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It doesn't matter whether you or I believe in God or are atheists - the world around us is so bizarre, unusual and beautiful that we can only admire the grandeur of the Creator's plan - or the extravagance of evolution.
Something interesting, beautiful or funny can be found in literally any pebble, any animal or the simplest phenomenon around us. Don't believe it? Then this viral thread in the AskReddit community, from which Bored Panda made a selection of the most interesting facts, will probably be of interest to you.
More info: Reddit
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#1
Words that are spelled the same but pronounced with emphasis on different syllables is actually indicative of the part of speech it is. Stress on the first syllable is a noun. Stress on the last syllable is a verb. Examples: CON-tract and con-TRACT. The former is a noun ( sign this contract) whereas the latter is a verb (the muscles contract). Same with record, address, impact, object, and a few others.
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#2
Poison dart froggis obtain their toxin by eating poisonous bugs, like fire ants. When you feed them crickets and such they are perfectly safe to handle 💚.
#3
Uppercase letters are called that because they could be found in the upper drawer of a printing press, lowercase could be found in the lower case of the printing press.
Green Tree 3 months ago
Typesetters would use a stick that looks kinda like a large Scrabble wood tile holder, they would have to layout the letters in reverse order. When they did it incorrectly it was "getting the wrong end of the stick"
Of course, from a formal point of view, some of the facts presented in this selection are far from flawless. For example, as for the statement about the skeleton and the brain - it actually depends on whether you consider yourself and your personality to be solely a product of brain activity.
After all, we are not only a collection of knowledge, sensations and memories, but our entire body too. And our brain is an integral part of the organism. The most important - yes, but nothing more. After all, as one sci-fi author once wrote, "the psyche is just a random coating on the endocrine glands..."
#4
You think your skeleton is inside you, but you’re a brain so you’re inside your skeleton.
Mere Cat 3 months ago (edited)
I like to say we are aquatic animals that have constructed an elaborate aquarium to explore the dry land. (This actually goes very deep; our brain is surrounded, washed, protected (and much more) by cerebro-spinal fluid, csf. And csf is very similar to amniotic fluid, actually the first csf of a developing embryo is formed by amniotic fluid trapped inside the closing neural tube. So we start our lives wholly floating in liquid, and the brain keeps on floating through our lives. AND these fluids are very similar to the ancient seas from which we first crawled on land! We never left the devonian sea! (I am so fully geeking over this!))
#5
The component parts of the word “helicopter” are not “heli” and “copter”. It’s “helico”, meaning “spiral-shaped” like the word “helix” and “pter” meaning “wing” as in “pterodactyl”.
SoMrHarris 3 months ago
This is called rebracketing. We do it all the time, e.g. alcoholic is made up of alcohol and ic, but we've rebracketed it to alco and holic, and then made workaholic, shopaholic etc. Same again with Hamburger, rebracketed from Hamburg and er, into ham and burger to then get beef burger, chicken burger etc.
#6
Etymology fact!
In arabic, when it comes to war, you'd have military ranks like Amir al-Bahr, which would roughly translate to "ruler of the sea". The term was taken by latin, shortened to "Amir al", and made its way to western languages, as *admiral*.
Which means that admiral essentially means "Lord of the-".
Why go far for examples? The story about rabbits not having paw pads interested me and my children so much that that same evening, we decided to check everything out. Fortunately, we have a rabbit named Harry at home (he has a white lightning pattern on his face, so there were no other name options).
The rabbit initially objected to the experiment, but the tasty carrot, as always, did the trick. And yes - you can see the result in the photo to the corresponding story. The kids enjoyed it, and so did I (the rabbit just enjoyed the treat). If you also have a rabbit at home (and an extra carrot), you can repeat it, it will be fun and educational.
#7
Hyphenated is non-hyphenated; non-hyphenated is hyphenated.
cerinamroth 2 months ago
Now try black taxi driver ;-) Black taxi-driver (Black person driving a taxi); Black-taxi driver (Person of unspecified ethnic origin driving a black cab)
#8
A caterpillar doesn’t just grow wings on its wiggly body. Inside its cocoon, it breaks down into a gooey substance, keeping only a few key parts. From this “goo,” its body is rebuilt into a butterfly, complete with wings.
#9
The term "bug" in computing has been around a long time. The term was not commonly used until an actual bug landed on an electrical switch causing the computer to malfunction.(Returning a zero when it was supposed to be a 1). The term bug grew in popularity afterwards and landed us where we are today.
When we find a bug in software we apply a "patch"...
This comes from old cardex/punch card systems. If a punch card was punched in the wrong spot, you could fix it by applying a patch to the hole.
"It's a special talent to find real gems in the abundance of facts that surround us that would be interesting to a wide variety of people. By the way, I think that's why people like trivia games," says Mari Senopalnikova, the owner and host of The Quiz Spain trivia game show from Torrevieja, Spain, whom Bored Panda asked for a comment here.
"In fact, you can find interesting things about literally everything in the world, about every little thing. Even about things that at first glance seem incredibly boring. It all depends on the angle from which we look at it."
"For example, the story of how the concepts of 'uppercase' and 'lowercase' letters appeared really interested me, and we'll definitely write an interesting question about it."
"By the way, we also asked the question about how the term 'bug' appeared in IT a few months ago. However, who knows - maybe someday we'll ask the question again, only from a different angle. Or combine it with another exciting story..." Mari ponders.
