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Have you ever had that OMG moment where you are reading an article or social media post and a fun fact about something you really thought you knew about pops up? You know that feeling. The one where you feel you’ve been lied to your whole life (okay…maybe that’s a bit much) and now you can’t unlearn what you just read?
I am here to ruin *cough*, enrich your life with some amazing and interesting facts about life, entertainment and more!
Superman.
Photo Credit: Flickr, Tim Evanson
Is a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman!
But at one time, the Man of Steel was not mimicking a plane. He was more like a kangaroo on steroids. In fact, in the original comic, Superman could only jump. But as the cartoon was created, the creators found animating him proved difficult with all the bending. So what did they do? They gave him his iconic superpower, the ability to fly.
Bees will hurt their own kind.
Photo Credit: Sharp Photography, CC BY-SA 3.0
The honey bee is an amazing creature. We’re used to hearing about the industrious insects working together to create a home and protect their hives at all costs. But did you know bees are territorial even to their own kind?
Guard bees stand watch among the hives, preventing other bees (from other hives) from invading and stealing their hard-earned nectar. Apparently, bees not only “smell fear” but they sense the pheromones of bees attempting to invade their hives! That’s right, guard bees sniff out intruders and will bite and sting “spy” bees to project their own family.
Egyptian slaves were used to keep the insects away.
Photo Credit: Public Domain
You may think the job of keeping bugs away might be better than dragging thousand pound stones to build a pyramid, but it actually was its own special kind of torture. King Pepy II, a pharaoh who reportedly ruled for 90 years, was so bothered by insects that he appointed slaves to deal with them – or rather, to attract them away from him. It has been said Pepy ordered slaves to be covered in honey to lure away the flies. While the flies swarmed the slave, he was left in peace.
Pringles are not potato chips!
Photo Credit: Flickr, Mike Mozart, CC BY 2.0
Hold your cries. Pringles are still made of potatoes. Whew!
The distinction is a little finer. A classic potato chip is a sliced potato, whereas Pringles are made from dehydrated potato flakes that are pressed into their signature curve. This is a unique process that makes them less greasy – but you can’t fool the FDA. They have strict standards on what can be called a potato chip. The FDA ruled Pringles could not market this product as a chip but rather a “potato crisp”.
Koalas have fingerprints!
Photo Credit: Pixabay
Isn’t this just creepy? Koloa prints are real and very much like a human’s. Each koala is known to leave their identifiable mark on trees and more.
Below shows a koala’s mark (left) aligned with a human (right).
Photo Credit: Macie Hennenberg, et al. and naturalSCIENCE
Scientists suspect it is “the biomechanical adaptation to grasping, which produces multidirectional mechanical influences on the skin. These forces must be precisely felt for fine control of movement and static pressures and hence require orderly organization of the skin surface.”
If they ever do plan on taking over the world, at least we can identify them. Sheesh.
Nutmeg can be toxic.
Photo Credit: Pixabay
A little bit of nutmeg goes a long way while cooking. It’s the perfect spice to add your baked goods for a little something something.
But did you know if too much is ingested it can be toxic? 2-3 teaspoons of raw nutmeg can make you hallucinate and convulse! And to boot, the symptoms can last a few days.
If you eat much more than 3 teaspoons, you can die. So when a recipe calls for a quarter teaspoon, stick to it. And for the love of god, please don’t start a “Nutmeg Challenge”…
Some planets produce diamond rain!
Photo Credit: NASA
But before you go hopping a spaceship to Jupiter or Saturn to grab some diamonds, know that these are enormous gas planets – you’d die if you went there.
Within their atmospheres, there is plenty of carbon. Storms are quite frequent, and when lightning strikes carbon soot, it hardens into graphite as it plummets to the ground – except there is no ground. So as the graphite travels further and further into the depths of the planet, pressure increases massively, which turns it into a diamond.
But even diamonds don’t last for long in such inhospitable environments. They eventually melt away due to the hot cores of Jupiter and Saturn!
Pretty nuts, right?
