Tootsie Rolls used to be part of WWII rations. Tootsie Rolls were put in soldiers’ rations in World War II because of their durability in different weather conditions.
100 Mind-Blowing Because Facts
Mars’ sunset is blue. Mars has less than 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere. Sunsets on Mars look blue because its atmosphere captures mostly blue light from the sun.
Corn Flakes were invented to prevent masturbation. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg believed that sex was a sin (he didn’t even sleep with his wife). He invented cornflakes because he believed that foods such as meat increased sexual desire, while cereal and nuts fought against it.
Bald eagles don’t sound like in the movies. If you’ve seen a Western film, the iconic bird screech comes to mind. However, you’d be surprised that it’s not the sound of a bald eagle. The piercing call that most people associate with the bird is a sound made by another bird of prey: the red-tailed hawk. Hollywood uses the red-tailed hawk’s cry because it has a more dramatic effect. Real bald eagles would chirp rather than screeching.
Bearcat urine smells like buttered popcorn. The smell of buttered popcorn is mouthwatering and even nostalgic to some – so much so that there’s even a jellybean flavour and candle scents for it. However, make sure you’re not getting duped – because that’s exactly what the Southeast Asian bearcat’s pee smells like. Bearcat urine contains the same compound found in buttered popcorn (2-AP). The Southeast Asian bearcat covers its feet and tail in its buttered popcorn-scented urine for other bearcats to smell.
The Wombat poops in cubes. Before you ask, no – their buttholes aren’t square. You’ve heard of cubed watermelons. Now, nature brings us cubed poop! Wombat poop is cubical because of their long, slow digestive process.
A cockroach can live for weeks after its head has been cut off. If you’ve ever been assaulted by a cockroach, your instincts would be fight or flight – and the brave few who would fight can probably agree that cockroaches can be ridiculously hard to squish and kill. Even with its head cut off, a roach would survive because of its open circulatory system or using tiny holes in its body called spiracles to breathe. Additionally, cockroaches don’t need food like we do, so they’d be able to go for weeks without it.
All cereal box characters look down, and it’s because of psychology. You may have a lot of fond memories of your favourite childhood cereal, but we bet you missed this detail: all the characters’ eyes on the boxes look downwards. It’s not decreed in the cereal code, but they are illustrated like that to make eye contact with children from the grocery shelf. Doing this would grab kids’ attention and make it more likely for them to ask their parents to buy cereal.
NASA had to rename the sizes of male astronaut peeing apparatus. Everyone knows you can’t just pee in a toilet in space, so imagine the headache when NASA had to issue peeing apparatuses. They had to change the sizing names from small-medium-large to large-gigantic-humongous because no one wanted to pick their true size.
Chopsticks were initially created for cooking, not as an eating utensil. In Ancient China, chopsticks were invented and used for cooking. Because of their length, they were perfect for reaching into pots of hot water or oil.
Vampire bats drink half their body weight in blood. For each meal, bats consume an ounce of blood. By the end of the 20-30-minute process, a bat will have consumed almost its entire weight in blood. However, bats can still fly after a meal because their stomach lining absorbs the liquid as quickly as possible.
The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottles have a hidden meaning. No, it’s not the Illuminati. The “57” on Heinz bottles represents the 57 varieties of Heinz products. However, Henry Heinz first chose 57 because he thought it was lucky.
I am. is the shortest complete sentence in the English language. “I am,” is a complete sentence because it has a subject (I) and a predicate (am).
Soda fountain workers were called soda jerks The workers were called soda jerks because of the jerking motion used to pump soda water.
Before the computer mouse was known as a mouse, it was known as the turtle. Manufacturers of the early versions of the computer mouse called it a turtle, because of its hard shell and moving part underneath.
Pencils are yellow because of Chinese royalty. In the 1800s, the best graphite in the world came from China. The Americans wanted to pay tribute to the Chinese for the graphite used in their pencils. Yellow means royalty and respect in China, which is why the Americans manufactured their pencils in yellow. To this day, the default colour for pencils is still yellow.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
Henry Ford produced the Model T only in black because the black paint available at the time was the fastest to dry.
