If you point your car keys to your head, it increases the remote’s signal range. All the fluids in your head act as a fantastic conductor, allowing you to extend the remote’s range by a few car lengths.
100 Mind-Blowing Few Facts
Tirana, the capital of Albania, has a lot of things in common with other European capitals – except one. It’s one of the few capitals without a McDonald’s, along with Vatican City Reykjavik, Iceland, and Podgorica, Montenegro.
Scotland was one of the few countries able to hold off being conquered by the Romans in the first century A.D.
500 seeds of 5 different types of seeds were taken into orbit around the moon and later planted around the U.S. as well as a few countries. They were called Moon Trees.
The first roller coaster was used to transport coal down a hill. After people found that it could reach speeds up to 50 miles per hour, tourists asked to ride on it for a few cents.
Egg yolks are one of the few foods that naturally contain Vitamin D.
In a few Appalachian forests, some fireflies glow blue for up to a minute instead of flashing yellow.
Baby horses can walk and run after just a few hours of being born.
Except for a few organs, caterpillars liquefy almost completely while undergoing metamorphosis.
Jupiter has 69 moons. A few are 12-37 miles in diameter, but most are barely 1 mile in size. Jupiter itself is 317 times the mass of the Earth.
Bananas are radioactive. Due to being rich in potassium, every banana is slightly radioactive thanks to containing the natural isotope potassium-40. Interestingly, your body contains around 16mg of potassium-40, meaning you’re around 280 times more radioactive than a banana already. Any excess potassium-40 you gain from a banana is excreted out within a few hours.
Mirrors facing each other don’t produce infinite reflections. Each reflection will be darker than the last and eventually fade into invisibility. Mirrors absorb a fraction of the energy of the light striking them. The total number of reflections mirrors can produce? A few hundred.
The book 3 SHADES OF BLUE: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool by James Kaplan notes that when Miles Davis moved to New York City at 18, he spent his first few weeks attending classes at Julliard and going to Harlem to see performances at Minton’s Playhouse and the Savoy Ballroom, as well as clubs on 52nd Street.
The bumblebee bat is the world’s smallest mammal. Weighing in at 0.05 to 0.07 ounces, with a head-to-body length of 1.14 to 1.29 inches and a wingspan of 5.1 to 5.7 inches, the bumblebee bat—also known as Kitti’s hog-nosed bat—is the smallest mammal in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. To see this tiny bat for yourself, you’d have to visit one of a select few limestone caves on the Khwae Noi River in Kanchanaburi Province of southwest Thailand.
The longest English word is 189,819 letters long. We won’t spell it out here, but the full name for the protein nicknamed titin would take three and a half hours to say out loud. While this is, by far, the longest word in English, the longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary has 45 letters, and the longest made-up word has just 28. Just a few more interesting facts for your next cocktail party!
Your brain synapses shrink while you sleep. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Centre for Sleep and Consciousness studied mice to observe what happens to their brains while they sleep. Dr Chiara Cirelli and Dr Giulio Tononi found an 18 per cent decrease in the size of synapses after a few hours of sleep. Don’t worry, though—this nighttime brain shrinkage helps your cognitive abilities.
The world’s first novel ends mid-sentence. The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu in the 11th century, is considered the world’s first novel. After reading 54 intricately crafted chapters, the reader is stopped abruptly mid-sentence. One translator believes the work is complete as is, but another says we’re missing a few more pages of the story.
Digging a hole into China is possible if you start in Argentina. One of the most intriguing fun facts about Argentina is that you could dig a hole in China from there. As a feat usually done by cartoon or comic book characters, travelling to China underground is possible in theory, but not so much in practice. Underground conditions such as heat, pressure, and lack of oxygen are just one of the few realities that keep this cartoonish concept just that – a concept for cartoons.
A snail can sleep for three years. Aside from their shocking number of teeth, these small critters have some more astonishing tricks up their sleeve. Nap time for a snail can last from a few hours up to 3 years.
