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One great thing about our planet and the Universe is that we'll probably never run out of interesting things to learn about them. For example, did you know that humans invented steam trains before they ever thought of a bicycle? The animal kingdom has even more fascinating secrets, like the fact that octopuses have three hearts and donut-shaped brains.
When you learn something like this, your brain can't help but invite the thought, "How is this even possible?" Well, prepare to be stunned, because Bored Panda is bringing you more interesting bits of knowledge via a recent online thread where one netizen asked fellow Internet users to share the most surprising facts they know, writing, "What's a fact you learned that still shocks you?"
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#1
1) That someone who is barely literate can be US president. 2) That the barely literate person does not need to produce school and university transcripts and tax files to qualify for US president.
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#2
That your brain can basically rewrite memories over time and you can end up “remembering” things slightly wrong without realizing it.
#3
A third of the US adult population read below a 6th grade level or not at all.
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 13 hours ago
I could not imagine not being able to read. It is one of the most enjoyable pleasures you can have on your own. I recently read Hermann Hesse Siddhartha and it gently blew my mind as to what books can be. Between that and Albert Camus The Stranger, it felt like I have discovered a new genre of fiction.
#4
It is extremely likely, for all practical purposes, that no two thoroughly randomized 52-card decks have ever been shuffled into the same order
I can't wrap my head around it. The number of possible combinations is too large to comprehend.
Rob D 5 hours ago (edited)
Given the number of times a deck of cards has been shuffled since their existence, I wonder if it's statistically even more unlikely that a sequence has never been replicated? ... Can we suppose the total number of times a deck has ever been shuffled is more than 52! ?
#5
When you get a sunburn, the UV radiation doesn't actually scorch or "cook" your skin cells. It mutates and damages their DNA structure so severely that the cells essentially commit collective self destruction to prevent themselves from turning into cancer.
#6
The 2011 9.1 earthquake that hit Japan sped up the Earth's rotation by 10 milliseconds, threw the Earth's axis off by 6.5 inches, and stretched Japan's big island eastwards by 7-10ft.
#7
You will not scare the fish away by talking while fishing. They just wanted us to shut up and be quiet.
#8
1/3 of homeless people experienced a traumatic brain injury.
Imagine slipping on rock in your driveway and uncomfortably bonking your head only for your life to begin unraveling over a period of weeks or months.
You become so impulsive that you become unreliable at work, your spouse thinks your new behavior is too dangerous for your kids to be around. Your parents can no longer keep giving you money.
All because a random rock in your driveway caused you to trip and bonk your head.
Geoffrey Scott 11 hours ago
I have had 2 serious concussions (need to be woken up every hour for the 1st 24). Do NOT recommend.
#9
The Sun accounts for about 99.86% of all the mass in the system. The remaining 0.14% is distributed across all the planets, moons, OP's mom, and debris.
David Paterson 5 hours ago
Hardly surprising. What may surprise you is that Jupiter doesn't orbit the Sun. The Sun and Jupiter coorbit around a point that is outside the surface of the Sun.
#10
The Washington monument has no mortar and the weight of the bricks holds it together.
#11
On the 12th of March 1951, Dennis the Menace was introduced to British audiences in a comic called the Beano.
On March 12th 1951, Dennis the Menace was introduced to American audiences in a comic strip.
These are not the same character and neither production houses were aware of what the other was doing. So by total coincidence, the world was introduced to two different characters both called Dennis the Menace on the exact same day.
#12
Sleep is extremely important for consolidating memory. It may be that this is why we dream - it's our brain's process of sorting through memories and putting them in the correct folders. As such, those who experience a profound lack of sleep over the course of their lives is significantly more prone to developing dementia.
#13
I can't remember what made me look this up earlier in the week but I was reminded that Clive of India, Governor General of Bengal who passed awasy in 1774, had a pet giant tortoise, Adwaita, that didn't pass until 2006.
#14
One thing that still shocks me is that your brain can replay emotional pain almost the same way it processes physical pain. Makes sense why some memories hurt for years.
