In California, you can get a ticket if you’re driving too slowly.
100 Mind-Blowing You’re Facts
You’re not allowed to swear if playing in Wimbledon. Because of this, line judges have to learn curse words in every language.
“Schnapsidee” is the German word for a ridiculous idea that only sounds good when you’re drunk.
Arizona driver’s licenses don’t expire until you’re 65. You then have to renew in person every five years.
The same brain cycles that occur when asleep, still happen when you’re awake, but in smaller sections. Meaning that parts of your brain are always “falling asleep.”
Football teams wearing red kits play better. The colour of your clothes can affect how you’re perceived by others and change how you feel. A review of football matches in the last 55 years, for example, showed that teams wearing a red kit consistently played better in home matches than teams in any other colour.
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.
Your nails grow faster in hot summer. This is probably due to increased blood supply to the fingertips. It could also be because you’re less stressed while on holiday so less likely to gnaw away at ‘em.
Being bored is a ‘high arousal state’ physiologically. This is because when you’re bored your heart rate increases.
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.
You could sweat when you’re anxious to alert others. One theory suggests we’ve evolved to sweat whilst anxious to alert the brains of other people around us so they are primed for whatever it is that’s making us anxious. Brain scans have revealed that when you sniff the sweat of a panic-induced person, regions of the brain that handle emotional and social signals light up. When you’re anxious your sympathetic nervous system releases hormones including adrenaline, which activates your sweat glands.
Murder rates rise in summer. Ever feel angry or in a bad mood when the weather is hot? Well, you’re not alone. Violent crime goes up in hotter weather, and in the US, murder rates reportedly rose by 2.7 per cent over the summer.
You can see stars as they were 4,000 years ago with the naked eye. Without a telescope, all the stars we can see lie within about 4,000 light-years of us. That means at most you’re seeing stars as they were 4,000 years ago, around when the pyramids were being built in Egypt.
You’re likely familiar with the concept of fingerprints, but people also have a “noseprint,” a set of distinct and unique impressions on the inside of your nose.
It’s impossible to hum while holding your nose. You just tested it, didn’t you? Normally, when you hum, the air can escape through your nose to create the sound, and of course, it can’t do that when you’re holding it shut. This is one of the weird facts you can test out for yourself. Go ahead, try it.
“Fancy riding” on bikes is illegal in Illinois. That includes riding without hands or taking your feet off the pedals when you’re on the street.
5 countries in the world don’t have airports. If you’re a jet-setting traveller, it’s hard to imagine not having an airport nearby for your next family gathering or work event. However, Vatican City, San Marino, Monaco, Liechtenstein, and Andorra somehow make it work!
The Japanese word ‘Kuchi zamishi’ is the act of eating when you’re not hungry because your mouth is lonely. We do this all the time.
Chickens are eaten for their whole life cycle. A not-so-fun fact for the chickens, but one of the fun facts to ponder: when you’re eating chicken katsu or a chicken omelette, you could be eating a whole family. You’re essentially eating a chicken before (AKA, the eggs) and after its birth. Oh, not to mention day-old chicks.
You’re more likely to become President than you are to win the lottery. The odds of a person becoming the President of the United States are 10 million to 1. However, the odds of hitting the Powerball jackpot are 292,201,338 to 1.
The filmmakers of Saw paid for Jigsaw to have its seat. Jigsaw the puppet is the face of the grisly Saw franchise. Whether you’re a sadist who enjoyed the films or you’re one of the people who just looked away, one of the interesting facts about Saw is that Jigsaw once got its plane seat. James Wan and Leigh Whannell paid for Jigsaw to have a seat on a flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles. Imagine how its seatmate felt!
Coffee beans can cure bad breath. Coffee beans are a known odour neutraliser. Perfume shops even make customers sniff coffee beans when trying different fragrances. However, you must chew them if you’re going for deodorizing – drinking coffee can worsen your breath through bacteria. Science, right?
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?
Venus Williams hit the fastest serve in women’s tennis at 205 km/h. If you’re having trouble picturing how fast that is, the maximum speed recorded by a person running is 45km/h.
Spotted dick is a dish. We know what you’re thinking, but spotted dick is a British dessert popularized in 19th century England. It is a pudding made traditionally with suet and dried fruit, often served with custard. “Spotted” referred to the dried fruit pieces, while “dick” and “dog” were terms widely used for pudding at the time.
You’d get rolled into a burrito if you’re a violent drunk in Japan. Japanese police may get a futon and roll you into a burrito if you disrupt the public.
If you look strictly at statistics, you’re more likely to win an Olympic Medal than the lottery. According to statistics, your chances of winning an Olympic gold medal are about 1 in 3.5 million. However, the chances of you winning the lottery is 1 in 14 million.
You’re 10 times more likely to get bitten by a person than a shark. In New York City, the annual number of human bites is 10 times higher than the yearly number of shark bites worldwide.
