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Would you believe it if we told you that a chicken can live for 18 months without its head? It’s understandable to be skeptical, but it is true. It happened in 1940s America involving a chicken named Mike. Here's the full story.
We have a handful on this list if you want more of that. We’ve compiled responses to this recent Reddit question: “What’s a fact about the world that sounds totally fake but is 100% true?”
Some of these answers may blow your mind. If you enjoy nerding out on random facts about the world, this one’s for you. But either way, you will likely learn something new today.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Over 70 years ago then Naval Lieutenant James “Jimmy” Carter led a team that walked into a melting nuclear reactor core and shut it down safely. He got dosed with so much radioactivity (10,000x more than what we now consider safe) he pissed radioactive whizz for months. Yet he outlived not only his Presidential successor but his successor. He’s the nations oldest President ever, and recently celebrated his 78th wedding anniversary, also a record for a president.
Frank Hassler 2 months ago
This needs an update: his wife passed away last year. But he just celebrated his 100th birthday on Oct. 1st!
RELATED:
#2
In Switzerland, it's illegal to own 1 guinea pig. They consider them social animals and require companionship, so you have to have at least two!
#3
Magnolia trees are so old that they predate bees by about 40 million years, and as a result are pollinated by beetles.
They are considered the first flowering plant on earth.
David Paterson 2 months ago
For many years they were thought to be the oldest flowering plant on Earth. Now this is known to be false as the earliest flowering plants had tiny flowers.
#4
Birds have been observed intentionally lining their nests with cigarette butts. While the nicotine in them is toxic to the birds, it's a low enough dose that it's not a significant risk to them in the short term (they don't live long enough for the long term effects to be a problem), and it k*lls parasites that may try to hide in the nest and infect the chicks.
Smaller bird species have been sighted stealing the anti-bird spikes that we put on buildings and lining their nests with them, like little palisade walls against other birds and predators. A small species like a songbird can navigate the spikes easily, but it makes it more difficult for a predator like a hawk or a rat to get to the nest.
Crows have also been observed stealing lit cigarettes from ashtrays and wafting the smoke through their feathers to k*ll parasites.
Silly-Rabbit 2 months ago
We know so little about the animals that inhabit our world. If we just stopped and appreciated all the creatures, it would hopefully sink in that animals are more intelligent/emotional than we give them credit for.
#5
During the great depression, FDR created the Civilian Conservation Corps for young men. They planted over 2 BILLION! trees in their 7 years of existence. They also built a lot of the buildings and lodges at the national parks.
The Cute Cat 2 months ago
This is wow in many level.. Talking about smart govt spending.. and also conserving nature..
#6
The sea produces more oxygen than trees.
#8
Pistachio ice cream is about 2000 years older than Chocolate or Vanilla ice cream. Persians were making ice cream as early as 500BC, often flavored with Pistachio. Chocolate and Vanilla, on the other hand, are native to the New World and wouldn't make it there for another two thousand years.
#9
How old the Appalachian Mountains really are:
They are older than trees, bones (including all dinosaurs), and the splitting of Pangaea -- so part of the mountain range is in Scotland.
The layering on the mountains looks "wrong" at some points because the tops of the mountains have eroded down & "new" geological forces have caused parts that weren't the top to rise above that...so the valleys of the current mountains may actually be the top of the original Appalachian Mountains.
#10
Cows have best friends!! you know how wee see them group all the time but they still has this their very best of friends for them. if they would sperate they'll get stressed about it. they really have this strong bond.
#11
A million seconds is about 11.5 days.
A billion seconds is over 31 **YEARS**.
Think about that when you consider the wealth of a millionaire vs a billionaire.
#13
There are bears in super rural parts of Russia that are addicted to huffing fuel meant for the power generators, and there's nothing the locals can do about it, because when the locals try and take away the fuel from the bears it doesn't go well.
The Phantom Stranger 2 months ago
Bears can also get drunk from eating rotten apples. Maybe that means they have a genetic disposition towards addiction.
#14
The last execution by guillotine in France was the same year Star Wars hit theaters, 1977.
Nico di anglo-solace 2 months ago
French accent: Hey wanna go to the execution then go see that new movie.......uh....Star wars they call it
#15
Chloroplasts are the organelles responsible for photosynthesis.
A sea slug called the emerald elysia, which has a transparent body, steals chloroplasts from algae and packs them into its own cells.
