Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

People Share Their Absolute Favorite Random Fact

The world is a fascinating place. We should know-we live there.

In and above the world, we have so many exchanges of life; space; information; it feels impossible to ever fully grasp this incredible, strange thing called life that we live.


u/TheRebel2187 asked:

What's your favourite random fact?

Here were some of those answers.


It's Just A Dinosaur, NBD

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

I'd Rather Watch Asparagus Grow

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

Now I Can ALWAYS Get There

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 couldnt get there.

Zachfulger

Tried To Eat Some Bugs But Then I Got High

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). TLDR: Lemurs eat millipedes cyanide to get high.

ChrisLetai

Bye Bye Miss Electron-Pie

Astronomer here! Magnetars are a type of neutron star (the core of a giant dead star where a ball of neutrons the mass of the sun are crammed into a 20km/12mi radius) that have the most extreme magnetic fields we know of in the universe. How extreme? Well if you got within a thousand kilometers/ 620 miles of one, the magnetic field itself would kill you, by basically pulling the electrons out of your very atoms.

Space is so cool!

Andromeda321

A Mysterious Spice

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

That's What We Call COLD

During the Cold War, an American condom company was shipping, well, condoms to the USSR but they switched the sizes so that, for example, a XL size was labeled under medium on the box so that the Russians would think Americans had big d!cks.

_Oxygenstealer_

There And Back Again

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

Salt Fat Acid Heat

Tomato is a vegetable and a fruit. Vegetables is a culinary term while fruits are botanical.

The age-old question actually has an answer—it's both! Tomatoes are fruits that are considered vegetables by nutritionists. Botanically, a fruit is a ripened flower ovary and contains seeds. Tomatoes, plums, zucchinis, and melons are all edible fruits, but things like maple "helicopters" and floating dandelion puffs are fruits too. For some reason, people got hung up on tomatoes, but the "fruit or vegetable" question could also work for any vegetable with seeds.

Now, nutritionally, the term "fruit" is used to describe sweet and fleshy botanical fruits, and "vegetable" is used to indicate a wide variety of plant parts that are not so high in fructose. In many cultures, vegetables tend to be served as part of the main dish or side, whereas sweet fruits are typically snacks or desserts. Thus, roots, tubers, stems, flower buds, leaves, and certain botanical fruits, including green beans, pumpkins, and of course tomatoes, are all considered vegetables by nutritionists.

There is no hard-and-fast rule that clearly designates a botanical fruit as a vegetable, but, given that tomatoes are generally not used in desserts and are closely related to other fruit-vegetables (e.g., eggplants and peppers), it is not too counterintuitive for tomatoes to be classified as vegetables. So go ahead and call a tomato whatever you want—it's super tasty either way.

calitreexsweet

A Natural Radiation Site

There existed a natural nuclear reactor in Africa 2 billion years ago. And 30 km from the site of the reactor were find the oldest fossils of animals, also aged of 2 billion years ago. There doesn't appear to be any link though.

Dr_Peter_Venkman_84

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

James Blunt; Nicki Minaj
Jeremychanphotography/Getty Images; Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

James Blunt Playfully Roasts Nicki Minaj After She Shares Uplifting Message To Her Fans

Nicki Minaj is once again going viral on X, but for once it's for something positive instead of, say, spreading conspiracy theories or dragging Cardi B.

And even fellow musician James Blunt is getting in on the phone.

Keep ReadingShow less
Andrew Cuomo; Screenshot from Cuomo campaign's "Criminals for Mamdani" video
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images; Cuomo For Mayor

Andrew Cuomo Slammed After Campaign Posts Racist AI Video Of 'Criminals For Zohran Mamdani'

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was criticized after his official social media pages shared—then quickly deleted—an AI-generated campaign ad depicting "Criminals for Zohran Mamdani," his democratic socialist opponent.

Mamdani handily defeated Cuomo in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary in June, sparking racist and Islamophobic backlash from right-wingers who've claimed his policies would "destroy" the city. The latest polls show Mamdani has a double-digit lead over Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, who is facing calls to drop out.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot of Stephen Miller discussing Robert De Niro
Fox News

Stephen Miller Claims Robert De Niro Has Only Made 'Flops' For Past 30 Years—And Here Come The Receipts

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller had people rolling their eyes after he lashed out at actor Robert De Niro and claimed the legendary performer—the recipient of two Academy Awards and scores of other prizes over a more than 50-year career—has only made "flops" for the past 30 years.

On Sunday, De Niro, a vocal critic of the Trump administration, called Miller "a Nazi," adding that Miller is "Jewish and he should be ashamed of himself.”

Keep ReadingShow less
A man holding a transparent umbrella on a boardwalk in a city
Person with umbrella overlooks city skyline by water
Photo by John Licas on Unsplash

People Share Purchases Under $20 That Made Their Lives Way Easier

Sometimes, in an effort to improve our lives in some capacity requires us to make a significant dent in our bank account.

Even though it might be yogurt for dinner for a few weeks after, we still feel good about our expensive purchases when we see the difference a high-powered washing machine makes, or feel the cool air from our upgraded air conditioner.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from @matterneuroscience's Instagram video
@matterneuroscience/Instagram

Man Goes Viral After 3D-Printing A 6-Pound Phone Case To Combat Screen Addiction

Many Millennials will remember back in the nineties as the last of the "latchkey kids" who were prominently babysat by their televisions, and the commercials that rolled out, made popular on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, promoting kids to go play outside instead of watching TV all day.

Now in 2025, videos on Instagram and TikTok encouraging people to "pause their scroll" and to "put down their phones" are becoming more common and popular, because people are realizing how detrimental our increasing screen time is to our emotional, physical, and psychological health.

Keep ReadingShow less