People Share Their Absolute Favorite Random Facts

That's a Lotta Planes

"There were more planes destroyed in World War II than there are planes on Earth today." -- Ballisnotlife0

"WW2 was on a whole other level of insanity." -- Sr-71TopGun

"Well that's because most planes are in the air, dummy." -- anooblol

And You Thought the Fun Stopped With the Pee Smell

"Asparagus grows so quickly during the spring (up to 10" in one 24 hour period, or almost half an inch per hour) that you could literally sit and watch it grow were you so inclined (or that bored)." -- panadolxtra1

Growing and Growing and Growing

"Lobsters can't die of old age and they continue to grow until attack or disease kills them. They would be f***ing unstoppable if not for their natural predators, New Englanders." -- swervefire

"There was a vet college at my university that had a lobster that was almost 100 years old I believe. It was gnarly, and gigantic." -- CeeArthur

Russia is Big

"Norway and North Korea are separated by one country." -- tunajoe74

"Noooowaaaay." -- Khibeauo

"Ok I am from Norway and now I am scared of an invasion or something." -- rSunfall

Delicious Immunity

"Slugs like to eat rat poison. It's like candy to them and it isn't poisonous to them." -- JpeNSurf

"Depending on the type of poison, rat poison is just Coumadin, a common blood thinner used in medicine." -- ScroteMcGoate

"Slugs also LOVE beer. I use it to control them in my garden. Just fill the cup with 3/4 of beer and put it in a hole in the garden. Next morning the cup will be full of them. Probably got drunk and fell in there." -- lechi1980

Pump it Up to 11!

"In the production of the 2014 Godzilla movie the sound designers played Godzilla's roar through a whole lot of concert speakers and they got noise complaints from 3 miles away about people thinking there was an earthquake."

-- Neat-Guy

Lemurs Gettin' Weird

"So certain millipedes secrete cyanide as a protective mechanism to kill predators. However lemurs are immune to this lethal effect and instead intentionally provoke millipedes to get them to excrete cyanide."

"The lemurs do this because instead of killing them, the cyanide produced by the millipedes gets them high (and I think they can also use it as insect repellent)."

-- ChrisLetai

Spiteful Warfare

"Alexander the great once built a permanent bridge to an island just because he was upset when they laughed at his offer for surrender on their part because he couldn't get there." -- Zachfulger

"The ultimate flex." -- younghibou

"I believe they also insulted his mother, though i could be wrong." -- dullday1

Claims to Significance

"You might be drinking water older than the solar system." -- FeatheredAamon

"You might be older than the solar system, your particles at least." -- RandersTheLonely

"Everyone in the world has held the title of being the youngest person in the world." -- Joeldaking17

Heck of a Start

"The Muppets singing bohemian rhapsody was the first 1080p video on YouTube." -- Arctinius

"What a great way to kickoff high definition!" -- Slates77

"Apparently, the Muppets were also 11 years ahead of the curve with video conferencing." -- nalgazz

The Great Fuse

"Anglerfish breeding."

" 'Once the male finds a suitable mate, he bites into her belly and latches on until his body fuses with hers. Their skin joins together, and so do their blood vessels, which allows the male to take all the nutrients he needs from his host/mate's blood. The two fish essentially become one.' "

"The male fish becomes a ball sack on the female body."

-- nestofgundars

In the Bag

"The phrase "hands down" comes from horseracing and refers to a jockey who is so far ahead that he can afford drop his hands and loosen the reins (usually kept tight to encourage a horse to run) and still easily win." -- -eDgAR-

"This is hands down my favorite" -- Weclip

An Extremely Old Planet Earth

"In terms of time, Cleopatra lived closer to us than she did to the building of the pyramids. Also woolly mammoths still roamed the earth when the pyramids were built, crazy." -- spliffwizard

"There's a similar one with T-Rex and Stegosaurus. Dinosaurs spanned millions of years and different species came and went in that time, they didn't all coexist at the same time and then vanish simultaneously."

"T-Rex lived closer in time to us than it did to the Stegosaurus." -- sharrrper

Missing Out

"There used to be three staple seasonings for tables in ye olden days, salt, pepper and nobody knows, table sets from back then have been found with 3 containers consistently but no one ever bothered to write down what was in the 3rd one bc?"

"Common knowledge right? What idiot wouldn't know what to put in the third container? Us apparently. Just another random bit of knowledge lost through the ages."

-- Taragharagharagh

Hidden Violences

"Dolphins rape sharks. And cows kill more people every year than sharks." -- irlyamkinnay

"It's worse than that: gay dolphins gang rape males from other species of dolphin. Also, they have been known to attempt to f*** the victim's blowhole." -- TelescopiumHerscheli

"More people get bitten by strangers in the city of New York than by sharks every year." -- civicmon

Extra Long Genes

"There is approximately 2 meters of DNA packed into the average human cell. That means there is approximately 20,000,000,000 kilometers of DNA in the average adult human body, conservatively estimating 1013 cells in the body."

"For reference, that is ~66 roundtrips between Earth and the Sun."

-- P0rtal2

A Young Human Race

"I will always mention this, whenever someone asks for a random fact. It blows my mind."

"Considering an average person gives birth to an offspring at the age of 25, in a 100 year period, that is 4 generations."

"So, if you consider from 0 CE to 2020CE, it is just 80 mother's down the line."

"Even more interesting is, if we consider that the earliest known humans that roamed the planet, were around 10000 BCE, it is only around 480 mothers later, we are a strong 7 billion."

-- Thr0w_away_20

An Extremely Sad Fact About Whales

"Its not my favorite but I just learned this today...."

"Whales don't die of old age. They just become weaker and weaker until they do not have the strength to pull themselves up to the surface. From there, they drown to death ;("

-- whattablessing