The
world is weird, as are people and even animals.
From
laws about tying up your giraffe in Atlanta to a precious metal
lurking in your blood, there are endless bizarre wonders you may not
know about the world around you – and a few out in the heavens as
well.
Learn about the first mobile historical monument, an elephant
herd in mourning and more with these 75 incredible and weird facts.
Image Credit: GlobalP / istockphoto.
1. Tiny tickles
In what must have been the cutest science experiment of all time,
neuroscientists
discovered that rats laugh when tickled.
Image Credit: Supersmario / istockphoto.
2. Mosquitoes are even worse than you think
In experiments not even remotely as cute as tickling rats, scientists have discovered that mosquitoes urinate on us while feeding on our blood. They’re exploring ways to prevent this, and thereby control the spread of
dengue fever, yellow fever and other diseases.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
3. Bananas are radioactive
Looking to gain radioactive super powers? Try a banana! Bananas are
very slightly
radioactive and are even used to measure doses of radiation. BED
stands for Banana Equivalent Dose.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
4. Brain power
If you had to guess which animal was packing 32 brains, you’d
probably guess wrong. The answer is leeches,
which have a brain in each of their 32 body segments.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
5. Mourning elephants
While elephants may have just one brain, they use theirs in some truly lovely ways. When “elephant
whisperer” Lawrence Anthony died, an entire herd of
elephants arrived at his house, apparently in mourning.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
6. Snow in the Sahara
The Sahara desert is one of the hottest, driest places on Earth, so snowfall is understandably rare. In fact, there are just a handful of recorded snowfalls in living memory – the first on Feb. 18, 1979, another in December, 2016, and the latest on Jan. 9, 2018.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
7. Chicken gender
Researchers found that roughly one in every 10,000 chickens is
gynandromorphous,
meaning they hatch half-male and half-female.
According to scientists at the Roslin Institute and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, bird cells are different to mammal cells in that they don’t need to be programmed by hormones. This means that chicken cells can remain inherently male or female, so a half-and-half chicken could have different plumage on one side than the other based on the gender coding of the cells, along with different body shape, muscle structure and even wattle and spur structures.
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8. Bird brain
Farmer Lloyd Olsen failed to kill a rooster once, resulting in a chicken that lived without the majority of his head being attached to his body. That chicken became
famous,, touring the country as Mike
the Headless Wonder Chicken from 1945 to 1947.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
9. Apollo 11
Everyone records over their favorite tapes accidentally – even
NASA it turns out. The tapes containing the original footage of the Apollo
11 moonwalk were probably erased and reused to record satellite
data. Oops!
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
10. Resetting the biological clock
Scientists performed an
experiment where they shone a bright light on the backs of
people’s knees. Those treated with the light had their biological
clocks “advanced or delayed up to three hours.”
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
11. Sleeping with the fishes
Whales and dolphins take being “right-brained” or
“left-brained” to the extreme. Getting a nap in the
ocean requires them to let one
half of their brains sleep at a time, while the other half keeps
them conscious.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
12. Turning air into water
Peru, on the edge of the Atacama desert, is one of the driest places
on earth, leaving hundreds of thousands of people with no access to
clean water. But a team
of engineers set out to change that – with a billboard. The
billboard changes humidity in the air into clean drinking water.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
13. The school older than Aztec civilization
The Aztecs founded Tenochtitlan in 1325, but there’s a school that
predates them. The University
of Oxford became a full-fledged university in 1249.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
14. Golden boys (and girls)
We all have a little gold in us. The human body contains about 0.2
milligrams of gold, mostly in our blood.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
15. Running low
Speaking of gold, we’re running
low. We’ve probably got less than 15 years of easily mineable
gold left in the world.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
16. Worth its weight in feathers
One option for when gold becomes harder to mine is to take our cue
from the Aztecs, who valued feathers
much more highly.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
17. Sleep shuts down sneezing
You can’t sneeze
while you sleep. During REM sleep certain neurotransmitters
actually shut down and your brain can’t receive the signal to sneeze.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
18. Can you hear me now?
In 2010, a Nepalese telecom installed eight 3G
base stations along the route up Mount Everest, with the highest
located at 17,000 feet.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
19. Longest pregnancy ever
Most pregnancies last 280 days or so, but back in 1945, Beulah Hunter reportedly shattered
that norm when she gave birth after being pregnant
for 375 days, or about 12.5 months.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
20. It’s raining … glass?
Even Captain Kirk might want to steer clear of this blue
planet. In 2013 astronomers found a deep azure planet where “it
possibly rains liquid glass sideways amid 4,500 mph winds.”
Yikes.
Image Credit: NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).
