(whale noise)
- Knowledge Whale is back.
Here are 50 amazing facts to blow your mind.
In 30 seconds, you will on average,
produce 72 million red blood cells,
shed 174,000 skin cells and have 25 thoughts.
Humans put a man on the moon
before they put wheels on luggage.
Let that sink in.
In 2014, a stray dog named Arthur
followed a Swedish racing team
through the Amazonian jungle and rivers
to complete a 688-kilometer race
just because one of them had given it
a meatball during one of the earlier halts.
Although natural gas only became commonly used in the 1800s,
the Han Dynasty of China drilled for natural gas,
transported it in pipelines and gas containers
and burned it on stoves as far back as 200 BC.
There are so many castles in France
that some are up for sale cheaper
than two-bedroom apartments in metropolis cities
like New York City and Sydney.
Bearded vultures wear makeup.
They like to alter their appearance
by rubbing their necks and heads
in iron-rich soil to change their white feathers
to a bright reddish-orange.
The older and more socially dominate birds
wear the most makeup to show off
and appear more intimidating.
Confidential data from the maritime industry that leaked
revealed that one giant container ship
can emit the same amount of cancer
and asthma-causing chemicals as 50 million cars.
That is while the top 15 largest container ships together
in the world may be emitting as much pollution
as all 760 million cars on earth.
The human heart has three types of blood vessels,
arteries, veins and capillaries.
Arteries carry oxygenated blood away from the heart.
Capillaries connect them to the veins,
and veins return the used blood back to the heart.
7% of the population triggers a sneeze reflex
when they stare at a bright light
such as the sun or a strong light bulb.
And of that 7%, 94% of those people are Caucasian.
An American teenage named Ethan Couch,
who killed four pedestrians while drunk driving,
was given no prison time after claiming affluenza,
a mental illness for being too wealthy.
Well, that's a whole lot of bull.
In 2015, Russia opened a military Disneyland
called Patriot Park where visitors, including children,
can ride in tanks, shoot guns
and buy and sell military gear.
A woman once took part in a search
for a missing tourist in Iceland
only to realize hours later
that she, was indeed, the missing person.
A Russian suicide bomber with the intent
of killing hundreds in Moscow
on New Year's Eve of 2015 had her plan foiled
when her wireless carrier sent her a text message
wishing her a Happy New Year
which triggered her belt bomb killing her,
and her alone.
Yeah, karma.
If somebody reports their company
for tax evasion in the United States,
he or she will receive 15 to 30%
of the amount collected.
One person named Bradley C. Birkenfeld was a whistleblower
on the USB AG Swiss Bank tax evasion scheme and received,
get this, $104 million as a reward.
In 2013, a man in Michigan whose house
was set to be demolished, switched his house numbers
with his neighbor, and the crew ended up
demolishing the wrong house.
That is not a joke.
It's possible to die from drowning
up to 24 hours after leaving water.
It's known as dry drowning where victims
can be walking and talking while their lungs
are actually filled with water.
Chinchilla fur is so thick and soft
that fleas will suffocate if they try to live in it.
The Pigg-O-Stat is a device that has been around
since the 1960s where radiologists
can safely immobilize babies and young children
who can't sit still during an x-ray.
Researchers from the University of Queensland
and the University of New South Wales
have found that people with dark eyes
are more agreeable, while people
with blue eyes tend to be more competitive.
I agree with that.
There is an unnamed species of octopus that currently exist
that scientists think are so cute
that they're actually pushing
to have it named Opisthoteuthis adorabilis.
In the town of Fucking, Austria,
the most common reported crime
has been stealing of their road signs.
In an effort to save money in replacing the signs,
a vote to change the town's name
was proposed in 2004, but the 104 citizens
that live there decided against it,
and instead opted for theft restraint signs.
There a new dining craze known as Dinner in the Sky
available in 15 countries around the world
where you actually eat your food
in a racing chair suspended 60 meters above ground.
Nope, no thank you.
McDonald's opened their first
ski-through fast food restaurant in 1996
located in Sweden.
You can actually ski up to the counter,
order your food, and ski off.
They call it McSki.
Peter Meyhew, the actor who played
Chewbacca in Star Wars actually had
to be accompanied by crew members dressed
in brightly colored vests while filming
in the forest of the Pacific Northwest.
Why?
Well, this was to ensure that he wasn't shot by hunters
who would mistake him for Bigfoot.
The Center for Retail Research in Britain
found that the most stolen food item
in the world is cheese.
In fact, 4% of all cheese sold was actually stolen.
