[Jimbuna]

IKEA rugs were used for the Night’s Watch cloaks in Game of Thrones.

[Platapus]

The Universe's average color is called 'Cosmic latte'.

[Aktungbby]

In the frgid winter of 1945-46, Germany's ruined cities were desperately short of fuel, and Mein Kampf was shoveled into furnaces as an alternative energy source.

[Platapus]

All the world’s bacteria stacked on top of each other would stretch for 10 billion light-years.

[Platapus]

The fear of long words is called Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

[Platapus]

There are more bacterial cells in your body than human cells.

[Jimbuna]

A blue whale’s tongue can weigh as much as a young elephant.

[Platapus]

Earth’s poles are moving. This magnetic reversal of the North and South Pole has happened 171 times in the past 71 million years. We’re overdue a flip.The North Pole is moving at around 55 kilometers per year

[Jimbuna]

Crocodiles can’t stick out their tongues.

[Platapus]

A study in 2020 showed that painting one blade of a wind turbine black reduced bird deaths by 70% with some species experiencing zero deaths during the study.

[Jimbuna]

There’s an ant species that’s unique to New York City.

Biologists found them in a specific area of New York City and named them ManhattAnts.

[Platapus]

The quietest place on Earth is Microsoft’s anechoic chamber in Redmond, WA, USA, at -20.6 decibels.



It is so quiet that staying in there has physiological and psychological effects on people. To date, no one has worked in that room, when sealed, for more than 60 minutes.

[Jimbuna]

You could fall through the centre of the Earth in 42 minutes.

Thankfully, no one has tried this yet.

[Platapus]

People in the Southern Hemisphere see the moon in an inverted orientation compared to what people in the Northern Hemisphere see


Something Flat Earthers can't seem to explain.

[Platapus]

Polythelia: Being born with a third nipple.


1/13 people born can have this.

[Jimbuna]

Flamingos don’t bend their legs at the knee.

They bend their legs at the ankle!

[Platapus]

Having problems getting enough steps in each day?


You travel 2.5 million km a day around the Sun without realizing. You also travel around 19 million km with respect to the center of the Milky Way.

[Jimbuna]

Adolf Hitler was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

A Swedish politician actually nominated him in 1939 as a joke and subsequently withdrew his nomination.

[Jimbuna]

John Quincy Adams had a pet alligator.

[Platapus]

All mammals get goosebumps.

[Jimbuna]

Dogs have a unique nose print.

[Platapus]

Football players spit so much because exercise increases the amount of protein in saliva.

[Jimbuna]

In an average lifetime, people eat around 70 assorted insects while sleeping.

[Platapus]

The biggest butterfly in the world has a 31cm wingspan.

[Eisenwurst]

Loukoumaphobia :) is a fear of Donuts.:eek:

[Jimbuna]

69. Hawaii gets 3 feet closer to Alaska every year.

[Platapus]

In the wild, if a polar bear does not have a steady diet of seals, he or she stands a good chance of dying.....from dehydration.

[Platapus]

The longest anyone has held their breath underwater is over 24.5 minutes.

[Platapus]

Mercury, not Venus, is the closest planet to Earth on average.

[Jimbuna]

Ants are incredibly strong.

They can lift and carry more than 50 times their own weight!

[Platapus]

Our brains have wrinkles


The ridges are called gyri and the crevices are called sulci.

[Jimbuna]

We only see one side of the moon.

[Platapus]

Beavers have orange teeth, as they contain a lot of iron. The mineral makes the teeth particularly resistant to external forces.

[Jimbuna]

Giraffes are much more likely to get hit by lightning than humans.

[Platapus]

The most common zodiac sign among billionaires is Aquarius. The least common one is Cancer.

[Jimbuna]

Bananas are radioactive.

[Platapus]

With 16 percent of total global production India is the world largest producer of milk in the world.

[Ostfriese]

Bananas are radioactive.


But an averge human would have to eat about 10 million bananas at once to suffer even mild symptoms of acute radiation poisoning.

[Jimbuna]

All dogs have dreams.

[Platapus]

In 1916, a law was submitted to the US Congress to stipulate that any declaration of war by the USA first had to be confirmed by a referendum and that anyone who voted “yes” would have to go to war themselves. However, the law was never passed.

[Platapus]

Pingelap is a Western Pacific island atoll where two thirds of the inhabitants are color-blind.

[Jimbuna]

There are about 91,000 different types of insects in the United States.

[Platapus]

On average, a raindrop reaches a speed of 21.7 miles per hour.

[Jimbuna]

The sun and moon are not the same size.

While they might look the same size from Earth, the moon is actually 400 times smaller than the sun. It just looks bigger because it’s also 400 times closer to us!

[Jimbuna]

Identical twins don’t have the same fingerprints.

[Platapus]

If you visit a Jewish grave, it is common practice to leave a small stone as a symbol of mourning and remembrance.

[Jimbuna]

Deaf people use sign language in their sleep.

[Platapus]

The “Kumbh Mela” in India is not just the biggest festival in Hinduism but also the biggest event in general. The range of estimated attendees is between 30 million to 60 million people. It’s so large that it can even be seen from space.

[Jimbuna]

Animals can be allergic to humans.

[Jimbuna]

The moon looks upside down in the Southern Hemisphere.

While the Northern Hemisphere sees the “Man in the Moon,” it looks more like a rabbit in the Southern Hemisphere.

[Platapus]

In 1993, Canadian lawyer Garry Hoy wanted to prove to a group of visitors that the glass in the Toronto Dominion Centre was unbreakable. To demonstrate this, he jumped against the glass – which thereupon broke out of its frame and plummeted downwards together with Garry Hoy.



Hoy died, but the pane of glass remained intact, even after the fall.

[Jimbuna]

Earth’s rotation is changing speed.