21. Slow down
Would you like more hours in your day? Wait a mere 140 million years
and the average earth day could be 25
hours long because the planet is very, very slowly decelerating.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
22. Tongue print
Your tongue has a unique “print,”
just like a fingerprint.
Image Credit: Deagreez / istockphoto.
23. Shedding
Don’t blame shedding on the pets. Humans are prolific shedders, with
about 600,000 particles of skin flaking off every hour. By age 70,
humans lose an average of 105
pounds of skin.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
25. Ice cold
Alaska is home to a type of frog that allows itself to freeze every year.
The wood
frog turns two-thirds of its body water into ice then, in spring,
thaws out and keeps on hopping.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
26. Baby daddies
In seahorses,
it’s the male who gets pregnant and gives birth. The female seahorse
deposits her eggs inside the male, who fertilizes and carries them
inside a pouch until they’re ready to be born.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
27. Most prolific mom ever
The most prolific mom of all time was Feodor
Vassilyev, who had 69 children. She gave birth to 16 pairs of
twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
28. Hearing hangs on…
Research
has indicated that hearing, if you still have it, is the last sense to go when you die.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
29. …but your bowels don’t …
Your ears may still pick up sound after you die, but every muscle
in your body relaxes at the time of death, including those that control the bowels.
This sometimes results in a final bowel movement post-death.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
31. Got goosebumps yet?
All this talk of death might be giving you goosebumps, but did you know you can get goose bumps when you’re dead?
Rigor mortis is a stiffening of the muscles and it can cause a goose
bump-like appearance on the skin of a corpse.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
32. Peanut butter diamonds
Let’s talk about something more hopeful. Scientists figured out how
to turn peanut butter into diamonds.
All they need is a higher pressure than what you’ll find at the
center of the earth. Easy, right?
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
33. Fish farts
Researchers
suspect that fish communicate through the noise of their farts – just like some teenage boys …
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
34. Well, that stinks
In 2008, a 13-year-old boy was arrested for farting
too much in school. The sheriff’s office said he “continually
disrupted his classroom environment” with intentional
flatulence.
Image Credit: Tuned_In / istockphoto.
35. Primate depression
Chimpanzees
can get PTSD and depression. A study confirmed the presence of
anxiety and mood disorders in chimpanzees and raised ethical
questions about using them for experimentation and captivity.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
36. Whale woes
Orcas
(commonly called killer whales) also show signs of stress when placed
in captivity. This ranges from dorsal fin collapse to attacking and
killing humans, something they don’t do in the wild.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
37. Get salty
A hotel in Bolivia is made
of salt. That includes the chairs, tables and beds.
Image Credit: Hotel De Sal Luna Salada.
38. Sweet retreat
For something sweeter, look no farther than San Francisco, where an
artist created an entire room out of cake.
Image Credit: Spoke Art.
39. Gum ban
In 1992, Singapore banned chewing
gum. This fell in line with the country’s strict laws against
litter, graffiti, jaywalking, spitting and other untidy habits.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
40. Hell freezes over
Hell can freeze over – and does all the time. Hell,
Norway, that is. The town of Hell is a tiny village that reaches
temperatures as low as -13 degrees every winter. There are at least three other towns in the world named Hell, including one in Michigan, one in the Netherlands (both of which also freeze) and another in the Cayman Islands (that doesn’t).
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
41. Man’s best…bride?
A man in India married
a dog in order to beat a curse he earned by attacking a pair of
dogs years earlier.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
42. Bread eraser
Before modern erasers, artists and others had to use rolled up white
bread to remove pencil marks.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
43. Risky Richter
The man behind the Richter scale, Charles
Richter, was quite the character. Along with being a poet,
Trekkie and backpacker, he was an avid nudist. That should shake
things up.
Image Credit: public domain.
44. Multi-talented mouthwash
Today, we know Listerine
for keeping our mouths minty fresh. But it has been sold in the past
as a cure for dandruff, a surgical disinfectant, a floor cleaner, a
hair tonic and a deodorant.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
45. A romantic death
Male
honey bees only mate once. As he finishes, the male bee’s
endophallus is ripped from his body, his abdomen tears open and the
bee dies. Ain’t love grand?
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
46. Love sick
If that made you want to steer clear of romance, you’re not alone.
Philophobia
is the fear of love or of becoming emotionally connected with another
person. Yep, it’s a real thing.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
47. Back in the game
Nintendo briefly got into the love game. In the ’60s the
entertainment company owned a love
hotel in Japan, where such hotels are basically rooms for rent by
the hour, complete with fanciful themes, costumes, “toys,”
food and more.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
48. Best hangover cure
Next time you’re suffering from a hangover, look no further than
Sprite
for the cure. A team of scientists found Sprite relieved hangover
symptoms better than many other drinks and cures.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
49. Ancient beauty masks
In ancient Rome beauty masks had an interesting ingredient
list that included things like placenta, excrement, sulfur, sweat
from sheep’s wool, animal urine, ground oyster shells and bile.