The first novel in the world ended mid-sentence. The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu in the 11th century, is the world’s oldest novel. Towards the end of 54 chapters, the story is stopped abruptly mid-sentence. Some translators believe the work is complete and intended to end that way, but others say a few pages haven’t been recovered yet.
Sneezing while travelling at 60 mph makes you close your eyes for 50 feet. In a not-so-fun fun fact, the few milliseconds you spend sneezing can make you lose track of the distance you travel. No matter how amazing that may be, it is very hazardous for the road. About 2,500 road accidents occur in a U.K. winter due to colds and sneezing.
Moon Trees are a thing. No, it’s not another edgy underground indie band, but one of the endless fun facts about plants: Moon trees were sprouted from tree seeds that were flown to the moon, and then planted on the Earth. 500 seeds were taken from 5 different seed types to orbit around the moon. They were later planted around the U.S. and a few other countries.
During the first 5 months of Pokémon Go, gaming-related accidents increased by 26.5%. People may joke about Pokemon Go bringing world peace, but the game was doing quite the opposite. Upon the first few months of its release, Pokemon Go-related casualties included 2 deaths and $25.5 million in property damages.
The Netherlands has a squirrel bridge. One of the most interesting fun facts about humans’ relationship with animals: After a few squirrel casualties, Netherlands officials built a squirrel bridge across the N44 motorway. The two-year project cost a hefty £120,000. However, to date, only five squirrels have been seen using it.
NASA can “fax” tools to astronauts Sending equipment to the Space Station used to take months or years, but 3D printing technology now lets NASA do it in a few hours.
The continental plates move at the same rate that fingernails grow. Research suggests that sometime in the far future, a supercontinent may form. The continents are continuously moving a few centimetres a year.
Scotland has over 400 words to refer to snow. One of Scotland’s three official languages has a great extent of expressive phrases for snow. A few of these words include snaw (snow) and flindrinkin (light snow showers).
The most popular state bird is the Northern Cardinal. Out of the 50 states in the U.S., seven voted for this species as their favourite bird. Perhaps this may be due to the Angry Birds trend from a few years back.
Alaska is the only state whose name is on a single row on the keyboard. A and S are right next to each other, and so are L and K. Alaska is also one of the few words you can type on the second line of the QWERTY keyboard.
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?
The most mathematical flag in the world belongs to Nepal. In its constitution, there is a detailed step-by-step guide on how to draw the flag to its exact measurements. Nepal is also one of the few countries that have a triangular flag.
A premature birth takes place when the baby arrives earlier than 37 weeks during pregnancy. Those who are born early will often have complicated medical problems. Premature birth usually occurs when not enough nutrition is given to the mother during pregnancy. A few famous premature births include Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, and Isaac Newton.
68% of plant species are endangered. Over half of all plant species are now classified as endangered. Prairie orchids, rafflesia, and Texas wild rice are only a few plant species endangered by climate change.
The most difficult phrases to create are palindromes. These are sentences that read the same when reading backwards. Language experts state that forming an understandable sentence using palindrome is extremely difficult. A few examples include “Redrum, sir, is murder” and “He lived as a devil, eh?”.
Oak trees cannot produce acorns if they are under 50 years of age. While all oak trees produce acorns, they are not to be referred to as acorn trees. Some species of oak trees, such as the pin oak, can produce its first few acorns at a much younger age.
The human skull remains conscious after decapitation. It remains conscious for a few seconds to a minute after being separated from the body. A full brain shutdown occurs after 48-96 hours.
Over 70,000 plant species are medicinal. These plant species provide herbal remedies needed for certain ailments. Ginger, onion, and oregano are a few plants that have a purpose beyond our kitchens and culinary ventures.
Large banks use computers to process checks and debit card charges by the highest amount first. This is because checks with higher amounts of value need to be thoroughly double-checked first before clearing. This explains why it may take a few working days before clearing can be issued.
Grapes explode in the microwave. The water found in grapes interacts with the wavelengths of energy from the microwave. After a few seconds, the radiation from the microwave and the plasma in the grape react together which causes the grapes to explode.
