20 Little-Known Unbelievable Facts That Are Actually 100% True

A Reddit user asked, “What is a fact that you think barely anyone else knows?”

The thread received many intriguing comments loaded with facts and figures, some of which left our jaws hanging on the floor.

From hidden historical secrets to peculiar scientific phenomena, prepare to be astounded by these little-known nuggets of wisdom from the Reddit community.

Buckle up and get ready for a journey into the realms of the unknown!

1. Guardian Dolphins

One interesting comment read, “The nuke stockpile in Washington State is guarded by trained dolphins that seek out and clamp a balloon on unfamiliar divers.”

Another user elaborated, “Those dolphins also protect the submarines from divers looking for intel, both in Washington and Georgia. Russia has done the same thing with their dolphins.”

While an astonished reader just like us exclaimed, “I felt so dumb typing this into Google because there was no way this was true. Butttt no-freaking-way!!! It’s quite brilliant.”

2. Brains With Eyes

A Redditor said, “Sometimes when you grow a brain in a cell culture medium, they start to develop an eye. This is not akin to the brain being alive and wanting or needing an eye. Instead, it is more akin to when you grow plant cells in a medium; they always develop roots and leaves.”

Someone else added, “They took bits of brain. It doesn’t matter where it comes from. I don’t think they checked amphibians and fish but pretty much everything else. They cultured them in little dishes, and all of them started to develop eye buds, a little black spot that was sensitive to light.”

While another Reddit user elaborated further, “They’re not “eyes” in the sense of fully formed human eyes. They’re optic cups. That’s an early stage, a primitive formation that can sense light and, depending on how they’re formed, can also convey information about light direction (making them more sophisticated than photoreceptive spots, but still holding to the lower bound of what most people mean when they say eye.”

Hmmm…interesting and slightly uncomfortable at the same time.

3. Hungry Hungry Hummingbirds

A bird enthusiast shared the following, “If hummingbirds don’t eat within an hour, they might die from starvation; they feed from nectar every 15-20 minutes. The only exception to the rule is that at night, they get into a state called torpor, which is similar to the way bears hibernate. They do this every night, they lower their body temperature, their heart rate goes down from like 1200 beats per minute to less than a 100, and they shut down their kidneys so they don’t die from dehydration.”

Wow, aren’t hummingbirds nature’s most dramatic creatures?

4. Leave the Eyes Alone!

One user shared the following interesting fact, “Your immune system doesn’t know your eyes exist. They have the immune privilege to avoid inflammation in case of trauma.”

Another user elaborated, “Your eyes have their own immune system. If your body’s immune system discovers the eye’s immune system, it will destroy it. Thus making you blind.”

The human body and its many, many wonders!

5. Tower Crane Operators

Fair warning, the following fact may leave you feeling a little nauseous.

One Redditor commented, “Tower crane operators mess in a bucket.”

Someone else confirmed this by saying, “When I drove semis, I had a five-gallon bucket, and I kept garbage bags, wet wipes, and sanitizer inside. A lifesaver more than a few times.”

Well…We suppose when nature calls, you gotta go. No judgment here!

6. Graveyards and Cemeteries

Someone shared the following interesting fact about the difference between graveyards and cemeteries, “A graveyard is attached to a church, whereas a cemetery is not.”

Did you know that? Or did you, too, like us, think that graveyards and cemeteries were just interchangeable terms?

7. Woodpeckers

Another fellow bird enthusiast wrote, “The tongue on a woodpecker wraps around its brain as a form of soft insulation when it hammers. Then the tongue is able to extend far into the tree to retrieve bugs when it isn’t hammering.”

To which a Redditor replied, saying, “I want to lick my own brain too.”

Reminds us of the cartoon “Happy Tree Friends,” if you know, you know. And if you don’t, trust us, you’re better off.

8. Big Ben

One user commented on the thread, “Big Ben is the Bell, not the clock or tower.”

Someone else added, “Yep! The tower is actually Elizabeth Tower, and the clock, so far as I know, is not named.”

An interesting one, for sure! Were you aware of this fact or not?

9. Warrior Pigeons

Someone said, “More pigeons have war medals than horses, dogs, or mules.”

To which another person replied, “I didn’t know this, but I’m not surprised, pigeons are as expendable as rats, and they’re a lot easier to train than horses or dogs and are exceedingly more useful in their overall contribution to war.”