The chloroplasts continue to photosynthesize, providing the slug with ~80% of the total calories it will consume over its life.
#16
Italy didn’t have widespread use of the tomato until the 1700s and the pasta sauces we think of being a core of their cuisine didn’t exist until the 19th century.
Flurb4:
It’s amazing how many New World plants are central to what we think of as “classic” Old World ethnic or regional cuisines — tomatoes in Italy and around the Mediterranean, potatoes in Ireland, chilis all across South and East Asia.
Pernille 2 months ago
I sometimes feel the need to know what we ate before we got potatoes and tomatoes. The answer for most of western Europe is cabbage, porridge, bread, and lots of meat. Sauces were sometimes made with plums, plums was probably the fruit we used much like tomatoes are used today.
#17
We need a steady supply of horseshoe crab blood to run our modern medical system. Their blood contains compounds that detect miniscule amounts of harmful bacteria, otherwise IV drugs wouldn't be safe.
#18
The Deepest part of the ocean *isn't* the abyss. It's called The Hadalpelagic Zone. It encompasses the bottoms of trenches and sea floor caverns.
And we know frighteningly little about it.
The Challenger Deep is only the deepest *known* part of the ocean. There's almost certainly points in the ocean that are much deeper.
#19
Every glass of water you drink is almost 100% guaranteed to have at least one water molecule that was also drank by dinosaurs.
#20
There's a type of jellyfish that's immortal. The Turritopsis dohrnii, also known as the "immortal jellyfish," can transform its body into a younger state through a process called transdifferentiation, essentially making it immortal.
#21
Mammoths were alive during the construction of the Great Pyramid.
Also if you put it on a timeline, Cleopatra and Ceaser are closer to today than to the construction of the Great Pyramid.
SkyBlueandBlack 2 months ago
Note: the mammoths were on an Aleutian Island; they weren't widespread anymore.
#22
Gavrilo Princip tried to k*ll Archduke Franz Ferdinand during a parade through the streets of Sarajevo, but could not get close enough to the motorcade because of security. Later in the day, after the parade had been over for hours, Princip retreated sullenly to a small sandwich shop elsewhere in the city, when suddenly and completely out of the f*****g blue, Franz Ferdinand *just happened* to roll past him on his way back from a speech after taking an unscheduled detour down the same street as the sandwich shop. Princip walked right up to the car and shot the Archduke at point-blank range, k*lling him, which started World War I -- the deadliest conflict in human history up to that point.
BrunoVI 2 months ago (edited)
Horrifying fact: World War One was far, far, far, far from the deadliest conflict in human history up to that point. World War One killed about 15 million people, or 30 million people if you consider those who died from effects of World War One, including the "Spanish" Flu. (But I don't think it's reasonable to count those as "war dead," whereas I do think it's reasonable to count deliberate famines, like the Ukranian Holomodor, or even famines caused by suppression of dissent, like in Maoist China or British Ireland.) The Taiping Rebellion in China saw 30 million people killed. The Mongol invasions saw 57 million people killed. By comparison, the Crusades saw about 1 million die. The Lushan Rebellion and Three Kingdoms War, also in China, also saw way more people than World War One killed. The Black Death was caused by Germ Warfare by Muslim invaders of the Seige of Caffa, and could have killed 200 million people.
#23
When Betelgeuse goes supernova (if it hasn't already and we don't know yet) it will be visible in the day for roughly a year, and several more years we'll see it at night. That said, the prediction of 'when' by scientists is somewhere between today and 100,000 years from now. Odds are, none of us will see it.
#24
There are currently more chickens than all other birds combined on this lovely planet.
#25
Chimpanzees share more DNA in common with humans than they do with any other primate.
Feathered Dinosaur 2 months ago
Better be a feathered dino and share DNA with a velociraptor. It had much more style 😎
#26
1/120 humans alive today are slaves paid nothing for their work. This doesn't include low wage slaves such as US prisoners. There are more slaves today than any other point in history.
iseefractals 2 months ago
Overall message is correct, specifics are not. There are estimated to be 44 million people living in slavery today 1/186, while the entire 400 odd years of transatlantic slave trade impacted 15 million people (12-12.8 of which were africans) and only 388,000 of which ended up in the colonies/united states, with the majority of slaves today being in the middle east, india, china, north korea and spread across Africa. Everyone should be a little more concerned with the here and now, not the over and done with.
