People Share Their Best 'Don't Ask How I Know That' Fun Facts
Reddit user Dry_Bus_935 asked: 'What is your "don't ask how I know" random fact?'
Whether you're naturally interested in fun facts and trivia or not, it's always nice to know a few that you can pull out of your pocket at a moment's notice as a nice conversation starter.
But there are some fun facts out there that are so weird, people become more preoccupied with how the teller found out that information rather than the information itself.
Redditor Dry_Bus_935 asked:
"What is your 'don't ask me how I know' random fact?"
Nuclear Fail Safe
"You have quite a lot of time, certainly more than ten seconds, to turn back on the main pumps of a nuclear reactor once you have accidentally turned them off."
- egorf
"I'm not surprised. The amount of fail safes, redundancies, and emergency scenario planning for nuclear power plants is insane."
"I toured a nuclear plant and wrote my high school senior thesis on the plans put in place to ensure the Fukushima disaster would not happen at that plant."
"I'm sure the secondary pumps are plenty capable of handling the reactor until the main pumps are repaired or just turned back on."
- Borderlandsman
Happy Cat
"If your cat chews on fresh eucalyptus, they might start hallucinating and fall over repeatedly, leading to a $400 emergency vet bill just to be told she’s just kinda high."
- oddidealstronghold
"And, that's part of why koalas love it. Little stoners."
- littlebluefoxy
Archaeology: Do Not Lick
"Old human bones are very porous, so if you lick them, they’ll stick to your tongue."
- clanculcarius
Sharing is Caring
"A pigeon will only eat a Starburst if you chew it up a little bit first. Just to clarify: chew the Starburst, not the pigeon."
- OhTheHueManatee
"Instructions unclear. Pigeon unhappy."
- Wild-Lychee-3312
Intriguing Anatomy
"Everyone is here with the creepy crime stuff, and I'm just like, 'A soft fur rat has 22 nipples.'"
- horroscoblue
"Okay, so either they have really small nipples, their nipples overlap, or they have nipples in places where there shouldn't be nipples."
"(I've never written the word 'nipples' so many times in a singular sentence before.)"
- GdeGraaf
'Don't Ask Me,' Indeed!
"Turmeric can be used as clothes dye. It is capable of permanently dyeing cotton cloth even after it has passed through the digestive tract of an adult male."
- SlefeMcDichael
"You s**t your pants, didn't you?"
- PMmecrossstitch
"I'd prefer not to answer that question."
- SlefeMcDichael
High-Risk Survival Skills
"If you ever trying to survive in the Arctic, don’t eat polar bear liver. It is so high in vitamin A, it will kill you."
- WrongWayCorrigan-361
"It's also surrounded by a lethal amount of angry polar bear."
- horanc2
Real-Life Spies
"TV shows and movies go out of their way to make military/intelligence officers look bada**."
"But real-life 'spies,' by design and training, are boring. They have regular houses and standard second-hand cars, they dress down, and they have vague, boring job titles (accounts receivable) as cover, and they do not draw attention to themselves. Most come from specialized academia."
- Ok_Worth_1093
Haunting Reality
"Your muscles can keep twitching for several hours after you die."
- JustDave62
"Also, beards can appear to grow. This is however not because the beard itself grows but because the skin shrinks."
- RRautamaa
"I worked at a morgue for over eight years. If you grasp the hand of a dead body to move the arm, the hand will grasp back, but that's just muscles and tendons reacting to the tension."
- goneferalinid
The Sneakiness of Drowning
"When a drowning victim is revived, get them to a hospital as soon as possible. Drowning is the leading cause of death of kids from the age of one to seven and is ruled as accidental drowning when it comes to secondary drowning or dry drowning."
"Basically, your lungs are full of water despite being revived. Your lungs will absorb the liquid, but not before your body acidifies from high levels of carbon dioxide. The only chance to survive is to have the lungs pumped with oxygen via CPAP machine and time."
"Also, drowning is extremely quiet. You don’t hear the victim go under. And if you see flailing, do not attempt to save the victim otherwise you’ll become another drowning victim. Throw them a lifeline and hope their amygdala realizes that a rope or something is floating near them and grabs on it."
- Dfiggsmeister
Not Everyone's Favorite Chocolate
"Hershey’s chocolate has the strong smell of vomit or feces to some people (me), and that’s because they use butyric acid as a preservative. Butyric acid is the compound that makes vomit smell so bad."
