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Whether we're gathering knowledge for our next DIY project or reading up on the country we're about to visit, learning is a lifelong process. However, it's not always just sunshine and rainbows.
Last week, Reddit user Throwrapis3ces invited everyone on the platform to share the disturbing facts they wish they didn't know, and they have already received nearly two thousand replies.
From human biology to waste management and social customs, continue scrolling to check out the stuff people think they would be better off not knowing.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
I just heard about this one. A hospital in Kentucky pronounced a man brain dead so they could harvest his organs after he overdosed in Oct 2021. They began their routine viability checks. He woke up during a viability cardiac cath, which sent some personnel over the edge and speaking out. They were quickly dismissed by KODA (Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates). His sister also reported that she saw him crying with his eyes open as he passed her during his honor walk to OR for harvest. Her report was also dismissed. In OR, some of the operating physicians refused to continue with the procedure as they reported he was thrashing and bucking the vent. KODA was not pleased and requested additional surgeons to proceed despite this calling his behavior involuntary. There was no one available to step in. Surgery was canceled. The man is alive and well today. Many of the staff, including physicians, reportedly needed therapy after this experience.
#2
Definitely on the most horrifying facts I've ever learned is that a mute mail order bride is ten times as expensive as one who has the power of speech. It's very disturbing and becomes more and more horrifying the more you consider the implications.
#3
Child slaves in the Congo mine the cobalt used in our phones.
Yayheterogeneity 3 weeks ago
I recommend getting a Fairphone. They do a remarkable job in trying to get all the resources for our phones under fair conditions even in the Congo. And it's a great phone! Look it up!
JJ 3 weeks ago
1000x upvote. Got mine half a year ago. Fairphone offers 5+ years updates and you can easily change many parts that tend to break (glass, battery, camera, ...) - all by yourself within a few minutes. They'll also take your old phone back and give you a refund for a new model. While it might not be all good, it's the best available sustainable and fair option right now.
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Carl Roberts 3 weeks ago (edited)
Doesn't matter how many people are informed of this fact, Most will still rush out and buy the newest iPhone or Samsung Galaxy, and then go on social media (using that very phone) and hypocritically feign outrage over the child slavery that helped build their phone
justagirl 3 weeks ago
just...a quick question...why is there cobalt in my phone? not malicious, simply clueless.
Janissary35680 3 weeks ago
Cobalt is a key element of the lithium-ion batteries that power the phones. Without it, the batteries wouldn't last as long.
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Bhanu Pabreja 3 weeks ago
https://www.apple.com/in/newsroom/2023/04/apple-will-use-100-percent-recycled-cobalt-in-batteries-by-2025/ Doesn’t absolve them but at least they are trying.
Bhanu Pabreja 3 weeks ago
https://www.apple.com/in/newsroom/2023/04/apple-will-use-100-percent-recycled-cobalt-in-batteries-by-2025/
#4
The Holocaust that occured in world war 2, was NOT the last.
Cambodia, Serbia, child soliders, and the Hutos, Tibet,
All with in my 57 years on the planet.
Large portions of humanity are horrible people whose only redeeming quality is to be a bad example.
#5
It's illegal in India to find out the gender of your baby, because so many prefer boys over girls.
#6
Every hour, an average of 12 children go missing across India. Every day that average is 296 children missing across India.
#7
That people regularly abandon animals and/or children all over the world.
#8
The youngest recorded mother is Lina Medina. She gave birth at the very (IN)appropriate age of FIVE YEARS, SEVEN MONTHS, AND TWENTY ONE DAYS OLD.
#9
Domestic violence rates go up when a big sporting event is on. And a team loses. (Obviously a team loses).
But, say England is playing France in football. The losing country will see a spike in DV.
#10
"call of the void" When you stand over a high place, and you just want to jump even though you're not going to jump that's what it called.. Interesting and disturbing at the same time...
#11
The lil dog in space Laika died terribly and afraid in an oven above the earth..
#12
Fatal familial insomnia. Super rare, but also super scary. Basically, you stop being able to sleep, then you go mad, then you die. No cure.
