100 Mind-Blowing Effects Facts

Eating grapefruit can restrict the effects of 43 different kinds of medications.

Acetaminophen, one of the most popular painkillers, restrains masculinity and dulls emotions. It was rejected in 1887 for its side effects, then approved in 1955.

In the film Star Wars Episode Three: Revenge of the Sith, every single one of the Clone Troopers was produced using CGI effects.

Nutmeg is a hallucinogen. The spice contains myristicin, a natural compound that has mind-altering effects if ingested in large doses.

Space travel makes mice run in circles. NASA once sent 20 rodents to the International Space Station to see how the effects of space affected mice. Not long after they got there, the mice all started running in loops inside their cages. No one is exactly sure why this occurred, but researchers stated that the critters might’ve just been enjoying their time in space.

A tarantula can survive two years without food. Tarantulas can go much longer without food compared to water. So long as there is water available, a tarantula will not suffer any bad side effects from starvation.

Apples wake you up more than coffee in the morning. This is because of the high amounts of sugar that is found in apples. The vitamins from the apples also have similar effects to caffeine, thus making you feel more awake.

Nutmeg can be poisonous. Who doesn’t love a little nutmeg in their hot chocolate? It may seem unlikely, but in certain amounts, nutmeg can be fatal to humans. Compared to other plants and herbs, nutmeg contains higher amounts of a narcotic substance called myristicin. Consuming more than 1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg at once can cause side effects such as wild hallucinations, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and a syncopated heartbeat. In large amounts, it can also lead to organ failure.

The movie’s impact on Holocaust education is immeasurable. Through its widespread reach and emotional resonance, “Schindler’s List” has played a significant role in educating generations about the Holocaust and its lasting effects.

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!

You could survive for a couple of minutes in a leaky spacesuit. Although films such as Total Recall show instant explosions and rapidly puffed-up spacesuits, the effects of being exposed to space are slightly less dramatic. Although it would be unpleasant, you could survive for a couple of minutes. After around 10 seconds, you would lose consciousness. The lower pressure of the vacuum would cause your blood to boil, along with other body fluids (the moisture on your tongue, for example) – but this boiling alone would not be fatal due to the pressure maintained by our blood vessels themselves. Gas bubbles would form in your bodily fluids, causing your body to swell up and bloat. The low humidity of space would cause you to cool down rapidly, and your eyes may freeze over. Within one to two minutes, the lack of oxygen would be deadly. The stress of the situation may make these symptoms worse – you would become oxygen-deprived more quickly. A rapid decompression would cause damage to your lungs, eardrums and sinuses, along with bruising and bleeding from soft tissues.

Coral reefs are Earth’s largest living structure. Coral reefs are not only beautiful natural wonders but also the largest living structure on Earth. These underwater ecosystems are made up of colonies of tiny animals called coral polyps, which build calcium carbonate skeletons that accumulate over time and form the complex structures we know as coral reefs. Coral reefs are incredibly diverse and play a vital role in the ocean ecosystem, providing habitat and protection for many species, and acting as a natural barrier that helps to protect coastlines from storms and erosion. Unfortunately, coral reefs are under threat from a range of environmental factors, including ocean acidification, rising temperatures and global warming. ESA research has shown how our ocean waters have become more acidic over the last three decades and how this is having a detrimental effect on marine life. By using satellite technology to measure ocean colour, temperature and salinity, scientists can track changes in ocean chemistry and detect areas where acidification is occurring. Rising temperatures can also have a direct impact on coral reefs, causing coral bleaching, which occurs when corals expel the algae that live in their tissues and provide them with food. Coral bleaching can lead to the death of the coral, which can have knock-on effects on the wider ecosystem.

The Moon is drifting away from Earth. You read that correctly! The Moon is gradually drifting away from Earth at a rate of approximately 4 cm per year. This phenomenon is caused by the Moon pulling on Earth’s oceans creating tidal forces that produce a bulge of water on the side of Earth facing the Moon. This bulge in turn creates a gravitational pull on the Moon, causing it to accelerate slightly and move further away from Earth. Over time, this process has caused the Moon to move farther away from Earth each year. This gradual drift is not noticeable on a day-to-day basis, but over millions of years, it can have significant effects on Earth’s rotation. Today, most scientists believe the Moon is ‘Earth’s child’ – a large body collided with Earth, destroying our planet’s mantle and sending material into orbit from which the Moon formed. This ‘big splash’ theory would explain why the Moon’s rocks are similar to those on Earth. Bonus fun fact: Australia is wider than the Moon. The Moon sits at 3400 km in diameter, while Australia’s diameter from east to west is almost 4000 km. The Moon, as a sphere, has more surface area, but it’s still pretty impressive.

In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller Psycho, the sound effects for the famous shower scene were created by repeatedly stabbing a casaba melon.

There’s a soviet version of The Lord of the Rings, and it’s downright woeful. Titled Khraniteli (The Keepers) followed the plot of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first in JRR Tolkien’s legendary trilogy. It was released straight to TV in 1991, and much like the Soviet Union as a whole, it ended up being a complete and utter catastrophe. While the characters and plot may be recognizable to those who dare to watch Khraniteli, the special effects (if you can call them that!) are so lacking that it ruins the point of producing it in the first place.

A wall of trees is being planted across Africa to help prevent desertification. The Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel is Africa’s leading attempt to help mitigate the effects of desertification. The initiative also aims to transform the lives of millions of people living along the edge of the Sahara Desert. Unsurprisingly, planting trees at the edge of a desert is difficult. Despite having planted more than 5.5 billion seedlings in Ethiopia alone, only four per cent of the project had been completed by the end of 2020.

Kids who are on social media for 1 hour a day have less chance of being happy. This is probably not much of a surprise, but studies have shown that the more time kids spend on social media, the less likely they are to be happy with their overall life by 14%. By comparison, this is three times higher than the effects of living in a single-parent household.

Daylight saving time does more than make people lose an hour of sleep. It can have some pretty concerning health effects. Studies have linked daylight saving time with an uptick in heart attacks, car crashes, and mining injuries. The extra hour of daylight is good for koalas, though: Researchers found that koala-car collisions went down by up to 11 per cent during daylight saving time.

Those breathtaking special effects you see in movie blockbusters? Well, they’re (partly) thanks to Linux. An estimated 90% of Hollywood visual effects rely on Linux at some stage in the production pipeline.

80% to 90% of all special effects seen in Hollywood movies post-2002 have been created with the help of Linux. Linux was used for Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and many other big franchises.

Linux has a specific place in Hollywood. The Visual effects of Avatar and Titanic were developed on the Linux platform in 3D applications using the FOSS software.

Linux Visual Effects in Titanic and Avatar: For those who doubt Linux’s capabilities in animation, consider this: the Oscar-winning visual effects of James Cameron’s legendary film “Titanic” were crafted using Linux-powered machines. Even more impressively, “Avatar“, Cameron’s groundbreaking 3D cinematic masterpiece, marked the last movie to be entirely developed on a Linux platform using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) applications.

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