There are around 7 billion people on this planet, not to mention other life forms that inhabit it. When we take this into account, there are thousands of things it can show and teach us, which are astonishing, funny or weird. That is why we decides to give you a list of 60 weird but true facts you may have never heard of. The word weird doesn’t have to have a negative connotation, it can merely express the surprise of finding out something we have not been aware of. Enjoy!
Weird facts about the human body
The human body was, and remains a mystery to many still. No matter how much we study it; there are always things we can discover about it. It’s like a never-ending encyclopedia. Here are some facts carefully chosen, which will make you wonder about life over and over again.
1. Everyone has a unique tongue print, just like fingerprints. Imagine if we invented an identification of a tongue print, I wonder what that would look like!
2. The average person produces enough saliva in their lifetime to fill 2 swimming pools.
3. The muscles that control your eyes contract about 100,000 times a day (that’s the equivalent of giving your legs a workout by walking 50 miles).
4. In each kidney, there are 1 million filters that clean around 1.3 liters of blood every minute and push out close to 1.5 liters of urine every day.
5. Ovaries contain over 500,000 eggs, but only about 400 get the opportunity to create life. (I wonder how scientists conducted this research. Counting egg by egg?!)
6. Why doesn’t your stomach digest itself? That’s because your stomach cells are created faster than they can be destroyed. (I don’t know about you, but it hasn’t crossed my mind yet that my stomach could digest itself. Weird, isn’t it?)
7. Humans are extremely visual; 90% of the information we gather from our surroundings is from our eyesight. (Plus, people say that the eyes are the mirror of the soul!)
8. Baby foreskin is often used as a skin graft for burn victims.
9. Your bones are 4x stronger than concrete. (That is so cool! I guess I should start feeling like Wolverine from X-men. I only need the retractable claws!)
10. You’ll be about 1cm shorter when you go to bed at night compared to when you wake up in the morning. The cartilage in your spine slowly compresses throughout the day.
11. We all have tiny mites living in our eyelashes.
12. Having excessive body hair is linked to higher intellect. (For the people out there who identify with this quote, there’s a good side to everything!)
13. If you think your body has finished developing, think again. The ears and the nose never stop growing. Amazing, isn’t it?
14. If the human eye were a digital camera, it would have 576 megapixels.
15. Your heartbeat changes and mimics the music you listen to.
16. There are more bacteria in your mouth than there are people in the world.
17. Every day, your heart creates enough energy to drive a truck for 20 miles (32 km).
18. If uncoiled, the DNA in all the cells in your body would stretch up to 10 billion miles, from here to Pluto and back.
19. Most of the dust underneath your bed is actually your own dead skin.
20. Within three days of death, the enzymes that once digested your food begin to eat you.
21. In a lifetime, your brain’s long-term memory can hold as many as 1 quadrillion (1 million billion) separate bits of information.
22. The heart can keep beating even if it is separated from the body because it has its own electrical impulse.
23. Your brain keeps developing until your late 40s
Dating
Dating and love are hard to explain, even through science. Why do we fall in love with one person and not some other one? In this section, you can find some facts on dating, which could help you understand the opposite gender a bit more. Unfortunately, it’s never enough, and we are constantly learning about each other.
24. 40% of women would consider dumping a boyfriend if her friends didn’t like him. This fact concerns me a lot personally. I mean, women out there who would do this, just think about if you would like your boyfriend to dump you when his friends tell him so!
25. It takes 1 hour for a woman to determine whether or not she wants to date a man again. A man decides in 15 minutes.
26. You know how women are perceived to be more talkative? Now it is scientifically confirmed! On an average, women say over 7,000 words per day. Men say only around 2,000.
27. Married women out there, if you want your husband to earn more, kiss him every morning! Studies indicate that a man who kisses his wife goodbye when he leaves for work gets a higher income than the guy who doesn’t.
28. Have you ever had the feeling, when fighting with your partner, that you cannot even hear what is being said? Well, it was found that in an argument with your partner, when your heart rate goes over 100 beats per minute, you are incapable of hearing what they are trying to tell you. Therefore, try to get in as little fights as possible: it’s good for your heart and for your relationship.
29. Income plays a huge part when it comes to choosing a potential partner nowadays. On internet dating sites, men who reported incomes higher than $250,000 received 156% more emails than those with $50,000. Though, I still think you should choose your partner based on his personal qualities, because you are going to live with him, not only his money. Income changes, personal characteristics rarely do! Choose wisely!
30. Research shows that men know they’re falling in love after just three dates, but women don’t fall in love until the 14th.
31. If a man meets a woman while in a dangerous situation, such as on a trembling bridge, he’s more likely to fall in love with her than if they met in a more mundane setting, such as an office. So, if you have your eyes set on someone, maybe you can orchestrate some kind of seemingly dangerous situation. I am just not sure where you would find a trembling bridge, but I am cheering for you. And please, do not go overboard!
32. Love is indeed blind! Dr. Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist and chief scientific advisor for Chemistry.com: “Yes, neuroscientists have found that some of the thinking and decision-making regions in the prefrontal cortex, the massive brain region behind your forehead, can deactivate when you’re in love. And with less blood rushing to this region, social judgment can be suppressed.’’
Kisses
A kiss: something that is essential in a person’s life, especially if they’re in love. Here are some little known facts about kissing:
33. Approximately 90% of people kiss.
34. When people kiss each other, they exchange approximately 10 million to 1 billion bacteria.
35. If you want to slim down, start kissing! Kissing for one minute burns 26 calories, and puts more than 30 facial muscles in motion.
36. Do you know that kisses will prolong your life? People who kiss daily would live for 5 years more than their normal life time.
37. Just in case you were so much into kissing you wanted to make a career out of it, the study of kissing itself is called philematology. And someone who studies kissing is called an osculologist
38. Endorphins released during kissing bring on waves of euphoria.
39. Women tend to rate kissing as more important in relationships than men do.
40. Most people remember their first kiss more vividly than the first time they had sex. John Bohannon of Butler University asked 500 people about their memories of important life experiences, including their first kiss and losing their virginity. The kiss beat everything as the most detailed memory.
Miscellaneous facts
41. Female kangaroos have three vaginas.
42. Casu marzu is a Sardinian sheep’s milk cheese variety with little something extra – live maggots. The maggots can jump up to five inches out of the cheese while you’re eating it, so it’s a good idea to shield it with your hand to stop them from jumping into your eyes.
43. In 1567, the man said to have the longest beard in the world died, after he tripped over his beard, running away from a fire.
44. The Dutch village of Giethoorn has no roads; its buildings are connected entirely by canals and footbridges.
45. Powerful earthquakes can permanently shorten the length of Earth’s day, by moving the spin of the Earth’s axis. The 2011 Japan earthquake knocked 1.8 microseconds off our days. The 2004 Sumatra quake cost us around 6.8 microseconds.
46. There is a glacier called “Blood Falls” in Antarctica that regularly pours out red liquid, making it look like the ice is bleeding.
47. The top of the Eiffel Tower leans away from the sun, as the metal facing the sun heats up and expands. It can move as much as 7 inches.
48. Have you ever heard of a cat piano? The katzenklavier (“cat piano”) was a musical instrument made out of cats. Designed by 17th-century German scholar Athanasius Kircher, it consisted of a row of caged cats with different voice pitches, which could be “played” by a keyboardist driving nails into their tails.
49. There is a single mega-colony of ants that spans to three continents, covering much of Europe, the west coast of the U.S., and the west coast of Japan.
50. An epidemic of laughing, that lasted almost a year, broke out in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in 1962. Several thousand people were affected, across several villages. It forced a school to close. It wasn’t fun, though — other symptoms included crying, fainting, rashes, and pain.
51. Have you ever thought about how people in the past cleaned their teeth when there was no toothpaste? The Romans used to clean and whiten their teeth with urine. Apparently it works.
52. The Dance Fever of 1518 was a month-long plague of inexplicable dancing in Strasbourg, in which hundreds of people danced for about a month for no apparent reason. Several of them danced themselves to death.
53. Did you know that your heart connects and communicates with your organs not just by blood, but through an electromagnetic field – and this electromagnetic field is 60 TIMES more powerful than your brain’s? Incredible, isn’t it?!
54. In 2007, an American man named Corey Taylor tried to fake his own death in order to get out of his cell phone contract, without paying a fee. It didn’t work.
55. In 1923, a jockey named Frank Hayes won a race at Belmont Park in New York despite being dead — he suffered a heart attack mid-race, but his body stayed in the saddle until his horse crossed the line for a 20–1 outsider victory.
56. Being polite pays off! There is a café located in France, which charges 7 Euros a coffee to rude customers, and 1.40 Euros to customers who are polite to wait staff!
57. Cans of soft drinks were sold in Singapore called Anything and Whatever. The cans were identical with 6 flavours but you could never guess which one you got. Surprise, surprise!
58. Did you know that if you had a pineapple in the 18th century, you were a rich man? In the 18th century, the fruit’s crown-like top and gem-like texture was seen as a symbol of wealth and power — a single pineapple could cost the equivalent of $8,000 today. In fact, the fruit was so desirable and rare, that consumers often rented a pineapple for the night to show off to fellow party-goers.
59. It is well-known that India is indeed a remarkable country. But, did you know that 70% of the world’s spices come from India? Thank you India!
60. Do you like ice cream? Did you know that the ice cream seen in TV commercials is actually mashed potatoes? The milk is usually white glue.
I hope you enjoyed reading and discovering some new facts. If you liked the article, like it, share it or comment. I would love to hear your thoughts and some new facts which you would like other people to know.
This is great! :D