Topic: 55 facts that will surprise
Datwasntme's photo
Sun 01/13/19 08:06 AM
http://www.healthyfoodhouse.com/55-facts-about-the-world-that-will-surprise-the-most-intelligent-people/




55 Facts About the World That Will Surprise the Most Intelligent People
 December 31, 2018 |  General |  0 |  hfhadmin

We cannot deny the fact that we are still living in a mystery, even though the technology advancements have enabled us to have the world at our fingertips.

Today, we compiled a list of 55 facts that will surprise even the most intelligent and knowledgeable among us!

1. You should click the mouse button 10 million times to burn 1 calorie

2. If you make ice cubes with boiled water, they are transparent, and if you use tap water, they are white

3. The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland.

4. Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr was given a perpetual supply of beer piped into his house.

5. The inventor of the cotton candy machine was a dentist.

6. Starfish are not fish but sea urchins and killer whales are dolphins, not whales

7. Every day, a piece of space junk returns to earth

8. 99% of the gold of the Earth is in its core

9. A banana is a berry while a strawberry is not

10. There are 8 insect pieces in an average chocolate bar

11. Dolphins can actually call each other by name

12. The yearly cost of electricity to charge your phone is less than $1

13. Animals avoid power lines since they are scared of ultraviolet flashes invisible to the human eye

14. We are twice as likely to get killed by a vending machine than a shark

15. There are 1.6 million ants for every human on Earth

16. Until 1977, France was still executing people by guillotine

17. Getting struck by lightning heats the skin up to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit

18. Honey is the only food that does not spoil

19. The 3 most sold products in human history are the Rubik’s Cube, iPhone, and Harry Potter books

20. The most shoplifted food item in the U.S. is candy, cheese in Europe, and meat in Latin America.

21. Nutella was invented during WWII when an Italian pastry maker mixed hazelnuts into chocolate as a way to extend the chocolate ration.

22. New York Times illustrator Christoph Niemann managed to doodle 46 sketches, in color, while he was running the New York City Marathon.

23. A cockroach can live a few weeks without its head, and in the end, die of hunger

24. In 1998, a student from Georgia was suspended for wearing a Pepsi shirt to “Coke in Education Day.”

25. Zebras’ coats are just black.

26. If you open your eyes in a pitch-black room, the color you will see is known as eigengrau.

27. The lighter was invented ten years earlier than the match

28. The Hawaiian alphabet has twelve letters only, (A, E, I, O, U, H, K, L, M, N, P, and W)

29. We also have proprioception, besides the other 5 senses, which is the awareness of the position of the body parts

30. There are more stars in the sky than grains of sand in the whole world

31. We completely replace the outer layer of the skin every month

32. More people have been killed by mosquitoes than in all wars in history

33. In the English language, the word ‘set’ has the most number of definitions (464)

34. In an average lifetime, every person walks the equivalent of 5 times around the Equator

35. The most commonly used joint in our body is the jaw

36. Fat cells do not disappear after weight loss, they just change in size

37. 99% of the microbes that live inside us are unknown to science

38. Paper cuts are more painful than regular cuts as the wounds do not bleed, but the nerve endings remain open to the air which irritates them

39. Whips make a cracking sound since the tip actually moves faster than the speed of sound, leading to a small sonic boom

40. Charles Darwin was the first person to think of attaching wheels to his office chair to move around more quickly

41. Breathe on a diamond to tell if it is real, fake ones will fog up while real ones remain clear

42. The Spanish word ‘esposas’ has two meanings, ‘handcuffs’ and ‘wives’

43. As a result of gravity, the theoretical maximum height of a tree is 130 meters

44. The tongue is the strongest muscle in our body, proportional to its size

45. The mouth of a blue whale is able to hold its own bodyweight in water

46. The naked mole rat can survive with almost no oxygen, and it is immune to cancer

47. An average adult contains 7 quintillion joules of potential energy, which is equal to 30 hydrogen bombs

48. The technology in one Gameboy surpasses all the computing power used to put man on the moon

49. Thirty-five percent of people are born without wisdom teeth.

50. Catnip affects lions and tigers as well.

51. German chocolate cake isn’t German, but it was named after Sam German, an American baker.

52. Twelve percent of sleepers dream in black and white.

53. Male caimans dance as a way to impress potential mates.

54. The female G-spot was initially supposed to be named the Whipple Tickle, after professor Beverly Whipple.

55. In the original stage version of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s companion was a cow called Imogene, instead of Toto.