#10
Rollercoasters are built to shake! I’ve seen so many people decide to not get on because of the sway, but it’s important! If the support beams and tracks didn’t shake, they’d simply snap with all the force from the coaster cars roaring over them.
#11
German chocolate was made by an American named Samuel German. Not an actual German.
Jeremy Klaxon 3 months ago
Yep, and french fries are not French. They are french. From the verb "to french" which means to slice.
#12
The word "set" holds the record for having the most definitions of any single word.
In any case, we do hope that you're already interested in this selection of facts, and will read the entire list to the very end with pleasure. And, if you want, you can also add your own interesting fact in the comments. Even if someone considers it useless - well, another person may not only like it, but also find it vitally important. Who knows? After all, our world, as we already wrote above, is so damn bizarre and amazing!
#13
The word “queue” is just a "Q" followed by four silent letters.
#14
The color blue is extremely rare in nature We only think it's common because the sky and ocean is blue but other than that it's actually pretty rare.
Adam Belaire 3 months ago
"Name me one blue food" "...blueberries" "BLUEBERRIES ARE f**KIN' PURPLE!!" --Randy Feltface
#15
The human body glows in the dark. No, seriously. It emits visible light at all times, but our eyes are too weak to see it. So yeah, you’re glowing right now, but no one can appreciate it.
#16
Your skin doesn't have a particular sense organ to let you know if it's wet or not.
#17
A little-known but obvious fact: the division symbol “÷” is just a simplified fraction, with the dots representing the numerator and denominator.
#18
The thing between hard and soft is firm. The thing between hardware and software is called...
#19
Well all know the dinosaurs died out a long time ago (~64 million years ago). But what's even longer: they roamed the Earth for over 120 million years.
The Stegosaurus went extinct 80 million years before the T-Rex even existed.
#20
Rabies was first described as a cause of death in 2300 BC in ancient Babylon.
#21
Plumbing comes from the root Latin word of Plumbum which means lead and is the reason it's Pb on the Periodic table, because the Romans made water pipes out of lead—as an aside they knew it was a problem for brains, but they just didn't care as it mostly affected the poors.
Pedantic Panda 3 months ago
Also the root of the word plumb, meaning straight, as a lead weight attached to string was used to check straightness.
#22
Trees get the vast majority of their mass from the air. All that wood? That was once air and sunlight.
Pedantic Panda 3 months ago
Three sunlight is the energy used to convert the air (carbon dioxide) and water into wood. Sunlight does not become wood.
#23
You can open difficult or stubborn pistachio shells with another half pistachio shell. Save your fingernails!
#24
In the US, even-numbered highways go east-west and odd-numbered highways go north-south.
B Hobbs 3 months ago
That would be the US Interstate system, which, I believe, was based on the German Autobahn. The US military required that there be one or two miles of straight roadway every ten or so miles to be used as aircraft runways. Older US highways, state, and local highways may have a different identification system.
#26
The fax machine was invented in the 1800s, well before the telephone.
Apatheist Account2 3 months ago
Well, a printer attached to a telegraph. The telephone-based fax was invented in 1964.
#28
You never stop clapping. The time between claps just gets longer.
#29
Hair replacement therapy is gender affirming health care.
This panda votes 2 months ago
Yep, people get gender affirming care all the time. That haircut? That boob job? That little blue pill? All gender affirming. We only get weird about it when people we don't like do the things we do every day. Don't be weird! Trans people are people and deserve the same access.
#30
Rabbits don't have paw pads like cats or dogs. They've got nothing but fluffy feet.
You see a cartoon rabbit with paw pads, it's all lies.
Ace 3 months ago
Nope. They all have pads, it's just that in some species they're covered in fur. Others are not, e.g. Rabbit-Paw...x462-1.jpg 
#31
Your heart has been beating non stop since you were appx 6 weeks in utero.
Nikki Hilton 3 months ago
Cardiac tissue begins beating around that time but the heart is not formed at 6 weeks.
#32
Current flows from positive to negative in a circuit, but the particles that constitute the current (i.e., electrons) are negatively charged so they are actually moving in the opposite direction.
Skara Brae 3 months ago
It's more accurate to say that it is a convention to consider current flow from positive to negative, just like it is a convention to say elections have a negative charge, and it's a convention to have north at a top of maps. It's easier to keep a convention than it is to change a convention.
What do you think ?
El Cucuy 3 months ago
Another poorly titled BP article. Many of these entries are not "Blatantly Obvious" to anyone. For example, the claim that humans glow in the dark but our eyes are too weak to see this glow, making said glow invisible for all intents and purposes. Just how on earth is this "Blatantly Obvious" then?
Stephanie Did It 3 months ago (edited)
They must have changed the title then, because it is now 32 Facts That Sound Quite Bizarre but are Actually Real. I really enjoyed this one!
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El Cucuy 3 months ago
Another poorly titled BP article. Many of these entries are not "Blatantly Obvious" to anyone. For example, the claim that humans glow in the dark but our eyes are too weak to see this glow, making said glow invisible for all intents and purposes. Just how on earth is this "Blatantly Obvious" then?
Stephanie Did It 3 months ago (edited)
They must have changed the title then, because it is now 32 Facts That Sound Quite Bizarre but are Actually Real. I really enjoyed this one!
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