You know, it’s kinda hard to surprise anyone these days. Unless you have some random weird
facts up your sleeve. Like what people used before toilet paper was invented! (Hint: it
grew out in the garden!) And what if you don’t have sleeves? Where
do you hide those facts then? Behind your ear? Up your nose?
While you ponder your options, here come some Kooky tidbits you probably didn’t know!
Here we go!
Chances are you’ve never eaten real wasabi in your life — you likely got regular horseradish
instead. Authentic wasabi is incredibly expensive. For most restaurants, it’s not profitable
to buy the real deal.
You can order spaghetti at McDonald’s in the Philippines. It’s called –guess what
-- McSpaghetti. The pasta is served with ground beef, tomato sauce, and grated cheese.
If you’re on horseback, though, don’t expect to get a burger in the drive-thru.
The fast-food chain doesn’t allow it.
Those delicious apples at the grocery store aren’t as fresh as they look. Some apples
are stored in the refrigerator for 9 to 12 months before being sold!
You can’t hold your nose and hum at the same time. We exhale through our nose when
we hum. When the nose is clamped, the air is blocked. Try it!
People getting their picture taken during Victorian times said “prunes” instead
of “cheese”. Apparently, shaping the mouth this way gave them a “nobler” look. Plus,
it could take 15-30 minutes just to take one photo — imagine having to smile for that
long!
We take as many photos every 2 minutes now as were taken during the whole 19th century.
The world’s largest waterfall is underwater! This is the Denmark Strait cataract, where
cold denser water from the Nordic Seas flows under warm water from the Irminger Sea. Along
the way, it falls 11,500 feet over an underwater ridge. That’s more than 3 times the height
of the tallest waterfall on land.
Dark and light look way more contrasted on the moon. On our planet, air diffuses sunlight,
so objects remain a little illuminated in the shadows. There is no air on the Moon,
so shadows are blacker. But when there’s light, it shines on the Moon much stronger
because of its reflective dust.
Bananas, kiwis, and watermelons are berries — strawberries are not. By definition, a
berry is a type of plant fruit that contains a lot of seeds and has a juicy pulp growing
from the flower. Strawberries don’t fit these criteria: technically, the “seeds”
on their surface are nuts! That’s nuts.
The iconic countdown you associate with rocket launches was actually borrowed. French film
director Fritz Lang came up with it in his 1929 sci-fi movie Woman in the Moon. This
countdown scene inspired NASA.
Queen Elizabeth II owns more than 160 cows. Yep, it’s the Royal Herd. These animals
are so pampered that they sleep on water beds to feel maximum comfort!
There’s a boiling vessel system for heating food and making hot tea installed inside every
British tank. Can’t go without tea time, no matter where you are!
The hair from one human head can support the weight of a cruise ship anchor, about 12 tons.
Scientists have discovered people with a gene that keeps their armpits from stinking. Hoo-ray!
Their sweat doesn’t have the chemicals bacteria feed on to produce pungent body odor.
Australia drifts about 2.5 inches North each year because of tectonic plate movements.
Gee, maybe few million years or so, and they’ll be “down upper”.
Australia is also wider than the moon. Check the numbers: The Land Down Under (heh heh)
is almost 2,500 miles across, and the moon — a little over 2,100.
If you ever get sad in space, your tears won’t roll down your cheeks. In weightlessness,
all the tears gather in one big drop on your face and float away.
Back on earth, scientists from the University of California found men with broad faces don’t
produce trust in people around them. So, others behave more selfishly with them.
YouTube was originally planned to become a Dating site. The details weren’t set — it’d
just be something with dating and uploading videos. The red YouTube icon is all that’s
left of this idea. So, would this channel be called The Love Side? Heh heh…no.
Intensive physical activity helps you remember new information better. But only if you do
it on a schedule. For example, you study for 1 hour, and then do 40 minutes of exercise
4 hours later. The ideal activity for this is cycling.
“Who’s a good boy?!”- research has shown most dogs respond more positively to this
praise than to food. Hey we all crave appreciation!
Researchers from Germany and France have identified mutations in 3 genes that can cause the “uncombable
hair syndrome.” If you have that, let me know down in the comments.