The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; “7” was selected because the original containers were 7 ounces. “UP” indicated the direction of the bubbles.
Revolvers cannot be silenced because of all the noisy gasses which escape the cylinder gap at the rear of the barrel.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men! This is a pure myth! Blink rates are pretty identical for both sexes. Scientists have suggested that the interval between blinks is nearly about 2-10 seconds so an average person blinks about 10 times per minute. Another interesting fact is that we blink less frequently if our eyes are focused on one thing. For instance, while you read, you only blink three times per minute because while reading you are very focused.
People say “Bless you” when you sneeze because when you sneeze, your heart stops for a millisecond. Your heart doesn’t stop completely but, it may slow down or skip a beat. But it has nothing to worry about.
Mars is named after the Roman God of war because of its red colour.
Martian sunsets and sunrises look blue because the Martian dust in the air scatters blue light.
Mars appears reddish-orange because the iron minerals in the soil rust from exposure to water and air.
Left-handed people often have their unique style of handwriting because they have to push the pen across the paper rather than pull it as right-handers do.
Avocados are not vegetables. Avocados are fruits because they are single-seeded berries.
Nutmeg is a hallucinogen. Because it contains myristicin, a natural compound that has mind-altering effects, you can experience hallucinations if you ingest large quantities of nutmeg. Yikes!
Cat urine glows under a black light. Black lights can be used to detect any body fluids, but cat urine glows particularly bright under ultraviolet light primarily because it contains the element phosphorus.
“Kuchisabishii” is Japanese for unconscious eating. It describes the act of eating when you’re not hungry because your mouth is “lonely.”
Jennifer Lopez inspired the creation of Google images. After she wore her infamous green dress at the 2000 Grammys, the search engine added the function because so many people were looking for pictures of her outfit!
The sun and moon are not the same size. While they might look the same size as Earth, the moon is actually 400 times smaller than the sun. It just looks bigger because it’s also 400 times closer to us!
In Switzerland, owning just one guinea pig is not allowed. It is considered animal abuse if you only own one guinea pig in Switzerland because the animals are such social creatures.
The heart of a shrimp is in its head. Because of their open circulatory system, there are no arteries in shrimp, and so their organs are floating around in their blood. They also have other vital organs such as their ventral nerve cord and stomach because the head is safer than their tail.
Once a chicken lived without its head for 18 months. Perhaps you’ve already heard of Mike the Chicken. Well if you haven’t, you’ll be surprised to find out that in the 1940s, Mike survived because his jugular vein and brainstem were still functioning. But don’t expect this for every chicken. It’s a weird animal fact, but a rare one.
The Eiffel Tower was originally supposed to be for the city of Barcelona. But they rejected the famous tower at the time because they considered it too ugly.
Identical twins do not have the same fingerprints. Contrary to popular belief, identical twins can’t have the same fingerprints because of development factors in the womb. The rate their fingers grew, their position in the womb, and the length of their umbilical cord all play a factor.
During the hot summer, our nails grow faster. This weird fact about the human body is because of the increased blood flow to our fingertips.
Water might not be wet. Coming in as another weird science fact, water itself is not wet. This is the case because of how scientists have defined wetness. It’s in the liquid’s ability to sustain contact with a solid surface. Startling, I know.
What do Comets smell like? Well, rotten eggs. That’ll happen because of the ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide and more.
Nutmeg is a hallucinogen. If you eat large amounts of nutmeg, you can hallucinate because it contains myristicin which is a mind-altering ingredient.
Bananas are radioactive. Because bananas are rich in potassium, they are a little bit radioactive. But don’t worry about this weird science fact. You’re already 280 times more radioactive than a banana.
A straight line doesn’t exist. This weird science fact is because if you zoom into anything, you’ll find curves and inconsistencies.
The moon has moonquakes. These happen because of tidal stresses occurring between the moon and Earth.
