Hershey’s Kisses are named after the kissing sound the deposited chocolate makes as it falls from the machine on the conveyor belt.
100 Mind-Blowing Makes Facts
Birds are the closest living relatives of crocodilians, as well as the descendants of extinct dinosaurs with feathers. This makes them the only surviving dinosaurs.
The line “Born and raised in South Detroit” in Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin” makes no sense, as there is no South Detroit. Detroit, Michigan, lies on the northern side of the Detroit River, and Ontario, Canada, lies to its south.
Humans have been performing dentistry since 7000 BC, which makes dentistry one of the oldest professions.
People can suffer from a psychological disorder called Boanthropy that makes them believe they are a cow.
Facebook causes you to overestimate how happy your friends are and, in turn, makes you more depressed.
Giraffes are 30 times more likely to get hit by lightning than people. True, there are only five well-documented fatal lightning strikes on giraffes between 1996 and 2010. However, due to the population of the species being just 140,000 during this time, it makes for about 0.003 lightning deaths per thousand giraffes each year. This is 30 times the equivalent fatality rate for humans.
The Sun makes a sound but we can’t hear it. In the form of pressure waves, the Sun does make a sound. The wavelength of the pressure waves from the Sun is measured in hundreds of miles, however, meaning they are far beyond the range of human hearing.
Most maps of the world are wrong. On most maps, the Mercator projection – first developed in 1569 – is still used. This method is wildly inaccurate and makes Alaska appear as large as Brazil and Greenland 14 times larger than it is. For a map to be completely accurate, it would need to be life-size and round, not flat.
It’s almost impossible to get too much sugar from fresh fruit. While the sugar in fruit is mostly fructose and glucose (fructose is what’s converted into fat in your body), you can’t get too much sugar from fresh fruit. Fresh fruit contains a lot of fibre and water which slows down your digestion and makes you feel full.
A rainbow on Venus is called glory. Appearing as a series of coloured concentric rings, these are caused by the interference of light waves within droplets, rather than the reflection, refraction and dispersion of light that makes a rainbow.
Football players spit so much because exercise increases the amount of protein in saliva. When you exercise, the amount of protein secreted into the saliva increases. A protein mucus named MUC5B makes your saliva thicker when you’re exercising which makes it more difficult to swallow so we tend to spit more. It may occur during exercise because we breathe through our mouths more. MUC5B could activate to stop our mouths from drying out, therefore.
Earth is 4.54 billion years old. Using radiometric dating, scientists have discovered that the Earth is 4.54 billion years old (give or take 50 million years). This makes our planet half the age of the Milky Way Galaxy (11-13 billion years old) and around a third of the age of the Universe (10-15 billion years old).
Glass sponges can live for 15,000 years. This makes them one of the longest-living organisms on Earth. The immortal jellyfish, however, could theoretically live forever (but scientists aren’t sure)
Each limestone/granite block that makes up the Great Pyramid of Giza weighs 2.5 tons. And there are 2.3 million of them. Yes, you read that correctly.
The O&H Danish Bakery in Racine, Wisconsin, makes 7,000 Kringles a day during the holiday season and has made landfall in all seven continents. A Kringle is Wisconsin’s State Pastry, originally hails from Northern Europe and is a sweet variation on a pretzel.
Medical errors are a top cause of death. According to a Johns Hopkins research team, 250,000 deaths in the United States are caused by medical errors each year. This makes medical errors the third leading cause of death in the country.
Cap’n Crunch’s full name is Horatio Magellan Crunch. He’s also been called out for only having the bars of a Navy commander, but the so-called Cap’n held his ground on Twitter, arguing that captaining the S.S. Guppy with his crew “makes an official Cap’n in any book!”
Bananas glow blue under black lights. To the everyday eye under normal conditions, ripe bananas appear yellow due to organic pigments called carotenoids. When bananas ripen, chlorophyll begins to break down. This pigment is the element that makes bananas glow, or fluoresce, under UV lights and appear blue.
