“Don’t believe everything you read online.” This is sound advice in this day and age of digital technology, where misinformation disguised as “facts” plagues the internet, and many people sadly fall victim to it.
However, there are things that may sound absurd but are actually true. Here are some examples, as shared by people in a recent Reddit thread. And if you’re in doubt, you can always do your own research to verify.
Nonetheless, hopefully this list can keep you entertained today. Enjoy reading and feel free to start a conversation in the comments below!
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100% of the Epstein files perpetrators have faced zero charges or accountability. Let that sink in.
And 0% of the Epstein bros are trans people, drag queens, "BLMs", "antifas" or any other people who live rent-free in the Republican heads.
During WW1 and the introduction of the new British army helmet reported injuries went up by something like 5000%.
The Army was furious, and spent weeks going over the statistics before calling in the designer and engineer and asked what sort of incompetent and catastrophic design could possibly be causing all these injuries.
It was explained to them that every soldier injured while wearing the new helmet would have previously passed away if wearing the old one.
This is survivorship bias. Similar to the well-known case of US Navy aircraft armor in World War II. There, those sections that statistically had (almost) no bullet holes were reinforced. Sections with many bullet holes didn't need reinforcement because those aircraft survived anyway.
63 Earths would fit inside Uranus. 64 if you'd just relax a little.
If the world's ten richest men lost 99.999% of their wealth, they would still be richer than 99% of the global population.
Over 70% of all antibiotic use globally is for farmed animals. It was only 40% on the 90s when the World Health Organization called it the greatest threat to humanity as it would inevitably lead to antibiotic resistance.
Over 45,000 Americans pass away EVERY YEAR due to antibiotic resistance, that's 15 times the passings of 9/11 every year due to something we were warned about 30 years ago.
Thank God most US-Americans aren't able to afford antibiotics much longer, otherwise the numbers would look even more terrifying in a few years. That's probably the reason behind GOP's stance on universal healthcare: their concern regarding MDRO's. Must be, right?
The ancient Egyptian civilization lasted so long that Ancient Egyptians were already studying Ancient Egypt before its fall. King Tut ruled 1300 years before Cleopatra.
According to Herodotus in 450 BC, Egyptian priests claimed to have recorded their history dating back a further 11,000 years. The Turin list of Egyptian kings still exists. It was written circa 1,245 BC, and includes more than 200 generations of Egyptian kings, putting the start of it circa 6,000 BC.
Beetles are the most prolific life form. 25% of all known species are some kind of beetle.
The great biologist J.B.S Haldane once said, "If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of creation, it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles."
In the past 20 years, extreme poverty in the entire world has halved, 80% of the world's children are vaccinated, and 80% also have access to electricity.
Now do this with absolute numbers under consideration of earth's population growth. It sure is progress, but overall not as good as it sounds.
There’s about 90 million acres of land dedicated to growing corn, this is like covering the entire state of Montana in cornfields.
About 40% of this corn is grown to be turned into ethanol to add to fuel.
Another 40% is dedicated just to live stock feed.
Only 2% is grown for direct human consumption.
Globally, around 134 million hectares (roughly 331 million acres) of land are used to grow soybeans. This accounts for nearly 8% of the world's arable land. 77% of the yield is used for feeding life stock. (Data USDA.). Roughly 6% is directly for human consumption.
Just one indoor tanning session increases the risk of developing melanoma by (20%). Starting indoor tanning before age 35 spikes your risk for melanoma by (75%).
And the risk of looking like a handbag that melted down in a car fire when you hit 50 by 100%.
Motorcyclist account for 0.75% of vehicle lane miles traveled in the US, but 14% of roadway fatalities.
There's also a pedestrian fataly struck by a vehicle every 70 minutes on average in the US.
There are over 40,000 traffic fatalities in the US each year. It's like an entire town getting whipped out.
Yep, but firearms related dèaths of children and teenagers now have surpassed deaths by motor vehicle accidents as number one, so you have that going for you, which is.... I don't know. Is it good?
Over 750000 people have passed away, mostly children, since the defunding of USAID.
How long does it take for light to travel 93,000,000 miles from the surface of the sun to the surface of the earth?
- 8 minutes
How long does it take for light to travel 400,000 miles from the center of the sun to the surface of the sun?
- 250,000 years.
Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin owned the same tortoise.
Experiencing a single, non-fatal strangulation incident by an intimate partner makes them 750% more likely to end your life in the future.
That's not a typo.
He does it once = RUN, unless you're into it and it was bilaterally consensual
One million seconds is approximately 11 days. One billion seconds is approximately 32 years.
