Surgeons who play video games at least 3 hours a week perform 27% faster and make 37% fewer errors.
100 Mind-Blowing Hours Facts
The first Game Boy could run for a staggering 30 hours on only two AA batteries!
If you were to have your picture taken by the very first camera, you’d need to sit still for 8 hours.
Each day on Neptune lasts for around 16 hours, 6 minutes, and 36 seconds.
In Japan, many families eat a KFC for Christmas Dinner. Many people order their meals months in advance and queue for hours to collect them.
The whole Harry Potter series contains 199 chapters, 4,224 pages, and 1,090,739 words and has been made into 19 hours and 39 minutes of the film.
On average, PewDiePie receives around 2 million YouTube views on each video after only 24 hours of uploading them.
Spacesuits take 5,000 hours to make, cost 1 million dollars, weigh about 110 pounds and have 11 layers of material.
The average person in France sleeps 8.83 hours per day, the most in the developed world.
Baby horses can walk and run after just a few hours of being born.
Earth’s rotation is changing speed. It’s slowing. This means that, on average, the length of a day increases by around 1.8 seconds per century. 600 million years ago a day lasted just 21 hours.
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.
The world’s longest concert lasted 453 hours.
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!
Thanks to 3D printing, NASA can email tools to astronauts. Getting new equipment to the Space Station used to take months or years, but the new technology means the tools are ready within hours.
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.
A cat spends on average 15 hours a day sleeping (jealous). This means the majority of its life is spent asleep.
Video games help surgeons perform better. According to a 2007 study, surgeons who play certain video games at least 3 hours a week performed 27% faster with 37% fewer errors during surgery.
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.
In 2014, a missing woman on a vacation in Iceland was found in a search party for herself. A missing tourist in the Eldgja Canyon was found in the search party tasked to locate her. She was last seen on the tour bus nearing the volcanic canyon. However, when she changed out of her clothes, she was reported missing. The search progressed from evening until the wee hours of the morning. The tourist group – and likely the tourist herself – were in for the surprise of their lives when they found the missing person in the search party itself.
A filmmaker once created a 10-hour “film” of paint drying. One of the pettiest yet wittiest fun facts: To protest high tariffs, filmmaker Charlie Lyne submitted a 10-hour “movie” of drying white paint to the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). The board had to watch Paint Drying in its entirety – all 10 hours and 7 minutes of it.
The Titanic film runs for as long as the ship sunk. Minus the present-day scenes and opening/ending credits, Titanic is 2 hours and 45 minutes long – which is also the time it took for the ship to sink in 1912. Additionally, the collision scene lasted 37 seconds, which is also how long the ship collided with the iceberg in real life.
Hugh Jackman went 36 hours without water for Les Miserables. This caused the actor to lose water weight around his eyes and cheeks and end up looking as gaunt as a prisoner.
Indians read the most out of any nationality. Indians spend an average of 10 hours and 42 minutes a week reading, which is more than any other country in the world. Other countries that read the most are Thailand, China, the Philippines, and Egypt.
Before the 1800s, people slept in batches. Before, people had a “first” and “second sleep.” Towards the evening, they would sleep for 3-4 hours, wake for 2-3 hours to do some activities, and then go back to sleep until morning.
A baby can cost new parents 750 hours of sleep. For first-time parents, having a baby can remove 750 hours from their usual total sleeping hours for an entire year.
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.
Indians read the most in the world. On average, they spend 10 hours more of their time during the week just reading. In the age of digital media, this country still prefers an old-fashioned book rather than their phones.
The average adult spends more time on the toilet than exercising. On average, an adult will spend over 3 hours on the toilet per week but only one and a half hours exercising. Maybe it’s time we start working out in the bathroom.
The average male will become bored after 26 minutes of shopping. However, a study found that most women will not get bored until two hours later. Maybe next time you should just leave your boyfriend or husband at home.
Uranus takes 84 years to orbit the sun. This is longer than any of the other planet’s orbits in our solar system. One rotation on Uranus is around 17 hours long. It is also the coldest planet in our solar system.
Recycling glass jars saves energy. One glass jar can attain enough energy to power a television. This power can last up to three hours in one jar alone.
The longest recorded tennis match lasted for 11 hours. This took place at Wimbledon 2010. John Isner won this match against Nicolas Mahut and took over 3 days to complete.
