Top 27 unbelievable facts that most people don’t know

[00]

Apparently about 2 of these facts aren't exact. But the rest are.

27. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cigarette+lighter+invented+before+match&btnG=Google+Search


26. The average chocolate bar has 8 insect legs in it.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=average+chocolate+bar+insect+legs&btnG=Search


25. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf058/sf058b07.htm


24. Its impossible to smoke oneself to death with weed. You won\'t be able to retain enough motor control and consciousness to do so after such a large amount. (Common Sense)

23. Uncle Phil, from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, did the voice of Shredder in the TMNT cartoon.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0043041/


22. Every drop of seawater contains approximately 1 billion gold atoms.

http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Au/geol.html



21. The US national anthem actually has three verses, but everyone just knows the first one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner

20. During World War II, IBM built the computers the Nazis used to manage their death/concentration camps.

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/articles/auschwitz.html

19. The total combined weight of the worlds ant population is heavier than the weight of the human population.

http://www.perceptions.couk.com/superants.html

18. The deadliest war in history excluding World War II was a civil war in China in the 1850s in which the rebels were led by a man who thought he was the brother of Jesus Christ.

http://www.asiawind.com/pub/forum/fhakka/mhonarc/msg00451.html


17. Just about 3 people are born every second, and about 1.3333 people die every second. The result is about a 2 and 2/3 net increase of people every second. Almost 10 people more live on this Earth now, than before you finished reading this.

http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/content/ask_earl/page?d=20000714


16. Happy Birthday (the song) is copyrighted.

http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp

15. The number of people alive on earth right now is higher than the number of all the people that have died. Ever.

http://www.prb.org/Template.cfm?Section=PRB&template=/Content/ContentGroups/02_Articles/0ct-Dec02/How_Many_People_Have_Ever_Lived_on_Earth_.htm


14. The average American consumes 1.2 pounds of spider eggs a year and eat 2.5 pounds of insect parts a year.

http://www.corsinet.com/trivia/average.html


13. The Kamp Krusty episode of the Simpson’s was originally meant to be made as the Simpsons movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamp_Krusty


12. Men can breastfeed babies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_lactation


11. There is a rare condition called Exploding Head Syndrome which you\'ve probably never heard of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome


10. Scientists have determined that fungi are more closely related to human beings and animals than to other plants.

http://www.factmonster.com/spot/fungus1.html

9. In some (maybe all) Asian countries, the family name is written first and the individual name written second (opposite of the America method). That\'s why Asian athletes like Yao Ming and Ichiro Suzuki have Yao and Ichiro written on their jerseys. Those are their family names and in America their names are written Ming Yao and Suzuki Ichiro.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_name


8. Abe Lincoln bought 50 cents worth of cocaine in 1860

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/19.1/hall.html


7. A German World War II submarine was sunk due to malfunction of the toilet.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=9684&start=0

6. Washington State has the longest single beach in the United States. Long Beach, WA.

http://www.gonorthwest.com/Washington/southwest/Long-Beach/Long_Beach.htm


5. The largest living thing on the face of the Earth is a mushroom underground in Oregon, it measures three and a half miles in diameter.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/fungus1.html


4. The town of Los Angeles, California, was originally named El Pueblo la Nuestra Senora de Reina de los Angeles de la Porciuncula.

http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/la/historic/la_settlement.html

3. 9 out of 10 people believe Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. This isn’t true; Joseph Swan did.

http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/swan.html


2. Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01338.htm


1. The Population of the world can live within the state boundaries of Texas.

http://www.improb.com/teach/lessons2002/people-in-texas.html

[Roids]

11. There is a rare condition called Exploding Head Syndrome which you\'ve probably never heard of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome

!

