50% of apartments in Los Angeles don’t come with a fridge. This is legal, as fridges are considered an “amenity,” and therefore, landlords are not required to provide one.
100 Mind-Blowing Come Facts
Earth’s poles are moving. This magnetic reversal of the North and South Pole has happened 171 times in the past 71 million years. We’re overdue a flip. It could come soon, as the North Pole is moving at around 55 kilometres per year, an increase over the 15km per year up until 1990.
You can die laughing. Several people have, typically due to intense laughter causing a heart attack or suffocation. Comedy shows should come with a warning.
Protons look like peanuts, rugby balls, bagels, and spheres. Protons come in all different shapes and sizes, with their appearance changing based on the speed of smaller particles within them: Quarks.
Flamingoes aren’t born pink. They come into the world with grey/white feathers and only develop a pinkish hue after starting a diet of brine shrimp and blue-green algae.
Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ron Wayne started Apple Inc. on April Fools’ Day. The three technology innovators signed the documents to form the Apple Computer Company on April 1, 1976. However, the company was not fully incorporated until January 3, 1977. Thirty years later, the company was renamed Apple Inc. and is no joke. In 2018, Apple became the country’s first trillion-dollar company. Of course, computers have come a long way over the years—here’s what computers looked like the decade you were born.
South American river turtles talk in their eggs. Turtles don’t have vocal cords, and their ears are internal, so scientists believed that turtles were deaf and didn’t communicate through sounds. However, research has found that turtles communicate at an extremely low frequency that sounds like “clicks, clucks, and hoots” that can only be heard through a hydrophone (a microphone used underwater). These sounds even come from the egg before the turtle hatches. Researchers hypothesize that this helps all the turtle siblings hatch at once.
Sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins can. By slowing their heart rates, sloths can hold their breath for up to 40 minutes. Dolphins need to come up for air after about ten minutes.
3 Musketeers bars got their name because they used to come with three flavours. The original 3 Musketeers bars of the 1930s came in three packs, with a different nougat flavour in each: vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry. World War II rations made that triple threat expensive, so the company cut down to one.
There’s a reason why passports come in four colours. Here’s a weird fact that might surprise you. Have you ever wondered why there isn’t a hot pink passport? The reasoning is that most countries prefer dark shades of red, green, and blue since these dark colours look more official and if they’re dirty, it’s not as noticeable.
The only difference between kosher salt and table salt is the grain size. Both come from underground salt deposits – the only difference is that Kosher salt grains are smaller.
The longest wedding veil was longer than 63 football fields. If you think you’ve seen how crazy grand weddings can get, think again. Maria Paraskeva claimed the Guinness World Record for the longest wedding veil in 2018. This dream-come-true veil measured nearly 23,000 feet, which is the size of 63.5 football fields.
Bees bite. To protect their hives from outsiders, some “guard bees” will monitor the entrance and sniff bees that come in. If they find an outsider bee from another hive, the guard bee will bite and sting the intruder.
A French pig was executed for killing a child. A pig from the Middle Ages was tied to a crime involving murder. The pig was said to have come in contact with a child’s face which caused complications due to the injuries. Ultimately, this led to the death of the 3-month-old child. The pig was sent to jail and eventually publicly executed.
Cacti come in many different colours other than green. Some species of cacti are naturally brown or brown-green. Many will have a waxy substance on the surface which prevents water loss from transpiration.
A palindrome is a sentence that is the same when read backwards and forwards. A few examples include ‘Do geese see God’ and ‘Racecar’. This is also noted to be one of the hardest sentences to construct using the English language. Can you come up with your own?
There is a species of spider dubbed the ‘hobo spider’. These spiders are not deadly. However, most bites from these critters come from when they are accidentally crushed or squeezed by a person.
Humans did not come from monkeys. To be more precise, humans and monkeys had a common ancestor from 25-30 million years ago. From then, each species evolved differently.
A rare pink dolphin resides in Louisiana. This rare dolphin was first discovered in 2007. Its pink colour is said to come from a rare genetic mutation and no other pink dolphins have been discovered since.
The smell of freshly cut grass is noted to be the grass screaming in distress. This smell is a chemical that grass uses to call other critters to come and rescue them. The chemical compounds that the plant releases can also be used to poison an enemy and alert surrounding plants.
Male rabbits are called bucks. The male rabbits tend to be more friendly and relaxed while female rabbits often come off as more aggressive.
French fries did not come from France. Originally they come from the country of Belgium. However, they are most popular in the United States.
Bacon was once a Middle English term used to refer to all pork. This was a common practice during the 16th century. The terms come from many German and French dialects.