Larsi666 😽's photo
Sun 01/13/19 08:49 AM
#50 is great. So are cats glasses

JustBeHonest's photo
Sun 01/13/19 09:04 AM


Gee thanks, #10 has ruined my love of chocolate bars.

soufiehere's photo
Sun 01/13/19 09:12 AM
I am stuck at #10...and appalled.

mzrosie's photo
Sun 01/13/19 12:42 PM
Very interesting facts. Thanks for sharing, Dat happy

#3 - Unicorns are real. Yay!

#9 - banana is a berry, who knew?

#10 - eww! but hey more protein.


IgorFrankensteen's photo
Sun 01/13/19 02:34 PM

I didn't know that the Unicorn is the national animal of Scotland (#3) and I live there. It should be the Loch Ness monster laugh


Well, "National Animal" doesn't quite mean what most Americans are likely to think. We're used to things like "State Birds," which are typically actual birds that are indigenous to the state. "National Animal" in Scotland doesn't mean that they actually thought Unicorns roamed the fields and forests of old Caledonia. It has much more to do with political and other national symbology.

Oh, and I have been to Loch Ness, but the monster wasn't out in the yard playing that day. Bummer for me.

Toodygirl5's photo
Sun 01/13/19 02:38 PM
Edited by Toodygirl5 on Sun 01/13/19 02:39 PM
This is very all very Interesting !

However, I knew that ! :smile: Not.


Wylie's photo
Sun 01/13/19 03:20 PM
From now on I'm going with Whipple Tickle, just seems more fitting.

no photo
Sun 01/13/19 03:42 PM
Edited by Queenie on Sun 01/13/19 03:43 PM
*spits out chocolate* wth ugh now what am I suppose to eat?

Unicorns!

And what is a strawberry?

IUBasketball's photo
Sun 01/13/19 03:54 PM
According to google strawberries and raspberries are considered aggregate fruits and not berries if that helps lol

Tom4Uhere's photo
Sun 01/13/19 11:27 PM
Edited by Tom4Uhere on Sun 01/13/19 11:29 PM
If an astronaut burps, it is a sick burp;
the lack of gravity means any food
is floating about at the top
of the stomach!

The first time you get a cold sore, the virus that causes it lurks in
your body for the rest of your life.

A person struck by lightning may have
red, snaky patterns on their skin
afterwards.These are known as
Lichtenberg figures or lightning
flowers and are caused by ruptured
blood capillaries.

The heart pumps blood around your
body with enough pressure to squirt it 9
metres (30 feet) away.

Maggots have been used for thousands of years to help clean and
heal wounds, as they munch away at dead flesh. Some really
greedy maggots eat the other maggots too.

Short-sighted
people have
bigger eyeballs than
those who are
long-sighted.

Stick your tongue out! Those
bumps on it are called papillae and
they contain your taste buds.You
were born with 10,000 taste buds but
they die with age, so your grandparents
may have only 5,000.

In 2004, Uruguayan artist Carlos Capelán exhibited
collages made from toenail clippings.

Tinea cruris is a fungal
infection of the groin area.
Sufferers are often
sportspeople, so it’s commonly
known as ‘jock itch’!

During a
severe nosebleed,
blood can travel up
the sinuses and come
out through
the eyes.

If you ever jump as if you’re being
electrocuted when drifting off to sleep, you’re
experiencing a hypnic jerk.The brain mistakes pre-sleep relaxation
for falling and stiffens the limbs to get the body upright again.

Stale urine used to be an ingredient in gunpowder.

Eating potent
foods such as
chillies and
garlic will make
your sweat
smell stronger.