People are more creative in the shower. When we take a warm shower, we experience an increased dopamine flow that makes us more creative.
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.
Hershey’s Kisses were named after the kissing sound, the chocolate makes on the conveyor belt. Before discovering this fun fact, I thought Kisses were named after the shape your mouth makes when you place the chocolate on your lips, tip-first. However, Hershey’s is named for the sound it makes during the manufacturing process. A machine squirts the chocolate mixture onto the conveyor with a “kiss” sound. Another Hershey’s fun fact? The paper-strip plume on top of Hershey’s Kisses is trademarked.
Napoléon Bonaparte’s penis was stolen. Posthumously, if that makes it any better. The genitalia were removed from his body by his doctor during the autopsy. Allegedly, it was given to a priest in Corsica. However, his junk was not properly preserved, so now it has been compared to dried leather and beef jerky. It was first displayed in a museum in 1927. Currently, the daughter of a urologist (who bought it for US$3,000 to keep under his bed) keeps it. Bids for the shrivelled genitalia have reached US$100,000.
The Eiffel Tower leans away from the sun. Heat makes metals expand. As such, the top of the Eiffel Tower can move up to 7 inches in the summer.
The word “testify” is based on… testes? The term “testify” is said to be rooted in the Ancient Roman custom of making men swear on their testicles in court. However, there is no written confirmation that this is the case. Instead, people may have taken the Latin word testis out of context: it can mean testes but also translates to witness. You decide which one makes more sense.
Victorians said “prunes” when taking pictures. Whenever we take photos, we say “cheese” because it makes us smile. However, smiling in photographs was once seen as a vulgar act. To keep a neutral face, they would say “prunes,” but there was little to no chance of it forming a smile.
The red-billed quelea is the most common bird on Earth. You may have never seen one in your community, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t building a legion. These birds are native to sub-Saharan Africa, where they’re considered “agricultural pests” because their flocks can destroy entire crops. Their population fluctuates between 1 to 10 billion queleas, which makes scientists conclude that they are the most abundant birds on Earth.
At the Humane Society of Missouri, kid volunteers comfort anxious shelter dogs by reading to them. Shelter dogs have usually lived through significant trauma. This makes it difficult for some dogs to be adopted due to their changed behaviour. To solve this, the Humane Society of Missouri created the Shelter Buddies Reading Program. It pairs kids aged 6 to 15 with anxious, mistrustful dogs to socialize them for home life.
You cannot crack your knuckles. The sound it makes is due to the gasses that are released when you put pressure on them. When joints are stretched, the pockets of gas between the joints are released.
Sleep deprivation makes it harder to lose weight. Lack of sleep can interfere with one’s hormone balance and decrease leptin. It also increases ghrelin which is the hormone that triggers hunger.
Queen Elizabeth is a trained mechanic. During her time as a princess, she was a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service during WWII. This also makes her the only member of the Royal family to have served in the military.
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.
Applying equal pressure on an egg will prevent it from breaking. It is nearly impossible to break eggs this way because the sides are the strongest part of the egg’s shell. The curved form of the egg helps it distribute pressure evenly which makes the take difficult to accomplish.
There is a term for a person who is perpetually afraid of being late. Time anxiety is the fear of running out of time. People who suffer from this have an obsession with spending their time in the most meaningful way possible. Commonly, people who suffer this are also in a constant rush which makes those around them feel uncomfortable.
Owls have specialised feathers. These feathers have edges that protrude out to dissipate the airflow when they fly. Because of this, their flights are silent which makes them deadly hunters at night.
A Costa Rican worker who makes baseball earns $2,750 annually. The average American pro baseball player earns $2,377,000 per year. The majority of regulation baseballs are stitched by hand.
Michael Jordan makes a lot of money from Nike. This is more than what all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia annually make combined. This is enough money to be able to feel the entire world population a meal.