The close door button on an elevator doesn’t do anything. Most elevators in the U.S. are modelled after the Americans with Disabilities Act. Namely, they come with braille and voice prompts. Additionally, these elevators are made to close in 3 seconds. The default time ensures that people with disabilities can board safely. The button you jab in a rush doesn’t even do anything: the actual close-door function can only be accessed by workers and emergency respondents with a key.
Bananas don’t have seeds. This is one of the interesting facts that can send you into an existential crisis: If bananas don’t have seeds, where did they come from? Bananas grow from the small bulbs called suckers that grow from the plant. Once the current crop dies, they can replant these suckers to reap a new plant.
There’s a company you can pay to kidnap you. The Ultíme Réalité is a French company that offers kidnapping services. If you pay them a fee, they will come to kidnap you when you least expect it – ropes, binds, and all. They won’t do it immediately, though. They’ll wait for a certain period so you won’t remember that you paid someone to kidnap you.
There are more than 300 dead bodies on Mount Everest. Since 1922, 305 people have died on Mt. Everest. Some even died while attempting to retrieve another dead body. Since few brave the perilous climb and come out alive, the casualties on Everest now serve as markers for other hikers.
Sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins. Sloths can slow their heart rates. When they do, sloths can hold their breath for up to 40 minutes. On the other hand, dolphins need to come up to the surface to breathe after 10 minutes.
The heart symbol was inspired by ancient birth control. Do you remember how shocked you were when you discovered in biology class that our hearts weren’t shaped like the cute symmetrical shape we see everywhere? Your next question probably would’ve been, “Well, how did they come up with that butt shape?” A theory suggests that the shape came from the silphium, a type of now-extinct plant that the ancient Greeks and Romans consumed for medicine, food, and birth control. Silphium seeds were shaped like our modern heart icon.
Humans have farted 17 quadrillion times since the beginning of time. If you want a picture of how far the human race has come, you can measure it in farts. The average person farts 14 times a day. The next time you’re questioning your contributions to society hold on to these kinds of WTF facts.
The founders of Hewlett-Packard flipped a coin to determine whose name would come first. Before HP was a well-known name in the computer industry, the owners flipped a coin to decide whose name would go first. No hard feelings.
Sub-cultures come from smaller complex societies allowing to creation of smaller groups that form their norms.
Nobody knows who built the Taj Mahal. The names of the architects, masons, and designers that have come down to us have all proved to be latter-day inventions, and there is no evidence to indicate who the real creators were.
Africa is present in sections in all four hemispheres. The size of the African continent may come as a surprise to those whose education has been mostly centred on the West. For instance, it encompasses almost 12 million square miles and is spread throughout all four hemispheres. Yes, that’s how huge the African continent is.
Sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins. Dolphins need to come up for air every 10 minutes, but by slowing their heart rate, sloths can hold their breath for 40 minutes!
3 Musketeers candy bars used to come in three flavours. The original candy from the 1930s had three different kinds of nougat: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry (hence the name!). Unfortunately, it had to be cut down to one during World War II due to rations being too expensive.
Most ginger cats are male. Ginger males can come from red/ginger, calico, and tortoiseshell mothers, whereas ginger females need to have one fully red/ginger father, and the mother must be red, calico, or tortoiseshell.
Every 10 minutes dolphins need to come up for air, but sloths can hold their breath for 40 minutes.
There’s a place on Earth where seagulls prey on right whales. They dive-bomb the calves coming up to breathe air and take bites of blubber from their backs. The calves’ skin is thinner than adults, and they have to come up for air more frequently, making them more exposed and vulnerable to attack.
RoboCup is an annual soccer game where the players are robots instead of people. The robots come from all over the world.
Sloths come down from their canopy about once a week to pee and poo unless there is a danger or predator. If that’s the case they do it from the trees!
FORESTS ARE HOME TO OVER 80% OF THE WORLD’S LAND-BASED SPECIES OF ANIMALS, PLANTS AND INSECTS. These animals help to keep the forest healthy. For example, elephants distribute seeds from fruits they have eaten. When the seeds pass through their gut, they come out undigested in their dung, and germinate in the ground.
The name “daisy” is thought to come from the Old English “daes eag.” “Daes eag” means “day’s eye,” after how the delicate flower opens at dawn.
Frozen lobsters can come back to life when thawed.
Since 1945, all British tanks come with tea-making equipment.
A silverback gorilla could deadlift 1,800 lbs. That’s 815 kg for you metric maniacs. To give you a better idea, the deadlift world record is just over 1,100 pounds (500kg). This should come as no real surprise, as gorillas are the largest primates in existence.
Velociraptors were feathered dinosaurs. If you know about velociraptors from Jurassic Park, then this may come as quite a surprise. While scientists have been able to figure out that these vicious hunters used to have feathers, the question of how feathered they were is still unanswered. It’s possible that they just had tufts of feathers on their arms, head, or possibly all over!
