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The flashes of light when you rub your eyes are called phosphenes.
This phenomenon allows you to see light without any actual light source present. This occurs due to many possible sources like magnetic stimulation, or random firing of cells in the visual system.
90% of U.S. money has cocaine on it.
Either from exposure or drug use, a study revealed that 90% of the dollars circulating in the economy have cocaine on it. Traces of cocaine were found reaching 0.006 micrograms (several thousand times smaller than salt). The green dye on dollars causes cocaine residue to stick to the bills.
A man once wore 60 shirts and 9 pairs of jeans to the airport to avoid extra fees.
In a flight from China to Africa, a man wore 60 shirts and nine pairs of jeans because he didn’t want to pay for extra baggage. He wore it throughout an 11-and-a-half hour flight.
Carrots can turn you orange.
If you eat three large carrots a day for several weeks, the increased beta-carotene in your blood could turn your skin orange.
Cows hate country music.
You’d think that cows would vibe with country music, but it’s actually not the case. According to research, cows produce 3% less milk when listening to country music. The study was conducted on a Scottish herd of 45 cows, which were made to listen to classical music and country music. With classical music, their milk produce increased, with one particular cow making 1 liter more milk than usual. However, with country music, 44 cows were observed to yield 3% less milk.
A man once legally changed his name for losing a bet.
After losing a drunken poker bet, a New Zealand man had his name legally changed to “Full Metal Havok More Sexy N Intelligent Than Spock And All The Superheroes Combined With Frostnova.” in 2009. After five years, the name was approved by the government. Now, all 99 characters of his new name are on his government documents.
Dolly Parton once lost a Dolly Parton look-alike contest.
Dolly Parton once entered a celebrity look-alike contest as herself – and lost. The contest was held in a San Francisco club. In order to somewhat disguise herself, Parton exaggerated her features with makeup. However, she got the least applause of all contestants, and ultimately lost to a drag queen.
Fact: Lemons float, but limes sink
Because limes are denser than lemons, they drop to the bottom of a glass, while lemons float at the top. Out of all these random fun facts, this one’s been in front of our faces (or rather, in our glasses) this whole time! Check out these other things to wonder about that you likely never thought of before.
Fact: Professional athletes used to perform in vaudeville during the off-season
Before today’s big-league salaries, professional baseball and football players often had to take on jobs during the off-season, The Atlantic reports. Some of them took advantage of their name recognition and hit the vaudeville circuits, doing everything from comedy routines to reciting poems. Babe Ruth even sang—if you could call it that. Frankly, many of the athletes had no business being on stage, but it’s not like it was against the rules.
Fact: The first time the word “period” was used on TV in reference to menstruation was 1985
It came via a line in a Tampax commercial: “Feeling cleaner is more comfortable. It can actually change the way you feel about your period.” And the actor who made pop culture history was Courtney Cox of Friends fame.
Fact: McDonald’s once made bubblegum-flavored broccoli
This crazy McDonald’s fact will have your taste buds crawling. Unsurprisingly, the attempt to get kids to eat healthier didn’t go over well with the child testers, who were “confused by the taste.”
Fact: Some fungi create zombies, then control their minds
The tropical fungus Ophiocordyceps infects ants’ central nervous systems. Once it has been in an insect’s body for nine days, it has complete control over the host’s movements. According to National Geographic, it forces the ant to climb trees, then convulse and fall into the cool, moist soil below, where fungi thrive. Once there, the fungus waits until exactly solar noon to force the ant to bite a leaf and wait for death.
Peanuts are used to make dynamite.
Aside from giving some people explosive diarrhea, peanuts can also be used to make actual explosives. Once peanut oil is processed, it can create glycerol – which, in turn, can be used to make nitroglycerin – one of the main components of dynamite.
Lobsters communicate with pee.
Lobsters communicate by urinating at each other with the bladders on each side of their heads.
The Simpsons creator intended for Homer Simpson to be Krusty the Clown.
If you follow The Simpsons, you’d notice how Homer Simpson and Krusty the Clown look almost identical. Simpsons creator Matt Groening was actually planning to reveal Homer Simpson behind all that clown makeup. However, to avoid the plot from getting too complex, he scrapped the idea.
A man once hired someone to slap him to avoid checking Facebook.
Maneesh Sethi hired a woman to slap him in the face every time he tried checking Facebook at work. He paid the woman $8 an hour.
There’s a company you can pay to kidnap you.
The Ultíme Réalité is a French company that offers kidnapping services. If you pay them a fee, they will come to kidnap you when you least expect it – ropes, binds, and all. They won’t do it immediately, though. They’ll wait for a certain period so you won’t remember that you paid someone to kidnap you.
In Russia, you can get fined for driving a car that’s too dirty.
If the dirt on your car completely obscures your license plate, you might just get fined.
Fact: The first oranges weren’t orange
The original oranges from Southeast Asia were a tangerine-pomelo hybrid, and they were actually green. In fact, oranges in warmer regions, such as Vietnam and Thailand, still stay green through maturity. Speaking of which, ever wonder which “orange” came first: the color or the fruit? We found out!
Fact: There’s only one letter that doesn’t appear in any U.S. state name
Can you guess the answer to this random fun fact? You’ll find a Z (Arizona), a J (New Jersey), and even two X’s (New Mexico and Texas)—but not a single Q.
Fact: A cow-bison hybrid is called a beefalo
You can even buy its meat in at least 21 states.
Fact: Johnny Appleseed’s fruits weren’t for eating
Yes, there was a real John Chapman who planted thousands of apple trees on U.S. soil. But the apples on those trees were much more bitter than the ones you’d find in the supermarket today. “Johnny Appleseed” didn’t expect his fruits to be eaten whole but rather made into hard apple cider.
Fact: Scotland has 421 words for snow
Yes, 421! Some examples: sneesl (to start raining or snowing); feefle (to swirl); and flinkdrinkin (a light snow).
152 people in the U.S. are named LOL.
Laugh out loud, or lots of love? What it means, we may never know – but 152 people have LOL as their legit birth name. Most of these LOLs live in Wyoming.
Your brain uses 12 watts of energy to think, and does not feel pain.
The brain uses 20% of our resting metabolic calorie rate to keep functioning. It does not feel any pain because there are no pain receptors in the brain itself.
Anatidaephobia is the fear of being watched by a duck.
A person with Anatidaephobia fears that somewhere in the world, a duck or a goose is watching him/her.
Cans of diet soda will float in water, regular soda cans will sink.
It sounds ironic, but this funny fact is proven. Cans of regular soda tend to be more dense than water, so they sink. Cans of diet soda are usually less dense than water, so they float.
Koalas feed their newborns poop.
After baby koalas are born, their parents feed them poop. This helps them digest Eucalyptus leaves as they grow.
Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
Although Disney’s most iconic character is a mouse, Walt Disney actually feared mice.
Horses cannot breathe through their mouths.
Horses don’t have an instinct to breathe through their mouths because their soft palate seals their pharynx except when swallowing. Horses can’t breathe through a sealed pharynx, and that is why they only breathe through their nostrils.