“Nobody Told Me That!” 34 People Share The Basic Facts They Only Just Learned

There’s a good chance you knew that reindeers are real animals, or that pickles are cucumbers in vinegar. But did you know that you’re taller in the morning than at night? No, me neither…

According to Reader’s Digest, we are about one centimeter taller when we wake up in the morning. “That’s because at night when you’re lying down, the spine stretches and decompresses. But throughout the day, the soft cartilage between your bones gets squashed and compressed,” explains the site.

You might also be surprised to learn that the Eiffel Tower is taller in summer than it is in winter. More on that further down...

The Eiffel Tower apparently adapts to its environment and weather conditions. It’s made from something called puddled iron, which is sensitive to variations in temperature. So when temperatures rise, the Tower increases in size. When temperatures plummet during the cold winter months, the metal structure contracts and it loses a few millimeters.

“This is a natural physical phenomenon called thermal expansion. Heat causes an increase in volume that makes the Eiffel Tower a few millimeters taller,” explains the official La Tour Eiffel site.

Not only does the Eiffel Tower get taller, but it also shifts a bit. That’s because the expansion causes the Tower to tilt slightly away from the sun.

“The sun only hits one of the 4 sides of the Tower creating an imbalance with the other 3 sides that remain stable, thus causing the Eiffel Tower to lean,” the site adds. “In this way, the sun’s movement over the course of a clear day can cause the top of the Tower to move in a more or less circular curve measuring approximately 15 centimeters in diameter.”

Talking of things expanding... That's what Julia Roberts' bank account has been doing over the past few decades. With a net worth of around $250 million, the American actress is no stranger to wealth. But did you know that when she was born, her parents couldn't foot the hospital bill?

And guess who paid for most of it... None other than Martin Luther King Jr. The gesture was considered a heartfelt payback, according to Reader's Digest.

"Julia’s parents, who ran a theater school in Atlanta, welcomed the King children as students when they had trouble finding a place that would accept them because they were black," reports the site.

While your brain is digesting some of these facts, it's also eating itself. Yes, you read right.

Don't be alarmed. It's nothing sinister but rather a process known as phagocytosis, whereby cells will envelop and consume smaller cells or molecules in order to remove them from the system.

"It’s basically cells eating other cells, or substances," explains Science Focus. "Our immune system is based on this; dedicated white blood cells consume pathogens, thus getting rid of them and their disruptive influence on our bodies."

The site adds that the brain is an incredibly busy and demanding organ. It's believed to use about a third of the body’s ready energy supply, just by staying alive and functioning.

"This means that the brain is something of a cellular powerhouse; there are countless complex processes happening between and within our brain cells, all the time," notes Science Focus.

Each of these processes will have unusable by-products. Debris, if you will. This debris has to go somewhere or it'll build up and disrupt our functioning. So, the brain eats itself, or spring cleans, on a constant basis.

And speaking of brains, we feel it's our duty to let you know that wearing a tie can reduce blood flow to the brain by 7.5%. That's according to a 2018 study carried out at University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

The researchers scanned the brains of 15 healthy men before and after they wore a tie. They then did the exact same thing with 15 other men who didn't wear a tie. 

"When the results came in, the team could see that the tie-wearers experienced an average dip in blood flow to the brain of 7.5 percent. In contrast, absolutely no decline in blood flow was observed in the control group," reports IFL Science.

If you're healthy, a 7.5% drop in oxygen isn't too big a deal. But it could be more problematic for those who already have a below-average blood flow rate, those who are older, who smoke, and/or have high blood pressure.

A separate, earlier study found a link between tie-wearing and intraocular pressure. Basically, if your tie is too tight, it can put pressure on your eyes.