Lemons float, while limes sink. This is because limes are denser than lemons.
Most of the wasabi you eat isn’t wasabi. Because actual wasabi can be quite expensive, store-bought wasabi is often made out of horseradish.
In Japanese, the word “kuchisabishii” describes eating not because you’re hungry but because your mouth is lonely.
You are about 1cm taller in the morning when you first get up than when you go to bed. This is because during the day the soft cartilage between your bones gets squashed and compressed.
Mars is also known as the Red Planet. This is because Mars is covered in soil, rock, and dust made from iron oxide which gives the surface a red rusty colour.
One year on Mars is 687 days long. That’s 1.9 Earth years. This is because Mars is further away from the sun so it takes longer to orbit it.
Mars is a terrestrial planet because it has a hard and rocky surface. Its northern side is full of flat plains and the southern side has ridges and craters.
There is no evidence of life on Mars. However, it is the planet with the best conditions to support life and scientists believe there is potential for life under the surface of Mars because they recently found water ice just under the surface.
The claws of a mantis shrimp can accelerate as quickly as a .22-caliber bullet. Scientists must keep them in thick plastic tanks because their punches can break glass.
Male gentoo and Adelie penguins “propose” to females by giving them a pebble. These are precious because the penguins use them to build their nests, and they can be hard to find along the barren Antarctic shoreline. If the female accepts the pebble, the pair bonds and mates for life.
The Eiffel Tower can grow up to about 6 inches taller in the summer. That’s because the heat makes the iron expand.
Samsung once used a butt-shaped robot to test the durability of its cell phones. That’s because so many people put their phones in their back pockets and accidentally sit on them.
Because bananas contain potassium, they are radioactive.
Because of gravity, you would weigh less on the moon than on Earth.
The Moon is getting farther away every year. The Moon exerts a pull on Earth, causing our planet to be slightly egg-shaped. It affects water even more, creating tides and causing the oceans to pile up towards one side of the planet, forming a ‘tidal bulge’. This bulge is dragged around with the Moon as it orbits. As Earth rotates faster than the Moon – 24 hours versus 27.3 days – the bulge moves slightly ahead of the Moon’s position in orbit. The Moon pulls back on it, effectively trying to slow it down and causing Earth’s rotation rate to gradually slow down over time as a result. As the two bodies interact through gravity, this tugging causes Earth to lose energy while the Moon gains energy. Because of this energy boost the Moon is slowly spiralling outwards, moving away from us by 3.8cm per year.
Pound cake is so-called because the recipes once called for a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a pound of eggs, and a pound of flour.
Apples float because they are one-quarter air!
Clouds look white because they are reflecting sunlight from above them.
Dogs have wet noses because they secrete a thin layer of mucus, which helps dogs smell!
They get their name because they have enlarged throats and extra large voice boxes which allow them to howl.
You wouldn’t be able to walk on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune because they have no solid surface!
Dinosaurs lived on every planet on Earth, including Antarctica. The reason fossils are not prevalent everywhere is that conditions were not great to preserve remains or create fossils in many places. Scientists think there were many species of dinosaurs we know nothing about because their bones were too small to fossilize.
It can take thousands of years for a natural beach to be created. Beaches don’t form overnight! It takes thousands of years for them to form. They form because of the water that is moving constantly.
Sand comes in lots of different colours. Sand isn’t always golden, although that is the most common colour. It also comes in lots of different colours including red, brown, pink, orange, gold, purple, green, and black! The colours depend on the minerals and rocks the sand has been formed from. There are black beaches in the Canary Islands. This is because the sand comes from volcanic minerals.
Beaches are constantly changing. Although you might not be able to tell the difference, beaches are always changing. They can get bigger, smaller or even change shape. It can happen because of the waves, wind or extreme weather!
The term “coccyx” (also known as your tailbone) is derived from the Greek word “cuckoo” (“kokkux”) because the curved shape of the tailbone resembles the bird’s beak.