There’s a cheese eaten with live maggots. If you’re one for exotic eats, the Casu marzu is a Sardinian cheese that has a special ingredient: live maggots. These maggots can jump up to five inches out of the cheese while you’re eating it, so it’s advised to shield it with your hand so it won’t get on your face.
If you’re murdered in the U.S., there’s a 1-in-3 chance police will never identify your killer. An estimated 2,000 serial killers have been at large in the U.S. since 2017. That’s one for chilling WTF facts.
Beethoven could still hear after going deaf. If you’re wondering how Beethoven still managed to be a great composer even when he was deaf, it was because of this method: He bit onto a metal pole connected to his piano. He then felt or heard his music through the vibration in his bones.
Human beings share 99.9 per cent of the same genes. You’re just 0.1% different from the person you hate the most. However, you’re just 0.1% away from being Beyonce.
Bearcat urine smells like buttered popcorn. The smell of buttered popcorn is mouthwatering and even nostalgic to some – so much so that there’s even a jellybean flavour and candle scents for it. However, make sure you’re not getting duped – because that’s exactly what the Southeast Asian bearcat’s pee smells like. Bearcat urine contains the same compound found in buttered popcorn (2-AP). The Southeast Asian bearcat covers its feet and tail in its buttered popcorn-scented urine for other bearcats to smell.
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.
Camels have three eyelids. If a camel winks at you, you’re getting three times the wink of the average person. Camels have three eyelids to protect their eyes from the harsh sands of their environments.
Ice cream warms the body. It might make perfect sense to eat ice cream when you’re feeling hot, but it does the opposite to our bodies. The high-fat content in ice cream warms us up rather than cooling down the body as it metabolizes.
A coin toss isn’t 50-50. The next time you’re trying to decide something, a coin toss may not be the best idea. Typically, the chances for a coin toss are 51-49, not 50-50. If you flip a coin, there is a 51% chance it will land on the side that it started on.
Left-handedness can run in families, so if your parents are left-handed, you’re more likely to be too.
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.
Most wasabi paste isn’t real wasabi. If you’ve always thought that your store-bought wasabi tastes more like horseradish, you’re probably right. It’s often used as a substitute since real wasabi is expensive.
“Kuchisabishii” is Japanese for unconscious eating. It describes the act of eating when you’re not hungry because your mouth is “lonely.”
You can’t hum while you’re pinching your nose. Go ahead and try!
Most people can’t lick their elbows. You’re already trying, aren’t you?
You’ll more likely remember your dreams better after a bad sleep than a good one. If you sleep poorly and wake up throughout the night, you’re more likely to remember your dreams when you wake up.
Dogs tilt their heads to pinpoint the words you’re saying. They do this to spot familiar words.
Another weird fact about flamingos: is that flamingos don’t bend their knees. What you’re seeing is their ankles being bent.
Most people can’t lick their elbows. But perhaps you’re not like most people.
Bananas are radioactive. Because bananas are rich in potassium, they are a little bit radioactive. But don’t worry about this weird science fact. You’re already 280 times more radioactive than a banana.
In Japanese, the word “kuchisabishii” describes eating not because you’re hungry but because your mouth is lonely.
Neptune has only completed one orbit around the Sun since its discovery. This is one of our favourite facts about space, and perhaps the most memorable (if you want to impress your friends next time you’re sharing cool facts. Neptune takes a whopping 165 years to complete one full orbit around the Sun. Since it was discovered in 1846, Neptune only finished its first full post-discovery orbit in 2011. Demoted planet Pluto has yet to match this – it is not even close to completing one full, 248-year orbit since its discovery in 1930.
In Singapore, when you turn 21, you’re automatically registered as an organ donor. The Human Organ Transplant Act (HOTA) was first introduced in 1987 due to extremely low organ donation rates. It was only in 2009 that citizens and permanent residents were automatically registered as organ donors. You can opt out, but you may not want to as you’ll be lower on the waiting list for organs should you need a transplant.
It turns out that you don’t need to drink six to eight cups of water per day. Water is without a doubt one of the most important things on our planet, and since around the 1940s, it’s been popularly believed that you should drink about 84 ounces (2.5 litres) of the stuff every day to stay healthy. Researchers have since delved deeper into the issue and concluded that you don’t need to drink anywhere near that much, as you get a lot of water from the food you eat. Instead, you’re merely advised to drink when you’re thirsty and drink extra on particularly hot days.
In Texas, it’s legal to be married by proxy (have a stand-in) if you’re deployed in another country and can’t make your ceremony.
Your heartbeat changes to mimic the music you’re listening to.
A mash-up of two words to make a new word (such as breakfast and lunch into brunch, or motel from motor and hotel) is called a portmanteau. In case you’re wondering, the word “portmanteau” itself is not a portmanteau; it’s a compound word that refers to a duel-sided suitcase.
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.