Actually I think I might have experienced this. About a week ago, I woke up because I thought I heard a loud noise and than a bright flash, sorta like a thunderstrike but exaggerated. Now that I think of it, the sound is like a loud gunshot. I asked my brother if he heard that(because it was loud) and he said he heard nothing. Although im not going through anything stressful as far as I know and I wasnt scared when I saw it but than again im not afraid of anything. First( and probably last) time it happened.

OMFG!!!1 I have an exploding head! De1t@!!1

[DnA]

Cool, I get to live 9 years longer than lefties woot

IBM/Nazi thing I already knew about, I think there were a few other American companys who made things that the Germans used in the Concentration Camps aswell.

Lighter I already knew about, but everything else is new. Good stuff.

[Kilgor]

The u-boat toilet one is fake.

[Bombtrack]

why are there insect legs in chocolate bars

[eucalyptus]

some other stuff I find interesting.

It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
The average human eats 8 spiders in their lifetime at night
A polar bear's skin is black. Its fur is not white, but
actually clear
Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he
doesn't wear pants.
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed
in plane crashes
Marilyn Monroe had 6 toes on one foot.
Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times

[<Gypsum Fantastic>]

why are there insect legs in chocolate bars

For essential roughage.

[ViktorNavorski]

9. In some (maybe all) Asian countries, the family name is written first and the individual name written second (opposite of the America method). That\'s why Asian athletes like Yao Ming and Ichiro Suzuki have Yao and Ichiro written on their jerseys. Those are their family names and in America their names are written Ming Yao and Suzuki Ichiro.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_name

Not sure about Yao, but Suzuki is Ichiro family name. The reason it said Ichiro on his jersey is because in Japan, there were two other players on his team that has the family name of Suzuki, the coaches got tire of figuring out who was who and decided that Ichiro have his first name on his jersey and it stay the same when he play in the U.S.

[Eat a bullet]

18. The deadliest war in history excluding World War II was a civil war in China in the 1850s in which the rebels were led by a man who thought he was the brother of Jesus Christ.
I'm f*ckin' Craig!

[Hellfish]

17. Just about 3 people are born every second, and about 1.3333 people die every second. The result is about a 2 and 2/3 net increase of people every second. Almost 10 people more live on this Earth now, than before you finished reading this.

http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/content/ask_earl/page?d=20000714



Uh.. check your math on that. 3 - 1.3333 = 1.66666 according to my calculator.

[Bob Lawbla]

Number 28. There is no word that rhymes with Orange.

[Bryson C]

Good post.

[Nawlins]

#1 is why I laugh at people who talk about "overpopulation."

[Ayura]

25. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf058/sf058b07.htm




I'm left handed...

[thunderw]

Me too. :(

[BadKarma26]

Me three...

[FallenAngel]

all three of you are f***ed. :D

[Ayura]

25. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf058/sf058b07.htm


It's only just occured to me:


The population of Humans on the earth is 80-90% right handed. This means that obviously people who are right handed will live longer since the ratio is extremely more larger than that of the left handed people. It defies logic when you think about it. Kind of a stupid illogical fact if you ask me.

[Chuckie]

28. The average ***** length is 5.5 inches.

The average ******l depth is 8 inches.

Assuming that the population of Earth is 6 billion (and that's a very conservative estimate), that leaves you with 3 billion women.

If every women is losing two inches of possible penetration, that means that there are 7.5 billion wasted inches of ******, aka:

625,000,000 feet, or 118,371 miles of wasted ******.

This does not take into account lesbians.

[-Jack-]

28. The average ***** length is 5.5 inches.

The average ******l depth is 8 inches.

Assuming that the population of Earth is 6 billion (and that's a very conservative estimate), that leaves you with 3 billion women.

If every women is losing two inches of possible penetration, that means that there are 7.5 billion wasted inches of ******, aka:

625,000,000 feet, or 118,371 miles of wasted ******.

This does not take into account lesbians.

Ugly girls are also a waste of a ****** ... and feminists. (ooooo, political!)