About one cluster of grapes makes up one glass of wine. This is around a total of 75 grapes.
You can gain calories by licking stamps. Licking 1 stamp makes you consume 1/10 of a calorie. If you were to lick 3000 stamps a day that would equate to about 16 chicken nuggets from McDonald’s.
Apart from their fur, tigers also have striped skin. A tiger’s stripes are an advantage because it helps break up the outline of its body which makes it hard to spot. They also help camouflage a tiger in the grass while it stalks its prey.
A glacier called Blood Falls exists. In Antarctica, this glacier is known to regularly pour out red liquid. This makes it look as if it is bleeding, hence the name.
Mixing sperm and caffeine in a test tube makes them swim better. This resulted in a premature burn out which makes the sperm inactive enough to properly fertilize an egg.
The Netherlands has to import criminals to fill up their jails. Since 2004, the Netherlands’ crime rate has only gotten lower and lower. In 2013, a prison shut down because there were no criminals to put behind bars. This low crime rate makes this country one of the safest places on the planet.
The hair of a reindeer is hollow. The hair inside their noses is also efficient heat exchangers that warm up the cold air they breathe in. This makes them good insulators.
Until it blows against something, the wind makes no sound. Ready for more did you know the facts? The sounds you hear during a windy day are due to the speed of the wind coming into contact with various objects at the same time. The process of friction can also cause sounds at higher pitches depending on the speed of the wind.
Giraffes cannot swim. A giraffe can maintain its balance on land due to its gait. However, research has shown that this balance is ineffective in the water. This makes them one of the worst swimmers in the animal kingdom.
The Dead Sea is an inland lake. It runs along Jordan’s western edge and can be travelled to within an hour from Amman. The Dead Sea is also linked to Aqaba by the highway which makes it accessible to most people living nearby the area.
Flowers grow faster with music. We’ve all encountered the age-old question of, “Do plants have feelings?” Fellows with a green thumb would argue yes, but it’s still being studied in science. However, plants have been shown to respond to certain stimuli in the most interesting ways. For example, playing a lullaby to plants makes them grow faster. However, they tend to wilt or die with heavier music. Plants may or may not have feelings, but they sure are gentle souls.
Cheddar cheese is not orange. Originally, the colour of cheese changes with the seasons because of the cow’s diet. During the summer or spring, the beta-carotene in grass makes cows produce yellow cheese. On the other hand, fall and winter cause them to eat hay instead, producing whiter cheese. With that, farmers started dying the cheese since people preferred yellow ones.
8 million tons of garbage are added to the ocean per year. The average person makes about 2 kg of waste each day.
The Fender Guitar company makes 90,000 guitar strings a day. Fender may be one of the biggest music companies, but its founder, Leo Fender, did not know how to play any instruments.
Almost 1.25 million people die in road accidents every year. That makes an average of 3,287 road crash deaths per day.
Malls and casinos fool us with the Gruen Transfer. One thing that malls and casinos have in common aside from crowds and spending is that there are barely any clocks and windows. To the people inside, this creates a “scripted disorientation” called the Gruen Transfer that makes them lose track of time.
NASA saw 168 errors in the space film Armageddon. The film Armageddon is so scientifically inaccurate that NASA uses it as a test for its management training program. NASA shows the film to new managers and makes them spot as many errors as possible. So far, about 168 have been found.
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.
Horizontal refreshment used to be the 19th-century slang for sex. I mean, if you think about it, it makes total sense.
In Kentucky, there are more barrels of bourbon than there are people. It only makes sense, since 95% of the world’s bourbon comes from Kentucky.
You swallow about 365 cups of mucus in a year. That makes over 22 gallons of mucus a year.
About 100 people choke on pens each year in the U.S. Roughly 100 people choke on pen caps per year in America, which is why BIC adopted their iconic holed caps. The hole not only serves as a design feature, but it makes sure that a person can breathe even if they ingest it.