Stephanie Did It 5 hours ago
We largely forget the sensation of physical pain, although we recall how it affected us. If we retained the sensation, no mother would have a second child. But emotional pain can evoke the same feelings over a lifetime. Its effects may dim over time, but we are capable of restoring them if we choose-- and often when we don't.
#15
Schizophrenia has never been observed/diagnosed (anywhere in the world) in a person who was blind since birth.
#16
The Spanish word for handcuffs is “esposas”. The spanish name for a wife? Esposa.
#17
One single cloud can weigh up to around 1,000,000 tonnes.
LinkTheHylian 9 hours ago
That's the equivalent of 1,000,000 things that each weigh 1 tonne, for anyone curious.
#18
The Appalachians are the same tectonic range as the Caledonians: the central to north Atlantic region of North America has the same mountains as the northern Atlantic region of Europe.
The lower layers don't have fossils, because they began forming before the evolution of bones (1.2 billion years for the Appalachians, 400 million years for bones).
#19
Ever quickly glance at clock and notice the second hand feels like it takes longer than a second to move? That's your brain pretending that you saw the clock sooner than you actually did.
It's a side effect of your brain "zoning out" when you move your eyes, to stop you getting constant motion sickness. Your eyes move towards the clock, your brain temporarily stops processing visual information, your eyes land on the clock, then your brain fills in the gap backwards, acting like you were already looking at the clock during the period without visual information. The illusion works in nearly all situations, but for clocks and timers, when we intuitively know the timing of a change, a portion of the tick isn't actually real and feels longer.
What's shocking about this is that your brain is able to seemingly go backwards in time, albeit for a split second, and make you believe you saw something when you didn't.
Ace 11 hours ago
If you really want to freak yourself out, watch a Swiss railway clock, the classic design everyone will have seen, with a second hand that completes the minute sweep in 59 seconds, then waits for a central signal before it does the last click back to 0. Invented in the mid 1800s, using a telegraph signal, it ensured that every railway station clock in the country was guaranteed to read exactly the same time.
#20
That the egg that made you was inside your grandmother.
Elladine DesIsles 5 hours ago
During my grandmother's last couple of months, aged 98 with dementia, she was often confused, lost in time, unsure of who people were, and having a hard time putting thoughts into words. I was grieving the very sudden, recent d***h of my mother at the time, and really struggling with that loss and a feeling of being unrooted in the world, in my life and identity. One day, trying to place me, my Grandma asked me, "Did you come from here?", placing her hand on her belly. I realize that yes, in fact, part of me did. It was such a small moment but it felt so profound, pulling me just slightly out of my grief and back into a sense on connectedness, and I am grateful for that memory, before my Grandma too slipped away, just shy of four months after my Mom.
#21
60% of Canadians live south of Seattle, WA
And to get to Canada from Detroit, you go south, not north.
Elladine DesIsles 6 hours ago
I do, indeed, live south of Seattle, and have done so, in Canada, all of my life. The 60% figure isn't so surprising if you realize that the portion of Canada that lies south of Seattle includes southern Quebec (Montreal and Quebec City), southern, central and eastern Ontario (Ottawa, all of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area), and much of the Maritimes.
#22
Pangaea was only the most recent supercontinent - there have actually been several over the course of Earth's history - forming, breaking, and forming again.
#23
A bald eagle nest is about as big around as a booth in a restaurant.
#24
I learned that octopuses have three hearts and it still sounds fake every time I hear it.
Never Snarky 10 hours ago
And nine brains. One central one and one at the end of each tentacle.
#25
Steam trains are older than bicycles.
#26
All religions (and many other things we "believe" in) are myths made up by mankind once we have refined our language skills about 10,000 years ago. This is called fictive language skills.
Geoffrey Scott 11 hours ago
It's not the Bible I have an issue with. It's man's interpretation.
#27
The entire modern stock of penicillin came from a moldy melon.
#28
There are more golf courses than McDonald's in the USA (16,000 vs. 13,000). It seems like McDonald's are absolutely everywhere, and golf courses are gigantic.
#29
Hiccups are an evolutionary memory from when we were fish. Your body basically tries to breathe with gills that arent there.
You can make a hiccup go away simply by reminding yourself that you are in fact not a fish.