#13
That covid infections harm every system in our body.
Our
hearts,
vascular systems,
brain,
immune systems
connective tissue
stays behind in our guts
and reproduces in our bone marrow.
This can't end well.
#14
I am not the same after reading King Leopold's Ghost, about King Leopold II of Belgium's f*****g regime of terror and torture in Congo in the nineteenth century and what traces it still leaves today.
#15
Unit 731 was a Japanese “””research institute””” during WWII where they committed atrocities that would’ve made even the coldest of Nazis blush.
They would test the efficacy of different explosive devices by having live prisoners stand close to the blast and then see who survived the blast.
They would infect prisoners with STDs to see how the disease would develop if left untreated. Sickeningly, they sometimes would infect new prisoners with the STD by forcing an already-infected prisoner to rape them at gunpoint.
They forced other prisoners to strip off all their clothes and stand out in the cold until they died of frostbite, just to see what happened.
Perhaps worst of all, nobody was ever tried for war crimes and the man behind it all, Shiro Ishii, died peacefully in 1959. The United States knew of Unit 731, but they requested their “findings” in exchange for not investigating or prosecuting those responsible. Because of this, we don’t even know how many people actually died there, estimates range from 23,000-300,000.
None of the “findings” were even useful to the United States as it became clear that the experiments were carried out merely because the researchers thought they’d be fun.
Nakagawa Yonezo witnessed experiments and executions at Unit 731 and later testified, “Some of the experiments had nothing to do with advancing the capability of germ warfare, or of medicine. There is such a thing as professional curiosity: ‘What would happen if we did such and such?’ What medical purpose was served by performing and studying beheadings? None at all. That was just playing around. Professional people, too, like to play.”
#16
One way many states departments of corrections try to anticipate the number of prison cell will be required in 20 years is based on how many third graders fail the state reading assessment.
#17
Quokka mothers will eject their babies from their marsupial pouches at predators to escape.
Omni-Man rules. "I can always make another kid".
#18
When I body falls from a building, they don’t go ‘splat’, they bounce, unless it’s a very very high fall. Also if you’re driving over 80km/h and hit a horse or large animal, you can inhale its intestines and suffocate on them. Some factual stories from my ex-police father.
#19
Microplastics are found in human blood, organs and even placentas. These tiny plastic particles, which come from things like degraded plastic waste and synthetic fibers, are so persuasive in our environment that they’ve made their way into our bodies through te food we eat, the water we drink and even the air we breathe. While the long-term health impacts are still being studies, the idea that plastic is now part of our biologic system is pretty unsettling….
#20
The sheer power and devastation of hurrucanes. I watched an interview with people who survived the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. Their accounts were just awful. Some highlights:
- One man, who at the time was a teenager, was trying to get to their storm shelter out back. He was holding his toddler sister. Once he got outside, debris hit the girl in the head, smashing her head against his face. She died instantly. He said he just stood there, holding his sister's body for several seconds.
- One man watched their refrigerator fall on top of and pin their mother, breaking her back and paralyzing her. She was alive when he left her.
- People climbed trees to get away from the storm surge. Once it receeded, they had to crawl over bodies caught in lower branches.
- Several people were wandering around town naked afterwards. The storm had stripped them of every piece of clothing.
#21
A pig will eat every part of your body except teeth, there were several farmers who went missing and the only thing left was a pile of teeth in the pig pen. Pigs have also been known to walk in to farmhouses and eat people's babies, so yeah pigs are crazy.
#23
Child ab*se is more common than you think. If it’s not happening in your house, it’s definitely happening on your street.
#25
Organophosphates, including the chemical weapon Sarin Gas, work by inhibiting your muscle's ability to relax. Your muscles basically constrict and can't unconstrict, causing what feels like a muscle cramp through your entire body - your arms, your chest, your eyes, your tongue, everything. It most frequently kills via asphyxiation, because you can't exhale. Surviving means a permanent, irrecoverable loss of motor function, even with rapid medical treatment.
#26
Likely most of the 9/11 jumpers were conscious throughout their fall. That’s just the most heartbreaking thing to imagine.
