It’s impossible to know all the facts, right? Well, there are facts that probably many of us know because we found them out in some trivia night game or maybe somebody once told them to us, and they just stuck with us because they are surprising. For example, elephants are unable to jump, tigers have also striped skin, or the Spanish national anthem has no words. Probably many of you will agree that you have seen, heard or read these facts somewhere.
However, there are also facts that are not so well-known or often heard and they may not even surprise us, but rather open up a slightly different point of view of the whole world. One Reddit user recently created a thread asking people online to share little-known facts that blow their mind every time they think about them. So scroll down and share your thoughts below!
More info: Reddit
#1
something like this is asked every once in a while.
The Pale Blue Dot quote by Carl Sagan really puts OUR lives in perspective. Helped me not take life too seriously.
Some backstory, the Voyager 1 space probe took a picture of the Earth at 6 billion km
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam"
The first time I read it, I teared up.
I still feel something every time I reread the quote or think about it.
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150points
#2
Once you know the difference between sympathy and empathy, you will notice that tons of people lack empathy.
Let me illustrate with an example:
If I told a group of people I was sad because my dog died, a decent amount of people would feel sorry for me. If I told that same group of people I was depressed because my goldfish died, less people would feel sorry for me. "It's a f*****g goldfish, so what?"
This is the fundamental difference between sympathy and empathy. If you feel sorry for me when my dog dies, but not when my goldfish dies you are not being empathic when my dog dies, just sympathic. It's likely you feel sorry for me because you imagine how you would feel if *your* dog died and projecting those feelings on me.
If I told a group of people I was sad because my dog died, a decent amount of people would feel sorry for me. If I told that same group of people I was depressed because my goldfish died, less people would feel sorry for me. "It's a f*****g goldfish, so what?"
This is the fundamental difference between sympathy and empathy. If you feel sorry for me when my dog dies, but not when my goldfish dies you are not being empathic when my dog dies, just sympathic. It's likely you feel sorry for me because you imagine how you would feel if *your* dog died and projecting those feelings on me.
True empathy means acknowledging and valueing emotions, even when you do not understand them. People with empathy don't compare my emotions to how theirs would be in my situation. They can acknowledge my feelings, without sharing them.
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145points
“The inspiration for starting the thread came from my innate curiosity about the world and a desire to create a platform for sharing astonishing, lesser-known facts,” the author of this thread, u/foratbahrani, shared with Bored Panda. “It's always exciting to see how such knowledge can shift our perspective and understanding of the world around us."
#3
Grizzly bears in Yellowstone eat around 300,000 moths a month and it accounts for 1/3 of their calorie intake.
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129points
#4
Cheetahs aren't big cats. They are very large small cats.
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124points
#5
The difference between a million and a billion. A million seconds is about 11 days, a billion seconds is about 31.5 YEARS. Now think about the billionaires.
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119points
Speaking about the particular facts that were shared by fellow Redditors and stood out to the OP as exceptionally mind-blowing, he emphasized that there were quite a few contributions that he found astounding.
“My favorite one was how Cleopatra lived closer in time to the invention of the iPhone than to the building of the pyramids.”
#6
A female turkey can lay en egg that doesn't need to be fertilised by a male turkey and the baby that hatches will always be a male
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99points
#7
its not the climate change alone thats dangerous to humanity, climate has changed multiple times in history, even worse than its now. The issue is the pace at which it happens. if it happens within a few hundret or thousand years, ecosystems can adapt. rn we are climate changing the world at top speed and cause changes that'd usually happen over millenia.
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97points
#8
Babies can die from lack of love (human touch, cuddles, hugs, nuzzles).
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93points
Finally, OP emphasized that his own favorite mind-blowing fact is that we often think of the universe as an expanse filled with billions of galaxies, stars, and planets, but in reality, that’s only what we have discovered so far.
“It's humbling to consider that, much like our ancestors who believed the entirety of existence comprised merely the Earth, Sun, and Moon, we are similarly just scratching the surface. Despite our advanced technology and knowledge, we know only a tiny bit more about the universe's true nature,” OP added.
#9
If you stand in any planet or moon of the solar system and you look up, you'll see the same night sky as we see it from the Earth. Same constellations and all, that's how unfathomably far away the stars are compared to the planets.
However, there's one exception. If you stand in Pluto and look up, you'll see that Proxima Centauri looks slightly "off" compared to its position from the terrestrial sky. That's how unfathomably far Pluto is as well.
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87points
#10
Not little known, but perhaps, less thought about or internalized.
Large amounts of children were born from most families in the past due to a horrible rate of infant/child mortality. Nearly everyone had outlived one or more of their children.
That's horrifying.
What we consider the most base of basic medical science, that we teach our young children, has saved countless lives and families.
Wash your hands, please.
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84points
And what is your favorite mind-blowing fact that changed the way you view the world? Share in the comments!
#11
Every element heavier than lithium had to be created in the core of a star. Every element heavier than iron had to be created by a supernova.
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83points
#12
Just how capable ancient humans were. At least 50000 years ago humans crossed about 60 miles of open ocean and colonized Australia. The timeline for colonizing America has been consistently pushed back. For tens of thousands of years modern humans coexisted with other ancient hominids, essentially but not quite the same as us but close enough to breed and produce viable, nonsterile offspring. I find it absolutely mind blowing to think about
74points
#13
It took Humans less than 66 yrs from first discovering the flight (1903) to landing a man on the moon (1969)
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74points
#14
Experiments suggest that subconscious parts of our brain start sending signals to perform actions well before the conscious part of our brain makes the decision to do it. Sometimes it's a few microseconds earlier, sometimes it can be minutes, depending on what's being done and what prep is needed.
The implication is that decisions are actually made at the subconscious level, and what we think of as the conscious process of "making a decision" may actually be more like "justifying a decision."
This is backed up by split-brain experiments, where epileptics have had the two halves of their brain severed and unable to communicate. They'd put up a partition and hold up a sign asking one half to pick up a pencil. Then they'd ask the other half (which controls speech) why they did it, and they'd quickly come up with sometimes-ludicrous rationales for why they did it. It seems our brains have built-in expert mechanisms to justify actions after the fact.
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74points
#15
most people value short-term "good feelings" more than "long term stability". if you understand this, much in the world will be better understandable to you.
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67points
#16
The energy stored in all the oil and gas in the Earth is the equivalent of just eight and a half days worth of sunlight hitting the surface of the planet.
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60points
#17
Over 99 percent of all Species to ever exist on Earth are extinct.
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60points
#18
There are more people living in slavery now than at any time in human history.
60points
#19
You always have more knowledge than you can put into words (Michael Polanyi). You can never *fully* articulate, for example, *all* of the knowledge that you rely on in order to ride a bicycle. There is always some remaining knowledge that you're leaving unspoken. Polanyi's book *Personal Knowledge* blew my mind.
Edit: *The Tacit Dimension* is a more compact book covering some of the same ideas.
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58points
#20
Benford's Law. How large datasets of numbers behave in very predictable ways. It's one of the easiest ways to detect if a company is cooking its books.
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58points