There are more than 200 drivers in Britain that are at least 100 years old. But, as statistics
show, they don’t drive any worse than young folk!
You’ll spend 1 year and 3 months of your life deciding what to watch on TV. If you
don’t watch the old-school tube, then you’ll probably spend that time picking a YouTube
video to watch!
People used to use corn cobs instead of toilet paper. Some continued to prefer it even after
modern-style commercial toilet paper was invented in 1857! Still the corn cobs are much happier
these days.
Rainbows are a frequent occurrence. A double rainbow — not so much. A rainbow with a
beginning and end — even less! But the rarest rainbow is a moonbow. It shows up at night
thanks to moonlight.
Trees don’t improve the air quality on city streets. On the contrary, they can make it
worse. This is because leaves and branches slow down airflow, causing pollutants like
exhaust fumes to get stuck on the trees and settle there.
Half the earth’s oxygen is produced in the ocean by a single-celled phytoplankton plant.
The other half is thanks to trees, shrubs, and grasses.
If you could travel at the speed of light (670 billion mph), you could go around the
Earth 7½ times in 1 second. But why would you?
Yet the sun is so far away from our planet, that it takes that super speedy light 8½
minutes to reach us. So if the sun burned out, we wouldn’t know it right away.
The Rubik’s Cube creator Erno Rubik took one month to solve the cube after he created
it. The world record is now 3.47 seconds. So there.
Bluetooth technology is named after Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson who united Denmark
and Norway. Apparently, he had a rotten blue tooth visible in his smile. Not sure if I
really needed to know that…
There’s such a thing as a professional wealth psychologist. These experts help their super-rich
clients deal with their problems, like feeling guilty for being so wealthy and having such
a “heavy burden.” Aw…
Archaeologists found 3,000-year-old pots of honey in an ancient Egyptian tomb. This is
the oldest sample in the world, and it’s still perfectly edible! Apparently, honey
just doesn’t go bad.
There are more unique combinations in chess than atoms in the Universe.
If you get in your car and drive up to the sky at 60 mph, it’ll take just one hour
to get to space. Expect 6 months if you’re going to the Moon. If you have such a car,
we love to see it.
Sunglasses were invented in China, but for a different purpose: to hide judges’ facial
expressions in court.
If you donate blood in Sweden, you’ll get an SMS notification if your blood is being
used.
A single lightning strike can toast 100,000 slices of bread. Let’s try it, huh?
In 1992, a cargo ship lost a crate with more than 28,000 rubber duckies in the North Pacific.
These toys still appear on coasts around the world, even over in the Atlantic!
The largest desert in the world is located in... Antarctica! A desert isn’t just a
hot place with sand — it’s an area where any form of precipitation falls very rarely.
And a dessert doesn’t care about precipitation. It just has to be yummy.
The Bleeding Tooth Fungus (not to be confused with Bluetooth) looks like it has drops of
blood all over it. But don’t be alarmed! It’s simply the fungus’s inner thick red
fluid oozing through its spores. It’s inedible, of course. Not that you were considering grabbing
a fork...
Before the alarm clock was invented, people woke up to the crow of a rooster or the ringing
of a city tower. But there were also special people responsible for knocking on windows
to wake others up — they were called knocker-uppers. And I have a smart-aleck remark about this,
which sadly I can’t use…
The atmospheric pressure on Jupiter and Saturn is so high that it rains diamonds during thunderstorms.
It’s quite possible there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all
the beaches on Earth.
Eating a lot of carrots won’t make your vision better (that’s a myth), but it can
turn your skin orange!
Watching paint dry is a profession! You sit in a chair in front of a freshly painted wall,
and, well, you get it. Your job is to track how the paint texture changes, where it cracks,
and give a detailed report based on your “thrilling” observations!
Cleopatra lived closer to the release of the first iPhone than to the building of the Great
Pyramids. It’s true.
The structure of human DNA matches that of a banana by 60%. And we both hang out in bunches.
Pineapples have a digestive enzyme. So when you eat a pineapple, it tries to eat you too!
But your stomach comes out the winner in that match!