#27
Approximately 50% of murders are unsolved every year. Was closer to 90% unsolved in the 70’s.
#28
That your organs know where they're supposed to be and move on their own.
During surgery, doctors will just stuff them back in and they'll rearrange themselves back to their proper spot.
#29
The Yellowstone Caldera, sometimes referred to as the Yellowstone Supervolcano, Under Yellowstone park that has the power to change the climate globally as well as end everything when it erupts.
#30
Currently whatever I am reading about the Diddy case has got me disturbed.
That stuff is just insane.
#31
I used to work at the coroner's court and attended hundreds of inquests. I had to become pretty numb to hearing about the deaths and seeing the reactions of the families and witnesses, but there's one that'll always stick with me.
It's the new baby's first Christmas, only a few months old. The family are eating their Christmas dinner, laughing and telling stories. Granny is holding the baby, and feeds her a little bit of the chicken so she can try it for the first time. The baby chokes to death.
Every time I think about this one, I wish I hadn't been there and hadn't heard it. It's always in the back of my mind for the rest of the day.
#32
That praying mantis females usually eat the males during intercourse but the male can continue without his head.
#33
Bedbugs practice traumatic insemination. The females have a genital area but the males prefer to just stab their p*nis into the females' abdomen and ejaculate right into her abdominal cavity.
#35
Most processed meat is linked to cancer.
What do you think ?
Diolla 3 weeks ago
Some of these are interesting, or scary. But quite a few of them sound like made-up stories.
Mike F 3 weeks ago
I agree. I believe that it's a thing from the site(s) the "stories" are harvested from. I get the impression that someone reads a tale then does the "well, if you think THAT'S bad listen to this..." Always trying to top another story.
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UncleJohn3000 3 weeks ago
This list needed to be fact checked before release on an unsuspecting public.
Comment Deleted 3 weeks ago
Can we please fact check this sh*t before posting. Like a bunch of middle schoolers wrote some of these.
Georgy 1 week ago
Bored Panda is not interested in checking for truthfulness. It is only concerned with clicks, and gets these by copying content from other sites.
Load More Replies... Susie Elle 3 weeks ago
Disturbing in a good way: there's a species of mealworm that can digest styrofoam and plastic. The monomers they poop out can be reused. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/superworms-eat-and-survive-on-polystyrene/
Emma S 3 weeks ago
I found out recently that when the space shuttle Columbia exploded on reentry in 2003, parts of the shuttle were found in three different states and 2/3 of it were never found.
UKGrandad 3 weeks ago
Columbia broke up over the Louisiana/Texas border, and the debris field was 250 miles long and 8 miles wide (2000 square miles) spread across the two states. Only 38% of the shuttle was recovered, so 2/3 is roughly correct.
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Diolla 3 weeks ago
Some of these are interesting, or scary. But quite a few of them sound like made-up stories.
Mike F 3 weeks ago
I agree. I believe that it's a thing from the site(s) the "stories" are harvested from. I get the impression that someone reads a tale then does the "well, if you think THAT'S bad listen to this..." Always trying to top another story.
Load More Replies... UncleJohn3000 3 weeks ago
This list needed to be fact checked before release on an unsuspecting public.
Comment Deleted 3 weeks ago
Can we please fact check this sh*t before posting. Like a bunch of middle schoolers wrote some of these.
Georgy 1 week ago
Bored Panda is not interested in checking for truthfulness. It is only concerned with clicks, and gets these by copying content from other sites.
Load More Replies... Susie Elle 3 weeks ago
Disturbing in a good way: there's a species of mealworm that can digest styrofoam and plastic. The monomers they poop out can be reused. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/superworms-eat-and-survive-on-polystyrene/
Emma S 3 weeks ago
I found out recently that when the space shuttle Columbia exploded on reentry in 2003, parts of the shuttle were found in three different states and 2/3 of it were never found.
UKGrandad 3 weeks ago
Columbia broke up over the Louisiana/Texas border, and the debris field was 250 miles long and 8 miles wide (2000 square miles) spread across the two states. Only 38% of the shuttle was recovered, so 2/3 is roughly correct.
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