Even if it might not have been our favorite subject in school, we can't. help but be fascinated by science.
As there are literally endless things to learn about the world we live in, and beyond.
That being said, endless possibilities and learning are also rather intimidating.
And every now and again, we might learn something about our bodies, the earth, or the vast cosmos of space that we truly wish we hadn't.
Redditor NoRush5642 was curious to hear some of these unsettling facts, leading them to ask:
"What’s a scientific fact that most people would rather not know?"
One Tiny Spec In The Universe...
"The true scale of how far and big things really are in space."
"To get a comprehensible look, we have to shrink things by a trillion times."
"At that scale the Sun is just 1.4mm wide... a grain of sand."
"The Earth would be 15cm or half a foot away, and about the size of a red blood cell."
"Only Jupiter and Saturn may be visible both around 0.1mm wide, and Saturns rings 0.3mm wide."
"Jupiter would be 77cm away, or 2.5 feet, and Saturn 2.3m away, or about 8 feet."
"Pluto would be 5.9m, or 20 feet away, and Voyager 1, the furthest human made object, would be 25m away, about 1/4 of a football field."
"Alpha Centauri however... would be 42km or 26 miles away, a whole marathon between grains of sand."
"The largest known black hole at this scale, Phoenix A, would be 590m, or over 1800 feet wide. If this replaced Alpha Centauri, it would look larger than the full Moon from Earth."- Youpunyhumans
Don't Let The Stripes Fool You...
"Tigers hold grudges."- Substantial-News-336
They Know More Than They Let On...
"Until the 1980s, surgery on infants was often performed without anesthesia as a standard medical practice."
"The belief at the time was that newborns' nervous systems were too underdeveloped to feel pain."
"So, instead, they'd just use a paralytic like curare to immobilize the child who then remained fully aware of everything that was going on."
"The trauma can stick with people for life."- JimTheJerseyGuy
Loop Baby GIF Giphy
And That's A Fact!
"Some of you reading this are older than the scientific confirmation of the theory of plate tectonics."- XComThrowawayAcct
When In Doubt, See A Doctor...
"Many viruses can change your DNA and causes permanent changes within you."
"The 'sniffles' can turn into an autoimmune or permanent symptoms and complications quicker than we think."- Lady_Obsession
No Rhyme Or Reason...
"Aneurysms can happen at any point, for no reason, and there’s no preventing them."
"Sometimes you can just go to sleep and have an aneurysm for no reason and die or just be living life and suddenly just drop dead."- PleaseCorrect
Fall Die GIF by Abster Giphy
Careful Where You Rest Your Head...
"Sphinx cats have no hairs on them or around their butthole so when they sit on things it suctions cups to the surface and leaves a ring when they get up."- AdPrestigious702
Talk About Territorial...
"Ocean dolphins are known to savagely attack river dolphins."
"It’s a documented case of animal racism or tribal behavior."- Merry1960
Despite What We've Seen In The Movies...
"We have no way to detect in advance or respond to a majority of cosmological events that would be classified as planet killers."- mobile_deadman
Armageddon GIF Giphy
Makes You Rethink Photographic Memories...
"Your memories are not like video recordings."
"Every time you recall an event, your brain actively reconstructs it, and it can be subtly changed by your current mood or new information."
"Your most cherished memories are likely the most factually inaccurate because you've 'rewritten' them so many times."- Sajil_ali
Hope You Didn't Just Eat...
"Everyone knows the govt has regulations called Filth Levels concerning things such as rodent hairs or roach legs in our food and there are acceptable levels of such."
"What a lot of people don't know is the Filth Levels also measure blood and pus. In our food."
"And there are acceptable levels."
"Bon Appetit."- OkIllustrator1483
They May Look Cute, However...
"In some parts of Australia, up to 80% of wild koalas are infected with chlamydia."
"It can be passed to humans."- Mongo514
koala hanging GIF Giphy
Very Few Would Call Dying A Success...
"Dying from a disease is considered a spectacular failure of the virus/bacterium."
"Killing the host almost always ends the life cycle of the infecting organism."
"The best possible outcome is to produce billions of copies without any ill effect of the host."
"Or better still, to provide some benefit to the host."
"A good example of this is the Hanta virus in field mice."
"They will shed the virus by the billions over their lifetime, yet it seems to have no ill effect on the mouse."- jdlech
FIRE!
"There is just enough potassium in the average human body to make just enough gunpowder to load and fire a small cannon."-Tennents_N_Grouse
Questions Better Left Unanswered?
"That there is medication that is FDA approved, is sold, and works a prescribed…but we don’t know WHY it works."
"One of these drugs is Tylenol."- Lokitusaborg
Pain Relief Head GIF by Tylenol_US Giphy
Chances are, those of you who just finished reading this also wish you had never learned the above-mentioned facts.
Making it equally likely that you also wished you never read this article...
@jimmyfallon/Instagram