The Earth is actually slowing down, which means that, on average, the length of a day increases by around 1.8 seconds per century. If you do the math, a day lasted just 21 hours if you lived on Earth 600 million years ago!

[Platapus]

The likelihood of getting bitten by a human in New York is higher than the likelihood of getting bitten by a shark in the sea.

[Jimbuna]

Bees may fly up to 60 miles in one day.

[Platapus]

The International Space Station is the most expensive object ever made by humans. It has cost 160 billion dollars so far.

[Jimbuna]

More than half of our bodies are not human.

Bacterial cells outnumber the number of human cells in our bodies. Research has found that the average human is around 56% bacteria.

[Jimbuna]

Our blood pressure drops when we pet a dog.

The dog’s blood pressure decreases too.

[Jeff-Groves]

in responce to Jim's post above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXzITuHWBCU

[Platapus]

The Crabeater Seal.......doesn't

[Jimbuna]

Los Angeles’ full name is “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula.”

[Jimbuna]

Platypuses “sweat” milk.

[Platapus]

The Bluetooth logo is composed of the old Nordic runes for H and B, which were the initials of Viking king Harald Bluetooth. He was known for his overwhelming communication skills.

[Jimbuna]

Most ginger cats are male.

[Sean C]

Most ginger cats are male.


Mine isn't. :smug:


https://i.imgur.com/OYJddrml.jpg

[Jimbuna]

Mine isn't. :smug:


https://i.imgur.com/OYJddrml.jpg

I think the clue was in the word 'Most' :smug:

[mapuc]

For French schoolchildren, learning to drink wine has almost been part of their upbringing. Before 1956, parents gave a bottle of wine mixed with water to school, where children were allowed to drink up to half a liter of wine a day. In 1956, however, a minimum age was set so that children had to be 14 before they could drink wine at school. It was not until 1981 that a total ban on alcohol was introduced in French primary schools.

Markus

[Jimbuna]

LEGO bricks withstand compression better than concrete.

[Sean C]

I think the clue was in the word 'Most' :smug:


Overruled! It was still a useless fact. :arrgh!:

[Aktungbby]

LEGO bricks withstand compression better than concrete....even ancient Roman concrete?

[Platapus]

Hornets are vegetarian


Adult hornets eat sap and nectar.



The animals they hunt are kill are to feed the larva back at the hive

[Jimbuna]

Overruled! It was still a useless fact. :arrgh!:

Touché :salute:

[Jimbuna]

Your brain is constantly eating itself.

Called phagocytosis, this process allows cells to envelop and consume smaller cells or molecules to remove them from the system. It might sound a little scary, but it’s a good thing since it helps our brains preserve gray matter!

[Platapus]

Most streets in Japan have no name.

[Jimbuna]

“Stewardesses” is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.

[Platapus]

The Wasaga beach in Canada is the longest fresh water beach in the world.

[Jimbuna]

The world’s largest snowflake was 15 inches wide and 8 inches thick.

[Platapus]

Before there were trees on the earth, our planet was covered by giant mushrooms.

[Jimbuna]

Your nails grow faster in the summer.

[Platapus]

The human circadian rhythm is better suited to life on Mars than on Earth.

[Jimbuna]

The first alarm clock could only ring at 4 a.m.

[Platapus]

Due to the decline of the lion population, there are now more lion statues worldwide than real lions.


More of a sad fact.

[Platapus]

For every episode of “The Simpsons” the producers needed six to nine months.

[Ostfriese]

There a no physical theories and equations that can explain the events during the time span between the Big Bang and 5.39×10^-44 seconds after. This time span is generally called "Planck time" and for this specific moment "Planck epoch".

After the Planck epoch up until 10^-32 seconds (still a very, VERY short time span, but actually about 185 BILLION Planck times) the volume of the universe increased by a factor of at least 10^78 (10^26 in any one of the three dimensions). Translated to length this would be an expansion from a nanometer to about 10.6 light years.

From this point onwards the physics of the universe are mostly understood.

[Cybermat47]

The only male ants are the ones who mate with the queens. The only fertile female ants are the queens. All other ants are sterile females.

[Jimbuna]

There’s no such thing as a straight line.

No matter how hard you try, if you look closely, there will always be irregularities. We say things are “laser-focused,” but even laser beams are slightly curved!

[Platapus]

During the Second World War, the city of Constance was largely spared from Allied bombing raids. Unlike other German cities, Constance did not cut off electricity at night. Allied pilots could therefore hardly distinguish the city from neighboring Switzerland, where the lights also remained on at night. In order to avoid mistakes, no bombs were dropped in the region.






Seems clever

[Jimbuna]

The dot over the letter ‘i’ is called a tittle.

[Platapus]

For years, Liechtenstein and Haiti had the same flag, which was only noticed when the two nations met at the 1936 Olympic Games. A year later, the flag of Liechtenstein was therefore adorned with the symbol of a golden princely hat.

[Ostfriese]

The melting points of the metals caesium and gallium are so low that they melt in the palm of a human's hand.

[Jimbuna]

The Queen Alexandra’s birdwing is the biggest butterfly in the world.

[Platapus]

More than 50 percent of the world’s population has never received a phone call.

[Jimbuna]

Martial artists who smile before a match are more likely to lose.

[Platapus]

Behind Lincoln’s face in Mount Rushmore, there is a secret chamber where memorabilia of the most important historical events in the USA are kept.

[Eisenwurst]

The Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat is nocturnal.

[Platapus]

Argentina is the fifth largest producer of wine in the world.

[Jimbuna]

A chicken once lived more than a year without a head.

[Jimbuna]

One cloud can weigh more than a million pounds.

[Platapus]

Chronologically, Cleopatra was closer to the moon landing than to the construction of the pyramids.