Did You Know?

Facts that are almost hard to believe.

Bees can make coloured honey. In France, there’s a biogas plant that manages waste from a Mars chocolate factory, where M&Ms are made. Beekeepers nearby noticed that their bees were making “unnatural shades of green and blue” honey. A spokesperson from the British Beekeepers’ Association theorised that the bees eating the sugary M&M waste caused the coloured honey.
A snail can sleep for three years. Aside from their shocking number of teeth (known to have over 25,000), these small critters have some more astonishing tricks up their sleeve. Nap time for a snail can last from a few hours up to 3 years.
The webs of spiders were once used as bandages. In ancient Greece and Rome, it was not uncommon for the people to use it as a natural antiseptic. This method helped their patients clean and disinfect their wounds and promote clotting.
Adult cats are lactose intolerant. Like some humans, adult cats don’t have enough of the lactase enzyme to digest lactose from milk, causing them to vomit, have diarrhea, or get gassy. Cats only have enough of that enzyme when they’re born and during the early years of their lives.
Mosquitoes are unable to penetrate silk. Mosquitoes can penetrate through cloth with their long proboscis. However, silk has a much stronger durability than most cloths that insects cannot bite through.
Sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins can by slowing their heart rates, sloths can hold their breath for up to 40 minutes. Dolphins need to come up for air after about ten minutes.
It is physically impossible for you to lick your elbow. This is because the average upper arm is too long for our tongues to be able to reach our elbows. Go on, try it.
The world’s largest waterfall is underwater. Yes, there are waterfalls under the ocean. At the Denmark Strait, the cold water from the Nordic Sea is denser than the Irminger Sea’s warm water, making it drop almost two miles down at 123 million cubic feet per second.
Avocados were named after reproductive organs. Indigenous people of Mexico and Central America used the Nahuatl word āhuacatl to mean both “testicles” and “avocado.” The fruits were originally marketed as “alligator pears” in the United States until the current name stuck.
Peas are the oldest vegetables. The oldest known vegetable is the pea which tracks back to Stone Age settlements over 8,000 years ago. This vegetable has been cultivated by humans for centuries.
The little finger contributes 50% of our hand strength. The little finger along with the ring finger act as a power bottom. The thumb, index finger, and middle finger provide dexterity.
Ripe cranberries can bounce. Cranberries have air pockets inside of them that cause them to float and bounce. Unripe berries can be easily segregated by seeing if they have damage from an attempted bounce.
Bumblebees are able to fly at great heights. Bumblebees are able to fly beyond the height of Mt. Everest. Researchers were shocked to discover that two bees that they were tracking were able to fly up to 30,000 feet high.
Strawberries are the only known fruit to grow their seeds externally. When a strawberry flower is pollinated, the fruit will not swell. Instead, it fertilizes the ovaries in the flower and forms small dry fruits separately.
A meteor with the force of 10 atomic bombs crashed on Earth and no one noticed. On December 18, 2018, a meteor hit our atmosphere but was failed to be detected by NASA at the time. The reason for this is because it took place in the Bering Sea which was a closed area.
China is the world’s largest silk producer. Over 150,000 metric tons of silk are produced annually. This accounts for 78% of the world’s silk production.
A pineapple plant can only produce one pineapple a year. After fruiting, the plant dies. However, before it dies it also produces an offspring. These plantlets were then grown into another pineapple.
Most wines are not vegetarian or vegan-friendly. Many wines include a fining agent such as eggs to soften astringency from tannins and remove other sediments.
The Apollo 11 crew pre-made autographs for insurance. The Apollo 11 crew was prepared for the chances that they may not be able to return from their voyage. In an attempt to financially prepare their families, they signed many trinkets that their families could sell if the mission failed.
There is a Poison Garden in England is filled with venomous plants. The Alnwick Garden is a garden complex by Alnwick Castle in Northumberland. These historic gardens were revived at some point and a Poison Garden was added in 2005.
The longest recorded tennis match lasted for 11 hours. This took place at Wimbledon 2010. John Isner won this match against Nicolas Mahut and took over 3 days to complete.
There are 366 dimples on a regulation golf ball. The dimples help the ball travel farther.
The moon is moving away from the Earth. 85 million years ago, the moon orbits between the Moon and Earth were only 35 feet away from the planet’s surface.
Ketchup leaves the bottle at a measured speed. It leaves the bottle at a rate of 25 miles per year.
There is a town called Calama that has never experienced rain. It is found in the Atacama desert of Chile.
Most lipsticks contain fish scales. This is also known as pearl essence. It is what gives the lipstick the shimmering appearance it has.
Lightning strikes the earth 100 times each second. Each bolt contains up to one billion volts of electricity. This calculates to about 8 million lightning strikes per day.
Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day. The average heart rate is 80 bpm.
Possums do not play dead. They pass out from fear of their predators.
A jiffy is an actual measure of time. It is calculated as 1/100th of a second. This is 10 milliseconds.
Penicillin was first called “mold juice” In 1928, bacteriologist Alexander Fleming left a petri dish in his lab while he was on vacation—only to return and find that some liquid around the mold had killed the bacteria in the dish. This became the world’s first antibiotic, but before naming it penicillin, he called it “mold juice.”
The match was invented after the lighter. The first match was made in 1826. However, the first cigarette lighter was made in 1823.
The # symbol isn’t officially called hashtag or pound Its technical name is octothorpe. The “octo” means “eight” and refers to its points, though reports disagree on where “thorpe” came from. Some claim it was named after Olympian Jim Thorpe, while others argue it was just a nonsense suffix.
The five colors on the Olympic flag were carefully selected. This is because at least one colour on this flag can be found on any flag in any country.
Antares is 60,000 times larger than the sun. Antares, often referred to as “the heart of the scorpion” due to its location in the Scorpius constellation, is a red supergiant star. The name “Antares” is derived from the ancient Greek term “Anti-Ares,” which means “rival of Mars” because of its similar reddish hue to the planet Mars.
There are constantly around 1,800 thunderstorms that occur somewhere on the planet. This is a constant phenomenon that occurs on the planet. This totals to around 16 million annually.
A kiss stimulates 29 muscles and chemicals. This causes the person to relax. Women are found to like light and gentle kisses, while men are found to enjoy more intense ones.
A giant tortoise that was believed to be extinct was found in the Galapagos. Previous to this, this species of giant tortoises had not been spotted for over 100 years. Scientists had believed them to be extinct already until 2019.
Ancient Egyptians slept on stone pillows. This was discovered by translating ancient texts from Egyptian ruins. The Egyptian word for headrest was roughly translated to a stone pillow.
Humans did not come from monkeys. To be more precise, humans and monkeys had a common ancestor from 25-30 million years ago. From then, each species evolved differently.
Most of the viruses embedded in our DNA are gone already. Most of these viruses have already gone extinct due to human evolution and changes in environments. Modern medicine also played a role in the extinction of these viruses. If scientists were to revive any of these viruses, it could cause a major outbreak that humans won’t quickly heal from.
Driving to space would only take an hour. Theoretically, this is possible if you were to drive in a straight line upwards into the atmosphere at a speed of 60 mph.
Every three seconds, there is a birth taking place somewhere in the world. There are approximately 360,000 births that take place per day. This is around 15,000 births per hour.
Clouds can hold a lot of weight. The fluffy cotton clouds you see in the sky are able to hold over one million pounds. Its weight is calculated by taking the water density and multiplying it by its volume.
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