If you eat ice cream too quickly, the blood
vessels in your head swell up and give
you a ‘brain freeze’ headache.Your
nerves send messages to the brain
that you’re in a cold environment,
so the blood vessels swell to
warm you up.

Just like your fingerprints, your
tongue print is unique – it’s just a
bit sloppier!

Inventors
Michael Zanakis
and Philip Femano
patented a
fart-powered toy
rocket in 2005.

Eating asparagus produces a chemical called methanethiol
that makes urine smell of rotten cabbage.

Sufferers of
blackwater fever
pass black urine,
hence the name.

Turkish construction worker Ilker Yilmaz can
snort milk up his nose and squirt it more than
2.5 metres (9 feet)… from his eye!

Sylvester the ‘Cowboy Mummy’ is displayed at
Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe in Seattle. Complete
with gunshot wounds, he is preserved in arsenic,
commonly used in the 19th century to
preserve corpses.

In 2004, Dutch eye surgeons invented eyeball jewellery; the eye
membrane is sliced and a decorative shape is inserted. UK and US
eye specialists have criticized the practice, since it could cause
infection and scarring.

All your bodily functions
stop when you sneeze… even
your heartbeat!

Entomophagy
is the habit of
eating insects – over
1,200 species of
insects are gobbled
down all over
the world.

Livermush is a popular product in the southern United States,
made from pig’s liver, pig’s head and cornmeal.

Used chewing gum was auctioned online in 2004. Pieces chomped
by Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Eminem and Jessica Simpson
were available to interested bidders.

The French cheese Époisses de Bourgogne is so stinky that it is
banned from being taken on public transport in France.

Donkey meat was
eaten in Britain
until the 1930s.

Fancy a slice of pig’s blood sausage, studded with
chunks of pickled pig’s tongue? Just ask for
zungenwurst next time you’re in Germany!

Filipino
‘chocolate
pudding’ is in fact,
a dark brown stew
of pig’s organs in a
spicy pig’s
blood gravy.

A bag of flour may be infested with tiny
beetles called weevils that can spread the
deadly E. Coli bacteria. They also like hiding
in packets of cereal. You have been warned!

Forty kamikaze birds crashed into
windows and broke their necks in
Vienna after becoming drunk on
fermented berries.

Some cockroaches can run at
over 5 kilometres (3 miles) per
hour, travelling 50 times their
body length each second. If you
could do that, you could run
faster than a racing car!

A pond in Hamburg was dubbed the
‘pond of death’ after hundreds of its
toads mysteriously exploded,
scattering entrails more than
3 metres (10 feet) away.

Authorities in Iowa investigating complaints by neighbours
discovered that a house contained 350 snakes and 500 assorted
rodents. Only six illegal snakes were removed, as the animals were
well looked-after.

A pinecone shortage in eastern Russia drove
a gang of ravenous squirrels to attack and
eat a stray dog.

Birds do not urinate.Their urine and faeces
are all mixed together to make one
sloppy dropping.

Camels have
three eyelids.
They need them as
protection against
sun and sand.

Scotsman David Evans was sentenced to six
months’ imprisonment for using a wet fish as an offensive weapon.
He had slapped a passer-by round the face with it.

A kangaroo can
disembowel an
attacking dog with
its hind legs as it
grips with
its forepaws.

Royal Bengal tigers have the longest
canine teeth of all big cats,
measuring an average of 10
centimetres (4 inches).The tigers
frequently attack and eat people
in the Sundarbans region of India
and Bangladesh.

Chinese genetic scientists have
developed pigs that glow in the dark.The
spooky porkers were created using
injections of fluorescent green protein
into the pig embryos.

During the 18th century, fur used for hats was soaked in a solution
containing high levels of mercury. The toxic vapours caused
mercury poisoning, a symptom of which was dementia – that’s
where the phrase ‘as mad as a hatter’ came from.

The deteriorating mummy of pharaoh Ramesses II was sent to
Paris to be treated for a fungal infection (mould) in 1974.
It was issued with a passport for transportation on which the
occupation was stated as ‘King (deceased)’.

For two years after
the Krakatoa volcano erupted in 1883, the
moon appeared to be blue.

