Fun Facts We Didn't Need To Know

[NearMeBettas]

Evolution of human clothing/style. Naked. Clothed. Naked. Honestly guys im afraid to see what people will all be wearing 20 years from now.

Leopard geckos eat their skin. Why is that gross when people shed theirs everywhere they go.

People spend around a quarter of their lives training how to live out the rest.

Rudolph the Reindeer is female. This can be observed through their antlers. Female deer shed their antlers in the spring and grow them back into full size by winter. The male reindeer stops its growth during the winter.

Buttermilk does not contain any butter. Found that one out the hard way when i took a swig out of the jug when I was little. The butter in its name refers to the origins of the drink. Now that’s a confusing random fact you probably didn’t know.

The largest recorded snowflake is 15 inches wide. This was dated January 28, 1887, in Montana, U.S.A. It was stated that army personnel witnessed the falling snowflake as frisbee-sized.

 

[Rocky998]

Evolution of human clothing/style. Naked. Clothed. Naked. Honestly guys im afraid to see what people will all be wearing 20 years from now.

I'm scared of what people try to wear NOW
I'm mostly scared of what people DONT wear now LMHO

People spend around a quarter of their lives training how to live out the rest.

Those statistics are low for me

Rudolph the Reindeer is female. This can be observed through their antlers. Female deer shed their antlers in the spring and grow them back into full size by winter. The male reindeer stops its growth during the winter.

Been a long time since I've seen it... That's interesting!

Buttermilk does not contain any butter. Found that one out the hard way when i took a swig out of the jug when I was little. The butter in its name refers to the origins of the drink. Now that’s a confusing random fact you probably didn’t know.

Yup! Made in the process of making butter! I've made butter in the past, it's pretty cool!

The largest recorded snowflake is 15 inches wide. This was dated January 28, 1887, in Montana, U.S.A. It was stated that army personnel witnessed the falling snowflake as frisbee-sized.

That's insane actually...


I'm really glad this thread got revived lol

 

[I Like Rare Fish]

Japan and Switzerland both have privacy laws that forced the google street view (google earth) camera, which is mounted on a car, to be mounted on a low-to-the-ground car, as opposed to the normal Subaru/toyota truck.

Singapore (normal):

Japan (low):

 

[Nells250]

Hold on... is gwand joking or not? I know Rocky isn't!

 

[gwand]

Hold on... is gwand joking or not? I know Rocky isn't!

It was just a thought. It would be a nice balance.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Plants can communicate and respond to touch. Does that mean they're intelligent?​

May 6, 20242:57 PM ET

....... climate journalist Zoë Schlanger says a new wave of research suggests that plants are indeed "intelligent" in complex ways that challenge our understanding of agency and consciousness.........

In her new book, The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth, Schlanger, a staff reporter at The Atlantic, writes about how plants use information from the environment, and from the past, to make "choices" for the future.

Schlanger notes that some tomato plants, when being eaten by caterpillars, fill their leaves with a chemical that makes them so unappetizing that the caterpillars start eating each other instead. Corn plants have been known to sample the saliva of predator caterpillars — and then use that information to emit a chemical to attract a parasitic wasp that will attack the caterpillar.......

On the debate over if plants have nervous systems

I was able to go to a lab in Wisconsin where there [were] plants that had ... been engineered to glow, but only to glow when they've been touched. So I used tweezers to pinch a plant on its vein, ... the kind of mid-rib of a leaf. And I got to watch this glowing green signal emanate from the point where I pinch the plant out to the whole rest of the plant. Within two minutes, the whole plant had received a signal of my touch, of my "assault," so to speak, with these tweezers. And research like that is leading people within the plant sciences, but also people who work on neurobiology in people to question whether or not it's time to expand the notion of a nervous system.

You can read the entire article here: https://www.npr.org/2024/05/06/1249310672/plant-intelligence-the-light-eaters-zoe-schlanger

 

[corylover5]

Woodpeckers can wrap their tongues around the backs of their brains to protect themselves from high-speed pecking.

 

[Oldspartan]

I believe all life has some form of for lack of a better term awareness of its surroundings. I also believe the soft sciences want to believe it is in some way comparable to human life. I do not believe so with a few exceptions. Very few life forms anticipate the future and most that do, do so instinctively which I believe is different from intellect. I believe the soft sciences are muddled, and I say that with soft science degrees in Institutional Psychology and Sociology. I am not saying they are useless mind you, just that they transfer poorly to the animal world and not at all to plant life.

 

[sharkweek178]

Mt. Everest is home to several dead bodies

I hope people don't mind if I expand on this.
Climbing Mt Everest is very difficult and dangerous. Hence people dying. What a lot of people don't realize is that the trip back down is just as difficult and dangerous as climbing up. And that's under relatively ideal circumstances. Trying to do it while hauling a dead body and all that dead weight is prohibitively hard. So while there have been a few recovery efforts, not too many want to risk their lives to recover a dead body.
The bodies are so ubiquitous that some of them have become landmarks used to guide climbers. The most famous of these was called Green Boots for the boots he wore. "Go east when you get to Green Boots."

 

[WhistlingBadger]

I hope people don't mind if I expand on this.
Climbing Mt Everest is very difficult and dangerous. Hence people dying. What a lot of people don't realize is that the trip back down is just as difficult and dangerous as climbing up. And that's under relatively ideal circumstances. Trying to do it while hauling a dead body and all that dead weight is prohibitively hard. So while there have been a few recovery efforts, not too many want to risk their lives to recover a dead body.
The bodies are so ubiquitous that some of them have become landmarks used to guide climbers. The most famous of these was called Green Boots for the boots he wore. "Go east when you get to Green Boots."

 

[Ichthys]

Woodpeckers can wrap their tongues around the backs of their brains to protect themselves from high-speed pecking.

They have adaptations in the head (eg soft spongey bones) and brain (special proteins that protect tissue from strain), to help with the pecking stresses. They're so effective that 99% of the shock is transferred to the body.

Their tongue wraps around their brain but it's not for protection, it's just because they have a very long tongue, for scooping insects out of holes and cavities.

 

[gwand]

They have adaptations in the head (eg soft spongey bones) and brain (special proteins that protect tissue from strain), to help with the pecking stresses. They're so effective that 99% of the shock is transferred to the body.

Their tongue wraps around their brain but it's not for protection, it's just because they have a very long tongue, for scooping insects out of holes and cavities.

I saw a pileated woodpecker on my front lawn today pecking at a tree trunk. He must have been almost 18 inches tall. Amazing creatures.

 

[Essjay]

It is well known that there is only one metal element which is liquid at room temperature - mercury. All other metal elements are solid at room temperature.

It is not well known that there is only one non-metal element which is liquid at room temperature, all other non-metal elements are either solid or gas.
That one non-metal element is bromine.


All other liquids are compounds not elements.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

It is well known that there is only one metal element which is liquid at room temperature - mercury. All other metal elements are solid at room temperature.

It is not well known that there is only one non-metal element which is liquid at room temperature, all other non-metal elements are either solid or gas.
That one non-metal element is bromine.


All other liquids are compounds not elements

I seem to remember from chemistry class a hundred years ago that hydrogen is a metal that is gaseous at room temp.

 

[Essjay]

Hydrogen is (or was when I was at university) classed as a non-metal.