People read faster or slower depending on what they read. Not only do you blink less when you’re on a computer, but reading from a screen also slows you down. On average, people read 10% slower from a screen than from paper! As for the blinking part, did you know that during everyday life, people normally blink at a rate of twenty times per minute? But put them in front of a computer, and that number drops way down to seven times per minute!
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.
The term “footage” comes from films being measured in feet when being edited in the early days of filmmaking. Why footage got its name is one of those questions that you have when taking a long shower or when you’re just starting to drift off to sleep. Fortunately, we have the answer for you and even an explanation! Back in the day, when movies were released without audio, they used to use 35mm film. During this era, the film was measured out and cut into foot-long (0.3 m) strips, which contained 16 frames in each. One foot of 35mm film was just one second of screen time. The amount of seconds in a film naturally became known as the footage.
Individual people can experience time differently, too. You’ve probably noticed how time seems to speed up when you’re racing against a deadline or having fun, and how it tends to drag when you’re bored. This is because when you’re focused on something, like a big work project or a party, your brain pays less attention to how time passes. But when you’re bored, or your brain is less stimulated, you become more aware of the passing of time, making it feel slower. One study proposed that dopamine—the neurotransmitter and hormone that helps us feel happy—may be an additional culprit. It showed that increased dopamine production, which happens when you’re enjoying something, may slow down your body’s internal clock, making time feel like it’s flying by.
Gravity’s effect on time isn’t limited to intergalactic travel. Here on Earth, gravity can vary for several reasons, including your altitude, since you’re changing your distance from the centre of the Earth. That means if you put a bunch of synchronised atomic clocks at various altitudes, eventually those clocks would fall out of sync. A clock at the top of Mount Everest and one at sea level would, over the entire 4.5 billion-year history of the planet, have diverged by about a day and a half.
Sundials read differently depending on the hemisphere you’re in. In the Northern Hemisphere, the sun casts a shadow that moves from north to east, to south, to west. In the Southern Hemisphere, the shadow moves in the opposite direction. Our concept of “clockwise” is based on the way sundials in the Northern Hemisphere told time.
Linux Is Extremely Versatile: Modern Linux desktop distros provide applications that allow you to perform virtually any operation including software development, browsing, graphic design, video editing, gaming, entertainment, and much more. This versatility extends to entertainment options, making it a one-stop solution for diverse needs. Whether you’re a professional or a casual user, Linux’s rich ecosystem ensures you can perform virtually any operation efficiently, contributing to its growing popularity in the desktop computing world.
As per Distrowatch, there are more than 75 active Linux distributions that are based on Ubuntu. While you are reading this – there could be more potential additions. You can read about some less-known Ubuntu-based Linux distributions as well (if you’re curious).
The World Wide Web (WWW) was invented in England: The World Wide Web came to be in 1989 when it was discovered by Tim Berners-Lee, an English scientist. Berners-Lee began the project whilst working at CERN, The European Organisation for Nuclear Research, and its main use was for scientists to share information and institutes across the globe. The WWW was used privately until 1993 when CERN released it to the public. It’s flourished since then, and you’re using it to view this blog right now!
You’re not allowed to get drunk in English pubs: We’re starting the Culture section of this list of facts about England with this surprising by-law: It is illegal to be drunk in a pub. The Licensing Act took effect in 1872 and essentially bans anyone in England from being drunk anywhere that isn’t their private property. It’s certainly an odd by-law to have in place when the country hosts more than 35,000 pubs, all of which have the main purpose of drinking. Even so, it’s a well-intentioned act that aims to reduce drinking levels to keep people safe!
There is an annual cheese rolling competition: The unusual sport of cheese rolling was guaranteed to make this list of facts about England. A unique event, the annual cheese rolling takes place on Cooper’s Hill in Gloucester and has been done since 1826. The event involves a 9-lb, round Double Gloucester cheese rolled down a hill, with competitors chasing after it to the bottom. The first person to reach the finish line wins the cheese. Contestants are often locals from the area, however, the event attractions competitors from all over the world. If you’re up for a challenge, why not sign up for the race? Please keep in mind that due to the fast pace of the race, the event can be quite dangerous.
Cheese Rolling Is Considered a Sport: It’s true what they say: cheese rolling is a sport. The sport is thought to have originated in the fifteenth century. At Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire, competitors engage in a cheese-rolling contest once a year. In these contests, competitors race down a steep slope after a 3.2-kg (7-pound) wheel of Double Gloucester cheese. Though it is undoubtedly a dangerous sport, the local custom is one not to be missed. The wheel of cheese is the prize awarded to the winner, who is the first to cross the finish line. If you’re a student in the English culture department, you may want to witness the cheese rolling sport with your own eyes. In this case, you can choose student accommodation near Gloucestershire College with uhomes.com. Book a room of your choice by your preference, and then enjoy a cheese-rolling contest in the United Kingdom!
If you’re looking to promote your business, YouTube might just be the way to go. Over 70% of viewers bought a product or service after they saw it on the platform.