My favorite way to illustrate how obscenely rich billionaires are. NOBODY needs that much money.
If you have a place to live, drive a car and have $200 in your bank account. You are in the top 10% of the wealthiest people on Earth.
Roughly 27% of the US population are functionally illiterate, a far cry from the 90+ of our national peers and historical US numbers.
The fastest NHL player to score 1000 points is Wayne Gretzky. The second fastest to do it is Wayne Gretzky. He's the only player with more than 2000 points.
If you properly shuffle a standard deck of playing cards, it is HIGHLY likely (like almost a certainty) that specific order of cards has never existed before. The number of possible combinations is 52 factoral which is 8.07E67.
I would think that, if you start with a fresh deck, it would be probable to get the same order quite often?
In a room of 23 people, there’s a 50% chance that 2 of them share a birthday.
The probability of all 23 birthdays being different is 49.3%. Therefore, the probability that this doesn't happen (two or more are the same) is 100% - 49.3%, or 50.7%
I will quote a famous comedian:
One sixth of the population on the Earth are chinese. So, if you have five kids and expecting a sixth one, it is very likely that it will be a chinese one ...
"There's a research that says one in five men is attracted to men. There are five bros in our group, so it has to be one of us. I really hope it's Dave, he's so cute..."
80% of all lung cancer victims were smokers, but 80% of all smokers never get lung cancer.
1 in 12 men have some form of color blindness.
Recently there was a poll put out for Gen Z voters where they were asked about some of their priorities in life. Of the listed options, Gen Z women placed children and families at the bottom of the list, and Gen Z men placed it at the top of the list.
I'm not exaggerating when I say; that was the most astonishing survey I've seen in at least a very long time.
More context from Reddit, link in comment: "correction: seems you misremembered (not mad; i've done the same with stats plenty of times) actual stats gen z women voters overall ranked having children at 10 out of 13 importance. (1= most important) gen z men voters ranked it overall as 8 out of 13 importance. broken down further: gen z women who voted for trump ranked it 6/13 gen z men who voted for trump ranked it 1/13 gen z women who voted for harris ranked it 12/13 gen z men who voted for harris ranked it 10/13. so, gen z overall is close by gender, harris voters are close by gender & trump voters are close by gender (though the least close). a lot less sensational, but still some interesting stuff! (edited for clarity - all stats remained the same)"
The Clean Air Act is responsible for saving more American lives than any other law ever passed.
Thank doG the presidunce of the US is executive ordering as much as possible to revoke it.
A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus.
And a workday on Earth is longer than a day on Venus
We’re closer to the year The Jetsons took place than the year the Jetsons came out.
Equal parts insane and depressing: wild mammals make up only 5% of total mammal biomass.
And on the bird side: 71% of the total amount of birds on earth are chickens.
Iceland has near zero people with down syndrome.
That's because almost 100% of pregnancies are terminated if the baby tests positive for Down syndrome.
All the planets in the solar system could fit between the Earth and the moon.
The most common cause of passing away in pregnant women is someone taking their life, often by the father of the child or a close relative/friend.
As of today there are 268 people in the world who are aged between 110 and 116 years old.
Abraham Lincoln could have sent fax messages to the samurai. Fax machine was invented in 1843, Lincoln passed in 65, Samurais ceased to exist in 1867.
There’s more time between the existence of the stegosaurus and triceratops than there is between the existence of triceratops and humans.
You grow up as a kid thinking all the dinosaurs just hung out.
Mammals and birds both started closer in time to stegosaurus than to triceratops. Mammals were around longer before the d***h of the dinosaurs than after. To put it another way, the mammals were around at least 140 million years before triceratops.
More stars in Universe than grains of sand on Earth.
I read today that their are more rogue planets in the milky way than stars
That backyard drownings are the leading cause of passing away in children under 5 in the United States.
If you think THAT'S crazy, you'll never believe what the leading cause changes to AFTER the age of 5 in the US.
In a historical time line, we are surprisingly closer in time to Cleopatra, than she was to the construction of the pyramids by quite a large margin. (Approx. 500 years).
The average number of skeletons in the human body is greater than 1.
More American soldiers were ended in the civil war than all of the other wars the US has been in combined.
Modern demographic studies and full-census analyses estimate roughly 698,000 to 750,000 passings (surpassing older estimates of 620,000).
Most of the battles were absolute slaughters on both sides. When I read Europeans talk about the US Civil War casualties I see things like "how did they keep fighting" also "why'. One American smartass said to them "cause we were fighting other Americans not some P%ssy a*s redcoats". Always remember that war had basically no automatic weapons, most of it was fought with muzzle loading weapons.