"Edit: Digging further into it, there are some claims that they may not be “adding” the butyric acid, but rather it is occurring from essentially spoiling the milk in their milk chocolate. Either way, the butyric acid and putrid smell remains a part of their product."
- hefewiseman1
"That explains the weird aftertaste I always get! I don’t smell it but their chocolate always has this super unpleasant sharp/acidic aftertaste that I find repulsive. I assume this is why!!"
- PomegranateNo975
Do Not Lick the Asbestos
"Asbestos tastes like chalk. And if you lick it, it has the texture of extremely gritty sandpaper. Which is actually the feeling of microscopic asbestos needles piercing your flesh!"
- TooYoungToBeThisOld1
Mapping Out the War
"Beginning in 1911 in anticipation of the outbreak of WW1 in 1914, two statesmen, one from England and one from France, began visiting locations in France that they believed would be the settings for a number of major battles that would occur during the great war."
"Long bike rides through these future battle zones in the countryside and weeks spent building a foundation for a French-Anglo codebook that would later prove important in helping win the war."
- fjordperfect123
Avoiding Lawsuits > Protecting Patients
"Doctors, or surgeons more specifically, that make too many mistakes during surgery, ie, leaving instruments in patients, frequently gets ‘quietly traded’ to other hospitals where they continue their path of destruction with the patients not being aware of their past record. Hospitals tend to keep quiet about the matter to avoid lawsuits."
- Kittytigris
Bonus Points: Do This While Having Lunch in Your Car
"If you overfill a fast food gravy cup and then put a lid on, it will create a pressurized gravy stream that sprays all over your face and uniform while your coworker looks on in horror."
- thechaosjester776
This subReddit thread was so a roller-coaster of random facts, we've surely all walked away learning something.
But the biggest takeaway might just be: Maybe don't lick so many things.
A "fun fact" refers to a piece of information that might not be widely known.
Though, the "fun" in "fun fact" is often widely debatable.
Indeed, more often than not, people find or are told a "fun fact" about anything from an animal species to a famous celebrity which might make them want to cry or even throw up.
"What is a NOT fun fact?"
Consdider Putting A Newspaper Down First...
"Bus seats are designed so that you cannot tell how dirty they really are."- SmallAndScarred
Alone in The Ocean...
"There is a whale called 52 Blue that only sings at their frequency meaning it can't communicate with other whales."
"It is nicknamed the loneliest whale on the planet."- TheLegendaryJet
Definitely Not Dry As a Bone...
"Your skeleton is w e t."- Genesis-Bae
Dance Halloween GIF by aurelGiphyPuts The Movement in Bowel Movement
"Your intestines will 'wriggle' themselves back into the correct position."
"Doctors who do any type of intestinal surgery don’t have to worry, too much, about how they put the intestines back in."-H010CR0N
Body And Soul Is An Understatement
"A certain type of angler fish reproduce via the Male burrowing into the side of the female, eventually fusing."
"The Male life is lost in the process."- Allceleatial
Never Actually Free
"People who survived the Holocaust and get Alzheimer's often think they are back in the camps."
"So they escape one of humanity's greatest horrors only to die in it 50 years later."- digitaldavegordon
One And The Same
"If you are an identical twin it is possible that you and your siblings identity’s were swapped and your parents never caught it."- m00n-b4b3
shining stanley kubrick GIFGiphyYou're Not Fooling Anyone
"Sometimes you're the bad guy."- StrenuouslySexy
Worth The Pain And Discomfort?
"When you get a sunburn, it's actually your cells dying so they don't get tumorous." - Reddit
Lasting A Long Time Might Be Cause For Concern...
"The reason you’re supposed to contact a doctor if you have an erection lasting longer than four hours is because prolonged priapism can lead to gangrene of the penis."
"Blood goes in, deoxygenates, but can’t leave, so there’s no way for fresh oxygenated blood to come in, causing the tissue to turn black and die."
"Don’t worry, though!"
"This can be treated by using a big syringe to suck the trapped blood out."- boopbaboop·
someone erection GIFGiphyWhen sharing a "fun fact" with a friend, it might be worthwhile to think about the information you're about to share.
And whether or not it is, in fact, "fun".
