28 Facts That Are 100% True But Really Hard To Wrap Your Head Around
While browsing Reddit, I came across a thread where user u/edder24 asked, "What 100% FACT is the hardest to believe?" I sifted through thousands of comments to bring you these 28 facts that I promise are true. Save all of this information for if you're ever on Jeopardy.
1."Only six people have survived rabies. Rabies has a 99% mortality rate. You can have rabies for an entire year without symptoms, and once you have symptoms, it's already too late. You'll probably die in a couple of days if you have symptoms."
There are actually more than 15 people who have survived rabies, but with around 60,000 cases per year, being among the handful of people who survive is um, RARE.
2."There are only 25 blimps in the entire world."
Now I feel lucky to have seen several blimps in my life, considering the rarity.
3."Häagen-Dazs" has no meaning in any language; it was meant to sound 'European.' It was started by Reuben Mattus, a Polish immigrant to New York who sold fruit ice and ice cream from a horse-drawn cart."
On a personal note, Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream is my favorite ice cream ever to exist. Thank u, Reuben!!
4."New York City is farther south than Rome."
New York is on the 40-degree-latitude line, while Rome is at 41.
And while we're on the subject of latitude...
5."Florida is at around the same latitude as Egypt."
They both take up space in the 20- to 30-degree area.
6."Dragonflies accelerate at a g-force of up to 4 g and corner at up to 9 g."
They are basically tiny fighter jets.
"Dragonflies generate forces of up to 9 g in turns, matching the best fighter jets, while also being able to hover and to move laterally and backward like a helicopter. They can reach top speeds of 35 miles per hour, more than three times the speed of the fastest aircraft in terms of body lengths traveled per second."
7."Dragonflies are also the most efficient hunters, catching up to 95% of prey."
LOOK AT 'EM GO:
8."There is enough water in Lake Superior to cover North and South America in water 1 foot deep."
It is the world's largest freshwater lake.
9."A total of 105 billion people have lived so far; 7.9 billion of us are currently alive."
The total number who have lived could be as many as 117 billion, but it's hard to count. Either way, thanks for all the billions who came before us and figured out all the hard stuff!
10."There are more trees on Earth than stars in the Milky Way, roughly by a factor of 10."
There are about 3 TRILLION trees on Earth, and somewhere between 100 billion and 400 billion stars. Trees win.
Disney / Via giphy.com
11."The US has a 1.4 billion–pound cheese surplus. It’s all stored in the cheese cave in Missouri."
"I live in Springfield, Missouri, where the cheese is stored. Full-time guards, and no one is allowed in the underground unless you work there or you have someone who will sign for you. Basically like a military installation. It's not a cave, either. It's a limestone mine that's still being mined, and it's bigger than you could ever imagine. I think there are some YouTube videos that show the inside. 'Springfield Underground' is what it's called."
12."Wombats are the only animals that poop neatly cube-shaped turds, and scientists don't fully understand why they're able to do it."
It is true that they poop squares, but there's good news — SCIENTISTS HAVE FIGURED OUT WHY. Basically, it's because of how the animals' intestines constrict.
13."T. rex could not roar (like in Jurassic Park). It gave off a low-frequency growl, like this."
14."Barcode scanners scan the white bars, not the black ones."
Reading this made me realize I know so little about barcodes, it's almost embarrassing.
15."Ciabatta bread was invented in 1982. It's advertised and perceived as this traditional, rustic Italian bread that peasants must have enjoyed, but nope — it was created in the 1980s."
Bread historians will tell you this about ciabatta: "The ciabatta was invented in 1982 due to an overwhelming affinity towards French baguettes, which had taken Europe by storm. The main difference between these two loaves of bread comes down to the hydration levels."
16."A moose can dive underwater down to nearly 20 feet in search of food."
It's true, man. Moose are good swimmers!!
17."Martin Luther King Jr. and Anne Frank were born the same year."
It was 1929.
18."'Woman' and 'women' sound different because of how you pronounce the 'wo-' part, not the '-man/-men' part."
19."Oxford University started teaching in 1096, with full university status by 1249. There are many things we think of as ancient that are much younger than Oxford University! The Magna Carta, modern English, the printing press, the Aztecs, the whole country that is called the United States of America. Oxford is only a tiny bit younger than the Battle of Hastings!"
In 74 years, it will have been around for 1,000 years.
20."Where does weight go when you lose body weight? When you lose weight, the bulk of that mass (84%) is breathed out as carbon dioxide emission; the rest (16%) is mostly water from sweat, tears, urine, and so on."
21."There are 40 different accents in the UK, compared with the US’s 30 accents, even though the US is 40 times bigger than the UK."
Here are 20 of them:
22."Two doctors invented the chainsaw in 1780 to make the removal of pelvic bone easier and less time-consuming during childbirth."
The chainsaws were small and used a hand crank, but still.
23."There are more libraries in the US than there are McDonald's or Starbucks."
More than 115,000!
24."The entirety of continental South America is farther east than Key West, Florida."
See?
25."A total of 11,000 sharks are killed by humans every hour. Had to look that one up to believe it myself."
Depressing, tbh.
"An estimated 6.4% to 7.9% of all shark species in the world are killed each year. This figure, converted into hours, amounts to 11,416 sharks killed worldwide every hour."
26."The flavor of bananas you eat today is different from that of the bananas your grandfather ate. Today's bananas are a different variety, because a fungus eradicated the previous commercial variety. This is why banana candy tastes different."
The old bananas from the '50s apparently tasted better. This is why we can't have nice things!
27."Clouds weigh hundreds of thousands of pounds, full of water, effortlessly floating above our heads. No support, no structure, just weight, floating around above us, and we're like, yep, totally believable, because they're clouds, duh."
Relatedly...
28."The really unbelievable thing is that we live at the bottom of a 6,214-mile-deep ocean of air. If you weighed a 1-inch column of air from the surface to space, it would weigh about 14.7 pounds. If you weighed the entire atmosphere around the planet, it would be about 5.5 quadrillion tons."
This guy said it best:
