Would you believe it if we told you that a chicken can live for 18 months without its head? It’s understandable to be skeptical, but it is true. It happened in 1940s America involving a chicken named Mike. Here's the full story.
We have a handful on this list if you want more of that. We’ve compiled responses to this recent Reddit question: “What’s a fact about the world that sounds totally fake but is 100% true?”
Some of these answers may blow your mind. If you enjoy nerding out on random facts about the world, this one’s for you. But either way, you will likely learn something new today.
#1
80% of Soviet males born in 1923 didn’t survive WWII.
Image credits: lusty_kittyxo
#2
Earth’s core is as hot as the Sun’s surface.
Image credits: Front_Economist_2612
#3
The last execution by guillotine in France was the same year Star Wars hit theaters, 1977.
Image credits: kjm16216
#4
Over 70 years ago then Naval Lieutenant James “Jimmy” Carter les a team that walked into a melting nuclear reactor core and shut it down safely. He got dosed with so much radioactivity (10,000x more than what we now consider safe) he pissed radioactive whizz for months. Yet he outlived not only his Presidential successor but his successor. He’s the nations oldest President ever, and recently celebrated his 78th wedding anniversary, also a record for a president.
#5
Birds have been observed intentionally lining their nests with cigarette butts. While the nicotine in them is toxic to the birds, it's a low enough dose that it's not a significant risk to them in the short term (they don't live long enough for the long term effects to be a problem), and it kills parasites that may try to hide in the nest and infect the chicks.
Smaller bird species have been sighted stealing the anti-bird spikes that we put on buildings and lining their nests with them, like little palisade walls against other birds and predators. A small species like a songbird can navigate the spikes easily, but it makes it more difficult for a predator like a hawk or a rat to get to the nest.
Crows have also been observed stealing lit cigarettes from ashtrays and wafting the smoke through their feathers to kill parasites.
Image credits: grendus
#6
Pistachio ice cream is about 2000 years older than Chocolate or Vanilla ice cream. Persians were making ice cream as early as 500BC, often flavored with Pistachio. Chocolate and Vanilla, on the other hand, are native to the New World and wouldn't make it there for another two thousand years.
Image credits: Slow_Bed259
#7
There's a type of jellyfish that's immortal. The Turritopsis dohrnii, also known as the "immortal jellyfish," can transform its body into a younger state through a process called transdifferentiation, essentially making it immortal.
Image credits: Kindergeschichten
#8
During the great depression, FDR created the Civilian Conservation Corps for young men. They planted over 2 BILLION! trees in their 7 years of existence. They also built a lot of the buildings and lodges at the national parks.
#9
When Betelgeuse goes supernova (if it hasn't already and we don't know yet) it will be visible in the day for roughly a year, and several more years we'll see it at night. That said, the prediction of 'when' by scientists is somewhere between today and 100,000 years from now. Odds are, none of us will see it.
#10
How old the Appalachian Mountains really are:
They are older than trees, bones (including all dinosaurs), and the splitting of Pangaea -- so part of the mountain range is in Scotland.
The layering on the mountains looks "wrong" at some points because the tops of the mountains have eroded down & "new" geological forces have caused parts that weren't the top to rise above that...so the valleys of the current mountains may actually be the top of the original Appalachian Mountains.
Image credits: Psychological_Try559
#11
A million seconds is about 11.5 days.
A billion seconds is over 31 **YEARS**.
Think about that when you consider the wealth of a millionaire vs a billionaire.
#12
Saudi Arabia imports sand.
Bonus fact: they also import camels.
Image credits: suroorshiv
#13
About 25% of people on earth don't know their birthday because they're from countries that don't have birth certificates. That's why about 14% of immigrants to the U.S. list January 1 as their birthday - because they had to make one up.
Image credits: Dragmom
#14
Every glass of water you drink is almost 100% guaranteed to have at least one water molecule that was also drank by dinosaurs.
Image credits: ProbablyABore
#15
A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus.
Image credits: CozyFenn
#16
Cows have best friends!! you know how wee see them group all the time but they still has this their very best of friends for them. if they would sperate they'll get stressed about it. they really have this strong bond.
Image credits: SnazzyTyler
#17
Chloroplasts are the organelles responsible for photosynthesis.
A sea slug called the emerald elysia, which has a transparent body, steals chloroplasts from algae and packs them into its own cells.
The chloroplasts continue to photosynthesize, providing the slug with ~80% of the total calories it will consume over its life.
#18
Magnolia trees are so old that they predate bees by about 40 million years, and as a result are pollinated by beetles.
They are considered the first flowering plant on earth.
Image credits: SuperHyperFunTime
#19
We need a steady supply of horseshoe crab blood to run our modern medical system. Their blood contains compounds that detect miniscule amounts of harmful bacteria, otherwise IV drugs wouldn't be safe.
#20
A group of pandas is called an embarrassment.
Image credits: writerkyle
#21
Italy didn’t have widespread use of the tomato until the 1700s and the pasta sauces we think of being a core of their cuisine didn’t exist until the 19th century.
Flurb4:
It’s amazing how many New World plants are central to what we think of as “classic” Old World ethnic or regional cuisines — tomatoes in Italy and around the Mediterranean, potatoes in Ireland, chilis all across South and East Asia.
#22
There are currently more chickens than all other birds combined on this lovely planet.
Image credits: RunDifferent2004
#23
Screech owls will sometimes bring live sankes into their nests with their chicks nesting inside. Probably because the tiny snakes will eat parasites, although the chicks do sometimes eat the snakes.
Image credits: Aduro95
#24
Tyrannosaurus (approx 70 million years ago) lived closer in time to humans than to stegosaurus (150 million years ago).
Image credits: SamuraiGoblin
#25
Australia is wider across than the moon.
Image credits: PuddlePaddles
#26
Gavrilo Princip tried to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand during a parade through the streets of Sarajevo, but could not get close enough to the motorcade because of security. Later in the day, after the parade had been over for hours, Princip retreated sullenly to a small sandwich shop elsewhere in the city, when suddenly and completely out of the f*****g blue, Franz Ferdinand *just happened* to roll past him on his way back from a speech after taking an unscheduled detour down the same street as the sandwich shop. Princip walked right up to the car and shot the Archduke at point-blank range, killing him, which started World War I -- the deadliest conflict in human history up to that point.
#27
Whales descended from tiny deer-like animals which is why they are mammals.
LaMuchedumbre:
Whales’ ancestors weren’t really close to deer at all, they were more while thylacines or wolves. Look up the pakicetus.
#28
There are more Hydrogen atoms in a molecule of water than there are stars in the solar system.
#29
The sea produces more oxygen than trees.
#30
There are bears in super rural parts of Russia that are addicted to huffing fuel meant for the power generators, and there's nothing the locals can do about it, because when the locals try and take away the fuel from the bears it doesn't go well.
Image credits: Kineticwizzy
#31
In Switzerland, it's illegal to own 1 guinea pig. They consider them social animals and require companionship, so you have to have at least two!
#32
The timespan between the use of copper swords and then steel swords is longer then the timespan between the use of steel swords and the nuclear bombs.
Syscrush:
Related: nuclear bombs were invented before the compound bow.
#33
There are more ways to shuffle a standard deck of cards than there are atoms on earth.
Image credits: sunbearimon
#34
The Ottoman Empire lasted so long, both Queen Elizabeth I (born 1533) and Betty White (born 1922) were alive during its existence.
Man landed spacecraft and humans on the moon, 200K miles from earth, 16 years earlier than the Titanic was discovered right here on earth.
The Southern Cross was actually visible in the northern hemisphere up until 400 AD. It was described and written about by ancient Greek and Roman astronomers, but the gradual precession of the Earth's equinoxes over the centuries caused the constellation to vanish from northern hemisphere view. It can still technically be seen from the northern hemisphere, but only if you are in the tropics (around Cancun, Mexico) or close to the equator in the late winter/early spring.
#35
Mammoths were alive during the construction of the Great Pyramid.
Also if you put it on a timeline, Cleopatra and Ceaser are closer to today than to the construction of the Great Pyramid.