Instead, maybe share a tidbit, or "info"?
Even if neither roll of the tongue quite as easily...
Off the wall, random information can be of great use at parties.
Now there is also the info we'd be better off not knowing.
But we gotta take the good with the bad.
Redditor SoggyCereal12 wanted to hear about information everybody would rather not know, or have no use to know. (So cover your eyes).They asked:
"What's a 'fun fact' that nobody asked for?"
I do love good facts. You never know when you'll end up on 'Jeopardy.'
Come and Knock on Our Door
Confused Threes Company GIF by MOODMANGiphy"Between 1913 and 1914, Sigmund Freud, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Emperor Franz Joseph, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Leon Trotsky lived in Vienna within 4km of each other. Talk about sitcom idea!"
plan3s
Purr...
"Baby kittens and puppies can’t urinate and defecate on their own. Their mothers lick their genitals to prompt them to do so and then also cleans it up. Most people don’t know this if they happen to be taking care of an orphaned young kitten or puppy so this it ends up being a cause of death for a lot of them."
"If you ever take care of an orphaned kitten/puppy or know someone who is you must use a damp paper towel or wash rag to wipe their bottoms until they urinate or defecate. 🌈 The More You Know ⭐️."
DetectiveBennett
Below
"German submarine U-215. Sank during WW2. Didn’t decompress though. It’s still sealed on the bottom of the ocean with 49 people inside. I’ve always wondered what went down in there…"
toigz
"Death by asphyxiation most likely."
Lord_Dreadlow
The Water Buried
"Lake Superior does not give up her dead. The waters of Lake Superior are so cold that the bodies and the majority of stuff from shipwrecks is preserved. The Great Lakes (all of them) are basically just giant ship graveyards."
Pranksterette
"It’s true, in fact people training to dive for sunken ships and other items come from around The world to train in the Great Lakes. I love this about Michigan, I live here and hear about it from time to time. I desperately want to get into one of those programs. But they are $$$$."
Hour_Carpenter8465
H20 Shots
Summer GIF by krima&isaGiphy"Dragonflies suck water up their butts and shoot it out like jets when they get tired."
Killerjebi
Dragonflies are weird. I run from them.
AHHHH!!!
Good Morning GIF by Taco BellGiphy"When a rooster crows it partially pinches shut its ear canals so it won't deafen itself."
KlutzieKelpie
So Many Parts
"Kangaroos have three vaginas. I forgot how I learned that."
DreadHead-Jedi
"And two uteri! They can be perpetually pregnant. That’s why sometimes you might see a mother kangaroo ditch her young Joey when in danger because she’s almost got two more on the way already."
rosie848
"They can also halt pregnancy until the time is right."
NerJaro
Unsinkable Sam
"On 1939, February 14th a German battleship was launched and was sank with only 118 of the 2,200 crew members surviving. Among them was a black and white cat named Oscar which was found floating on a board and was picked up from the water by a British ship."
"On October 27th, 1941, the ship sank to the west of Gibraltar and Oscar was found clinging to a piece of plank and was later brought to the shore establishment in Gibraltar. When British officers learned what happened they named him 'Unsinkable Sam.'"
"After that he was adopted by the crew of the HMS Ark Royal and in 1941, November 14th, a torpedo hit the ship. Sam was AGAIN found clinging to a piece of plank and was described as 'angry but unharmed.' By this time it was enough for the por cat and remained its days on land hunting mice in Gibraltar and then being transferred to the UK where he lived his final days."
"And this was the story of 'Unsinkable Sam.'"
WeeabooButWithASmile
The Binge
"There was a Finnish soldier named Aimo Koivunen who got separated from his unit. He had no food or weapons, and to avoid dying, took enough methamphetamine for 30 men. During his insane drug binge, he skied about 250 miles, passed over a landmine and survived, and caught and ate a bird raw. That's just a few details, I recommend actually reading about this absolute legend yourself."
AbsentLabRat
Good Ole Abe
abraham lincoln animation GIF by weinventyouGiphy"Before he became president, Abraham Lincoln was an elite wrestling champion. In 300 matches, he only lost one. Bonus fun fact: He was also a licensed bartender."
thatirishguy0
Well those aren't so bad. Good Abe sounds cool.
"Fun facts" generally refers to a tidbit of information about a specific topic which the general public might not have otherwise known about.
