18 Rarely Shared Facts That Will Make You Think Again

Did you know that chickens can jump and fly too? Domestication of the chicken dates back to at least 2000 BCE. They do have the required feathers and muscles to fly, but they don’t do it much anymore, hundreds of years after they were domesticated. But if you give them the right motivation, they can do that.

If they think the other side of the fence is cool, they can jump up to 6 feet. Some hens hop on the trees to roost. Picture a tree with a couple of chickens on it. Looks so funny. Their motivation is safety. The tree serves as a cover for them in the daytime and protects them from winged predators. Similarly, at night the tree turns into a shelter from wind and rain and the possible attacks of ground predators.

This doesn’t have to be in the wild. Farms where chickens can wander around freely also have tree nests. Some sneaky chicken leaves their coop and jump onto the trees. So, many chicken owners search for ways to keep them under control. Hey Siri, search for “how to deal with jumping chickens?”

I’m now moving on to everyday items and the secrets they held. The twist ties and plastic tags on bread packs don’t have random colors. They are color-coded based on the daily bread baked. Each day of the week has an assigned color. For example, blue twist tie stands for Monday, green for Tuesday, and red for Thursday. Now you can figure out how fresh your bread is. Color codes are helpful for employees too. They can easily spot the old loaves on the shelves.

There’s a popular saying; “you are what you eat.” It turns out that our guts are also there to make us happy. Serotonin is the “feel good” hormone. It’s also a neurotransmitter. Many of us immediately associate it with our brains. Yet, interestingly around 95% of the body’s serotonin is produced in our digestive tract.

Many of us often use the words “herbs” and “spices” interchangeably. But these are different seasonings. Spices come from every part of a plant or tree, like root, seed, or bark, but herbs are the plant’s leaves. We generally add spice to food in roasting and during cooking. Herbs release their aroma faster, so we add them at the very end.

Do you ever feel you’ve been watched and discovered that you’re right? Well, that spider-sense-like feeling is called gaze detection. Your brain senses when someone is staring at you. Research explains this as a sort of defense mechanism. A direct gaze can be a symbol of dominance, and that can be a potential threat. Humans evolved with this feeling in time. Strangely, it works when the person looks right at you. If their gaze is off just a few degrees to the left or right of you, your brain won’t react this way.

What about the urge to rewatch your favorite movies or listen to songs over and over? You’re not alone. This habit has some benefits for your mental health. This behavior eases your mind. When people feel overwhelmed, they’ll have less self-control and be less motivated to complete hard tasks. You are drawn into The Office’s first season again because when you watch, listen or do something familiar, you don’t have to spend the effort to monitor what you’re thinking. So, it’s a good way to have a quick mental reset.

Here’s another feeling. Imagine you’re enjoying the sunset on a terrace or at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Out of nowhere, your inner voice whispers, “What if I jump?” This isn’t coming from a darker state. You know, it’s just sort of a feeling that appears when you’re high up. There is a name for this: the “Call of the void” or “the high place phenomenon.” It’s a relatively new research topic, but more studies are on the way.

We might as well talk about a time traveler’s party held in 2009. The theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking invited time travelers to hang out. There was a huge banner hung with the words “Welcome, Time Travelers” No one showed up, but maybe travelers had prior engagements, and that’s why they didn’t attend the party.

“I swear I’m not crying because no one showed up to that awesome party; I was just cutting an onion.” Why do we burst into tears when we chop onions? Because of a particular enzyme [lachrymatory-factor synthase]. Is there a solution? Next time get some damp paper towel and put it on the cutting board next to the onion. The acidity that comes from the enzyme will go toward the wet paper instead of your eyes.

The ancient Egyptian civil calendar was quite similar to the one we use now. They had 365 days divided into 12 months. But instead of spreading a 31st to some months, they would add those “extra” days to the end of the year.

Now, let’s turn our cameras to the animal kingdom again. Is there a benefit for zebras to have their fascinating pattern? Scientists asked this question, too, and experimented. They dressed up horses with zebra look-alike coats. The coat was covering the whole body of the horses but their heads. It turns out that the zebra pattern repels flies! Scientists observed that flies only go for the heads of the animals and stay away from the horse bodies.

Ants are known as hard-working animals even in the tales. That’s got a legit reflection in real life. They can carry up to 20 times more weight than their own body weight. These insects have other noble qualities too. If an ant gets seriously injured, it’ll refuse treatment from the colony’s paramedic ant. The ant knows that it can’t make it, so instead of wasting the colony’s resources, this ant forces the paramedic ant to carry on without it.

Camels can survive around 15 days without drinking water. Many people assume that they store water in their humps. Nope, humps are for food storage in the form of fat. The water is kept in their bloodstream. Speaking of camels, in some countries, there’s a tradition to hold Camel Beauty Contests. For instance, a contest was held in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar as an attraction.

You see a giant house fly in the house, but it flees from your ninja’s hands. You might think that nature will take care of it in a couple of days, but actually, house flies can live for about a month or 2.

The next fact is about an emergency on the road. Detachable car headrests can be used as an escape tool. You can break the window with the headrests if you can’t leave the car by the doors. You should wedge the headrest between the glass and the window sill. Aim a corner. Then you hit the headrest as hard as you can to break the glass safely. You might have to hit a couple of times, but it eventually shatters, don’t give up after one try. Don’t be shy. Share your “wow” facts with us.