Statistics and facts often serve to put things into perspective. A bite-size tidbit of info is useful insofar as it allows people to grasp the seriousness, complexity, or general essence of a topic.
Redditors on one particular thread wasted no time at all offering that enlightenment.
But this was a sadistic form of education. The facts were shared with a presumed wry grin just behind the computer screen.
"Unfun Facts," as the original question called them, are as horrifying or gross as they are fascinating.
MC_gnome asked, "What's an unfun fact?"
"I Knew I Left That Somewhere"
"In 2014 the CDC once found a smallpox sample that they had lost and didn't even know it. It was just laying around in some random storeroom." -- Wespiratory
"This week in Storage wars." -- Rohit_BFire
"I am happy I am not a scientist working in one of those labs. I often leave work with random things in my pockets that I meant to put leave on my desk. I'd probably infect my family with Super- virus or something. I guess that's why they wear lab coats too." -- Hey_I_Work_Here
An Ongoing Problem
"Around 1.5 million people die from TB annually, which is a disease consistently treatable by antibiotics in almost all cases." -- Chocolate_Jesus_
"I didn't enjoy Tampa Bay, but I had no idea it was that bad." -- Shradersofthelostark
"Hey, so I'm from India which is why this number isn't extremely shocking for me.. but what is also happening here is that a lot of poor people who have it stop their treatments mid way and this is given rise to stronger strains of it. I'm led to believe out of the three the strongest one isn't curable with antibiotics...." -- ascent_of_himanity
Everything's Better the Second Time Around
"Brush tail opossums are coprophagic (eat their own sh**). They need their food to go through their digestive system twice to get all the nutrients."
"They're nocturnal, so spend the night eating eucalyptus and other plant leaves and flowers."
"During the day, they curl up into a little ball with their mouths close to their bums, and eat the soft poo as it comes out in. Then while they're out at night, they poo out hard, long pellets of poo, having absorbed all the nutrients."
-- KatAnansi
Poor Puppers :(
"Parvovirus can infect dogs (and cats) at any particular age and kill them pretty efficiently. It's especially good at doing this with puppies."
"There's no cure and no antiviral, just boosters and hydration IV you can give them."
"When a dog comes home healthy from the recovery from a Parvo infection, they're contagious for 2 weeks and if they pee, poop or vomit anywhere at all (including dog parks) that freakin' virus is able to survive for up to a year. Including in 100+ degree weather."
"Parvovirus sucks."
Waking to Death
"Fatal familial insomnia exists. It's a rare, incurable prionic brain disease that progressively destroys your brain's ability to sleep. Eventually you stop sleeping altogether, go insane, have seizures, and die." -- Fenius_Farsaid
"They ask you if you have a family history of this when you go to donate blood in Australia." -- WeldinMike27
Casting a Shadow on Tans
"When your skin becomes red from spending too much time under the sunlight, it's basically because your skin cells are committing suicide to avoid becoming cancerous."
"The process is called apoptosis, and when cells whose DNA gets messed up by UV radiation doesn't commit suicide, that's when it starts growing out of control and thus becomes skin cancer."
Gotta Survive Somehow
"The female tarantula hawk wasp stings a tarantula between the legs, paralyzes it, then drags the prey to a specially prepared burrow, where a single egg is laid on the spider's abdomen, and the entrance is covered. Sex of the larvae is determined by fertilization; fertilized eggs produce females, while unfertilized eggs produce males."
"When the wasp larva hatches, it creates a small hole in the spider's abdomen, then enters and feeds voraciously, avoiding vital organs for as long as possible to keep the spider alive. After several weeks, the larva pupates."
"Finally, the wasp becomes an adult and emerges from the spider's abdomen to continue the life cycle."
ROUGH Odds
"Only one in every 1,000 sea turtles born ever make it to adulthood." -- ItsFiin3
"To add to this, saving baby turtles at the beach does less (almost nothing) for conservation compared to protecting adult turtles in the ocean." -- p-oonis-
"The one that did make it was Crush from Nemo." -- Chuck4351
Good Reason to Grind Your Own
"People who handle cockroaches develop allergies to them. This usually prevents them from drinking pre-ground coffee because of the cockroaches that get grounded in with the large batches." -- gkibbe
"This is a viscerally unfun fact." -- PigeonTimeO_o
"Of all of these unfun facts, this is the most unfun." -- floovels
Team Player
"When a male bee (drone) ejaculates, its testicles explode and the drone dies. It is literally a one shot wonder." -- robocommander
"This is also a drone bees only job... The males are literally slaves only used for breeding, and when autumn comes and the hive hibernates all the drones are forced out of the hive to die in the cold." -- Billibon
Do you have something to confess to George? Text "Secrets" or "