Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
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.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
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.
RELATED:
#2
Just being alive is the most f*****g bizarre thing in the world.
#3
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.
LizzieBoredom 1 year ago
Life: Electrical charge across a cell membrane. Death: You didn't come with extra batteries.
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.
#4
Alzheimer's/Dementia - anything where you lose your memory or become a burden to your family
#5
Quite a common one, but space is SO BIG. Like, bigger than the amount that we can observe. Gives me the chills.
Cosmologist wannabe 1 year ago
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.
#6
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
PeepPeep the duck 1 year ago
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.
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.
"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
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.
Lindilou 1 year ago
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!!!
#8
Any AI smart enough to pass the Turing test, is smart enough to know to fail it
#9
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.
that 𝕤𝕒𝕡𝕚𝕠 planet 1 year ago
It's insane just how many close calls have occurred in things like this. How the hell are we still alive?
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
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.
LizzieBoredom 1 year ago (edited)
Do you know what will bring about the fall of the American Empire? Team Building Exercises.
#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.
#12
That since 9/11 more soldiers [take their own lives] than die in war.
Jeremy Klaxon 1 year ago
You mean commit suicide? (I'm sure this will be automatically censored, what a circus this is)
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
Atoms are 99.99% empty space. The nature of all seemingly solid matter is an illusion.
Cosmologist wannabe 1 year ago
actually it is just the pauli exclusion principle and some simple quantum mechanics that makes things 'solid'. nothing too complicated, until you thing about.
#14
naegleria fowleri (brain eating amoeba) has a 97% fatality rate and it’s immune to most antibiotics
Barong 1 year ago
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.
#15
There have already been five mass extinction level events
John Topper 1 year ago
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.
Rachel Ainsworth 1 year ago
Don't worry, if we kill all the bees we'll die of starvation long before we get to collapse of the ecosystem.
Load More Replies... 
Noname 1 year ago
I don't care if I get downvoted-- I really enjoy the documentaries featuring Graham Hancock, who proposes that humans have a collective amnesia about our history as there are so many archeological findings that are beyond our knowledge but are within our documented accounts of history. I also enjoy the "Ancient Aliens" series because everyone is thinking outside the box of accepted archeology/anthropology theories and proposing theories that are just as plausible as what physicists and astronomers suggest. I'm annoyed that the theories, unproven, by physicists are given more credibility than the theories proposed by archeologists and anthropologists, as if the math on paper is more plausible than the physical evidence presented.
Stephanie A Mutti 1 year ago
And sharks have survived most of them. Pretty amazing. For sharks anyway.
Samyan Elrod 1 year ago
read the sixth extinction by elizabeth kolbert. i think it won a pulitzer prize and its one of the best pieces of modern literature ive ever read
#16
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.
Sonja 1 year ago
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
#17
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
ferocious freshwater fish 1 year ago
In 100?? Just think of 2013,2003,1993..you don't need a hundred years for drastic change. Ten are more than enough
#18
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.
#19
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
#20
We’re either alone in this universe or we’re not
#21
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
MontanaMariner 1 year ago
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!
#22
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
Dan Holden 1 year ago
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.
#23
Gamma blasts scare the c**p out of me they could happen at any time and nothing can stop them
#24
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.
ferocious freshwater fish 1 year ago
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!
#25
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.
Max Fox 1 year ago (edited)
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.
#26
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.
Adam Belaire 1 year ago
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.
#27
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.
ferocious freshwater fish 1 year ago
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.
#28
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.
#29
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.
#30
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.
What do you think ?
Josh Sheridan 1 year ago
I'd like to make friends. I'm Josh and it's nice to meet you all. How's everyone? 😊
Stardust she/her 1 year ago
Hi Josh, you could simply refer to me as Stardust for now. I’m doing fine. How are you? :)
Load More Replies...
Robert Davis 1 year ago
I don't think anything really scares me. I only hope when I die my family will be able to make it financially.
Leslie Harris 1 year ago
have you ever wondered if the world is just the figment of someone's imagination?
Tetelestai 1 year ago
Well, I’ve wondered what it would be like in someone else’s POV, if you mean that. Like, how do I know I’m not making all of this up, and you’re part of my nightmare/dream? You can ATTEST to being a conscious human with a life and feelings like me, but how could I know for sure? Anything you say could be false, anything you tell me you feel could be false. In fact, that reminds me of the internet. A whole bunch of weirdos pretending to be someone they’re not, pretending they care when they don’t, but you can’t tell
Load More Replies...
Tetelestai 1 year ago
Be thankful you don’t have my brain, haha. It likes to think about this stuff ALL the time. At least once a week
Load More Replies...
Brett Hughes 1 year ago
If people overdose on paracetamol/Tylenol and don’t get help fast they die a few days later. People sometimes wake up in hospital and regret what they’ve done, but it’s too late. They will die.
Tetelestai 1 year ago
Not…? Does it include all life forms absent except for me?
Load More Replies...
Brad Blackwell 1 year ago
Man saw land and ventured forth, saw lakes and oceans and sailed across them, saw mountains and climbed them, saw the sky and found ways to fly in it, saw the oceans depths and is venturing towards the bottom, saw the moon and set foot on it, sees Mars and is finding a way to there. Man sees light years away thru telescopes...one day we will find a way to travel across the universe.
Josh Sheridan 1 year ago
I'd like to make friends. I'm Josh and it's nice to meet you all. How's everyone? 😊
Stardust she/her 1 year ago
Hi Josh, you could simply refer to me as Stardust for now. I’m doing fine. How are you? :)
Load More Replies... Robert Davis 1 year ago
I don't think anything really scares me. I only hope when I die my family will be able to make it financially.
Leslie Harris 1 year ago
have you ever wondered if the world is just the figment of someone's imagination?
Tetelestai 1 year ago
Well, I’ve wondered what it would be like in someone else’s POV, if you mean that. Like, how do I know I’m not making all of this up, and you’re part of my nightmare/dream? You can ATTEST to being a conscious human with a life and feelings like me, but how could I know for sure? Anything you say could be false, anything you tell me you feel could be false. In fact, that reminds me of the internet. A whole bunch of weirdos pretending to be someone they’re not, pretending they care when they don’t, but you can’t tell
Load More Replies... Tetelestai 1 year ago
Be thankful you don’t have my brain, haha. It likes to think about this stuff ALL the time. At least once a week
Load More Replies... Brett Hughes 1 year ago
If people overdose on paracetamol/Tylenol and don’t get help fast they die a few days later. People sometimes wake up in hospital and regret what they’ve done, but it’s too late. They will die.
Tetelestai 1 year ago
Not…? Does it include all life forms absent except for me?
Load More Replies... Brad Blackwell 1 year ago
Man saw land and ventured forth, saw lakes and oceans and sailed across them, saw mountains and climbed them, saw the sky and found ways to fly in it, saw the oceans depths and is venturing towards the bottom, saw the moon and set foot on it, sees Mars and is finding a way to there. Man sees light years away thru telescopes...one day we will find a way to travel across the universe.
You May Like 50 Interesting And Intriguing Facts From The “Today I Learned” Community 40 Facts About Animals That Might Make You Look Like The Smartest Person In The Room 50 Reassuring Facts Not Everyone Might Be Aware Of, According To People Online
Shelly Fourer
Ilona Baliūnaitė
Indrė Lukošiūtė
Related on Bored Panda
