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More than 70% of people can determine your sexual attitudes just by looking at your face.
However, if you happen to be a man with a large nose, square jaw, and small eyes or a woman with large lips and wide eyes, they’re more likely to suspect you’re into short-term relationships, one-night stands, and sex without love. . https://www.spring.org.uk/2016/11/facial-features-mating-preferences.php |
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George Washington didn’t know dinosaurs existed, but he probably thought giants were real.
America’s first president died in 1799, and science didn’t prove the existence of dinosaurs until 1841. Before then, fossilized dino bones were often thought to belong to an extinct race of giant humans. . https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/when-was-first-dinosaur-discovered/ |
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Hygrophobia- Fear of liquids, dampness, or moisture.
Lockiophobia- Fear of childbirth. |
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Fear of the unknown is the force behind many different anxiety disorders.
. https://www.spring.org.uk/2016/11/personality-trait-anxiety-disorders.php?omhide=true |
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We often lower the pitch of our voices when we’re talking to someone we find attractive.
Because of the common stereotype that husky, breathy, and lower-pitched voices are sexier, both men and women may unknowingly try to sound more like Barry White or Scarlett Johansson if they’re talking to someone they think is hot. . https://curiosity.com/topics/your-voice-changes-when-you-talk-to-someone-attractive-curiosity/ |
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Taking a few moments to pause and observe nature can improve your mood.
Literally ‘stopping and smelling the roses’ or noticing things like a bird, a house plant, a dandelion in the sidewalk, or just the sun shining through the window can boost your happiness and well-being. . https://www.spring.org.uk/2017/11/feel-happier-two-minutes.php?omhide=true |
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Asymmetriphobia- Fear of asymmetrical things.
Contreltophobia- Fear of sexual abuse. |
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There has never been a reported death caused by consuming too much weed.
While alcohol can become lethal at only 10 times the effective dose, the lethal dose for marijuana is at least 1,000 times greater than the dose you would need to achieve a noticeable effect. . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPszR0-vTqc |
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Fictional characters might not be real, but our relationships with them are.
Studies show it’s difficult for our brains to distinguish between our familiarity with characters on TV and our personal relationships with real people. The effect is so strong that just thinking about watching your favourite TV show can make you feel less lonely. . https://curiosity.com/topics/tv-characters-might-be-fictional-but-your-relationship-with-them-isnt-curiosity/ |
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If you’re travelling through the fog and the sun is at your back, you might just see a white rainbow.
Fogbows are like rainbows without colour. Though rare, they occur in the fog because the water droplets, which would normally form a rainbow, are too small to reflect the light wavelengths that create colours. . https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2239661/white-rainbow-fog-bow-photo-scotland-uk-weather/ |
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Melissophobia- Fear of bees.
Ophthalmophobia- Fear of being stared at. |
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Almost all mammals live for around 1 billion heartbeats.
For a rabbit, which has a quick pulse, it takes about 3 years to reach a billion heartbeats, but a slow-pulsed elephant can go more than 80 years. Only humans can push their hearts past 2 billion, thanks to modern medicine, food preservation technology, and water purification. . https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12877984 |
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Sound changes when it snows.
It seems quieter right after a snowfall because a blanket of fresh powder is absorbing the sound waves- but once the snow melts and refreezes, it then creates a reflective surface that amplifies sound by allowing it to travel farther than normal. . https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/snow/science/characteristics.html |
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Psychopaths are less likely to catch other people’s yawns.
. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67644/new-study-shows-psychopaths-dont-catch-yawns |
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Studies have shown that duct tape is significantly more effective than liquid nitrogen at removing warts.
. https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/duct-tape-can-do-everything-including-cure-your-warts#.W8OsPGRKiAz |
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The original version of Monopoly was actually created in protest of monopolies. The inventor, Elizabeth Magie, believed in a system of shared land value and designed the game as a teaching tool to address the problems and immorality of land monopolies - but she only made about $500 off of her game because some guy stole her idea, sold it to Parker Brothers, and kept all the royalties for himself.
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“Whataboutism” is a Cold War propaganda tactic that the Soviet Union started using in the 1940s to avoid or shoot down criticism.
Instead of addressing people’s concerns or answering uncomfortable questions, Soviet leaders would respond with, “What about…” and then draw attention to unfavourable events in the U.S. and other parts of the Western world. . https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/03/russia-and-western-double-standards-the-long-history-of-russian-complaints-about-unfair-treatment.html |
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In 1997, two composers created ‘The Most Unwanted Song’ by issuing a public opinion survey and compiling all the lyrical and musical elements that most people found annoying.
It combines a harp, accordion, out-of-tune children singing about Christmas and Walmart, high-pitched flutes, tubas, keyboard demos, someone yelling random political terms through a megaphone, and an operatic soprano rapping over cowboy music, bagpipes, and screams. It’s 22 minutes long. . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Unwanted_Song |
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People who are raised in warmer climates tend to be friendlier than those brought up in places with cold, harsh temperatures.
. https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2017/11/28/our-personalities-are-shaped-by-the-climate-we-grew-up-in-research-indicates/ |
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Consuming a lot of energy drinks can stress you out, make you depressed, and cause you to lose sleep.
. https://www.bustle.com/p/are-energy-drinks-bad-for-you-a-study-found-they-may-have-impact-on-both-your-mental-physical-health-5550568 |
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People who check their work email at home or on vacation have a lower sense of well-being than those who keep their work and free time separate.
. https://www.spring.org.uk/2017/12/work-wellbeing.php |
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Some Converse sneakers have a thin layer of felt on the bottom.
Its only purpose is to save the company money because shoes with fuzzy soles technically qualify as slippers, which have import taxes up to 30% lower than regular shoes. . https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-is-why-your-converse-sneakers-have-felt-on-the-bottom-6016648/ |
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When a falconer wants to breed their birds, they let the male bird mate with their head.