¼ of all your bones are in your feet. There are 26 bones and 33 joints in each foot. That makes 52 bones in both feet out of the 206 bones in our whole body – which makes foot bones more than 25% of the body’s total bone structure.
The butterflies in your stomach are a distress call. When you see someone you like and your stomach makes weird flips, it is a stress response caused by adrenaline levels.
Wimbledon tennis balls must be stored at perfect room temperature. Wimbledon tennis balls must be kept at 68 degrees Fahrenheit because the temperature affects how it bounces. If it’s warmer gas molecules inside the ball expand, which makes it bounce higher. If it’s cooler, the molecules will shrink, making the ball bounce lower.
The only food that doesn’t spoil is honey. The water content of honey is a key factor in why it doesn’t spoil. At 17% water content, it dehydrates bacteria which makes it resistant to spoiling.
Water makes different pouring sounds depending on its temperature. If you have a keen ear, you’ll notice that hot water and cold water sound a bit different when being poured. Heat changes the thickness or viscosity of the water, which gives its pouring sound a different pitch. Cold water is more viscous and makes a higher-pitched sound.
The first tagline for the Nerf ball was “Nerf: You can’t hurt babies or old people!” I mean, that is somewhat true. It makes sense.
Flamingo chicks are born grey. Their diet of shrimp makes them pink later on.
You can estimate the temperature through cricket chirps. If you count how many chirps a cricket makes in 15 seconds and then add 37, you’ll get a rough estimate of the temperature.
Scientists accidentally killed the world’s oldest animal while trying to learn its age. Everybody makes mistakes. When scientists found an ancient ocean quahog, they decided to examine it from the inside to determine its true age. However, in doing so, they accidentally killed the ancient clam. And all for nothing, too – they ended up using the outside of its shell to determine its age. Ming, named after the dynasty it was born, had been 507 years old at the time of its discovery.
Saffron is more expensive than gold. Iran is the world’s main producer of saffron, supplying 95% of the saffron market. Each flower produces about three red stamens which must be hand-picked. For every 150 flowers, only 1 gram of saffron is produced. The lengthy process plus its rarity makes this precious spice cost $3,000 per kg.
There’s a brewery in Japan that makes beer from elephant poop. The brewery, Sankt Gallen, produces a beer called Un Kono Kuro, made with coffee beans that have passed through an elephant.
There’s a sport for making weird faces. A gurn or chuck is a particularly funny facial expression. The typical “gurn” involves protruding the lower jaw as forward as possible, completely covering the upper lip with the lower lip. Anne Woods of the U.K. has won 27 gurning championships from 1977-2010, which makes her the record-holder for the most gurning world championships won.
Grass flip-flops are an actual product you can buy. The Australian company KUSA makes artificial grass flip-flops that simulate the feeling of walking on fresh grass. See for yourself if these grass flip-flops are as comfy as they say so.
Hershey’s makes one million miles of Twizzlers every year. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, there is certainly enough demand for Twizzlers for Hershey’s to create over 1.6 million kilometres of it. Think about that the next time you slander Twizzlers.
Rice is the oldest food we still eat today. In 2003, scientists recovered 15,000-year-old burnt rice grains in Korea. This makes rice the oldest known food that we eat till the present.
The director, Rob Reiner, has a cameo appearance in the film. Rob Reiner, known for his roles in both directing and acting, makes a brief appearance in The Bucket List.
The film’s realism makes it difficult to watch. “Schindler’s List” does not shy away from depicting the brutal realities of the Holocaust, making it a challenging but essential viewing experience.
The average person makes about 1,140 telephone calls each year.
The most common name in the world is Mohammed. As per the sixth edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia (2000), Muhammad is the most common name in the world including its variations. More than 150 million men and boys in the world bear the name Muhammad which makes it the most popular name in the world.