But the first word in that term can be misleading.
Indeed, some "fun facts" reveal information that isn't remotely "fun" in the slightes.
Redditor Alternative_kachocho was curious to hear some "fun facts" which were anything but fun, leading them to ask:
What's a 'fun fact' that isn’t fun at all?"
Ironically, something you likely don't think about...
"Your brain blocks you from feeling your organs moving around inside you."- Aydengeist06
Try watching Finding Nemonow...
"Only one in a thousand sea turtles born actually make it to adulthood."- Sebs_123
Shocking new light on an age old classic
"In the books, Stuart Little was never explicitly called a mouse."
"He's pretty much described as a deformed mouse-esque person born form human parents."- Red_Beard47
stuart little mouse GIF by VIASAT3GiphyNature running it's course...
"There's a bird that feeds its younger offspring to the eldest."- Teacup_Cult
I have no allergies... yet
"Speaking from personal experience here, but your body can randomly decide to become allergic to damn near everything edible at any time."
"Not very fun."- smallemochick
Those poor, innocent creatures.
"In some regions of Australia, 90 percent of koalas have chlamydia, which poses a threat to the species' extinction unless a vaccine is created or widespread koala culling takes place."- tiffanyjcruse
koalas kiss GIFGiphyThey'd still be here if they weren't so delicious...
"The giant tortoise was so delicious, it caused not only itself to be hunted to extinction, but also the dodo."
"Giant tortoise meat was supposedly better tasting than chicken."
"It's fat tasted better spread on bread than butter."
"Also, it was the perfect food for sailors at the time, as their bladders stored 1 litre of purified water, and they could survive without food in hibernation for almost a whole year in the hull of a ship."
"Not to mention, because they evolved without humans, they were easy to hunt."
"You could tie one to your back, and roll another to the ship and they would just let you."
"It was so delicious, they went unrecorded for a long time because expeditions to bring living samples of wildlife to Europe kept eating them on the way."
"Conversely, the dodo, while as easily captured by sailors, tasted awful."
"It was completely unpalatable."
"HOWEVER, one day, someone discovered if you cooked dodo meat in the more delicious tortoise fat, it tasted just like chicken."
"So now, sailors were hunting a few tortoises at a time for their fat and water, storing them, and then hunting dodos on the daily."
"Overhunting, plus the introduction of rats to the environment (because sailors) which would eat eggs, led go the population to decline at a rate they could not breed to keep up, leading to both animals going extinct."- Kyhan
Don't forget the nose plugs
"Antarctica smells like penguin poop."
"Antarctica is a desert, it is too cold for bacteria to live."
"Nothing there to clean up penguin droppings."
"If you are close enough to see penguins, you will also smell them."- gummby8
Makes those long lines so worth it...
"The TSA missed 96% of contraband during an inspection in 2015."- omegasix321
All Falls Down Tsa GIF by Kanye WestGiphyTruly tragic.
"The person who had the first facial transplant had her face chewed up by her Labrador dog while asleep due to sleeping pill overdose." - User Deleted
A Personal anecdote, but still no fun...
"I went to a concert it was so loud my ears rang I was crying."- BoysenberryDry3018
Not fun for the animals?
"Humans have one physical ability that is better than any animal on the planet."
"It’s running for distance."
"No animal can beat us as a species."- Honest-Guy83
Forrest Gump Reaction GIFGiphyThis includes D.C.... let that sink in...
"Oral sex is illegal in 11 states."- Joes_balls69
Can't even call it in-breeding...
"Female Komodo dragons mate with their sons even though they can breed asexually."- Kitsuneblade·
Seems like a waste
"There is a shark, which when is pregnant it has lots of roes in him and the first baby shark which is gonna hatch is gonna eat the rest of those roes."
"And all of that happens still inside of the shark lady."- Francis1369
Great White Sharks GIF by Shark WeekGiphyUncle Fester might disagree
"I bet a lot of people have already heard this one before but a human can fit a lightbulb INSIDE their mouth but can’t take one OUTSIDE of their mouth."
"Horrifying isn’t it?"- Kdawg982
Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
"You can stuff 2 raccoons up your a**."- skullicsis
A sad way to go
"When a whale is old and weak it can't come up for air so it normally would suffocate."- Select_Archer1221·
Something to consider next time someone tells you to kiss their a**...