[Ratamacue]

It's only just occured to me:

The population of Humans on the earth is 80-90% right handed. This means that obviously people who are right handed will live longer since the ratio is extremely more larger than that of the left handed people. It defies logic when you think about it. Kind of a stupid illogical fact if you ask me.
I'm having a hard time articulating myself here, so bear with me. But basically, you're not correct. If you sample the lifespans of 1,000 left-handers and 1,000 right-handers, then you should (in theory) come up with an accurate average. It doesn't matter what the ratio of righty/lefty is among the population, just that you're taking a random sampling out of each population.

[-Jack-]

Its still not valid.

The pool for choosing right handers is much larger an therfor will get a different average within itself, the lefties only have a small pool to choose from. If the planet had a 50% rightie and 50% leftie then it would be a fair comment, but .... oh for fu*ks sake its stupid anyway, that whole list is dumb.

The number of people alive on earth right now is higher than the number of all the people that have died. Ever.
Thats absolute crap, more than 6 billion people have died within the last 2 millenia at least.

A mushroom the largest living thing? pull the other one! try a tree! a great red wood.

[Caesar]

The number of people alive on earth right now is higher than the number of all the people that have died. Ever.
Thats absolute crap, more than 6 billion people have died within the last 2 millenia at least.

Is it coming out of your mouth or do you have facts!?!?

[EvanL]

No matter how hard you try to look at it.. A Tomato is still a fruit.. FACT!
or something like that.

[-Jack-]

based on this idea

Just about 3 people are born every second, and about 1.3333 people die every second. The result is about a 2 and 2/3 net increase of people every second. Almost 10 people more live on this Earth now, than before you finished reading this.


Say if the earth was only populated by a million people and the rate of life over death is 2/1 then that means 1million people died everyday, and with earlier plauges and bad health people died in the droves.

6billion people have died before us, they must have.

human existance goes back thousands of years.

edit*
go back about a hundred and fifty years, i guess the population of the world was at about 3 billion, and they are all dead.

[Seraphim]

!

Actually I think I might have experienced this. About a week ago, I woke up because I thought I heard a loud noise and than a bright flash, sorta like a thunderstrike but exaggerated. Now that I think of it, the sound is like a loud gunshot. I asked my brother if he heard that(because it was loud) and he said he heard nothing. Although im not going through anything stressful as far as I know and I wasnt scared when I saw it but than again im not afraid of anything. First( and probably last) time it happened.

OMFG!!!1 I have an exploding head! De1t@!!1

Thats the same story as Macs.

I think I might have this too, sometimes about half asleep I hear a loud noise, more mechanical...but I dont know if its in my head or if its real.

[Omaha]

Largest living organism on earth is a grove of aspen trees in colorado. They are all connected, although it appears they are seperate trees above ground.


More people have lived and died under Roman Rule than any other amount, under any and all rule. I thought that was false for a while too, but if you think about it, it is true.

[Lokos]

go back about a hundred and fifty years, i guess the population of the world was at about 3 billion

You guess wrong.

Lokos

[Lokos]

For example, in 1950 the world's population was 2,556,517,137.

In 950AD there were 250 million people. About 500 million in 1600. About one billion in 1802. Two billion by 1927. Four billion by 1971. There will be eight billion in 2027.

Approximately one fifth of all humans in the last six thousand years are alive today.

Lokos

[Eat a bullet]

Damn, my post must have gone over everyones head, cause no one would have ignored such brilliance.

PS New Avatar! Teehee!

[IRONHORSE]

The Great Barrier Reef Is The Largest Living Thing.
Chuck

[Sleepy]

I'm with The Great Barrier Reef Is The Largest Living Thing.

[FDF_Hemppis]

some other stuff I find interesting.

Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he
doesn't wear pants.

Wrong...



No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times
...and again.

[Eat a bullet]

Wrong...
Hmm, is it because Donald has a bigger ***** than most finns? :p

No, I don't know from experience.