I havent had a hiccup in years. Whenever i see someone having one i tell them this and it always works, and it just kinda still blows my mind every time. .
#30
Between 2011 and 2013, China used more cement than the United States used during the entire 20th century.
Bartlet for world domination 8 hours ago
And people invested their life savings in these buildings, which is a problem now, because they built too many.
#31
4 km or 2.5 miles Under the Amazon river is the Hamza River, which is much wider and roughly the same length as the Amazon river.
Forrest Hobbs 6 hours ago
Not *quite* right... Wikipedia puts it like this: 'The Hamza River (Portuguese: Rio Hamza) is an unofficial name for what appears to be a slowly flowing aquifer in Brazil and Peru, approximately 6,000 kilometres (3,700 mi) long at a depth of nearly 4 kilometres (2.5 mi)'
#32
That bees can daydream and think about their day. They could be on a flower thinking about the flowers they visited.
#33
That a study from around 2010-2014ish showed that 4% of the US population believes that shapeshifting reptilian aliens control world politics.
It completely shifted my views on what constitutes a large enough number of people to be concerned about their opinions at a national level.
Now, it was a single study and it could be way off today, but 4% of the US population is around 13 million people.
So when I hear that a few dozen people are complaining on a social media site about something, it becomes so much easier to ignore the rage baiting.
Words From Infinity 7 hours ago
Though, you have to admit that lately it does seem like shapeshifting reptilians are running the US government.
#34
When you get an IV, the needle doesn't stay in your arm. Only a little flexible tube does.
#35
At his peak Usain Bolt moved at a pace of over 34 feet (10.43 meters) per second. I mean, take a tape measure and measure that distance out. Per second.
David Paterson 5 hours ago
Skydiving is the fastest popular non-mechanical sport. Faster than the ball in cricket and baseball.
#36
The word 'Set' has over 400 definitions, and its entry in the Oxford English Dictionary is over 60,000 words long.
#37
If a billion people from both China and India didn't exist, they would still be the #1 and #2 most populous nations in the world.
#38
Ne of the wildest facts to me is this:
Your brain never actually experiences the present moment.
By the time light hits your eyes, signals travel through nerves, get processed by neurons, stitched into a coherent reality by the brain — you’re already milliseconds behind. Consciousness is basically a beautifully edited replay.
So the “now” you feel?
It’s a constructed simulation running slightly after reality already happened.
And somehow, inside that delay, humans write poetry, fall in love, build rockets, and stare at stars that have been gone for millions of years.
The universe is late to itself.
And still moving.
Becca not Becky 9 hours ago
Someone check on OP, I think they are having an existential crisis
#40
Humans live closer in time to TRex than TRex lived to Stegosauruses. The time line of dinosaurs being the dominant species on the planet is incomprehensible.
David Paterson 4 hours ago
True mammals were around 225 million years ago. TRex didn't appear until 67 million years ago. Stegosaurus about 155 million years ago.
#42
When persons have a kidney transplant, the old non-working kidney is left in place!
(Unless its diseased or something) they just leave it and put the new one "nearby"!????
I'm 59 and learned this only a couple years ago.
I thought transplant meant "in with the new, out with the old".
#43
Beautiful New Zealand has only been inhabited for 8-900 years and its neighbor, Australia for 80-90,000 years.
#45
That your body makes 80-120 lbs of atp for energy everyday and uses it just as fast so you never gain or lose weight.
Norm Gilmore 11 hours ago
It's either Adenosine triphosphate or the Association of Tennis Professionals. How many tennis players have YOU made today? :-)
#46
Did you know that half of your bones are inside your hands and feet, if someone says im gonna crush every bone in your body i always think "thats a lot of work" but crushing half your bones, thats easy.
(Dont worry im not a psycho, that true fact was a reference to a character on a show).
#47
Animal Testing. Like I have been blissfully ignorant for a while....and now every. single. product. I use has been tested on some poor creature.....it is destroying me...
#48
I thought billboards were specially printed paper glued to the board. Theyre actually printed tarps tied around the back to keep them taut. I found this out when my mom found a website that let's you buy old ones thay have been taken down super cheap. I think she paid like $40 for the one she got that was big enough to cover their entire camper trailer.
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