A falcon born in captivity imprints on its falconer, and, after bird puberty, it might see them as a mate. If the falconer can impress the bird with a seductive mating song, it copulates with their special sex hat, which collects the semen for artificial insemination. . https://www.earthtouchnews.com/wtf/wtf/behold-the-falcon-sex-hat-a-species-saving-hump-helmet/ |
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It’s almost impossible to change someone’s mind using facts.
This happens due to ‘motivated reasoning,’ a psychology term that refers to the way people usually believe whatever they want to believe and use the flimsiest piece of evidence to justify that belief, even when there is plenty of verified evidence to disprove it. . https://curiosity.com/topics/motivated-reasoning-is-why-you-cant-win-an-argument-using-facts-curiosity/ |
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One of the world’s biggest living things is a mushroom.
There’s a giant network of honey mushrooms spread across 2,200 acres of Oregon that’s more than 1,500 years old, and it strangles trees from underground by cutting off their nutrient and water supply. Scientists call it ‘The Humongous Fungus.’ . https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsbdev3_033146.pdf |
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When a decapitated flatworm regrows its head, it gets all of its old memories back, too.
. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/these-decapitated-worms-regrow-old-memories-along-with-new-heads-9497048/ |
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People who were given corporal punishment as children are more likely to engage in violence with their adult romantic partners.
. https://abc3340.com/news/local/spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child-new-corporal-punishment-study-claims-to-have-an-answer |
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‘****speck’ is a German word used to describe emotional overeating. In English, it literally translates as ‘grief bacon’.
. https://www.dw.com/en/word-of-the-week-****speck/a-17129263 |
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The more you use Facebook, the worse you feel. Studies show that with increased use over time, Facebook users have lower life satisfaction, mental health, and physical health, and a higher BMI.
. https://hbr.org/2017/04/a-new-more-rigorous-study-confirms-the-more-you-use-facebook-the-worse-you-feel |
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The flu virus has a gel-like coating that keeps it protected in cold temperatures. The coating starts to melt around 72° F, so warmer weather means it’s more vulnerable in the open air. The closer it gets to freezing, the safer it is inside its ‘shell,’ which melts once it’s in your body. That’s why winter is ‘flu season.’
. https://curiosity.com/topics/why-do-people-get-sick-when-the-seasons-change-curiosity/ |
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Prehistoric women had super strength. Studies of their bones show they had extremely strong arms due to a lifetime of rigorous manual labour. They had greater arm strength than even top-end modern athletes.
. https://www.geek.com/science/science-says-ancient-women-did-majority-of-manual-labor-were-stronger-than-modern-athletes-1724551/ |
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On the set of Home Alone, Joe Pesci avoided Macaulay Culkin so that he’d be genuinely afraid of him. He also gave Culkin a scar on his finger while rehearsing the scene where he says he’s gonna “bite off every one of these little fingers, one at a time,” because he actually bit him and broke the skin.
. http://rulefortytwo.com/articles-essays/movies/macaulay-culkin/ |
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A Texas man went to the ER with a blood-alcohol level of 0.37 but swore he hadn’t been drinking.
For years, people thought he was a “closet drinker” because he often became randomly drunk and claimed he didn’t know why. Doctors found that he had auto-brewery syndrome, a condition which caused intoxicating fermentation inside his stomach whenever he ate a lot of carbs. . https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/09/21/beer-gut-mans-belly-brews-own-beer/?cjevent=04287c94d98911e882bd03800a240614 |
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Challenging your brain with problem-solving activities can help curb your anxiety.
. https://today.duke.edu/2017/11/brain-activity-buffers-against-worsening-anxiety |
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When a BBC hoax documentary aired on Halloween 1992, it terrified its 11 million viewers so much that the network had over 20,000 complaints.
‘Ghostwatch’ featured well-known BBC presenters, was shot with hand-held cameras, and, though billed as a drama, was mistaken for a real documentary. The experience was so frightening for both viewers and the network that the program was never again rebroadcast in the UK. . https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/87007/bbc-halloween-hoax-traumatized-viewers |
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The FBI spent years investigating an anti-goth cult that didn’t even exist. After a worried goth contacted the FBI about the ‘Church of the Hammer’ and their Yahoo group ‘GodHatesGoths,’ concerns grew and the Bureau launched an official investigation.
It continued for over 2 years before they realized the entire thing was completely fake and intended to be a joke - which had been written as a disclaimer on the website all along. . https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2016/oct/31/fbis-investgation-god-hates-goths/ |
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The best way to remember information long-term is to read it out loud to yourself.
. https://www.spring.org.uk/2017/12/memory-trick.php |
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The ampersand used to be the 27th letter of the alphabet. To avoid confusion with the word ‘and’, people added ‘per se’ before its name when reciting the alphabet so that it ended: X, Y, Z, and per se &.
Over time, the ‘and per se and’ ran together, and the term ‘ampersand’ was born. . https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/feb/15/from-a-to-ampersand |
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‘Share tables’ help keep kids from going hungry and reduce food waste in schools across the US.
When schools set up share tables in their lunchrooms, anyone can leave their unopened food and drinks on the table instead of throwing them away, other kids can stop by and take whatever they’d like, and the leftovers are usually donated to food banks or used in after-school programs. . https://www.scarymommy.com/school-share-tables/ |
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Whitetip reef sharks sleep in cuddly piles, just like kittens or puppies. Although sharks don’t enter a fully- unconscious state of sleep like mammals do, they like to snuggle while switching between states of wakefulness and restfulness.
. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/503296/rare-footage-shows-cuddly-sleeping-habits-sharks |