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.
Stan Lee created the character for Iron Man as a challenge. Stan Lee had been playing around with the idea of a businessman superhero for a while and finally bit the bullet in 1963 when he came up with the concept for Iron Man. Marvel’s readers at the time were very much against war, so he thought it would be a unique challenge to create a character who fans would originally hate but come to love – and it worked!
The longest train journey in the world is in Russia. This should come as no real surprise, considering the absolute enormity that is Russia. The 5,778 miles (9,300 km) long Trans-Siberian Railway runs from Moscow to Vladivostok in the country’s far east. If you combine the length of the Trans-Siberian with all the other railway lines in the country, it would be able to circumnavigate the world twice!
The most popular car model in the world is the Toyota Hilux. This rugged pickup truck is known around the world for its incredible versatility. With that said, it should come as no surprise that half of the top-selling countries for Hiluxes are in Africa, where the true mettle of the cars is tested on a day-to-day basis. Four out of the top six car models worldwide are Toyotas – the other three are the Toyota Corolla, Rav4, and Land Cruiser.
Frogs eat with their eyes! If you get close and personal with a frog and watch it eat, you may come away wondering why it closes its eyes every time it swallows. It’s not just that they savour every bite, but it’s biological. Frogs will close their eyes and then retract them down towards their throat, which helps push food down towards their stomach!
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.
German chocolate cake doesn’t come from Germany. It was named for a person, Sam German, who created a type of baking chocolate for Baker’s in 1852.
Almost all commercially grown artichokes (99.9 per cent) come from California. One town in particular, Castroville, is nicknamed “the Artichoke Capital of the World.”
What Was The First Ever.COM Domain? Symbolics Inc. registered the first .COM domain on March 15, 1985. For obvious reasons, the company chose to register Symbolics.com on the World Wide Web. Nordu.net was technically the first domain name ever but didn’t go through the registration process. Less than 15,000 domains had been registered to the web in 1992. In 2010, more than 200 million domains were registered to .COM alone. Dozens of other domain names exist, and millions of websites are registered with each one. No domain name is going to come close to dethroning .COM anytime soon, if ever. Regardless, Symbolics.com will hold its place in history.
These Billion-Dollar IT Companies Started In A Garage. The tech industry is unique compared to other industries. Some of the largest names in tech originated in founders’ garages. In 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen worked from their garage space to launch Microsoft. Google began as a side project of Larry Page and Sergey Brin in a garage they rented in 1998. Other companies like Apple, Amazon, and countless others began in garages as well. Perhaps there’s something about garages that spark creativity or productivity. Either way, the tech industry’s giants often come from humble beginnings. Now they’re worth billions of dollars each and counting.
Although the TV show “Friends” is based around life in New York City, the entire show was filmed in California. Whether you love it or hate it, Friends was one of the most iconic TV shows to come out of the nineties and early 2000s. One of the most surprising facts about Friends is that it wasn’t filmed in Manhattan, where it’s set, but at the Warner Brothers Ranch just outside of Los Angeles. That being said, there are a small handful of locations where filming took place outside of LA. One of these is, of course, Monica and Rachel’s apartment building at 90 Bedford St in New York. Several other locations filmed in New York for the serious include the places where the friends all work.
Thomas Crapper’s toilet. Contrary to popular belief, Thomas Crapper did not invent the flushing toilet, though his name is often associated with it. Crapper did play a significant role in popularising the flushing toilet and developed related inventions like the ball cock. However, the word ‘crap’ does not come from his name; it has Middle English origins and first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1846.
Prediction of death. Mark Twain kind of predicted his death. In 1909, he said: ‘I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt, “Now there are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together”.’ He died of a heart attack on 21 April 1910 – one day after the comet had come again and appeared at its brightest. Halley’s comet only passes by Earth approximately every 76 years and has been the subject of a string of predictions since 1705.
Today, over 80% of Linux contributions come from developers paid by big enterprises. Intel tops the list of contributors for most of the Linux Kernel releases. However, you will also notice contributions by Huawei, AMD, NVIDIA, Red Hat, Google, Samsung, SUSE and many other companies like Facebook.
Aside from the US, most YouTube views come from Saudi Arabia. This is because TV, Facebook, and Twitter are banned in Saudi Arabia, but YouTube is unrestricted.
AI Can Boost the Operating Profits of the Automotive Industry: According to Capgemini’s Accelerating Automotive’s AI Transformation report, major automakers will be able to increase operating profits by 16 per cent through the deployment of Artificial Intelligence in production facilities and supply chain operations. Gains will come from reductions in operating costs, including raw materials, labour, administration, logistics, maintenance, and inspection.