When the moon is directly overhead, you will weigh slightly less. Yes, this is true, as per the calculation it is said that a person will weigh 0.48g lighter for a 100kg person. When the moon is directly overhead, they are going to weigh 0.5g lighter as the moon attracts you in the same way it attracts water when it makes tides.
It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky. The anatomy of a pig’s neck muscles and spine has certain limitations to the movement of their head and restricts them from looking upwards. This makes it impossible for them to look up straight to the sky.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. Crocodiles have a membrane which holds their tongue in place on the roof of their mouth so it does not move. According to BBC, this nearly makes it impossible for them to stick it outside of their narrow mouths.
Most lipstick contains fish scales. Most of the lipsticks made are the byproduct of fish scales called pearl essence or pearlescence as it turns out that the stuff that makes the fish scales shine makes one’s lips shiny as well. Pearlessence comes from commercially fished herring. There are synthetic versions available as well but they are not widely used.
When a cat makes a question-mark-shaped tail it’s asking, “Want to play?”
We are more creative in the shower. Here’s one of the most useful weird fun facts! If you’ve ever felt like you think better in a warm shower, you’re probably right! The warm water increases the flow of dopamine and makes us more creative.
Froot Loops are all the same flavour despite their different colours. This is such a disappointment, but it makes sense when you think about it!
Mars is smaller than Earth with a diameter of 4217 miles. This makes it the second smallest planet in our solar system.
94% of pet owners say their animal pal makes them smile more than once a day.
The Eiffel Tower can grow up to about 6 inches taller in the summer. That’s because the heat makes the iron expand.
Sloths usually mate and give birth while hanging in trees. Mothers will birth their babies either on the ground or upside down in a hanging position. After it is born the infant grabs onto the mother’s fur and makes its way to her chest to nurse.
Iron makes up around 5% of the Earth’s crust.
Water sounds different depending on the temperature. Heat changes how thick water is, which affects the sounds water makes as it is running. Cold water makes a higher pitch than hot water.
Friends is a well-loved show that airs on many channels and is still branded on merchandise today. The cast still receives a percent of everything the show makes resulting in each of the main six cast members getting a check for around $20 million each year.
Axolotl gills appear as feathery appendages on the outside of their bodies. It makes them super recognisable – and very cute to boot!
Axolotls have a massive DNA genome. It’s ten times larger than humans, with over 32 billion individual DNA strands. This makes it a real challenge for the scientists tasked with discovering how they’re able to regenerate limbs and organs.
There’s a pub in Ireland that’s been running for more than 1,100 years! Sean’s Bar in Athlone Ireland has been open for business since about 900 AD, with records of every owner of the pub since its founding. While surprising at first, it makes sense that it has stood the test of time. Sean’s Bar is in the middle of a town that’s pretty much smack-bang in the centre of Ireland.
The author of the James Bond novels wrote the first book to take his mind off the fear of getting married. Ian Fleming was a bachelor of 44 years when he wrote Casino Royale in 1952, the first in a long series about the devilishly handsome British spy. Many years later, Fleming wrote in his memoirs that he was so terrified at the concept of finally getting married that he wrote his first Bond novel. Some authors doubt this dismissal, claiming he simply wrote it as a quick cash job, but it makes a hell of a good story!
You blink less than half as often when using a computer, which makes your eyes dry out.
Cartoonist Mort Walker, the creator of Beetle Bailey, came up with names for the things we often see in comics and cartoons: “briffit” is the dust cloud a character makes when he runs away quickly; “plewds” are the beads of sweat when a character is under duress; and “grawlix” are symbols such as “#@*%” that stand in for curse words.
The majority of people plug in their USB wrong. 86% of people try to plug in their USB devices upside down. That makes me feel a lot better about getting it wrong every time!
Music content makes up 5% of YouTube. Even though 5% seems like a low number, it is the most engaged type of video on YouTube. They count for 20% of YouTube’s total views!