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50 Times People Found Such Unexpected Things, They Just Had To Share The Pics Online (New Pics)
Life is full of surprises. Of course, we can't pick and choose; one day they come in the form of an arrowhead in a dried up stream, the next it's a death mask under the bedroom floor. We just have to keep our eyes open. That's the only thing in our power, really.
Luckily, the subreddit r/MildlyInteresting has plenty of perfect examples that good things happen when we do. Many of its 19 million members have shared photos of unexpected finds they came across pretty much everywhere you can imagine.
Continue scrolling to check out the ones that have impressed us at Bored Panda the most and fire up our earlier publication for more astonishing discoveries.
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Worth It
Geologist Finds Rare Formation Inside Rock That Looks Exactly Like Cookie Monster On Sesame Street
A surprises might sound like something insignificant but even good scientists search for them, as well as coincidences and mistakes. With a little curiosity and perseverance, they can turn unexpected incidents into new insights.
As author Isaac Asimov once wrote, "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but, 'That's funny ... '"
Take Carlos Jared, for example. One time, he was doing fieldwork in the jungles of southwest Brazil and picked up a harmless-looking frog. The frog twisted and thrashed, butting Jared's hand with his head. Excruciating pain spread up Jared's arm, and for the next five hours, he remained in agony.
He had inadvertently discovered that frogs can be venomous.
Even though many amphibians secrete toxins through their skin, the frog Jared picked up — Greening's frog — was the first discovered to actually force those toxins into a predator's bloodstream. When attacked, it retracts the skin around its upper lip, revealing bony spines; Jared and collaborator Edmund Brodie discovered that a gland at the base of each spine produces toxic mucus that is twice as potent as the venom of a Brazilian pit viper.
Found This On A Bench In Margate UK This Weekend
"Dedicated to - HAYDEN KAYS. Forever missed by his friends and family. - He's not dead yet. He's just become increasingly anti-social."
Gifted A Bonsai Tree, Found An Egg Near The Trunk - This Little One Hatched From It Today
You Never Know What You Will Find When You Pick Up A Shell At Honeymoon Beach, Florida. Little Dude Was Put Safely Back In The Water
Also, did you know that blue is a notoriously tricky pigment? Turns out, the stone originally used to produce blue paint was once worth more than gold. So naturally, humans tried to manufacture the blues they needed ... and got mixed results. The dyes and paints they came up with often turned out to be poisonous, expensive, impermanent — or all three.
Mas Subramanian wasn't at all interested in all of this. In the department of chemistry at Oregon State University, he was looking for materials with novel magnetic properties to use in advanced computer hard drives. He would mix up likely chemicals and bake them in a furnace at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (around 1093 degrees Celsius). However, when he added manganese oxide to the recipe, he got a colorful surprise — a pile of bright blue powder.
The new pigment is stable and nontoxic. It reflects infrared radiation, so it might help keep buildings and vehicles cool. Subramanian is working with paint manufacturers and energy conservation companies to develop the product.
Went On A Walk, Fogged Up My Glasses, And Found This
Found Amethyst Pieces In A New Gravel Driveway
I Came In My Kitchen To Find A Lizard Using A Sponge As A Raft In The Sink (I Live In New Mexico)
In the book Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected, Tania Luna and Leeann Renninger argue that surprise, whether good or bad, is important for bringing vitality to our lives.
Turns out, surprise works on the dopamine system in our brains, helping us to focus our attention and inspiring us to look at our situation in new ways. Luna and Renninger highlight four stages of the surprise response:
- Freeze—when we are stopped in our tracks because of the unexpected;
- Find—when we get hooked into trying to understand what’s going on/how this happened;
- Shift—when we begin to shift our perspectives, based on conflicting findings;
- Share—when we feel the pull to share our surprises with others.
We can even “hack” each stage to encourage more surprise in our lives. For example, when we are in the “find” phase, it can help us to adopt a stance of curiosity, asking questions rather than looking for answers right away, which can lead to worldview shifts.
This Pixelated Leaf I Found
Found This 'Veiled Lady' Mushroom On A Hike This Morning Near Seoul, South Korea
Older Roman Mosaic Under A Layer Of Less Older Roman Mosaic - Found In Greece
A normal day in the office. This kind of thing happen literally every day in Italy.
Yes, negative surprises are much more challenging than positive ones, but Luna and Renninger believe that we can avoid them—they are a natural part of life. So it is better to find ways to cope with these negative surprises than to resist them.
Being open to uncertainty, learning how to reframe negative experiences in more positive ways, and nurturing stable relationships are all tools we can use to recover from life's curveballs more easily.