#29
About 25% of people on earth don't know their birthday because they're from countries that don't have birth certificates. That's why about 14% of immigrants to the U.S. list January 1 as their birthday - because they had to make one up.
Geoffrey Scott 2 months ago
60 Minutes did an outstanding piece on a former slave family who now owns the plantation their ancestors were on. My wife could not understand how they(slaves) could not know their lineage. She got "woke" on this that day. And be sure to calmly explain what "woke" means using this example. Or the Tulsa "riots". Woke does not mean subservient, it means being aware of what has transpired and to be mindful to ensure there is no repeat.
#30
The most common cause of death in pregnant women is homicide by their male partners.
#31
You can hear a blue whale's heartbeat from more than 2 miles away. Now that's some serious love!
#32
We don't know how much coastline there is on Earth.
It's called "The Coastline Paradox". Coastlines are fractal. Sure, we can look at a broad scale map, but miss all the tiny variations, sometimes mere ft or centimeters. These add up to huge numbers. Measuring the length of a coastline is tricky because the result depends on how detailed your measurement is. Imagine walking along the shore with a ruler: if you use a big ruler, you'll skip over small curves and bumps, giving you a shorter measurement. But if you use a smaller ruler, you can measure all the little details, and the coastline will seem much longer. Plus, it's always changing. Erosion, cliff collapse, water levels rising, volcanic events adding or removing it.
#33
Saudi Arabia imports sand.
Bonus fact: they also import camels.
#34
Screech owls will sometimes bring live sankes into their nests with their chicks nesting inside. Probably because the tiny snakes will eat parasites, although the chicks do sometimes eat the snakes.
#36
We ground up most of the ancient Egyptian mummies into powder to paint with or…eat.
SuperHyperFunTime:
The Victorians were a fucking savage bunch.
Doctor Strange 2 months ago
Actually many of them were used as fuel instead of coal for trains.
#37
There is also a shark (greenland shark, i think) that lives like 500 years; so there are sharks alive today that were alive before America became a country.
#38
Honey never spoils; researchers discovered edible honey in the pyramids.
#39
Caterpillars essentially liquify themselves, before turning into butterflies, in a process called larval ecdysis.
Pandemonium 2 months ago
They (you know, They) did a study where they trained caterpillars to be scared of some stimulus like a stink or a light pattern, and then tested the resulting butterflies after metamorphosis and saw the fear remained, so concluded that somewhere in that goo the memory persisted.
#40
The timespan between the use of copper swords and then steel swords is longer then the timespan between the use of steel swords and the nuclear bombs.
Syscrush:
Related: nuclear bombs were invented before the compound bow.
What do you think ?
Multa Nocte 2 months ago
While I generally enjoy articles such as this, almost every single one of these factoids has been on BP during the past month.
Ali H M Salehuddin 2 months ago
Here are a few relatively new facts; at least on BP. (1) There is a species of bird that you can catch by 'air fishing'. You dangle a bait in the air and birds swoop in and get caught. Just like regular fishing. (2) Probosic monkeys of Borneo has nine stomachs (even cows only have 7) to process hard to digest foods. Consequently, they can't eat bananas. Too sugary. (3) Eagles are actually flying 'blind' forward. Their eyes are super sensitive to light; which can easily get damaged by the bright sun. They have 'sunshades' on top of their eyes for protection. During flight, they focus down towards earth scanning for potential preys. The sunshades block their forward view. That's why they often hit tall wind turbines.
Load More Replies...
Gavin Johnson 2 months ago
If the population of the world held hands and circled the world at the equator, most of them would drown.
Multa Nocte 2 months ago
While I generally enjoy articles such as this, almost every single one of these factoids has been on BP during the past month.
Ali H M Salehuddin 2 months ago
Here are a few relatively new facts; at least on BP. (1) There is a species of bird that you can catch by 'air fishing'. You dangle a bait in the air and birds swoop in and get caught. Just like regular fishing. (2) Probosic monkeys of Borneo has nine stomachs (even cows only have 7) to process hard to digest foods. Consequently, they can't eat bananas. Too sugary. (3) Eagles are actually flying 'blind' forward. Their eyes are super sensitive to light; which can easily get damaged by the bright sun. They have 'sunshades' on top of their eyes for protection. During flight, they focus down towards earth scanning for potential preys. The sunshades block their forward view. That's why they often hit tall wind turbines.
Load More Replies... Gavin Johnson 2 months ago
If the population of the world held hands and circled the world at the equator, most of them would drown.
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