Are you tired of being the not-so-smart one in school?
Every child is different. We can’t expect all kids to be excellent in academics and be perfect in quick math. Some people enjoy art, some like science. Everyone is unique that way. However, a little general knowledge never hurt anyone, right? It is good to be well informed about certain facts. You know when you tell your friends something really interesting and they reply with “Woah, really?” That superior feeling is like heaven on Earth. If you haven’t felt it yet, let me help you get there.
Reddit user RyanBlitzpatrickasked the users of r/AskReddit for some mind-blowing interesting facts, and the internet definitely did not disappoint. The post received more than 3.5k responses, and they make up for a really good read. We’ve compiled some of the best for you. Read them down below:
1. “November 2, 2000, was the last time all humans were on the planet together. Since then at least one person has remained on the international space station.”
2. “When you dream, one part of your brain is making up the story, and another part is experiencing those events and is genuinely surprised by all the twists in the plot.”
4. “If time travel were possible, you would need a time-and-space-machine to survive the trip, otherwise, when you travelled back in time, the planet would be at a different point in its rotation around the sun and our solar system would be at a different point in space as it rotates, which means you’d travel back in time and be in an empty part of space.”
5. “The sound made by the Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883 was so loud it ruptured eardrums of people 40 miles away, travelled around the world four times, and was clearly heard 3,000 miles away. That’s like you standing in New York and hearing a sound from San Francisco.”
7. “2006, which doesn’t feel THAT long ago, saw the death of two colossally old tortoises.”
“The first, Harriet, was reportedly collected by Charles Darwin when he visited the Galápagos on the HMS Beagle. She belonged to Steve Irwin at the time of her death. Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin shared a “pet.” Estimated to have lived 176 years.
The second, Adwaita, was born before the United States declared its independence from England. Think of it: just 14 years ago, there was a land creature alive that was older than our country. Just incredible.”
11. “A woman once jumped off the 86th floor of the Empire State Building but the wind pushed her back and she fell on a ledge on the 85th floor. She survived.”
15. “The U.S government has an official for a Zombie apocalypse. CONPLAN 8888 also known as Counter-Zombie Dominance was written in 2011. And just in case you think it’s weird bureaucratic humor, the first line reads, ‘This plan was not actually designed as a joke.”
After reading this, I don’t know if I feel smarter or slightly dumber. It’s because the only “fun fact” I’ve impressed my friends is that babies are born without kneecaps. And I’m not even sure if that’s true. However, these facts are confirmed and they are much cooler than baby kneecaps.
16. “A neutron star is so dense that a teaspoon of material from one would weigh around 10 million tons”
17. “There is a termite colony in the Amazon Rain Forest that is the size of Great Britain and is almost 4,000 years old. There are also hundreds of millions of termite mounds”
18. “Mitochondria is only passed down by mother so there’s a concept of mitochondrial eve, all humans today have their mitochondrial DNA derived from her”
22. “Ant biologists still don’t know the maximum life span of most ant queens. They just live too long to keep track, and they’re not too easy to keep in captivity. The longest one on record is like 30 years old, and there could easily be species that live longer than that”
23. “If the timeline of the universe (up to now) was compressed into a year starting on new year’s day, Homo sapiens would appear at 11:54 pm on December 31st”
“With the number of potentially habitable Earth-like planets in our galaxy alone, it’s very strange that we haven’t detected alien signals of any kind so far.
There are lots of theories as to why that is, but my favourite is called the great silenceDark Forest (which sounds way cooler). Basically everyone else out there is being quiet and not transmitting because they know of some danger that we are unaware of, and they don’t want it to find them. Gives me chills.
Edit: It’s interesting that most of the replies here, joking or serious, correspond to legitimate theories on the Fermi Paradox.”
27. “That the biggest bacteria species known, Thiomargarita namibiensis, can have a maximum diameter of 0.7 millimetres, which is big enough for you to see it without a microscope. That’s insane if you consider that your average bacteria species has a diameter of 0.001 millimetres.”
28. “The way the human brain works. These cells that are powered by tiny jolts of electricity are collectively having conscious thoughts, coming up with morals and empathy and every human behavior”
30. “That Neutrinos have mass and every second of every day about a billion of them are going through every square inch of your body – but the space between your atoms is so huge there’s pretty much a 0% chance they will ever hit you”
