21 Awesome Facts About Boring Objects Around You

Food items like chips come with about 43% nitrogen inside their package. It might seem they sell you half a bag of air, but it’s exactly the opposite: oxygen, the gas we breathe, would react with the chips inside the bag and make them go rancid quickly. It’s called ‘oxidizing’ for a reason.

Nitrogen, on the other hand, is an inert gas that helps keep the foodstuffs fresh and also protects them from breaking during transportation. A bag of chips that has this gas ‘cushion’ lets you enjoy your crunchies without them turning into potato crumbs.

That hole in your hollow lollipop stick isn’t to prevent choking should it ever be swallowed. It’s actually there to keep the candy in place. Excess candy flows into the hollow tube and the hole which, when it hardens, keeps the pop in place. If it was a smooth stick, the candy would slide off easily.

Vacuums come with so many attachments but do any of us really know what that one with long bristles is for? It’s for dusting and is perfect for cleaning framed art, blinds and lampshades.

When you’re on your way back to the car after bagging up everything you bought, use loops on a shopping cart to hang the bags. Now softer items like bread, eggs, fruit, and veggies won’t get squashed by the heavier goods.

If the pizza is round, it would be logical to make the pizza box round as well, wouldn’t it? In fact, those boxes are square just because it’s easier to produce them this way. They’re made of a single piece of cardboard that’s folded into a box. And then it’s also simpler to store them in stacks fitting nicely into a corner. Still, there have been attempts at making round boxes, although none of them have been very successful yet.

If you don’t have anyone to hold the other end of your tape measure when you try to measure something, tap a nail on it. Now simply hook your tape on it using the tiny hole all tape measures have.

The blue (or any other dark color) bristles on your toothbrush are meant to remind you when it’s time to get a new one. If you see that the bristles have become pale, change the toothbrush or its head.

Spoiled milk emits gases (like most foods when they go off). A classic plastic milk jug has a concave shape on one side. So when the gases expand inside the jug, it expands too, and the concave shape curves out. Also, if you wanna save some milk for later and freeze it, the jug will expand when the milk gets solid as well, occupying more space in a jug.

A point on an ointment cap is there for a reason, too. Most tubes are usually sealed with foil and it’s better to avoid opening it with fingers unless you’re ready to say goodbye to your nails. A point easily opens even the most safely sealed tube.

All Tic Tac containers are designed to dispense one Tic Tac every time you open it. The lid has the same shape as the candy. Turn the container upside down, gently shake it and slowly open it, you’ll notice only one candy stuck between those lid grooves. So if you just open the container and shake it until five or even more candies fall into your mouth, it means you’ve been eating Tic Tac wrong all this time!

Walking past an ambulance, you’ve probably seen ECNALUBMA printed on the front of the vehicle. That’s just Ambulance backward! It’s written in reverse so the driver in front of the ambulance can see the word properly in the rear-view mirror. This will alert the driver to move out of the way and let it pass.

The emptier your fridge is, the more cold air is lost when you open the door. Making the machine work hard to replace all that crispness! If the fridge is filled, less cool air escapes as it creates a barrier, and the foodstuffs hold the cold. Meaningless energy is required to fill it back up again!

Your thumb doesn’t make any sound when you snap your fingers. The sound you hear is actually created by your middle finger hitting your palm! Your thumb just gives the right angle to get that clicking sound.

Almost any public toilet has a large gap between the floor and the door. The reason for such a zero privacy thing is to actually minimize the level of privacy and comfort, so that people wouldn’t stay there long and there’d be no lines. It’s also easier to clean and safer if some emergency occurs.

Bath foam isn’t only for fun or a nice smell — it also helps regulate the temperature. The bubbles keep the water hot, so you can enjoy a bath a bit longer. Anyway, it works for acrylic bathtubs only — those made of metal lose heat really fast either way.

If you ever tried a Nintendo Switch cartridge to taste you’ll confirm that: they taste revolting, leaving a sour-bitterish aftertaste in your mouth. They’re covered with denatonium benzoate, one of the most disgusting flavors known! Actually, this taste is a kind of a hidden function — it prevents people from swallowing those cartridges!

That black grate on a microwave isn’t just some fancy decoration. It’s called “a Faraday shield” and it prevents the rays from escaping the microwave. It also speeds up the heating, so you could enjoy yesterday’s leftovers faster. It also may block phone signals, so if you’re tired of numerous calls just put the phone into a microwave, but don’t turn it on!

A triple handle on a Jerry can is there to make it easier for two people to carry it and distribute the fuel evenly. Gas cans often have a second hole that actually needs to be uncapped too before you pour the gas. The air passage will prevent it from pouring out, so no more fuel waste!

Deep at night, you might sometimes hear creaking noises coming from the walls or the ceiling, or even sounds as if someone’s rolling metal balls on the floor. This happens because the concrete, metal and wood in the house react to changes in temperatures and even humidity levels. Metal expands during the day when the sun is at its peak. But when it sets, the metal relaxes and goes back to its regular size.

If your toilet flush is broken at the worst time ever, don’t freak out: get a bucket, fill it with water, and pour it into the bowl instead of flushing. The water will just go away into the pipe as usual. This works because of how a toilet is made. Most have the handle attached to a chain that’s connected to the flapper. And the flapper is the top cover of the flush valve. When you push the handle, the chain raises the flapper and causes water from the tank to flow through the valve and get into the toilet bowl. There’s a hole in the bowl’s bottom that connects to a special tube — the siphon. It curves up above the bowl water and then turns sharply down. When water fills the bowl, the excess is pushed through the siphon. The clean remaining water can’t go over the tube’s highest point because of lack of pressure, so it stays in the bowl.

You can trap a laser light in the water and even try the experiment at home — just keep the laser away from your or other people’s eyes. Take a plastic bottle, fill it with water, take a laser pointer and a pin. Poke a hole in the bottle, so water can smoothly go out like a small waterfall. Aim the laser through the bottle. The light will end up caught in the little waterfall and go downwards together with it. This happens because of a thing called total internal reflection: when light hits the edge of a water spout at a particular angle, it doesn’t pass straight through, but reflects.