Image Credit: IanaChyrva / istockphoto.
50. The sound of one hand clapping?
Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko outlawed clapping after his
opposition started using it as a form of dissent. People were
actually arrested for clapping, including Konstantin
Kaplin, who has one arm.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
51. The paper house
There is a house in Rockport, Massachusetts, made of newspaper, including paper furniture such as a piano, a desk and a chair.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
52. A sun you could touch
In 2011, NASA discovered “Y-dwarfs,”
stars that are even cooler than the human body.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
53. The paper house
There is a house in Rockport, Massachusetts, made of newspaper,
including paper furniture such as a piano, a desk and a chair.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
54. Great Belize Blue Hole
A large sinkhole off the coast of Belize called the Great
Belize Blue Hole is a staggering 410 feet deep. It is the deepest known natural sinkhole of its kind.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
55. Island of Dolls
Just south of Mexico City is the Island
of Dolls, home to hundreds of terrifying dolls with missing eyes,
limbs and heads. It was originally meant as a dedication to a little
girl who died under strange circumstances.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
56. What makes a kangaroo hop?
Turns out it’s the tail. A kangaroo
can’t hop if its tail is off the ground.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
57. Bonus bounce
Here’s a bonus kangaroo
fact: Whether their tail is on the ground or not, they can’t hop
backward.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
58. ‘Pure’ science
Isaac
Newton never married and it’s believed he died a virgin.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
59. Arrested in the buff
A man was arrested for
being naked – in his own home. Police said he was arrested
because someone saw and reported him and “officers believed he
wanted to be seen naked by the public.”
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
60. Hippo milk
Hippos nurse their babies with bright
pink milk. Special acids the hippo secretes account for the
unique color.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
61. Dying of laughter
The stoic philosopher Chrysippus
is one of the few people who have actually died of laughter. The
story goes that he saw a donkey eating figs and yelled, “Now
give the donkey a pure wine to wash down the figs!” He then died
laughing at his own joke.
Image Credit: public domain.
62. Quacking up
Anatidaephobia
is the fear that somewhere in the world a duck or goose is watching
you.
Image Credit: Sonsedska / istockphoto.
63. Artful dodger
When the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, Pablo
Picasso was one of the suspects.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
64. Persistent plastics
Just about every piece of plastic
ever made still exists in some form, as the material takes 500-1,000
years to degrade.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
65. Just plain trashy
A lot of that plastic has ended up in the ocean,
unfortunately. About 90% of trash on the ocean’s surface is plastic.
That means about 46,000 pieces of plastic for every square mile of
ocean.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
66. The humble potato
The Incas held the humble potato
in high esteem. They could preserve them as a mash for up to 10 years
and also used them to treat injuries and aid in childbirth.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
67. An Unholy See of crime
Vatican City,
home of the Catholic church, has the highest crime rate in the world.
This is likely due to its small population and high rate of tourism.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
68. The prostitute pirate lord
Ching
Shih was one of the most powerful pirate lords of all time,
rising up from a prostitute to the commander of the Red Flag Fleet, a
coalition of more than 600 ships and 50,000-70,000 pirates.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
69. Bad kitty
Thai police who step out of line are forced to wear a pink Hello
Kitty armband.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
70. Sharp sheep
Sheep
are sharper than we give them credit for. A team of researchers found
that they could train sheep to recognize human faces in photographs.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
71. ‘Sex in a box’
When the game Twister
came out it got more than one person’s knickers in a twist.
Milton-Bradley published the game, with trepidation, and one of their
competitors quickly accused them of selling “sex in a box.”
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
72. Just beat it
Every May, indigenous communities in the Bolivian Andes celebrate
tinku,
a festival of violent fist fights that lasts several days.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
73. Volcano surfing
Just in case regular surfing wasn’t extreme enough, some folks have
started “volcano
surfing,” rocketing down the slopes of volcanoes at speeds
as high as 56 mph.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
74. No laughing matter
It’s illegal to wear a fake
mustache that causes laughter to churches in Alabama. It seems more serious fake mustaches that do not cause laughter are allowed.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
75. Also…giraffes?
Here’s another strange law. In Atlanta, Georgia, it’s illegal to tie
a giraffe
to a telephone pole or street lamp. So, you know, tie up your
giraffes somewhere else, bucko.
Want some more facts? Check out:
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- 28 of the best AARP deals & discount codes
This article was produced and syndicated by MediaFeed.org.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