#36
If you take every steel wire used in the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge’s cables and line them up end-to-end, they’d wrap around the equator over 2 times.
#37
Nearly half of all humans to have ever existed are believed to have been killed by mosquitoes.
#38
Nuclear Reactors can be natural and there's been one on earth for over a billion years.
#39
You can hear a blue whale's heartbeat from more than 2 miles away. Now that's some serious love!
#40
We ground up most of the ancient Egyptian mummies into powder to paint with or…eat.
SuperHyperFunTime:
The Victorians were a fucking savage bunch.
#41
We don't know how much coastline there is on Earth.
It's called "The Coastline Paradox". Coastlines are fractal. Sure, we can look at a broad scale map, but miss all the tiny variations, sometimes mere ft or centimeters. These add up to huge numbers. Measuring the length of a coastline is tricky because the result depends on how detailed your measurement is. Imagine walking along the shore with a ruler: if you use a big ruler, you'll skip over small curves and bumps, giving you a shorter measurement. But if you use a smaller ruler, you can measure all the little details, and the coastline will seem much longer. Plus, it's always changing. Erosion, cliff collapse, water levels rising, volcanic events adding or removing it.
#42
The Deepest part of the ocean *isn't* the abyss. It's called The Hadalpelagic Zone. It encompasses the bottoms of trenches and sea floor caverns.
And we know frighteningly little about it.
The Challenger Deep is only the deepest *known* part of the ocean. There's almost certainly points in the ocean that are much deeper.
#43
Honey never spoils; researchers discovered edible honey in the pyramids.
#44
If everyone on Earth competed in a 1v1 tournament. The winner would be decided in just 33 rounds.
#45
Chimpanzees share more DNA in common with humans than they do with any other primate.
#46
7% of the entire human population since humans began, are alive today.
#47
There are only like 25 blimps left. Additionally, not many of them are even in use anymore, I think they estimate like 10-15 of them. So if you see a blimp nowadays, it's a much rarer sighting than it used to be!
Edit: someone pointed out that I meant "airship" not blimp. There are even fewer ones which are classified as "blimp", which is a nonrigid airship.
#48
If Back to the Future were remade today and set in 2024, Marty would time-travel back to 1994.
#49
Lightning is five times hotter than the surface of the Sun.
#50
The earth is a spheroid, not a sphere. Because of the effects of rotating around the axis, earth's diameter is actually about 45km wider around the equator then it is going from pole to pole.
#51
The most common cause of death in pregnant women is homicide by their male partners.
#52
Lighter were invented before matches.
#53
There are WAY more trees on earth than stars in the entire Milky Way Galaxy.
#54
Japan is simultaneously farther east, west, north, and south of Korea.
#55
All the other planets, if lined up end to end, can fit between the earth and moon (at least, when the moon is at its farthest orbital distance).
#56
If you are in a room with 22 other people there is a 50% chance that two people share the same birthday.
#57
Nearly 70% of smokers will die from smoke related illnesses.
This is the fact that got me to quit.
#58
There is also a shark (greenland shark, i think) that lives like 500 years; so there are sharks alive today that were alive before America became a country.
#59
Bananas are berries, while strawberries are not, due to the botanical definitions of these fruits.
#60
1/120 humans alive today are slaves paid nothing for their work. This doesn't include low wage slaves such as US prisoners. There are more slaves today than any other point in history.
#61
Dinosaur fossils were already a thing when dinosaurs were still alive.
For example; Stegosaurus had been extinct for ~85 million years before T-Rex showed up. So while Rex was enjoying some Triceratops steak, Stegosaurs were already dead and gone for millions of years.
#62
There's a supervolcano under yellowstone that if it erupted would wipe out a good chunk of the human population.
#63
Caterpillars essentially liquify themselves, before turning into butterflies, in a process called larval ecdysis.
#64
There is a species of frog that can freeze in the winter and come back. There is another species of frog that traps itself in a snot bubble for six months durring dry season.
source https://www.boredpanda.com/fake-sounding-facts-true/
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