[toki]

I'm with The Great Barrier Reef Is The Largest Living Thing.
But it's not one organism. It's a interacting coexistence of bilions of organisms. This fungus in Oregon or wherever is one organism by definition. Individual like one animal or one plant.

[00]

I am still wondering about the insect legs in chocolate though. I guess it must be really small insects... I'm also wondering about what kind of insect it is, because I might then indirectly be the biggest insect predator on earth (fact 28)...

[joka]

some other stuff I find interesting.

Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he
doesn't wear pants.

It's actually one of the most popular comics around here, if not the most popular. I have never heard about this before, where did you get it?

More random facts: The reason why you can be in a 100&#180;C sauna, but not stick your hand in 100&#180;C water, or why if you stick your head out of a moving car in the winter it feels much colder than if you were standing still, is that a human has a protective layer of air around its skin. Water removes it completely, wind removes it partly. ;)

[toki]

It's actually one of the most popular comics around here, if not the most popular. I have never heard about this before, where did you get it?
I've been in finland a couple of times and i heard it there, too. The mother of a friend there told me "Akku Anka" was banned years ago, but of course unbanned later. I had a girlfriend there and she also told me that story.


I am still wondering about the insect legs in chocolate though. I guess it must be really small insects...
talk about mites. My guess.

[JoaMei]

The u-boat toilet one is fake.

No, its really true. But the Toilet was not malfunctioning, the user made a Mistake with the mechanism. :|

[joka]

I've been in finland a couple of times and i heard it there, too. The mother of a friend there told me "Akku Anka" was banned years ago, but of course unbanned later. I had a girlfriend there and she also told me that story.


That must be years ago since I've read it most of my life.

PS. The double "K" is in Ankka ;)

[toki]

That must be years ago since I've read it most of my life.

PS. The double "K" is in Ankka ;)

yep as i understood maybe in the fifties.
Sorry that i did a typo in your - not so easy - language. ;)

Akku is battery, right? I got some words, but don't ask me.

[eucalyptus]

Wrong...


...and again.

Ye, I had to look it up, the donald duck was wrong but the piece of paper.. You prove it wrong. And remember a piece of paper is not 200 miles piece of paper.

[joka]

yep as i understood maybe in the fifties.
Sorry that i did a typo in your - not so easy - language. ;)

Akku is battery, right? I got some words, but don't ask me.

Das ist korrekt, batterie ente ;)

[toki]

Das ist korrekt, batterie ente ;)
ok...

I'm not 100% sure it's not a hoax. Maybe they were wrong, too, but i heard it in finland. whatever.

Kippiis...



(?)

[Lazarou]

There was no Donald Duck ban in Finland, although in the late 1970's a few crazy idiots claimed it was vulgar and indecent, partly because of religious and political reasons (biblenazis and commies). International press heard the rumour and suddendly "Finland banned Donald Duck because he has no pants".

[Ayura]

I'm having a hard time articulating myself here, so bear with me. But basically, you're not correct. If you sample the lifespans of 1,000 left-handers and 1,000 right-handers, then you should (in theory) come up with an accurate average. It doesn't matter what the ratio of righty/lefty is among the population, just that you're taking a random sampling out of each population.


That still would not make any sense. How would the results reflect the majority? The sample is still a randomised average.

[FDF_Hemppis]

Ye, I had to look it up, the donald duck was wrong but the piece of paper.. You prove it wrong. And remember a piece of paper is not 200 miles piece of paper.
Kinda hard to do that over the net ;)
But I've heard this one before a loooong time ago, and of course had to try it...And it's not true, BTDT. Go ahead try it out yourself :)



More random facts: The reason why you can be in a 100´C sauna, but not stick your hand in 100´C water
Or how about the fact that water is slightly better heat conductor than air? ;)



or why if you stick your head out of a moving car in the winter it feels much colder than if you were standing still, is that a human has a protective layer of air around its skin. Water removes it completely, wind removes it partly. ;)
Well the windchill factor is based on the rate of heat loss through exposed skin, and is directly proportional to the amount of exposed skin and wind speed .

