Ever been in that awkward situation when you're in a room with people you barely know, and
no one knows what to say?
The silence seems endless…
Well, why don't you tell everyone why snow crunches?
Or why escalators have brushes along the edges?
Or some other, no less exciting facts!
Like these!
1.
Sloths are the slowest animals in the world - and I'm not only talking about how they
move.
It takes these sleepy mammals up to a month to digest a single leaf!
Most of them also go to the bathroom just once a week.
For comparison, depending on the kind of food, people need just 12 to 48 hours to eat a meal,
digest it, and get rid of the waste.
2.
The burning sensation you have in your mouth after eating chili peppers is caused by a
particular chemical compound in them.
It tricks your sensory nerves into believing they're being burned.
3.
Some small birds and insects see the world in slo-mo because they process information
too quickly.
For some big animals, on the other hand, time is literally flying by because they need more
time to perceive information.
4.
If you think your cat loves to catch some Z's, what will you say about koalas?
These marsupials sleep from 18 to 22 hours a day!
They spend a lot of energy digesting their high-fiber food, and napping is a great way
to top this energy up.
5.
Have you ever got chills while listening to music?
It was your brain releasing dopamine - a chemical compound that causes pleasure.
6.
You know those tall white hats chefs wear?
They're called toques, and the number of pleats on such a hat (which is traditionally 100)
signifies a chef's experience - for example, the number of recipes they can use to cook
eggs!
7.
If you're allergic to cats, consider this: cats can also be allergic to you!
The only reason this allergy doesn't show so often or isn't that prominent is that you
don't shed as much irritating hair and skin as they do.
8.
Elevators ding when they're at your floor to inform you about their arrival.
If you listen carefully, though, you might notice that some elevators produce a different
number of dings.
Usually, one ding means the elevator is going up, and two dings - that it's traveling down.
9.
Continental plates keep drifting at the same speed your fingernails grow.
An underground activity that makes them move also causes volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
In total, tectonic plates end up traveling up to 2 inches a year.
10.
You've probably noticed that the colder it is outside, the louder the snow crunches under
your feet.
It happens because when the snow compresses, teeny ice grains rub against each other.
The lower the temperature, the greater the friction between the ice grains, and the louder
the crunching sound is.
Hey snow, can you hold it down over there?
Thanks.
11.
Adult cats only meow to communicate with us humans.
Kittens can meow at their moms, but grown cats don't interact with each other this way.
Scientists have even found that these animals are great manipulators when it comes to cat-human
dialogue!
Cats can change the pitch of their meows so that they sound more like crying babies.
They've long figured out that this way, they get more food and attention.
12.
A reindeer's eyes change color from gold in the summer to baby blue in the winter.
Such a color shift improves the animals' vision because it influences the way the light gets
reflected through the retina.
13.
Escalator brushes weren't designed to clean our shoes.
They were invented for much more important safety reasons.
You see, escalators tend to break when people stand too close to their edges.
Between the side of an escalator and the wall, there’s a gap.
It's almost unnoticeable, but if something, like a piece of clothing, gets inside, it
may get stuck in the maze of motors and gears.
Then the escalator could not only break down but also damage the foreign object.
Escalator brushes prevent such accidents by scaring you away from nearing the gap.
As soon as you feel the bristles on your leg, you instinctively move away.
14.
Just one bolt of lightning will provide enough energy for a two-slice toaster to work for
84,000 minutes.
It's enough time to cook almost 100,000 slices of toast.
15.
Getting goosebumps when you're frightened goes back to the times when you could only
fend off a predator if you looked scarier than your opponent.
When you get goosebumps, all the tiny hairs on your body stand up, supposedly making you
bigger and more intimidating.
Hey that works for me…
16.
Roosters can be exceptionally loud, and the question is, "How do they not go deaf if this
thundering noise is coming right out of their beaks?"
Simple - they have a natural mechanism that works as built-in earplugs!
Once a rooster opens its beak and gets ready to crow, its auditory canals close off, and
no sound can come in.
That’s not quite fair is it?
17.
When glaciers are melting, they're loud.
The sound they produce is similar to the one made by fizzling soft drinks.
Melting icebergs or glaciers set free millions of tiny air bubbles that’ve been trapped
in the ice under huge pressure for centuries.
The opened-soft-drink noise is so loud that you can determine the distance toward an iceberg
without seeing it.
18.
The very first helicopters had wooden rotor blades.
At that time, fiberglass hadn’t been invented yet, and wood was the best available material:
strong, lightweight, and fatigue-resistant.
19.
In 2018, scientists collected 300 frozen prehistoric worms in the Arctic.
When all the worms were defrosted, two of them woke up.
They started to move and even had a meal.
One of the unbelievable creatures was about 32,000 years old, and the other was almost
42,000 years old.
Both were fairly confused.
20.
Dogs can distinguish way more smells than humans.
But when it comes to tasting something, people win hands down.
While you can use more than 9,000 taste buds, your pooch has only 1,700.
By the way, dogs can identify the same 4 tastes as people - sweet, bitter, sour, and salty.
But unlike most humans, they aren't fans of salty things.
Other than that, dogs don’t appear to be terribly picky eaters.
21.
Astronauts in space have to work out no less than 2 hours a day to keep their bodies strong.
And like us down here on Earth, they also sweat while exercising.
But because of the weightlessness in space, astronauts' sweat doesn't roll down their
skin.
It forms salty blobs that float around and cling to the body.
And aren’t you glad I shared that with you?
22.
Tree rings can not only tell you how old a tree is but also let you know how the weather
changed during the tree's lifetime.
Tree rings are thinner during drought years and wider when there was a lot of rain.
23.
Cat owners are all-too familiar with the situation when you call for your pet, and it doesn’t
respond.
No, you aren't being paranoid, your cat DOES choose to ignore you!
It can recognize its name perfectly well but often doesn't feel obligated to respond to
your call.
Well!
24.
At any given moment, around 2,000 thunderstorms are happening in different places on Earth.
And if we add up one full year, this number will be more than 16 million!
25.
There are all kinds of weird fears and phobias out there, and dextrophobia is one of them.
People with this fear get scared by objects on their right side.
Dextrophobia can also be an overwhelming fear of right-handedness.
Okay.
26.
You can't hum while holding your nose.
Go ahead, try it!
You're probably making some bizarre sounds, but it's definitely not humming.
The trick is that when you hum, you make a sort-of prolonged M-sound.
But it's created when air moves through your nasal passages.
When you close your nose, the air can't escape, and no humming sound is produced.
At least not for long!
So there are your ice-breakers!
Try them out and let me know how it goes in the comments.
If you learned something new today, then give the video a like and share it with a friend!
And here are some other videos I think you'll enjoy.
Just click to the left or right, and stay on the Bright Side of life!