There are actually miniature guide horses
that the blind can use as an alternative to seeing eye dogs.
They have several perceived advantages to that of a dog,
including the average lifespan of 30 years,
and they have 350-degree vision.
(horse neigh)
In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War,
both sides agreed to a 48-hour ceasefire
because Pele was in town to play an exhibition soccer game
and everyone wanted to be free to watch it
without having to worry about the war.
Sports savin' the world.
London has a cereal cafe known as
The Cereal Killer Cafe where you can eat hundreds
of different kinds of cereal from around the world.
Now that is a place I want to go.
In 2007, a Doberman Pinscher named Khan
actually saved a baby girl
from a deadly king brown snake attack
by grabbing the girl by the diaper
and flinging her to safety and taking a venomous bite
to the paw in her place.
Kyoto, Japan was originally at the top
of the atomic bomb target list during World War II,
but was personally removed
by US Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson
because he had previously been to Kyoto on his honeymoon.
In 1809, the Spanish town of Huescar
declared war on Denmark, then forgot
about it for 172 years.
Not a single shot was fired, and no one was killed,
and a peace treaty was finally signed in 1981
when a historian found the official declaration
and realized that they were
actually supposed to be fighting.
There's a popular variation of Yo Momma-type jokes
in Kenya that goes a little something like this.
Your family is so stupid, you gave your chickens hot water
so they can lay boiled eggs.
Sure, why not?
Google Chrome's dinosaur Wi-Fi error message
is actually also a game.
So, next time you're angry at your internet
for breaking, just press the spacebar
and you will witness your T. rex jump.
Just don't let him land on the cactus
or it'll be game over, and you still won't have internet.
When General Motors unveiled the Camaro name in 1966,
Automotive Press asked Chevrolet product managers
"What is a Camaro?"
And they were told it's a small vicious animal
that eats mustangs.
Ooh, shade bein' thrown.
In the US, being clean-shaven only became popular
after troops returned home as heroes
from World War I.
This is because they had been required
to shave so that gas masks could securely fit on their face.
Steve Jobs refused to let his own kids have iPads
and limited their use of technology to a minimum.
LSD was first synthesized in 1938,
but it wasn't until five years later
that its creator, Albert Hofmann,
accidentally consumed it discovering
its hallucinogenic properties.
It was then packaged nine years later
for psychiatric uses.
The world's first ligers were born in 2013.
A white lion and a tiger had four male cubs
which are now the rarest big cats on earth.
After American physicist Richard Feynman
was named the world's smartest man
by Omni Magazine, his mother was actually quoted as saying,
"If that's the world's smartest man, God help us."
It's always so nice when your mom supports you.
In the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy,
no two female characters every speak to each other.
In the late 1900s, Howard Hughes bought
an entire casino named Silver Slipper
just so that he could tear down their neon sign.
This is because it was visible from Hughes' bedroom,
and apparently it was keeping him up at night.
Scientists in Florida plan on releasing
genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild
in order to reduce cases of dengue fever and other diseases.
The males still mate with females,
but the hatchlings die before adulthood
due to the presence of new genes.
Science!
There's a 39-year-old man named Dan Janssen
from Maryland USA who has lived exclusively
on pizza for the last 26 years.
I don't know if the man, but that is a life that I want.
Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza
met his wife on his first pizza delivery back in 1962.
Violet Jessop was a ship nurse
on the Britannic, the Olympic and the Titanic.
While on board the Olympic,
it collided with a warship and nearly sank.
While on the Titanic, it hit a iceberg and sank,
and the Brittanic hit an underwater mine and sank,
yet Violet survived all three.
Mike Tyson first snorted cocaine
when he was just 11 years old,
and was given alcohol when he was just an infant.
OK, yeah no, that explains a lot.
China invented fireworks, but Italy gave them their colors.
Colors are created using metallic powders.
Calcium makes orange.
Sodium makes yellow, and barium makes green.
Also, cylindrical tubes create whistling sounds.
Aluminum flakes make hissing noises,
and flash powder makes loud boom sounds.
According to a study done by National Geographic,
the same gene that gives humans the urge to travel,
is also responsible for ADHD and thrill-seeking behavior.
The reason that paper cuts hurt so much
is that the cut often bleeds very little or not at all
leaving the skin's pain receptors open to air.
Despite their bad reputation,
great white sharks have only ever attacked people
280 times between 1876 and 2013 globally.
And on top of that, only 77
have ever resulted in a fatality.
Just for a little comparison,
deer kill nearly 200 people a year
in the US alone.
And now you're smarter from the Knowledge Whale, slap, slap.
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