Random Fun Facts That Will Amaze You - Part 15
October 26, 2024
•11 min read
Here are some more amazing facts to blow your mind!
Whether it’s an awkward first date, a tense family gathering or your first time heading up a pop quiz, a hearty piece of random trivia can turn any situation around and leave you looking like Mr. smarty-pants. Let's delve into artful knowledge with these weird and wonderful facts.
What Are Tonsil Stones?
You’ve probably had them before, but have you ever wondered what those little whitish lumps in the back of your throat are? Their official name may be tonsil stones but, spoiler alert, they’re not actually stones at all. Otherwise known as tonsil calculi or tonsilloliths, these tiny throat invaders are actually made up of debris like food, dead cells or other substances that become trapped in the crevices of the tonsils before turning hard.
Why Do You See Stars When You Rub Your Eyes?
Whether tired, stressed out or just plain bored, many people will resort to the oddly satisfying feeling of rubbing their eyes, but something else happens when we practice to this strange behavior, an entire mini-galaxy appears!
A Decapitated Head Can Still Blink
We have one man to thank for this intriguing factoid: French chemist Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier. During France’s reign of terror in the 18th century, which was characterized by a shedload of guillotine executions, poor old Mr. Lavoisier found himself on the chopping block. What were his crimes? Discovering hydrogen and helping to implement the metric system!
Being a dedicated chemist, Lavoisier decided that his death wouldn’t be in vain, because there was one last discovery he needed to make: is it possible to blink after having your head cut off? Having promised that he would try and blink for as long as possible after the blade fell, witnesses claimed that Lavoisier’s decapitated head did indeed blink for around 30 seconds. Because more advanced scientific equipment didn’t exist back then, de Lavoisier has since been credited for conducting the earliest known study into the brains independent function.Crows Have Funerals
There are plenty of facts that prove animals aren’t as unsophisticated as we think. For instance, crows and ravens hold funerals for their dead. They may not put on all the works like fancy caskets and funeral cars, but they are already dressed in black, so that should count for something.
Both birds are proven to be incredibly intelligent animals, in fact, they possess the reasoning capacity of a seven-year-old child. For example, they’ve been known to place nuts on the road at red traffic lights so that the cars will run them over and crack their shells.Why Can’t You Tickle Yourself?
Whether you claim be ticklish or not, there’s one thing we can all agree on: it’s impossible to tickle yourself. No matter how hard you try to hit the sweet spot on your neck, ribs, feet, or knees you won’t be able to send yourself into fits of giggles.
Scientists discovered that the sensation of tickling sends our brain into a mini state of panic, while the unease of knowing that we’re about to be tickled by someone can cause us to laugh. From an evolutionary standpoint, this was a pretty handy defense mechanism that helped us recognize unexpected dangers like a poisonous snake slithering over our foot.There Was Once a Laughing Plague in Tanzania
People say laughter is contagious, and after hearing what went down in Tanganyika, now Tanzania, in 1962, you’ll believe it too. It began when a group of schoolfriends started laughing during class in a small African village. No one knows why, perhaps someone told a hilarious joke, but soon enough the whole school was infected with contagious laughter, and it was forced to close.
An entire school laughing would be quite an event, but that wasn’t all. When parents picked their kids up, they started laughing too, and so the laughter spread through neighborhoods, shops, and eventually to other villages.The Founder of Match.com Lost His Girlfriend to a Match.com Date
These days online dating is the most popular choice when it comes to meeting new people, but back in the infancy of the internet it was entirely new territory. In 1993, a man named Gary Kremem saw world wide web’s potential as the perfect way to put romantic strangers in touch with each other, so he created a little domain called Match.com. Nowadays, it’s one of the world’s biggest online dating sites, with over 9.8million users worldwide, but people didn’t quite take to it immediately.
The internet was still pretty fresh, and meeting stranger through it seemed like a daunting prospect. Undeterred by the lack of interest, Kremen devised a clever plan; he’d make everyone at the company create a profile on the site, which included his girlfriend at the time. His idea worked too well, because Kremen’s girlfriend soon met someone new on the site and decided to leave him. It might seem like Kremen had just taken a massive L, but he apparently saw it as a positive thing because it proved that match.com could be a success.What Are the Stringy Bits on a Banana?
Bananas aren’t a fruit people generally go crazy about, but they never did anyone any harm either. That doesn’t mean there are aren’t a few accusations flying about that bananas are totally gross though, and that’s mostly down to those weird, white tendrils that hang off the fruit when you peel them.
Someone Once Invented a Cat Piano
There have been plenty of bizarre failed inventions throughout the ages, but none are quite as absurd as the infamous Katzenklavier or cat organ.
To imagine what it looked like, picture 10 cats all lined up in boxes, with their tails held taught and secured underneath a keyboard. Each time a key is pressed, it hits the tail of the corresponding cat or, in the worst case, pricks it with a pin, causing the cat to produce a loud mewing sound. Of course, the cats were arranged according to the pitch of their meows.Why Don’t Humans Walk Sideways?
Some thoughts can keep you up at night, like “why don’t people don’t walk like crabs?” It’s not like we’re not capable of moving sideways, but when we want to travel in a sideways direction, we usually turn our bodies to face forward first and then walk normally.
Why Do Pineapples Taste Prickly?
They may be one of the world’s favorite exotic fruits, but anyone who frequently gobbles down fresh pineapple will also be familiar with the bizarre way they can make your tongue feel "prickly" afterwards.
Wombat Poop is Square
Australia’s cutesy little marsupials perfectly produce cube-shaped poop. For some time, actual research into the reason behind wombats bizarre waste-disposal particulars has been scarce, but theories have abounded.