This Little Door I Found In The Trunk Of A Tree While Walking In Lowell
We Just Found Kittens In The Bushes Near Our House
Found While Out Deer Hunting In The Middle Of Nowhere
It Has Been Family Lore That My Grandmother Had A Pet Raccoon Named Smokey. I Didnāt Believe It Until I Found Photographic Evidence. Late 40ās Or Early 50ās
Found A Tiny Greenhouse In The Woods
This Caterpillar I Found
This Morning I Found A Bat Sleeping In My Window... Inside The Screen
This Purple Mushroom I Found
Found An Unopened PS1 In My Grandfather's Attic
A Cast Iron Cauldron I Found Buried In My Forest
I Came Across These Theropod Tracks While Fly Fishing In Leander, Texas
Leander, Texas, now there's a name I haven't heard in forever! Outside of Austin.
Old Cars Becoming The River Bank
This Massive Bald Eagle Feather I Found
Clam Covered Mannequin Head That Washed Up On Shore
My Dog Found A Huge Bone At The Beach Today
In 1945 My Great Grandmother Wrote Her Name In A Sidewalk. We Found It Again. She Is 93
Megalodon Teeth I Found Diving In 90 FSW Off The Coast Of North Carolina
My Mom's Purse Was Stolen In The 80s At A Hiking Trailhead. Today Someone Messenged Her That They Found It Deep In The Woods. The Leather Was All Destroyed
My first thought on finding something like this would be "murder victim"
Surreal Moment Today. I Went To Oaks, PA "Too Many Games" Expo. Found My Gameboy From Early 2000ās
A Roman Road Discovered While Excavating For A New McDonald's In Marino, Italy. They Incorporated A Glass Floor In The Restaurant After Excavations Were Complete
This Strawberry I Found Is Shaped Like A Perfect Flower
Woman Finds Sunken Message In Bottle From 1926 Addressed To One George Morrow, The Internet Helps Find Surviving Relatives
This Giant Dandelion I Found On My Walk Today
My Mom And Uncle Found A USAF Target Drone On The Beach
I would take it home and half bury it in my front garden as though it's crashed.
This Rattlesnake Was Found Bathing In The Puddle Created From A Cow Hoofprint
Found An Arrowhead In A Dried Up Stream
My Son Found This At Goodwill And It Really Takes Me Back
I Found This Plant Growing Out Of The Concrete
A Gold Bar With Mint Marks, Recovered From The Spanish Treasure Ship 'Atocha' Which Sank In 1622
Found Some Old Newspapers In My Grandpaās Basement
I would absolutely LOVE to have newspapers from this era. My son is a huge US history buff with WWII being his main focus. He has 2 papers framed from the Vietnam War, one from the Korean War, and 4-5 from Desert Storm where I saved those as a teenager. Something like this would just make his decade!
Found This Outside. Someone's Day Will Be Ruined
Friend Bought A N64 Game, Found This Inside
For those of you wondering, he was taking this game apart to use the back on his JP copy of Mario Kart so he could take it to a friend’s house with unmodded N64's. As to why he didn’t hear the pills loose shaking around, they were stuck to the sides with double-sided tape. You can see that in the image. The tape itself also looks old. He bought the game a year or so ago, but the game itself was made in the late 90s so who knows how long this has been sitting in there.
We Found A Missile While Out Blueberry Picking
Found An E Than Survived The Recycling Process On The Cardboard We Use At Work
I Found A Pile Of Walnuts In My Car Engine
My Friend Was Cleaning Out Her Grandma's Belongings And Found This Old School Kit From The 70s
I Found A Diamond In My Shoe While Working Out
A Plane Crash I Hiked To In North Carolina
I Found A Box Of My Dads 30-35 - Year - Old Sodas There Are Probably 50 In There And I Thought It Would Be Cool To Share
When i was a kid i picked up a HUGE conch shell, so excited about it's size and the condition it was in. I was shocked when a long spine came out of the tip towards me! I dropped it thankfully avoiding the spine and waded/ran/ swam away. It hadn't occurred to me the reason such a big shell was in such good condition was that it still had a resident protecting it. Oops
That sounds like a cone snail, if so you a lucky to be alive! Those things are incredibly venomous.
Load More Replies...When i was a kid i picked up a HUGE conch shell, so excited about it's size and the condition it was in. I was shocked when a long spine came out of the tip towards me! I dropped it thankfully avoiding the spine and waded/ran/ swam away. It hadn't occurred to me the reason such a big shell was in such good condition was that it still had a resident protecting it. Oops
That sounds like a cone snail, if so you a lucky to be alive! Those things are incredibly venomous.
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