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The great German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once sagely remarked that "if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Damn rightly noticed, especially when you consider that for several millennia of its existence, humanity has been actively gazing into the abyss and highlighting itself first with a candle, and then with a flashlight. We call this process science.

And you know what? There are scientific theories that, from one awareness of them, from one thought, send goosebumps running down the skin and make us feel sick. And in this viral thread you can meet netizens opening up about the creepiest pieces of science they've ever known.

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#1

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn The theory of MAD, or mutually assured destruction.

It's a great theory for helping me sleep at night, but uh... It kinda only works if everyone involved is always rational at all times, and never feels they have nothing to lose.

Thankfully no human ever acts irrationally.

And certainly if they did, we'd never let them keep control of nuclear weapons!

That'd be insane.

Ha ha. Really insane.

Like, "insane" is honestly putin it mildly.

Phoenix042 , Oliver Cole Report

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#2

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn Just being alive is the most f*****g bizarre thing in the world.

redditshy , Roberto Nickson Report

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#3

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn Death. Just death. Blows my mind that one day we just cease to exist and people just go on with their life as if we were never there.

anon , Veit Hammer Report

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LizzieBoredom
LizzieBoredom
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Life: Electrical charge across a cell membrane. Death: You didn't come with extra batteries.

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Some people think that being afraid of science is basically weird, because it is thanks to science that we got to where we are, and modernity is not only about climate change, nuclear weapons and TikTok. It is also cutting-edge medicine, an opportunity to get to another continent in just a couple of hours, communication with people on the other side of the globe... But anyway, just seriously think about some scientific facts - and it really sends shivers down our spines.

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#4

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn Alzheimer's/Dementia - anything where you lose your memory or become a burden to your family

Motor_Relation_5459 , Andrew Neel Report

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#5

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn Quite a common one, but space is SO BIG. Like, bigger than the amount that we can observe. Gives me the chills.

Backstage____ , Pixabay Report

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Cosmologist wannabe
Cosmologist wannabe
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

no, we're just really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really small.

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#6

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn I suppose that at any moment you can have an aneurysm and bam you're dead and there's not much you can really do to prevent it or even predict it

DoopFoopHoop , Robina Weermeijer Report

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PeepPeep the duck
PeepPeep the duck
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I met a girl (about 40yrs old) in Perth years ago, I was a person hired to take her out on fun adventures, although she just preferred the library and movies. Found out when I met her mum, she was a promising academic student and at 19 just had an aneurysm and needed special care ever since. made me think differently about them.

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What else is the problem - for many people, science has replaced religion, and the principles there are just completely different. "My answer was the usual, ‘science is not a belief system’ followed by a deeper explanation. The conversation circled around to faith. I shared that I saw no inherent conflict between my faith and science," Dr. Marshall Shepherd, a leading international expert in weather and climate, writes in his column on Forbes.

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"Many students (and parents) also suffer from 'science anxiety.' I am always concerned when I hear a parent say, 'I am not a science person nor is my kid.' Such statements train the child to succumb to parental insecurities or biases while setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy," Dr. Shepherd also notes, and it's actually hard to disagree with him.
#7

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn Antimicrobial resistance.

What's really crazy is, we owe our modern prosperity (especially in the US) to antibiotics. Each particular antibiotic only works for a short period of time, before pathogenic bacteria becomes resistant to it. We've been though numerous different antibiotics since the discovery of penicillin, and pathogenic bacteria have become resistant to almost all of them. We're running out of antibiotics that are still effective.

About 4 or 5 years ago, I learned that there were babies born in India who had infections that were resistant to all known types of antibiotics.

There's a good chance that in our lifetimes, we'll see people dying from common infections due to the lack of effective drugs to treat them.

uglyugly1 , Edward Jenner Report

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Lindilou
Lindilou
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I am a nurse in UK and there are bacterial infections that was resistant to all known antibiotics. Antibiotic resistant infections are not just in India, but you just do not hear about them. Also, people need to stop asking for antibiotics for colds and the flu. They do not work!!!

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#8

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn Any AI smart enough to pass the Turing test, is smart enough to know to fail it

Shadeslaer , ThisIsEngineering Report

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SCamp
SCamp
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

AI isn’t ‘smart’. It doesn’t think. It just pulls together information

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#9

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn The Carrington Event. In 1859 the sun spewed a huge amount of highly-charged plasma that brushed against the Earth's magnetosphere and caused every electronic device on Earth to receive a huge electric shock. At the time, "every electronic device on Earth" consisted of a few telegraph machines. Some simply ran even while disconnected from their power supply for a while, some melted.