/nitpick :p

[zonk]

i seriously did not know that!!!

[eucalyptus]

Kinda hard to do that over the net ;)
But I've heard this one before a loooong time ago, and of course had to try it...And it's not true, BTDT. Go ahead try it out yourself :)
still waiting

[Omaha]

Kinda hard to do that over the net ;)
But I've heard this one before a loooong time ago, and of course had to try it...And it's not true, BTDT. Go ahead try it out yourself :)



I just did, several times. You can NOT fold any piece of paper MORE than 7 time IN HALF. Try it right now, you will see.


And this is by hand not with a pair of pliers and a vice.

[FDF_Hemppis]

I know I'm nitpicking a lot by now, but here goes nothing:


still waiting

I just did, several times. You can NOT fold any piece of paper MORE than 7 time IN HALF. Try it right now, you will see.
Wrong. As by Archimedes law it's supposedly impossible to fold a SQUARE piece of paper in half more than 7 times.

I just did 8 with a newspaper page (NOT SQUARE ;)). Quit whining and do it.



I also googled this, just for your pleasure (Yes, I'm well aware the everything on the net is not true, but since I've done more than 7 myself...) :


Assuming it were possible to fold paper without restriction, the height of a piece of folder paper would double in thickness each time it was folded. Since one sheet of typical 20-pound paper has a thickness of about 0.1 millimeter, folding 50 times (if this were physically possible, which of course it is not) would produce a wad of height http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/equations/Folding/inline41.gif meters, and folding one more time would make the stack higher than the distance between the Earth and Sun.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/gifs/folding.jpg

The function
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/equations/Folding/equation2.gif(2)
gives the loss function for folding paper in half, where http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/equations/Folding/inline42.gif is the minimum possible length of the material, http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/equations/Folding/inline43.gif is the thickness, and http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/equations/Folding/inline44.gif is the possible number of folds in a given direction. This formula indicates how much "normalized" paper has been lost for http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/equations/Folding/inline45.gif folds, and thus sets a limit for the number of times things of finite thickness can be folded in one direction (Pomona Valley Historical Society). For http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/equations/Folding/inline46.gif, 1, 2, ... the sequence http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/equations/Folding/inline47.gif gives 0, 1, 4, 14, 50, 186, 714, ... (Sloane's A076024 (http://www.research.att.com/projects/OEIS?Anum=A076024)). The formula was derived by high school student Britney Gallivan in December of 2001. Britney then proceeded to set a new world record by folding first gold foil and then paper in half a whopping 12 times in January of 2002, thus debunking the assertions of Math@Home and PBS Kids that paper cannot be folded in half more than eight times.

[zonk]

dude i am so ****ing lost after that math problem

[eucalyptus]

you didnt use a square, I win now gimme a cookie :)

[zonk]

go to your room without supper...no desert before dinner

[FDF_Hemppis]

you didnt use a square, I win now gimme a cookie :)
You didn't specify it must be a square :lol:

I win woot




p-)

[Omaha]

Damn...thanks for making me look like an asshole.

Take your technicalities and shove it. ;)

[Howitz]

11. There is a rare condition called Exploding Head Syndrome which you\'ve probably never heard of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome


Oh my god, ahaha
about two years ago, i drew this little guy http://img343.imageshack.us/img343/6330/head0mn.jpg when i was bored in english class, thought i was making this stuff up....

[Paracaidista]

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/gifs/folding.jpg
The formula was derived by high school student Britney Gallivan in December of 2001. Britney then proceeded to set a new world record by folding first gold foil and then paper in half a whopping 12 times in January of 2002, thus debunking the assertions of Math@Home and PBS Kids that paper cannot be folded in half more than eight times.

She's hawt :D

(and good in math too, what else I can ask?)