Learning is a wonderful thing. Each new fact learned and understood expands our realities in new and surprising ways.
Sometimes the things we learn are just so mind-boggling that we have to take a step back to appreciate the universe—before immediately finding someone else to share our newfound knowledge with.
Reddit user RyanBlitzpatrick asked the folks at r/AskReddit:
"What's a fact that just blows your mind?"
At least, that is...
- Homo Sapiens (aka us)
- Homo Neanderthalensis
- Homo Floresiensis (sometimes called Hobbits)
- Denisovans
- Homo Erectus
- Homo Habilis
- Homo Heidelbergensis
- Homo Rudolfensis
- Homo Rhodesiensis
- Homo Ergaster
Those are all the members of the Homo family I can think of right know. However it is important to remeber that there are almost certainly some that I forgot to mention and there might be some that we haven't discovered yet. Furthermore it is surprisingly difficult to find out if the groups I've listed are distinct species or different groups of the same species (the fact that our definition of species is kinda arbitrary doesn't help). This is actually a surprisingly interesting topic I would recommend you look into.
9.
A woman once jumped off the 86th floor of the Empire State Building but the wind pushed her back and she fell on a ledge on the 85th floor. She survived.
8.
That the biggest bacteria species known, Thiomargarita namibiensis, can have a maximum diameter of 0.7 millimeters, which is big enough for you to see it without a microscope.
That's insane if you consider that your average bacteria species has a diameter of 0.001 millimeters.
6.
There is a termite colony in the Amazon Rain Forest that is the size of Great Britain and is almost 4,000 years old. There are also hundreds of millions of termite mounds.
5.
GiphyArctic foxes can survive temperatures as low as -70 degrees Celsius
And their fur is ice repellent.
4.
The International Space station is closer to the earth than San Francisco is to L.A.
Reminds me of Humans in 2020 are closer in time to T.Rex than T.Rex to Stegosaurus. Stegosaurus roamed the Earth during the late Jurassic period, between 156 and 144 million years ago. On the other hand, the Tyrannosaurus rex lived during the late Cretaceous period, about 67–65 million years ago
3.
That Neutrinos have mass and every second of every day about a billion of them are going through every square inch of your body - but the space between your atoms is so huge there's pretty much a 0% chance they will ever hit you.
2.
The sound made by the Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883 was so loud it ruptured eardrums of people 40 miles away, travelled around the world four times, and was clearly heard 3,000 miles away.
That's like you standing in New York and hearing a sound from San Francisco
1.
GiphyHow MASSIVE the solar system is compared to Earth. Not even regarding any other part of space, just the solar system. It's insane.
There's this website that shows the entire solar system lengthwise - If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel - take the time to read everything in it while you scroll through and just take in the massive expansiveness of space.
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