If an event like this were to happen today (we're overdue for one), it would pretty much destroy every single electronic device, including all of the infrastructure used to generate and distribute electricity.

There would be widespread blackouts everywhere, and no way to contact anyone to call for help or find out what state the rest of the world is in. And no way to fix it other than re-creating centuries worth of scientific advancements by hand.

CapnFang , ISS Expedition 23 crew Report

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that 𝕤𝕒𝕡𝕚𝕠 planet
that 𝕤𝕒𝕡𝕚𝕠 planet
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's insane just how many close calls have occurred in things like this. How the hell are we still alive?

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But be that as it may, it used to be somehow easier in the good old days, wasn't it? To live, firmly knowing that above us is a solid sky with stars evenly nailed to it, through which the sun runs with the punctuality of a mail train. Live confident that if you strictly follow the rules specified in the holy books, you will definitely go to heaven... Live without thinking about how this world really works, and what awaits us when we cross that fine line... Science helps us replace faith with knowledge, but sometimes that knowledge is scary as hell.
#10

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn People in large groups become really bad at making decisions, planning, and making accurate judgements.
It doesn’t matter if the group is made of genuinely intelligent people, the above is always true.

Rusty-Wheel , Min An Report

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LizzieBoredom
LizzieBoredom
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Do you know what will bring about the fall of the American Empire? Team Building Exercises.

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#11

The brain is so complex that we can't understand it fully, ergo the brain is so complex that it doesn't understand itself.

Ponder that for a moment.

_spookyvision_ Report

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#12

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn That since 9/11 more soldiers [take their own lives] than die in war.

DanMittaul , Art Guzman Report

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Jeremy Klaxon
Jeremy Klaxon
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You mean commit suicide? (I'm sure this will be automatically censored, what a circus this is)

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However, another fundamental difference between knowledge and faith is that knowledge is not absolute, and what was previously considered an immutable scientific truth may well be refuted tomorrow. After all, as Omar Khayyam once wrote, “Strange, is it not that of the myriads who before us pass'd the door of darkness through, not one returns to tell us of the road, which to discover we must travel too.” So now just read and scroll this list to its very end - and add your own scary scientific facts in case you have some, as we're sure you do.
#13

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn Atoms are 99.99% empty space. The nature of all seemingly solid matter is an illusion.

osunightfall , Tara Winstead Report

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Cosmologist wannabe
Cosmologist wannabe
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

actually it is just the pauli exclusion principle and some simple quantum mechanics that makes things 'solid'. nothing too complicated, until you thing about.

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#14

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn naegleria fowleri (brain eating amoeba) has a 97% fatality rate and it’s immune to most antibiotics

Old_Championship3196 , iccsafe Report

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Barong
Barong
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Check out prions. It’s simply an mis-folded protein that can unfortunately transmit its shape to other proteins causing them to mis-fold as well. There is no cure and the contagious protein must be destroyed using acids or by burning to prevent its spread. Spongiform encephalitis, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, fun stuff.

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#15

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn There have already been five mass extinction level events

justandswift , Elviss Railijs Bitāns Report

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John Topper
John Topper
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A few people have said it, but a sixth is happening right now. It's not "going to happen", we are literally living through it. Species of every kingdom are going extinct faster than we can capture them to preserve them. It's wild and terrifying.

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#16

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn the fact that we will never ever be able to know everything. like theres a limit to what we can know and theres so much out there that will we just never discover.

another one that scares me is that we are all alone on this floating rock. i doubt we are the only intelligent life in this universe but its possible that we are in a sense and that it self scares me so much.

starfire1905 , Nina Uhlikova Report

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Sonja
Sonja
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I personally find this soothing. The idea that this is it, that's it, that's what would scare me. As long as there are things we don't know but that could still be discovered there's still hope. Maybe tomorrow someone discovers the secret to make everything better, or, and I know that's hard to accept, something surfaces that wipes us all out and ends all suffering. Either way, as long as there's something left we don't know, there's a possibility that suffering ends

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#17

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn That humanity has changed so drastically in the last 100 years that it scares me how different life will be in even 50 years from now

JP1426 , Vlad Alexandru Popa Report

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ferocious freshwater fish
ferocious freshwater fish
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

In 100?? Just think of 2013,2003,1993..you don't need a hundred years for drastic change. Ten are more than enough

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#18

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn There are between 6-10 nuclear missiles that are missing.

No sovereign nation has a clue where they are, or who has control of them.

PatMenotaur , Kilian Karger Report

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#19

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn Your brain recalls memories when you die but your brain also recalles memories wrong so you're basically lying to yourself right before you die

IndianaJonesDoombot , Robert Șerban Report

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#20

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn We’re either alone in this universe or we’re not

HalfChineseJesus , Greg Rakozy Report

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#21

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn The fact that we've only searched a little bit of the whole ocean.