Apart from Vitamin C, eggs contain every single vitamin. It also contains high traces of protein, fat, and minerals. The egg yolk is also one of the few foods that naturally contain Vitamin D.
Talking uses 100 muscles. Introverts, you’re all valid. Talking is a chore – not just mentally, but physically. To form a few phrases, the body must use 100 different muscles from the chest, neck, jaw, tongue, and lips. Imagine how buff and chatty people would be if these muscles bulked up too?
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.
In Slovakia, they have a Christmas Carp that lives in the family bathtub for a few days before they are eaten. A traditional Slovakian Christmas dinner is a main dish of breaded carp with sides of cabbage and sausage soup, and potato salad. However, the WTF facts twist is that the carp has to live in the family bathtub before it is cooked.
A laughing epidemic made 14 schools close down in Tanzania. In 1962, a laughing epidemic broke out in Tanganyika (now Tanzania). What initially started with a few school girls turned into almost a year-long mass hysteria across villages. Symptoms of the laughing epidemic included crying, fainting, rashes, and pain. Towards the end of the epidemic, 14 schools had already closed.
A gamer completed Dark Souls using a Rock Band guitar. Another game notorious for its gameplay, only a few souls (nudge, nudge) brave this action RPG. However, Benjamin “Bearzly” Gwin took bravery to the next level: He beat the game with nothing but a Rock Band guitar. It doesn’t end there – he’s also done runs with the Rock Band drum kit, Rock Band piano, Donkey Kong bongo drum, microphone (voice control only), Wiimote, dance mat, steering wheel, and an Xbox 360 pad. He programmed these alternative controls himself, too. Wow.
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.
A sponge can reconstruct itself in hours. If you force a live sponge through a mesh screen, it will rearrange itself after a few hours.
In Slovakia, they have Christmas carp that live in the bathtub for a few days before they are eaten.
Lions are the only big cats that live in groups called prides, consisting of several related females and their young, along with a few male lions.
Tornadoes’ width ranges from just a few metres to over 2 miles wide!
1 tsp of neutron star weighs the same as the human population. A neutron star’s density is mind-boggling. These stars are composed almost entirely of neutrons packed together in a tiny radius. Just a teaspoonful of this material would weigh over a trillion kilograms — more than the weight of the entire human population (which reaches a few hundred billion kilograms). To make something as dense as a neutron star, the whole of humanity would need to be crammed into a space the size of a sugar cube.
There are stars we will never be able to see. Ever since the Big Bang, most objects in space have been moving away from one another. The expansion of the Universe is accelerating. This is one of the facts about space that has rocked the cosmological boat over the past few years. As regions of space are whizzing away from one another at an ever-increasing rate, the first population of stars to form in the Universe are now too far away for us to ever hope of spying on them – even using the best present or future telescope. Hope is not lost; we can attempt to spot them indirectly via the energetic bursts of radiation they emit at the end of their lives.
There are 222 owl species in the world. Most are nocturnal, but a few are active during the daytime, such as the Barred Owl.
Manatees live in the water but they need air to survive. They surface every few minutes when active and can stay under for as long as 20 minutes if still.
There are also four species of three-toed sloths including Bradypodidae pygmaeus, a pygmy species. The other three are B. torquatus, which has a mane; B. tridactylus also known as the pale-throated, three-toed sloth; and B. variegatus, the brown-throated, three-toed sloth. They share many characteristics with their two-toed cousins, but a few things are different.
A female housefly lays batches of around 100–150 white eggs and may lay more than 500 eggs in her lifetime of just a few days.
Both male and female pigeons produce a substance called crop milk to feed their chicks. Very few birds have this rare ability, just greater flamingos, emperor penguins, pigeons and doves.
As well as gills, axolotls also develop lungs. They’re one of the few creatures on Earth to use gills and lungs to breathe, although they mostly rely on their gills.
According to research, starting school at 10 am is better for your health. This is particularly true for teenagers, whose growing bodies require more sleep than they’re able to get with conventionally early start times. Not only does starting a few hours later reduce illness by up to fifty per cent but it’s been found to boost students’ grades significantly!