The ratio of Americans that have appeared on TV is 1:4. On average, an adult American will watch a total of 5 hours of TV daily. This is over 35 hours per week.
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.
A cat spends most of its life sleeping. A cat will spend an average of 15 hours a day sleeping. Some cats can sleep longer to a total of 20 hours a day. These felines do most of their sleeping during the day as they are generally active during the night.
Koalas sleep 18 hours a day. Koalas normally sleep for 18-22 hours a day. The reason for this is so that they have enough energy to digest the food that they eat properly.
A person will sleep an average of 25 years in their lifetime. The average time a person sleeps at night is around 8 hours. People also spend an average of 7 years trying to go to sleep.
Ants stretch in the morning. Ants are known to keep a regular daily schedule. This includes the hours they work, sleep, and eat.
People born blind experience dreams of emotions, sounds and smells instead of images. Dreams are a product of our subconscious that is influenced by the stimuli we encounter in waking hours. For people who were born blind, their dreams manifest in other sensations such as smells and sounds.
A cotton shirt takes 700 gallons of water to make. That is enough water for one person to stay hydrated for 900 days. Meanwhile, the amount of water needed to create a pair of jeans is equivalent to hosing your lawn for 9 hours straight.
Babies cry for 1 to 3 hours each day. Babies cry so much because they can’t talk yet. Hunger is usually the main reason why babies cry.
A Lord of the Rings actor would rather hike up a whole mountain than ride a helicopter. One of the things that makes Lord of the Rings lore so rich is the immersive environment of the story’s settings. While shooting the films, the cast had to fly to remote locations via helicopter. Sean Bean, who plays Boromir (and Ned Stark in Game of Thrones) was afraid of flight, and would only do it if he had no choice. During the shootings for the Fellowship crossing snowy mountains, he’d climb for two hours every morning to get to the set. He would make the climb already dressed as Boromir.
The longest TV ad of all time is 14 hours long. Created for a product that supposedly “lasts forever,” this Old Spice commercial features actor Terry Crews and is airing for “an eternity” online. Since TV airtime is particularly expensive, a 14-hour version was aired in Brazil, on December 8, 2018, and earned the Guinness World Record for the longest TV ad ever.
In 2005, Australia banned the word “mate.” Due to complaints, the Australian Parliament once banned the use of “mate” at work. However, it didn’t last too long, and the ruling was withdrawn in 24 hours.
The most teeth extracted from a person is 526. A 7-year-old boy in Chennai, India had 526 teeth removed from his mouth after complaining of severe jaw pain and swelling. When doctors examined his mouth, they found a sac in his lower jaw filled with abnormal teeth, which they had to surgically remove. The entire procedure took 4-5 hours, and it took 3 days for the boy to be discharged from the hospital.
The longest kiss in the world lasted almost 60 hours. Ekkachai and Laksana Tiranarat of Thailand hold the world record for the longest kiss — clocking in at 58 hours, 35 minutes and 58 seconds.
The longest time without sleep is 11 days. The longest time recorded of a person without sleep is approximately 264 hours. Within 3 to 4 days without sleep, you may start having hallucinations. Sleep is a biological function for a reason – it is not advisable to pull all-nighters all the time.
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.
The movie has a runtime of over three hours. Spielberg wanted to ensure that the story was given enough time to fully unfold and capture the complexity of the events.
Cats sleep 16 to 18 hours per day.
Flying from London to New York by Concord, due to the time zones crossed, you can arrive 2 hours before you leave.
Ants rest for around 8 Minutes in 12 hours. Yes, surprising right? But not in the way we interpret sleep. James and Cottel have conducted research which shows that ants have a cyclical pattern of resting periods where each nest respites collectively which lasts for around eight minutes in 12 hours.
Earth’s rotation is changing speed. The Earth is slowing down, which means that, on average, the length of a day increases by around 1.8 seconds per century. If you do the math, a day lasted just 21 hours if you lived on Earth 600 million years ago!
The longest concert to have ever happened lasted 453 hours.
If you walked for 12 hours a day, it would take the average person 690 days to walk around the world.
A day on Mars lasts 24 hours and 37 minutes.
Cats spend approximately 30% of their waking hours grooming themselves.
It takes your body about 12 hours to fully digest food.