The Wizard of Oz’s Full Name is Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs. In the book, he explains that he called “myself O.Z., because the other initials were P-I-N-H-E-A-D.”
Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” has her mailbox at the Louvre because of all the love letters she receives.
Studies show that bronze medalists are happier than silver medalists because they are happy just to get a medal at all.
Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn’t wear pants.
There’s a restaurant in New York that employs grandmas instead of chefs. The menu at Enoteca Maria is a little unconventional, as half of it is a fixed Italian menu while the other half changes daily. This is because a different grandmother comes in every day with not just a new menu but a completely new cuisine! The owner decided to run his restaurant like this as he had lost all maternal figures in his life and wanted to re-create the feeling of eating in his grandmother’s kitchen.
Recessions may not be good for our finances, but it turns out that they’re good for our health. Researchers in the US initially studied data from previous economic crises expecting to find a correlation between mortalities and economic crises. What they found was surprising, as harder times seemed actually to reduce mortality rates instead of increasing them. This is because during a recession, there is less traffic, and cleaner air, and people have less money to spend on unhealthy things like drinking alcohol or smoking.
More than $700 million worth of aluminium cans are thrown out by Americans every year. Aluminum is one of the most recyclable materials on the market, and it’s also the most valuable. This is because aluminum is relatively rare yet is used in many different areas ranging from soda cans to airplanes. Despite the amount of lost aluminium from binned aluminium cans, more than seventy-five per cent of all aluminium produced on US soil has been recycled and is being put to use.
As dogs were domesticated, their eyes evolved to look cuter. Have you ever seen a picture of a wolf’s eyes and seen something mysteriously menacing in them compared to those of a dog? Well, there’s a good reason for that. Dogs evolved muscles around their eyes, allowing them to change their facial expression slightly, commonly known as “puppy eyes.” It’s believed that they evolved so because dogs that looked cuter and friendlier were more likely to be looked after.
Psy didn’t want to upload Gangnam Style to YouTube because he didn’t want to be humiliated. The Korean pop superstar didn’t even really know much about YouTube when his friends recommended uploading his music video. Psy felt he would be humiliated with low views because he wasn’t very well known internationally. He couldn’t have been more wrong, though, as Gangnam Style became the first music video to reach 1 billion views on YouTube!
Studies have found that nine out of ten people experience phantom phone vibrations. It’s suggested that when we keep our phones in our pockets regularly, they become almost like an extension of ourselves. This is similar to wearing glasses for extended periods. When we experience any kind of muscle spasm, a shift in clothing, or any other form of vibration, we instantly assume that it is our phone. This is believed to be because we are much more high-strung these days and are always on the alert, so we don’t miss important texts or notifications.
When London taxi drivers tried to protest against Uber, they drove more customers towards their competitors. In 2014 as many as 10,000 London black cab drivers took to the streets and blockaded much of the city to protest against Uber. The drivers claimed not to be protesting against having competition. They protested because Uber drivers didn’t have to go through the 4-7 years of training a black cab driver must go through. In the end, Uber stated that the protest annoyed Londoners so much that, on the day of the strike, the Uber app was downloaded 850% more than normal.
Roundabouts have been proven to reduce dangerous traffic incidents significantly. This is because they greatly lower the speed at which drivers go. They have also been found to improve traffic conditions compared to intersections with traffic lights significantly. They’re also much more versatile, as the wide range of roundabout designs can be adapted to fit many more traffic conditions.
The FBI had a 1,427-page file on Albert Einstein. When Albert Einstein moved from Germany to the US in 1933, he was already an internationally renowned physicist. One year before that, the FBI began keeping tabs on him because he was outspoken against various social issues, such as nationalism and racism. Later, Einstein took a stand, particularly against the US nuclear ambitions, which led the head of the FBI to become deeply suspicious of him and even label him as a communist.
Seven out of ten US youths would fail to qualify for military service. While many of them fail because of health reasons such as obesity, many others are disqualified because of poor education. Others fail because of prescription medication they take or lifestyle choices such as tattoos or certain piercings. It’s estimated that only one per cent of US youths are eligible to join the military and are interested in doing so.