There’s a mountain in Greece that women are prohibited from visiting. It’s not just the mountain, but an entire peninsula called Mount Athos. You see, Mount Athos has been home to a collection of monasteries since at least the 4th Century AD. For more than a thousand years, if not longer, the presence of women has been banned not just from the monasteries but from the whole peninsula. Mount Athos is an autonomous region of Greece controlled by the Greek Orthodox Church. According to the Church, the Virgin Mary blessed the peninsula and made it her holy garden, so no other women were allowed to be there. Other than wild animals and a few cats, the animals there are also all male.
In Japan, when a train leaves the station at the wrong time, the rail company apologizes. Back in 2018, a train in Japan left the station a full 25 seconds early, which probably sounds like nothing out of the ordinary to most people worldwide. The train operator admitted his mistake, exclaiming, “The great inconvenience we placed upon our customers was truly inexcusable.” Japanese trains are known for their punctuality, so there were a few passengers who missed their train that day!
Kim Il Sung loved Hennessy cognac so much he bought more than $800,000 of it per year! The vast majority of people in North Korea live rather impoverished lives, and this has been the case under multiple generations of the ruling dynasties now. High-ranking officials and North Korea’s leaders live very different lives, spoiling themselves lavishly and allowing themselves access to otherwise forbidden imported goods. For example, Kim Il Sung was so crazy about Hennessy that he was the cognac company’s number-one customer for a few years in the 1990s.
First cellular/mobile phone ever. Motorola released the world’s first mobile phone, the DynaTAC 8000x, in 1983. This portable phone cost $3,995 upon release and offered 30 minutes of talk time. Charging the device required 10 hours, and it could only store 30 phone numbers in memory. Unsurprisingly, few people purchased the device, but it marked a breakthrough in mobile technology. Nowadays, cell phones and smartphones (no matter how cheap or expensive they are) are indispensable gadgets in people’s lives.
What Was The First Apple Logo? Everyone recognises the Apple logo today, which is unsurprisingly an apple. Ronald Wayne, Apple Computer Co co-founder, designed the original Apple logo when started the company. In the 1970s, Apple’s logo featured Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head, hence the symbolism of the logo. A quote from William Wordsworth lined the frame of the Apple logo. Apple has since adopted its more common “bitten-apple” based logo. Nonetheless, few people could identify the company’s original logo if given a multiple-choice quiz. The modern, simplified logo for the company right now exemplifies everything Apple is about today.
Domain Names were free before 1995. Domain name registration often costs a few dollars (or more) these days. Before 1995, registering a domain didn’t cost a penny, though. The National Science Foundation gave Network Solutions permission to charge for domain registration that year. Two-year registration for a domain initially cost $100. Prices trended downward for .COM domains after that. Available, unparked domains often cost $20 to $30 for a two-year registration. Purchasing a parked or popular domain name can, of course, cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. By 1995, only a few thousand domain names existed, so not many companies received free domains.
IBM 305 RAMAC: The Supercomputer That Weighed A Ton (Literally). In September 1956, IBM announced and released the IBM 305 RAMAC supercomputer. It was the first supercomputer to use magnetic disk storage. More than 1,000 systems were built and sold before the 305 RAMAC became obsolete in 1962. The machine weighed more than a ton and required multiple people to set up or move. IBM charged companies and organisations $3,200 per month for the IBM 305. That amounts to nearly $30,000 in today’s dollars. For that reason, government organisations and large corporations were the main customers of IBM’s supercomputer. Subsequent supercomputers were released by IBM. The company releases a new supercomputer every few years on average.
The first cell phone call. The first mobile phone call took place on April 3, 1973. Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher, placed the call on a prototype device. After dialling the phone number, his device connected to a base station, which then connected to the landline system of AT&T. Cooper called his biggest rival at AT&T, Joel Engel. Cooper kept the conversation both brief and modest. He simply told Engel he had made the call from a bona fide mobile phone. From there, Cooper helped Motorola and other companies usher in the age of the mobile phone a few years later.