The planet Neptune’s days are 16 hours long.
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died hours apart on July 4, 1826.
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.
Neptune’s days are 16 hours long.
Jupiter is the fastest-spinning planet in the solar system (it only takes about 10 hours to complete a full rotation on its axis).
Yuma, Arizona gets over 4000 hours of sunshine a year, making it the sunniest place on Earth. The least sunny place is the South Pole, where the sun only shines on 182 days a year. (Which would you rather live in?)
Elephants eat for about 16 hours every day!
We watch over 1 billion hours of YouTube videos every day. That’s more than the amount of Netflix and Facebook videos we watch combined!
In central Italy, there is a fountain that flows red wine 24 hours a day. It is free to everyone, except for “drunkards and louts.”
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!
It cost $265 million to make Grand Theft Auto V. When the game was released in 2013, it became the most expensive video game ever made. This was no cause for concern for its developers after it raked in a shocking $1 million within the first seventy-two hours of sales. It took five years to develop the game, with Rockstar’s studios all over the world working together in tandem.
Elephants can swim up to six hours at a time. When you look at an elephant, the last thing you would think is that it’s particularly good at swimming, but it turns out that they’re incredibly capable! One of their greatest advantages is their trunk, which they use just like a snorkel to stay underwater for longer periods. Elephants also have great stamina, which allows them to swim for lengthy periods. When they’re tired, they can just float along thanks to their high buoyancy!
A human loses about a million skin cells per 24 hours.
The longest tennis match in history took 11 hours and five minutes, spanning over three days.
In 2003, street artist Banksy put his work on the wall at the Tate Modern Museum in London. The prank lasted several hours.
Earth’s rotation is slowing and gaining 1.8 seconds in a day every century, meaning that 600 million years ago, a day lasted only 21 hours.
The first photo took eight hours to expose in 1826 in France.
According to statistics, Americans spend two hours and 54 minutes using their mobile phones per day.
24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute.
Since the launch of the popular mobile game, Candy Crush, in 2012, players have spent a total of 73 billion hours (equivalent to 8.3 million years) playing this game.
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.
Wikipedia is run and maintained by thousands of humans and hundreds of bots. Everyone knows Wikipedia is powered by thousands of human contributors. On the other hand, most people don’t realize hundreds of bots contribute to the effort, too. ClueBot NG catches vandalism on Wikipedia pages almost in real-time. A variety of other bots contribute standardised data to the online encyclopedia. This combination of humans and bots ensures Wikipedia runs without any problems 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
Study Reveals Surgeons Need To Play More Video Games, But Why? Beth Israel Medical Centre in New York recently carried out a study with 33 of its surgeons. The surgeons took a surgical skills test in Laparoscopy that lasted almost two days. In the study, researchers tracked performance in the skills test on an individual level. They then recorded each surgeon’s habits about playing video games. Nine of 33 surgeons played an average of three hours of games per week. They outscored surgeons that never played video games in various categories. For instance, they committed 37 per cent fewer errors and completed the test 27 per cent faster. The study concluded a strong correlation exists between surgical skill and Laparoscopy performance.
YouTube Has 2 billion Monthly Logged-in Users. Are you impressed by the number of active iPhones currently in use? Multiply that number by two and you will have a good idea of the number of people who count on YouTube tutorials and broadcasts for myriad reasons. An international presence is partly responsible for these big numbers. Localised versions of YouTube produce content for around 100 nations, broadcasting in approximately 80 languages. Do you upload content? You’re in good company. About 500 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute, fulfilling this social media platform’s long-term goal to be a primary resource for folks around the planet.
The first camera needed an incredibly long exposure. The first photograph ever taken in 1826 took 8 hours to expose! The creator of that camera, Louis Daguerre, was able to lower that time drastically to just 15 minutes in 1839.
You’re in good hands if your surgeon was a gamer. Oddly enough, surgeons who grew up playing video games more than 3 hours per week make 37% fewer errors! Not only that, but they also had a 42% faster completion rate when it came to performing laparoscopic surgery, as well as suturing.
Millions of hours of TV and movies are watched every day on Netflix. Of course, Netflix is a massively popular company, so it’s not that big of a surprise. The world spends about 164 million hours every day streaming Netflix, which is equivalent to 18,812 years’ worth of TV and movies every 24 hours. Now my binge-watching habits don’t seem so bad!