The moon has its Catholic bishop. You read that right; the Catholic church does claim the moon to be a part of their religious jurisdiction and has done so since man first landed on the moon. This is due to a Catholic law that states that any newly discovered territory falls under the jurisdiction of the bishop from whence the expedition departed. Because Apollo 11 was launched from the jurisdiction of Bishop William Donald Borders in Orlando, Florida, he became the bishop of the moon.
The actor who played Scotty from Star Trek was given an honorary degree at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. The original series only ran for three years, from 1966 to 1969, but it has since inspired generations and led to countless spin-offs. Scotty, who the late James Montgomery Doohan played, was the lead engineer aboard the fictional USS Enterprise spaceship. When the Milwaukee School of Engineering discovered that more than half of its students were inspired to take up engineering because of Scotty, they awarded Doohan with an honorary engineering doctorate.
It turns out that most people don’t procrastinate because of laziness. Instead, many factors have been found to cause this crippling condition, such as task aversion, perfectionism, fear of failure, and overall anxiety issues. Other key factors that influence how much we procrastinate come down to the goals we set for ourselves and how concrete or abstract they are. The key to combating procrastination is identifying the specific factors that cause it and combating them individually.
A town in Antarctica forces would-be residents to have their appendices removed. Villas Las Estrellas lies on King George Island, one of Antarctica’s South Shetland Islands. The island itself has a rotating population of around 100 or so people, primarily made up of researchers and various military personnel. Because the island is so remote and the medical facilities there so small, anyone who wishes to live there must get their appendix taken out to ensure it doesn’t become a problem down the line.
Sloths don’t fall out of trees when they sleep because of how their claws evolved. Fortunately for many a sleeping sloth, their claws evolved quite the opposite of how ours did. While our hands are naturally open, and it takes force to clench them, this isn’t the case for sloths. Instead, their claws’ “relaxed” position is a tight grip, and it takes quite a lot of force for them to unclench their claws.
Government vehicles in Cuba are legally required to pick up hitchhikers. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba went through a period of severe economic hardship called the “Special Period,” and the majority of the country’s vehicles came to a standstill. Unable to take public transport because there wasn’t enough oil or parts to maintain the buses, citizens resorted to hitchhiking. Times got so difficult that the government forced all of their vehicles with free space to pick up any hitchhikers, typically found at designated pick-up points.
Every year 22,000 tons of dust is blown from the Sahara Desert to the Amazon Rainforest. Long, long ago, the Sahara Desert used to be a lake, and the dust and sand left behind are rich in phosphorous. This is quite fortunate, as this phosphorous-rich dust is carried through the skies to the Amazon rainforest, which is surprisingly in need of fertilizer. The rainforest loses just about as much phosphorous as it gains because it all gets washed away through streams, creeks, and the Amazon River.
The US Army has its private herd of bison. Unfortunately, it’s not part of some sort of secret plan to create a mounted bison regiment. Instead, the US Army base of Camp Pendleton in California was gifted the bison back in the 70s. The San Diego Zoo entrusted the bison to the base for safekeeping, and they’ve done such a great job at it that the herd has grown from 14 to 90 or so! The herd is constantly monitored, not just to ensure they’re in good health but also because they’re quite dangerous wild animals!
FDR’s portrait was on the dime because of his association with the March of Dimes charity.
The neighbours of lottery winners are more likely to go bankrupt because they try to keep up with their neighbour’s new spending habits.
A “griggle” is an apple left on the tree because it’s too small to pick.
Your voice sounds deeper to you because of the bones in your head.
Mike Myers only agreed to star in The Cat in the Hat because of the threat of a lawsuit with Universal Pictures.
People used to say “prunes” when taking pictures because smiling for photos was “childish” in the 1840s.
3 Musketeers candy bars are so named because they used to come in three flavours — chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry — before sugar was rationed during the 1940s.
The Mona Lisa has her mailbox in the Louvre because of all the love letters she receives.