First, dolphins, now pigeons, seems like animals have served this country well!

10. Red Velvet Cake

One user shared, “The original Red Velvet cake didn’t use food coloring. The red color was a result of a chemical reaction between vinegar and Dutch cocoa powder. It also originally used Ermine Frosting, a boiled milk frosting (which is delicious).”

Someone else added, “This is why I refuse to eat most red velvet cakes. The original is delicious and chocolatey. The modern is just lame.”

We could care less about the color of the cake; the frosting is where it’s at! Some delectable melt-in-the-mouth cream cheese frosting is what makes a red velvet cake stand apart. What do you think?

11. Green, White or Yellow?

Someone shared the following fact about the Sun, “The sun is actually white. At about 5000K, it’s brilliantly white, not yellow or red. The yellow sun is a product of atmospheric diffraction of light from oxygen molecules, which also gives us a blue sky.”

To which another person added, “Depends how you define color. If by white you mean it emits all colors, then yes, but so does almost everything, as nothing is 100% reflective. If you define it by what color is the most emitted, then the sun is green. And that’s why plants are green.”

12. Horse Teeth

A user shared, “Horses only ever grow one set of teeth which have an unusual length compared to the animal’s skull. This is because their teeth wear down during the course of the horse’s life until they’re completely used up, and the horse eventually may not be able to chew anymore and dies of starvation. This is where the saying “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” comes from because you can tell how old it is by looking at its teeth.”

13. Leather and Metallica

A Metallica fan commented, saying, “Metallica mentions “leather” nine times in their album, Kill Em All, and then never again in any other song they’ve put out.”

Do we have any die-hard Metallica fans here? Has anybody else noticed this in the album?

14. Barcode Scanners

Someone wrote, “Barcode scanners scan for the spaces in between the black lines and not the black lines themselves.”

Someone else responded, “This makes total sense when you stop and remember that the dark spaces won’t actually reflect the laser of a traditional barcode scanner… That’s interesting!”

Another person added, “Makes sense. The black lines absorb light, and the white ones reflect them.”

15. Chimpanzees

A Redditor shared the following interesting fact, “Chimpanzees in the zoo are marked “kill on sight” if they escape.”

Someone else added, “Well, for starters, they’re 5 times faster and ten times stronger than humans, and they can climb and swing on trees, and if you’ve ever seen any stories of people getting attacked, they tend to rip you apart even after they’re stabbed and even (sometimes) shot.”

Another Reddit user chimed in, “Chimps are very aggressive. Gorillas and orangutans are usually chill.”

16. That’s Odd

Someone wrote, “If you sum odd numbers in sequence, they also create a list of squares.

1 + 3=4 + 5=9 + 7=16 + 9=25 + 11=36 + 13=49 + 15=64 + 17=81 + 19=100 + 21=121 + 23=144 + 25=169

Back in the pre-smartphone days, I did these by hand on college ruled paper and got through several front and back.”

Another user shared a formula for the above, “n2 – (n – 1)2 =

n2 – (n2 – 2n + 1) =

n2 – n2 + 2n – 1 =

2n – 1   a canonical formula for an odd number.”

Where were all these easy math fun facts when we were trying to get through math in high school? *Cries in difficult*

17. The Origin of the Third World

Someone wrote, “Third World Countries is a term taken from Cold War propaganda. The first world is America and her allies. The second world is the Soviets and their allies. The third world is everybody else. Over time it has been appropriated to mean “poor countries,” but that’s not its original usage.”

Have you ever pondered over the origin of this word?

18. Nursing Platypus

A user shared, “This might be common, but female platypuses excrete their milk to their young by sweat glands. Yes, they sweat out their milk, and their young lick their body in order to eat….”

Someone else wrote, “I’ve heard this before but for some reason never realized it was for nursing. Just thought that platypuses were kooky.”

Nature is beautiful but also mildly disturbing.

19. SCUBA

One Redditor wrote, “SCUBA is an acronym that stands for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.”

Quickly ran this one through a Google search and can confirm it is indeed true! Did you know this one already, or are you just as surprised?

20. Microwaves

Someone said, “One of the first microwaves was created in a lab in an attempt to reanimate frozen hamsters.”

Read this one while reheating my frozen, leftover pizza, and safe to say I’ve lost my appetite. Talk about the stark difference between initial applications and current uses!

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This article was produced and syndicated by A Dime Saved.

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