Each year, Americans dump cell phones containing worth over $60 million in gold and silver. E-waste comprises 2% of the waste in America’s landfills. Shockingly, 70% of all toxic waste is comprised of e-waste. Americans throw away 14 million mobile devices each year. Few people realize these devices contain precious metals like gold and silver. On an annual basis, Americans toss $60 million in gold and silver straight into the trash.
Top 5 best-selling video games of all time. Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time by a large margin. The game was released in November 2011 and has sold 200 million units. People of all ages love crafting and survival games. Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto V holds the number two spot with 140 million units sold. Quite a few people log on every week to partake in this regularly updated open-world title. Both titles include sales across multiple platforms. On the other hand, Tetris holds the number three spot in mobile sales alone. The classic game has amassed 100 million in sales since its release in 2006. Wii Sports lands at number four and features sales on one platform as well. Finally, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds hit 70 million in sales across multiple platforms to round out the top five best-selling games list. Every title on the list saw an initial release between 2006 and 2017.
This man threw a hard drive loaded with 7500 bitcoins into the trash. James Howells mined 7,500 Bitcoins in 2009 and stored them on a hard drive. At that point, Bitcoin’s value amounted to almost nothing. The cryptocurrency slowly started to grow in value after a few years, and Howells thought he owned a small fortune. Only then did he realize he accidentally threw away the hard drive sometime in 2013? Howells lives in Wales and contacted the Newport City Council to excavate the local landfill. He offered the City Council over $70 million if the hard drive was recovered. Based on today’s rate, the hard drive is worth more than $375 million. The City council baulked at the offer due to environmental regulations and the required cost.
Facebook: It’s Become a Leading Factor in Divorce. Facebook has been the subject of myriad research studies, but few are as intriguing as one published in the Journal of Cyberpsychology, Behaviour and Social Networking that investigated relationship break-up rates. Findings, that “more frequent social media use and monitoring of one’s partner could lead to misunderstandings and feelings of jealousy,” in addition emotional and physical cheating can be traced to Facebook interactions. Additionally, another study undertaken by British attorneys using evidence culled from Facebook for divorce proceedings, concluded that Facebook can hurt people in committed relationships and even offer tips on how to avoid splitting up.
Top Android Apps for 2021. Having recently crunched sales numbers and pulled statistics related to Android app usage, analysts at the Android Authority website say 2022 will be more dynamic. “There are a ton of amazing Android apps out there. However, there are a few that stand out above the rest.” Apps that help consumers function are listed below, but for games and fun, this website is your resource: https://play.Google.com/store/apps/top?hl=en&gl=US. 1Weather, Google Drive, Waze and Google Maps, Google Search/Assistant/Feed, Last Pass, Microsoft SwiftKey, Nova Launcher, Podcast Addict, Poweramp, Solid Explorer, Tasker and IFTTT, Textra, TickTick, YouTube; YouTube Music, Zedge.
The Boston Marathon didn’t allow female runners until 1972. The first woman to finish the Boston Marathon, Roberta Gibb, actually ran the race a few years earlier in 1966. She hid in some bushes until the race started to avoid detection and then ran the marathon without any official sanction. Another woman, Katherine Switzer, didn’t declare herself a woman when she competed in 1967 and was allowed to enter the race. When it became apparent that she wasn’t a man, the officials unsuccessfully tried to stop her from competing. It wasn’t until the fall of 1971 when the Amateur Athletics Union allowed women to compete, which made 1972’s marathon the first to officially allow female entrants. Eight women competed in the 1972 Boston Marathon, and all eight completed it, with Nina Kuscsik claiming the first official female victory.
In Slovakia, they have Christmas Carp that live in the family bathtub for a few days before they are eaten.
Army on the streets. The last time the British Army deliberately killed anyone in Britain, (as distinct from Northern Ireland which is a very different story), was in August 1911. Two civilians were shot in Liverpool during a rail strike, and a few days later in Llanelli, two civilians were shot and killed again during a strike.
