25 Cool And Interesting Facts As Shared On This Online Thread

The internet is a vast treasure trove of information, and Reddit stands as one of its most diverse and engaging communities. Recently, a question sparked a wave of excitement and knowledge-sharing: “What is the coolest freaking fact you know?”

#1

Image source: The_Mr_Wilson, gagneet parmar

We live in an explosion so violent that dust woke up and started thinking about it. We are the universe observing and considering itself.

#2

Image source: LtRegBarclay, niagarafallstourism

**They turn Niagara Falls down at night.** There are hydroelectric dams around the waterfalls for power generation, and the authorities divert more of the river through them at night when there aren’t tourists around. During the day (and especially in peak season) they let more of the water through so the waterfall looks more spectacular. At time this cuts the flow of water over the falls by 75%.

#3

Image source: Rafikki_Lion, caroline legg

Bees have tiny hairs all over their compound eyes. These microscopic hairs are called setae, and they help bees to sense wind direction and velocity. The setae allow bees to detect air movements within a few centimeters per second. This helps them navigate back to the hive on windy days. I think it’s amazing that bees have built-in anemometers on their eyes!

#4

Image source: Bubbly_Damage1678, theilr

Tighten rusted bolt before loosen. Much smart.

#5

Image source: Eggysh, Andrew Wilkinson

A sloth can hold its breath longer than a dolphin.

#6

Image source: PrestigiousAd7620, WANG.PC

Australia is wider than moon.

#7

Image source: Majestic_Guy2024, Nick Franco 228

Star ⭐ died for you….

Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements – the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life – weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. The stars died so that you could be here today.

~ Lawrence M. Krauss

#8

Image source: MHullRealtr77, Gorgeous Eyes

I just recently learned that your immune system does not know your eyes exist. If they did, they’d attack the eyes and destroy your vision. I believe it’s a foreign object for them.

#9

Image source: Gay_argentine_bear, osde8info

The moon looks different from the southern hemisphere than it does in the north. As an Argentine I always find this fascinating when I travel.

#10

Image source: gunchucks_, Africa Gómez

Female lions have uteruses that are basically little hammocks! So as the kittens are developing, they ride along in these things that turn and stabilize as the mother is running and hunting. I thought that was pretty cool.

#11

Image source: InternationalCod3604, Seth Werkheiser

The difference between a cemetery and a graveyard is that a graveyard is either attached to a holy place like a church or monastery/Temple or on the same land owned by said place, while a cemetery is a secular or generic term for any and all other burial places that accommodate the dead.

#12

Image source: TrivialBanal, Francis Storr

Hippopotamus milk is pink. Hippopotamus sweat is pink.

Neither are strawberry flavour.

#13

Image source: PinoyBrad, rob_rob2001

The earliest evidence for fried chicken is from 1500 BCE. It comes from Luzon in the Philippines. The bones that documented some 50k of them from a midden heap show two things. First, they are from Green Jungle Fowl, the wild ancestor of modern chickens, that were kept penned their entire lives based on wing development . This happens when you clip the wing feathers to keep them from flying. Secondly we know the earliest layers was cooked in coconut oil due to the residue worked into the heated bone tips. This also leads local archaeologists to believe the locals were fermenting coconut milk to make a local drink called tuba. This is still one of the methods used today. All in all 3500 years ago my fellow Filipinos were getting drunk and eating fried chicken. Not much has changed.

#14

Image source: unstopablystoopid, Nadejda Bostanova

Also, in an experiment, it was proved that observing something changes how it acts. Scientists passed rays through a sheet of gold foil. When they were not in the room watching, it left the same pattern every time. When they observed the experiment, the pattern changed every time. Therefor, the is no such thing as observing without changing things.

#15

Image source: WordsUnthought, Martyn Wright

Aotearoa/New Zealand and Australia are relatively close to one another in a global scale and often conflated in the minds of most of us in the Northern Hemisphere.

Despite that, Australia has been continuously inhabited for almost 70,000 years and Aotearoa/New Zealand is the last major landmass to have experienced human settlement, less than 850 years ago.

And no, that’s not colonial settlement, that’s when the Maori got there.

#16

Image source: ColoradoCorrie, Brian Gratwicke

Ecuador has a rare species of horned frog that is a marsupial. The female lays eggs, the male fertilizes them then puts them in a pouch on the mother’s back.

#17

Image source: Kilperik, Colin Durfee

Think about the universe, and you might imagine stars, planets, and galaxies. But all that stuff we can see and touch only makes up about 4% of the universe. The rest is mostly hidden from us, made up of mysterious dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter, which is about 26% of the universe, doesn’t give off light, but we know it’s there because it has a gravitational grip on galaxies. Dark energy is even stranger, making up around 70% of the universe, and it’s pushing everything in the universe apart, faster and faster. So, the universe is mostly made of stuff we can’t see or understand, which is pretty mind-blowing when you think about it.

#18

Image source: ARandomChocolateCake, ayu oshimi

The entire time period in which humans developed until now, would fit about 120x between the era of stegosaurus and the era in which Tyrannosaurus Rex lived. The time period is so huge in fact, that we are closer to some dinosaurs time wise, than some dinosaurs are to eachother.

#19

Image source: manofmatt, Sara J.

There is a species of jelly (not jellyfish, they’re different) that grows a new a**s everytime it defecates.

#20

Image source: darylrogerson, GreenFlames09

What you see, is only what your brain interprets. You don’t see everything, and sometimes you see things that aren’t there.

For instance, you can always see your nose (unless you’re Voldemort).

Your brain just blocks it out, but it’s there, in your field of vision always. Imagine, what other s**t your brain gets up to you without you knowing.

#21

Image source: Alone_Instruction_13, Michael Ravodin

For me it’s that sharks predate trees and Saturn’s rings. Our little blue marble is older and holding more secrets than we can begin to imagine.

#22

Image source: sourbelle, Mark Doliner

There is a type of jellyfish that is basically immortal. After it reaches sexual maturity it can just decide to revert and become immature again, making it theoretically live forever. Though in practice they do die.

#23

Image source: frostking66899, 24oranges.nl

Bananas contain potassium, and since potassium decays, that makes the yellow fruit radioactive, you’d need to eat ten million bananas in one sitting to die of banana-induced radiation poisoning.

#24

Image source: OrneryConelover70, Georgie Pauwels

Dogs noses are way more sensitive than ours at differentiating smells. Whereas we can smell a stew warming up on the stove top, a dog can actually smell all its components (meat, potato, carrots, onions, etc) separately.

#25

Image source: Dangerous-Finger9259, Peter Toporowski

the sheer fact of existing.

it is so utterly astounding and incomprehensible and wondrous and awesome, yet we appreciate it so seldom in all its depth and meaning, let alone contemplate that we and the universe exist.

everybody, get more goosebumps every day from the depth and transcendence and ubiquitousness of us and the universe existing and being inexplicable intricably interwoven with the fabric of existence itself. we are in the most profound way always in contact with the everchanging yet constant substrate of existence iteslf.