Until 2010, carrier pigeons were faster than the Internet. When comparing upload speeds, a test was done to fly a carrier pigeon with a USB stick 50 miles to an Internet provider while racing against an Internet upload. The pigeon made it in just over an hour, while the upload took over two hours.
An average 21-year-old has spent 5,000 hours playing video games. These days, by 21, you’ll have also sent 250,000 emails and texts and spent 10,000 hours on a cell phone. That’s a lot of time!
There is a machine that can predict heart attacks. Researchers “trained” a machine-learning algorithm that was able to predict heart attacks. It can predict heart attacks up to four hours before they happen – with 80% accuracy.
College of the Ozarks doesn’t charge tuition. Instead, students work on campus at least 15 hours a week and have two 40-hour work weeks.
Gravity is also the reason why our days are getting longer. Over a billion years ago, a day on Earth lasted around 18 hours. Our days are longer now because the moon’s gravity is causing Earth’s spin to slow down. In Earth’s earlier days, the moon wasn’t as far away, which caused Earth to spin much faster than it currently does. Longer days also mean shorter years—kind of. The time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun hasn’t changed, but the amount of days within a year has. Back when the dinosaurs ruled 70 million years ago, days were only around 23.5 hours long, and a year was made up of 372 of those slightly shorter days.
There are two ways to think of the length of a day on Earth. Though you probably learned that one day on Earth is 24 hours, it takes the planet 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.0916 seconds to rotate on its axis. This is the difference between a solar day and a sidereal day—a solar day is 24 hours, whereas a sidereal day is roughly four minutes shorter. We measure solar time based on the sun’s position in the sky; a sidereal day is measured based on the location of the “fixed” stars. In other words, a sidereal day is the time it takes for a distant star or constellation to appear on the same meridian.
But Sosigenes made a bit of a miscalculation, so the calendar continued to be a little off. He thought a year lasted 365.25 days. It’s around 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds, equivalent to about 365.242 days. This tiny error had some pretty big consequences: By 1577, the Julian calendar was off by 10 days, meaning key Christian holidays were being celebrated on incorrect dates. Pope Gregory XIII took issue with this and established a commission to get the calendar back on track. In 1582, the Gregorian calendar was created. Rather than having an extra day every four years without exception, years that are divisible by 100—like 1700 or 1900—skip leap year. Unless the year is also divisible by 400, like the year 2000, in which case the Leap Year is back on! Even this system isn’t perfect, though: It has an error of one day in 3236 years.
Time zones can still be a bit complicated. Big countries like Canada and the United States have multiple time zones, whereas China, another large country, only has one. China adopted the Beijing Standard Time to foster unity, but the effect can feel a bit uncanny—two cities in the country can be at roughly the same latitude, but experience sunrise hours apart, according to their clocks. In some parts of China, for example, the sun doesn’t rise until nearly 10 a.m.
Though a lot of people believe daylight saving time was adopted to keep farmers happy, that’s a myth. The first person to seriously advocate for daylight saving time was an entomologist who wanted more sunlit hours to look for insects after work in the summer. He proposed his idea to a scientific society in New Zealand in 1895.
Cybercrime costs the world economy more than $1 trillion per year (McAfee): McAfee believes the cost of cybercrime around the world is around $1 trillion per year, accounting for around 1% of our total GDP. The costs of cybercrime are often influenced by several factors of course, including the degree of damage caused, the theft of certain property (intellectual or otherwise), and the costs of stolen money. When companies lose data, there are hours of work put into fixing the problem.
England is very close to Europe’s mainland: The Channel Tunnel, also playfully known as the ‘Chunnel’, connects Folkestone to Calais. The tunnel offers easy access between England and France and stretches over 31.5 miles. The tunnel was built in 1993, with the Eurostar’s handy services beginning in 1994. It’s the longest undersea tunnel in the world, with 23.5 miles of tunnel stretching 75 metres below the surface of the English Channel. Thanks to the Chunnel, you can get to Paris from London in just over two and a half hours!
There is a strange law in the UK which states that all men over the age of 14 years have to carry two hours of longbow practice every week. Though it’s not followed today, it was never actually abolished.
Every minute, over 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.
Every month, YouTubers watch 6 billion hours of videos per month and 4 billion videos every day.