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was
expelled from school at the age of 11
for stabbing a schoolmate in the hand
and poking a stick in another boy’s eye.

People suffering from tuberculosis during the 17th century were
thought to be vampires, since they were pale, had swollen,
bloodshot eyes and coughed up blood.

Tightly-laced corsets that were
fashionable between the 16th and
18th centuries would squeeze the
internal organs; the liver would be
pressed against the ribs, the
stomach was made smaller and the
lungs would not be able to work
properly, leading to a build-up of
mucus and a persistent cough.

Part of Lincoln Park in
Chicago was previously
a cemetery. Although it
was believed that graves had been moved,
skeletons were still being discovered
during construction work in the 1980s.

In 1936, Japanese microbiologist Shiro Ishii
set up Unit 731, a secret compound in China
where germ warfare experiments were
carried out. Thousands of local people were
killed in his tests by diseases such as bubonic
plague, cholera and anthrax.

In 1920, Ray Chapman became the only Major League baseball
player to have been killed by a pitch (a bowled ball). The sound
of the ball hitting his skull was so loud that one player mistook it
for the ball being hit with the bat and fielded it.

In 1936, the United
States was hit by a deadly
heatwave which killed around
20,000 people.The victims died
of heat stroke and heat exhaustion
when their body temperature soared
out of control.

If you are right-handed, your left armpit will
sweat more than your right. If you’re lefthanded,
you’re more likely to get those pit
patches under your right arm.

Plastic surgeons sometimes
insert breast implants through
the belly button; it is cut open
and stretched, allowing the
surgeon to fit his whole arm
in before putting the implant
in place.

Octopuses have three hearts: two for pumping blood through the
gills and one for pumping blood around the body.

Air that contains more than 50 per
cent oxygen is toxic – breathing
it in will cause lung damage.

During the Second
World War,American
scientists planned to
release bomb-carrying bats over Japan that
would hide in buildings until the tiny bombs
went off.The war ended before they
finished their research so they never
found out if it worked.

When you cut
an onion, the gas
released reacts with
the water in your
eyes to produce a
diluted form of
sulphuric acid.

Heartburn is caused by stomach acid
being regurgitated into the
oesophagus. The acid causes a
burning sensation in the chest,
throat and sometimes even the jaw.

The North Pacific Gyre is a huge vortex of slow, clockwise-revolving
ocean water. It has drawn so much litter and waste into its centre
that it is the largest ocean landfill site. It’s known as The Great
Pacific Garbage Patch!

Before sensible boxing rules were introduced,
Jack Jones and Patsy Tunney beat each other to
a pulp in a fight that had 276 rounds and lasted
4 hours 30 minutes.

Sandeep Kaur’s face and scalp
were ripped off in one piece
when her pigtails got caught
in a threshing machine as a
child. She had the first ever
full-face transplant
operation and went on to
become a nurse.

American stuntman Ted Batchelor’s body
was on fire for 2 minutes 36 seconds
during a fire stunt in 2004, making it the
longest full-body burn.

Australian
Grant Denyer
was kissed by 62
people in one minute.

The
World Ball Cup
is a testicle-cooking
competition held
annually in Serbia.Teams
of chefs cook bull,
boar and camel
testicles.

Park ranger Roy C Sullivan survived being
struck by lightning. Not once, not twice, but
seven times.

Monster saltwater crocodiles killed 9,980 Japanese soldiers
who tried to cross Burmese mangrove swamps in 1945,
making it the worst crocodile attack ever.

The most expensive bar of soap
contains fat from former Italian
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and
costs £10,000 ($18,000).

American Rob Williams made a ham, cheese
and lettuce sandwich using his feet in
1 minute 57 seconds.

Canadian Aaron Gregg juggled three running chainsaws and made 86
catches. Some people would give their right arm to do that!

Canadian Christopher Tyler Ing had a
nipple hair that was 8.89
centimetres (3.5 inches) long.

The most expensive soup is made
with shark’s fin, sea cucumbers
and other yucky (and illegal)
stuff. Buddha-jumps-over-thewall
soup costs £108 and has
to be ordered five days in
advance.