I wouldn't even get wet from the sea on the surface, I don't wanna see whatever the f**k's down there

5keletonj4zzw1zard , NEOM Report

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MontanaMariner
MontanaMariner
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I spent 10+ years commercial fishing around Alaska, I can confirm you DO NOT WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S DOWN THERE! So many terrible ways for the ocean to kill you. She gives zero f***s!

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#22

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn When you look up at the sky you aren't really looking up. Gravity keeps ypu grounded, and you're really staring down into an infinite fall

Good-of-Rome , Max Andrey Report

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Dan Holden
Dan Holden
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This one makes no sense. Are you saying if it wasn't for gravity we would "fall" upwards? Falling and the concept of up and down only make sense if there's gravity, otherwise these concepts are meaningless.

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#23

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn Gamma blasts scare the c**p out of me they could happen at any time and nothing can stop them

wetlettuce42 , European Southern Observatory Report

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#24

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn When you get rabies and didn't get treated until the symptoms show up, you're dead. When you experience single symptom of rabies you're already dead, there's nothing you can do about it. Also rabies symptoms can take long to show up, the incubation period for rabies can last up to years. So if you were bitten or scratched by an animal with rabies years ago, the symptoms could show up right now and you will die.

567stranger , Andrea Piacquadio Report

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ferocious freshwater fish
ferocious freshwater fish
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'd exit myself. The symptims are beyond frightening. I'm a nurse and neurology was is one of my specialities. I have taken care people with creutzfeldt-jakob or late stage of syphilis. That diseases don't frighten me as much as Rabies!

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#25

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn It's thought our galaxy is full of rogue planets wandering free from their original star. At any time one of these planets could wander through our solar system radically throwing off the fragile balance of our orbits. A big enough planet passing close enough could send us careening into the sun.

Fun_Boysenberry_5219 , David Menidrey Report

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Max Fox
Max Fox
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This person doesn't really understand just how much of the galaxy is empty space, and how far away everything is from everything else. The moon, which looks so close is 238,900 miles away. Flying in a jet airplane, if that was possible in space, would take around 2.5 weeks of constant flying. The distances is also 30 times the diameter of the earth. So, to visualize the distance, take a basketball as the earth, and place a baseball, the moon 23 feet away. Those are the dimensions, not what kids have on their mobile hanging in their room. A basketball which is 23 feet, or 33 bananas, away from a tennis ball. The sun, BTW, would be a ball that is 86 feet in diameter, and is over 9,000 feet away from the basketball. You can calculate the distance in bananas on your own this time.

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#26

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn The teleportation theory, that teleporters don't actually move you from place to place but kills you by breaking you down to molecular level and create a exact replica of you on the other end who thinks it's you because it has your memory. And as more and more people will use it they will keep getting replaced by a different person each time.

SuvenPan , Dan Senior Report

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Adam Belaire
Adam Belaire
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Isn't that pretty much like how we live now? we shed dead skin, our hair and nails get cut, blood is created and destroyed inside you all the time. Even from our infant years, our baby teeth fall out and are replaced. We're changing ourselves all the time.

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#27

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn Ionizing radiation. The concept feels like cosmic horror to me. Like an invisible curse, that can kill you just for stepping into a forbidden place.

Ok-Organization9073 , Alper Çuğun Report

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ferocious freshwater fish
ferocious freshwater fish
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I read a lot about the bombings of Japan lately. The description of the impacts on the human body sends me to a place in mind only few things can do. Survivors mad explicit paintings and told about what they've seen. The feelings the people have had, still have... It could drive me insane, if I think about that too long. It doesn't affect me that this happened but knowing what people went through makes me go crazy. I've experienced a lot of pain in my life that was done to me. I'd take some more to help ease this feelings they've had and their families still have.

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#28

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn The Andromeda Galaxy is on a collision course with the Milky Way Galaxy and it is moving at us at the rate of 70 miles a second. However, we have 5 billion years to get ready.

imflukeskywalker , CajunAstro Report

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#29

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn If you get hit hard enough in that spot on the back of your head where your spine connects to your skull, you die instantly.

DemonFrage , Tima Miroshnichenko Report

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#30

30 Frightening Scientific Facts That Folks In This Online Group Had The Misfortune To Learn There are microorganisms and bacteria crawling around your eyes. Academically, I know that we think they are helpful and fight disease. However, I don't like the notion of stuff crawling around in/on my eyes.

BobTheGC , Amanda Dalbjörn Report

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Note: this post originally had 38 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.

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