Two significant car crashes. On 13 December 1931, Winston Churchill was struck by a car while crossing Fifth Ave in New York City. He had looked the wrong way before crossing the street and was dragged for several yards, sustaining bruises, sprains and cuts. In the same year, a 19-year-old British aristocrat named John Scott-Ellis was driving a red Fiat in Munich and almost hit the future Führer, Adolf Hitler. Scott-Ellis jumped out of his car and apologised, and Hitler only suffered minor bruises. They shook hands, and Scott-Ellis later remarked, ‘For a few seconds, perhaps, I held the history of Europe in my rather clumsy hands. . . [Hitler] was only shaken up, but had I killed him, it would have changed the history of the world.’
Havoc! One of the few known medieval battlefield orders is the cry of ‘Havoc!’. Havoc released the army from any formation and gave freedom to loot, and was an order only ever to be given when it was utterly certain that a battle was won and discipline was no longer required. It was considered so dangerous that it was expressly forbidden without permission from the army’s commander. A wrongly timed cry of havoc could cost a battle and there were severe punishments for crying havoc without permission – sometimes extending to beheading.
The Churchill myth. Of Winston Churchill’s most famous 1940 speeches: ‘Blood, toil, tears and Sweat,’ ‘Fight Them on the beaches’, ‘Finest Hour,’ and ‘The Few,’ only one, ‘Finest Hour’ was broadcast on the radio at the time. All of them were delivered to the House of Commons, but only after his ‘Finest Hour’ speech did Churchill record a version later for the BBC. The other speeches he only recorded in 1949.
Emu war. In 1932 the government of Western Australia declared war on emus, a native bird species that was damageing crops in the region. The government sent soldiers armed with machine guns to hunt the emus, who proved elusive. Despite firing thousands of rounds of ammunition, the soldiers were able to kill ‘only a few’ emus before the government declared peace after less than a week.
New clocks are set at 10:10 for a reason. If you’ve bought a new clock or watch recently, you may have noticed that the default setting was 10:10, give or take a few minutes. There are various theories behind this particular choice of time, but really, it all comes down to aesthetics. Setting the time to around 10:10 allows the hands of an analogue clock to be displayed in a neat, symmetrical way that doesn’t obscure any logos in the centre of the clock’s face. Clocks were once set to 8:20, and occasionally still are, but the hands’ downward angles can make it look like the timepieces are frowning.
Debian: The Mother of Many Linux Distributions: Debian was among the first GNU/Linux distributions to be community-driven. Debian 0.01 was the first Debian release and was made publicly available on September 15, 1993. Its first stable version – Debian 1.1 – was released on June 17, 1996. Debian is considered the ‘Mother’ of many Linux distributions. Popular Debian-based Linux distributions include Ubuntu, MX Linux, Deepin, and Pop! OS, Zorin OS, and Kali Linux to mention a few examples.
After the Victoria Station bombing of 1991 where the bomb was hidden in a dustbin, there are still very few dustbins in the London Underground.
Trash Can Removal: London has few trash cans. The city had several terrorist assaults, and trash was the most common dropping place. Therefore, they were eliminated.
Stonehenge Is More Ancient Than the Pyramids: Few people are aware that Stonehenge, one of the most well-known prehistoric monuments in the world, predates the pyramids by even longer. Another interesting information about England is that Stonehenge was constructed during the Bronze Age as a cemetery. The remarkable stone circle was created in the late Neolithic era, roughly 2500 BC, and the initial stones were part of an early Henge monument, which dates back to 3000 BC. Meanwhile, the construction of the pyramids took place between 2500 and 2400 BC. Therefore, we can conclude that both of these ancient sites are well worth seeing! Not only as a sightseeing spot for tourists all over the globe, but Stonehenge is also a site of interest for students in related fields as well. For learners studying this prehistoric monument, uhomes.com provides a list of accommodation options in the area.
YouTube is banned in 23 countries, including China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, and Turkmenistan, to name a few.
The world’s top universities have increased their AI-related education over the last few years, according to the AI Index.
‘’…according to artificial intelligence expert Dr. David Levy, in a few generations, we won’t just be having sex with robots, we’ll be marrying them.” He predicted that human-robot marriages will be legal by the year 2050. – CBC Radio