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“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!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
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.
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#2
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.
Lukas (he/him, it/its) 2 hours ago
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)"
#3
If the world's ten richest men lost 99.999% of their wealth, they would still be richer than 99% of the global population.
#4
100% of the Epstein files perpetrators have faced zero charges or accountability. Let that sink in.
#6
65% of Canadians live south of Seattle.
#7
Vatican City has 5.88 popes per square mile.
Roman Arendt 47 minutes ago
How else would he be able to fulfil all of his official duties. He's not god, you know?
#8
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.
Roman Arendt 12 minutes ago (edited)
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?
#9
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.
Roman Arendt 37 minutes ago
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.
#10
A cloud can weigh over a million pounds.
#11
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.
#12
Over 750000 people have passed away, mostly children, since the defunding of USAID.
#13
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%).
Roman Arendt 32 minutes ago
And the risk of looking like a handbag that melted down in a car fire when you hit 50 by 100%.
#16
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.
Roman Arendt 22 minutes ago
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?
#18
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 ...
#19
That backyard drownings are the leading cause of passing away in children under 5 in the United States.
#20
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.
#27
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.
#28
One million seconds is approximately 11 days. One billion seconds is approximately 32 years.
#29
54% of American adults have a 6th grade or below reading level.
#30
In 2026, the richest 1% of the global population owns 45% of all wealth, while the bottom 50% holds just 2% of global wealth.
#31
Roughly 27% of the US population are functionally illiterate, a far cry from the 90+ of our national peers and historical US numbers.
Roman Arendt 4 minutes ago
In D.C. and Palm Beach, FL (during the weekends) those numbers are much higher.
#32
If you amputate a person’s leg, their BMI goes down. But if you amputate both legs instead, their BMI goes up.
#34
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).
#37
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.
#38
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.
#39
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).
#41
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.
#43
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.
#44
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.
#45
Breast cancer and prostate cancer have almost identical prevalence and similar mortality rates, yet breast cancer research has almost 2.5x more funding.
Lukas (he/him, it/its) 1 hour ago
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%."
#46
In just 90 minutes, the Earth's surface receives enough sunlight to power all of human civilization using solar power for an entire year.
#48
Dundee United have played against Barcelona four times in their history... and beaten them every time.
#49
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.
#52
Human have on average less than 2 legs.
#53
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.
#55
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.
#56
The Clean Air Act is responsible for saving more American lives than any other law ever passed.
#58
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.
#59
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.
#61
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.
#62
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.
#64
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.
#66
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.
#69
California produces over 40% of the U.S. domestically grown vegetables, 60%-70% of the domestically grown fruit, and 99% of domestically grown nuts.
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