"Your lips are the same skin type and texture of your butthole."- pyromike0528
infinite loop love GIF by TrippyogiGiphyMakes sense, if you think about it.
"You can't really stop thinking about something."- ea_yassine
It's hard not to read some of these "fun facts" and wonder if there should be an alternative term for the facts which aren't fun.
Alternative facts?
Oh yeah, probably not....
Occasionally, we find ourselves in an argument with someone who is just stubborn enough to turn the tables.
At the outset, we are certain, beyond a shadow of doubt, that what they're trying to claim is ludicrous. It's plain untrue.
And yet, some people grind away persistently for long enough that we begin to doubt. At the very least, we find ourselves arguing, several minutes later, about something that once seemed so obvious it didn't even require a second thought.
Alas, some people just can't let go of their misconceptions.
A recent thread on Reddit asked people to share the finest examples of insane claims they've heard.
liveyourbestlife83 asked, "What's the dumbest thing someone has ever tried to convince you was the truth?"
Plenty of people have been told insane lies about science and the natural world. Animals and earthly dynamics provide the subject for these absurdities.
Anti-Slurp
"That chickens don't drink water" -- Thomas56544
"They drink beer." -- StupidFckNextDoor
"They don't if you put the food in front of them first because they're gluttonous little brats. Give them water first and they'll drink, then give them food" -- MatureTeen14
Philosophical Arguments
"You hear the sound of thunder before you see the lightning. They were convinced this was true... I told them to google it!" -- froatfish
"Isn't thunder the sound of lightning?" -- King_Kingly
"Well Einstein. Then why do I hear my farts before I smell them?" -- Joshi3003
Taxonomy
"Jellyfish are not alive, they are a mineral." -- Zbignich
"Have you ever seen a jellyfish? No. Thats because they're too busy being minerals" -- Darth_Gonk
Curb Poo
"That the dust on the side of roads after winters is mostly dog poo. I was just speechlessly thinking about the huge army of stray dogs invading all the streets and roads every winter night to poo and disappearing to the woods at summer..."
Others recalled times that they heard bizarre lies about medical knowledge and the human body. Some were so brazen that, in hindsight, it's become comical.
Paternal Gaslighting
"My father trying to console me on the way to the hospital saying it's just a sprain when I was staring at my bone." -- ConfusedFanGirl0502
"Tis just a flesh wound" -- TheStavis
"As a new dad...I get it."
"Sometimes you tell kids everything's going to be okay...even when it's not." -- default52
Airless
"In middle school the smart kid in class, the kind to show it off, told me if I held my breath while running the mile I could run as fast and far as I wanted because 'it uses no oxygen.' "
"I said 'no way' because that made no sense and asked him to show me. He was reluctant then basically ran like 100ft then basically passes out lmao."
Both False, Thank Goodness
"A fully grown adult tried to convince me that women get pregnant by swallowing semen because it has to get in their stomach to grow a baby." -- BogieTime69
"That periods were unnatural and are caused by having a non-vegan diet." -- SnooSprouts3480
And others remembered times when the most basic seeming facts and information had somehow eluded the people around them.
These moments left them wondering how they got so far into life not realizing the truth.
"Says So Right There"
"My parents used to think keyboards were invented by a guy named Qwerty. When I was a kid I believed it too until I said 'wait, that's a really weird name' and decided to google it" -- soviet_uwunion
"What a power move that would be. Forcing millions of keyboards to spell out your name." -- NotAnOctopys
"Wait, they weren't? That's literally what my 6th grade computers teacher told us in class and I've just been going around believing it for 15 years. I feel like my life is a lie now." -- FalconOtherwise
A Teaching Moment
"That unicorns were not only real, but that they lived in northern Europe. This 20-year old girl had a full-on argument in the middle of a part about this."
"The look of sadness on her face as she slowly realized that they weren't real was just...so beautiful lol"
Violent Transfer of Power
"That John Wilkes Booth became President after shooting Lincoln. Im pretty sure they actually thought this was true though, since they were in third grade and never really studied how democracy works." -- NeonMoth229
"You keep what you kill." -- TheStavis
So, as you've heard so many times before, do not believe everything you hear. Even when the person is blue in the face and repeating the same lie over and over for minutes on end despite anything you say.
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.