There were 21,803 train related deaths in India in 2023.
believe it or not, rates are dropping b/c of improved sanitation and access to toilets...train tracks served (and still serve) as the public restroom for many poor in india
54% of American adults have a 6th grade or below reading level.
And that's intentional, thanks to the dumbing-down of our educational system under Republican governments over the last 70-ish years.
In 2026, the richest 1% of the global population owns 45% of all wealth, while the bottom 50% holds just 2% of global wealth.
The Forbes rich list is not a reliable guide to who is richest. It's only a guide to those who have acquired 100% of their wealth legally.
One that was eye opening to me:
Almost all the cases of drowning occur in the upright position.
What I learned from this? If you’re ever in a position where you’re struggling in water, avoid going vertical. This is why my first thing I was learning to swim was to float on my back.
This. I can't really swim but that hasn't really stopped from playing in the big waves around the world. I know how to float and I can even move slowly.
Hidden and serious problem. Call 988 for confidential help
Male construction workers experience a rate of 56 per 100,000 of taking their own lives, nearly double the average for working men nationwide.
Male iron and steel workers face the highest specific occupation rate (117.89 per 100,000), followed by single males and laborers.
Almost 18% of all occupational passings occur in construction.
More construction workers pass away by taking their lives each year than from all fatal on-the-job injuries.
By land area size, Wisconsin and Florida are the median size states by area for the United States.
If you take the average land mass of all the countries in the world, the two median countries are Nepal and Tajikistan, which are roughly the same size as Wisconsin. Wisconsin is a perfect benchmark
France is 4 Wisconsins, California is 3 Wisconsins, Russia is 117 Wisconsins, China is 66 Wisconsins.
Japan, at about 2.5 Wisconsins, is the size of Germany.
Breast cancer and prostate cancer have almost identical prevalence and similar mortality rates, yet breast cancer research has almost 2.5x more funding.
From Reddit: "So this is almost true, and shocking if so, but the survival rates are really different. Prostate cancer has a 98.2% survival rate over five years, while great cancer sits at 91.7% - which looks close but isn't! That's 1.8% mortality for PC and 8.3% for BC - more than 4x as deadly. (NCI data) Yes, there's a huge discrepancy in funding, but per d***h it actually flips. In the US, $126k is spent on research per prostate cancer d***h. In comparison, only $69k is spent on research per breast cancer deaths. (NCI research via JAMA Network Open). The real crime is that one of the most lethal cancers, pancreatic cancer, gets only $8,945 per d***h. The survival rate over five years for pancreatic cancer is 13%."
Chicagoan here 👋 The Great Lakes make up 25% of the world’s freshwater.
In 1990, only 5% of Americans had passports.
You can get a passport card (rather than the booklet), which will serve for identification for voting, for $65. I know that is still more than some can afford. But it is cheaper.
Half the people on Earth are below average intelligence.
61% of marriages in Pakistan are between siblings or cousins.
California produces over 40% of the U.S. domestically grown vegetables, 60%-70% of the domestically grown fruit, and 99% of domestically grown nuts.
In 1900 the population of Africa was 120m people, in Europe it was 400m people.
In 2021 the population of Africa was 1394m people, in Europe it was 743m people.
In just 90 minutes, the Earth's surface receives enough sunlight to power all of human civilization using solar power for an entire year.
1 in 3 women will experience physical violence in their lifetime.
Okay I don't like that but I guarantee you the number for men is higher
Scientists recently examined the brain of cadavers to see if microplastics could be found in peoples' brains. The average brain they studied had enough microplastics in them to equal the weight if a plastic spoon.
Is that what people mean when they say that getting any information to my brain requires spoon feeding it to me??
If you amputate a person’s leg, their BMI goes down. But if you amputate both legs instead, their BMI goes up.
Dundee United have played against Barcelona four times in their history... and beaten them every time.
The Netherlands produces more food than anywhere else in the world
Despite being very small and extremely densely populated, it is the largest exporter of agricultural products, only after USA.
This number is a bit inflated. The imported food that is immediately exported to other European countries is also included in this number. The Netherlands does produce a massive amount of food though, due to highly developed production methods. Downside is that there is a s**t ton of negative effects, such as over-fertilization, water pollution, the drying-out of soil and a nitrogen crisis.
Cleopatra was live at the same time as the wooly mammoth.
Ancient Egypt lasted so long that it had archeologist to study study it's own earlier civilization.
No. Civilization in Egypt existed at the same time as mammoths but Cleopatra was alive 2000 years ago and mammoths died out 4000 ya.