‘Rubber boy’ Daniel Browning Smith can dislocate his arms and legs
to squeeze through a tennis racket- sized hole in 15 seconds!

After having her nose, lips and chin
chewed off by her pet dog, Isabelle
Dinoire received the first ever partial face
transplant. In the operation, new parts from
a recently deceased body were attached to
her face.

A coffin, false limbs and dead bats were
among items handed in to Transport
for London’s lost property office
in 2006.

A pair of pongy
socks left in a car by
rock singer Bryan
Adams raised over
£500 ($900) for
charity!

One Seattle tourist attraction is the Gum Wall –
a brick wall covered with old chewing gum
in every colour imaginable.

Entertainer Roy Horn was seriously
injured in 2003 when a tiger he used in
his act picked him up in its mouth and
ran off with him. He suffered severe
blood loss and brain swelling.

The female
black widow
spider can devour
up to 20 males
in one day.

The electric chair was invented by a
dentist, who was inspired after seeing a
man get electrocuted.

An 8-year-old girl thought to have been
eaten by wild animals in Vietnam
returned 18 years later. She had been
living in the jungle the whole time and
had become feral – she couldn’t speak,
her hair was down to her legs and her
body was blackened.

Humans are the only species that drinks the breast milk of other animals.

Early
advertisements
for coffee claimed
it was a cure for
scurvy and
gout.

Between 1902
and 1907, one
tiger killed 436
people in
India.

Staff at an acupuncture clinic locked up
and went home… forgetting about a
woman in a treatment room.The
woman had to remove the needles
herself and call for help.

Californian authorities were puzzled by the corpse of a wet-suited
diver in the middle of a forest that had burnt down. It emerged that
helicopters used giant buckets of seawater to put out the fire, so the
diver must have been scooped up with the water!

A woman was warned to keep her ferocious cat under control
after it repeatedly attacked her postman!

A ‘urine police’ force was created in
Berlin in 2003 to stop people urinating
on the city’s historic buildings and
monuments, already damaged by
acidic human urine.

85 per cent
of all life on
Earth is
plankton.

A Kansas student was charged with
battery when it was alleged he
purposely vomited on his teacher.The
student’s father insisted that the chuckup
was due to exam stress.

A two-faced cow was born in the US. It
had three sets of teeth, two lower jaws,
two tongues, two noses and a single eye
socket with two eyes in it.Apart from
that it was fine!

A Dutch art gallery displayed
photographs taken from police forensics’
archives. People flocked to see pictures of
blood-spattered crime scenes and body bits!

The average
human body
contains enough
carbon to make
900 pencils.

A Romanian woman received a package in the post and was
horrified to find it contained her father’s skeleton! The graveyard he
had been buried in was sold for development and the bodies
returned to their relatives.

SOURCE:


1001 Gruesome Facts by Helen Otway

FeelYoung's photo
Sat 01/26/19 09:46 PM
DAT - thanks for the info...especially the ice cubes. That's one I have wondered about over the years ! Honest. !

Datwasntme's photo
Sun 01/27/19 09:42 AM


The amount of hours I've spent sitting on the shore or driving around the Loch in the hopes of seeing the monster! One of these days though......


sounds relaxing : )

Datwasntme's photo
Sun 01/27/19 09:44 AM

DAT - thanks for the info...especially the ice cubes. That's one I have wondered about over the years ! Honest. !


n.p. glad to help : )

mysticalview21's photo
Wed 02/20/19 10:13 AM
Edited by mysticalview21 on Wed 02/20/19 10:14 AM

I didn't know that the Unicorn is the national animal of Scotland (#3) and I live there. It should be the Loch Ness monster laugh



I have always loved the mythical creature since a child ...


just heard that recently myself ... and wow hates lions ... noway
eat it ... but know some eat horses ...



thanks for sharing ... good post ...

ivegotthegirth's photo
Wed 02/20/19 01:13 PM
I've been told the Loch Ness "monster" is actually the ghost of a dinosaur.