24 Facts About the World That Will Surprise Even the Most Intelligent People

We were sure that we know our world backward and forward and that there is nothing left that can surprise us and make us say “Oh, wow!” But we were wrong.

Bright Side has collected 24 facts that will make you realize that there are still many things in the world that can surprise us. At least, a little.

• To tell a real diamond from a fake, you need to breathe on it: a fake one will become foggy, and a genuine one will stay clear.

• Galileo Galilei’s middle finger is stored in The Museum of Science in Florence.

• The iPhone, the Harry Potter books, and the Rubik’s Cube are the top 3 most sold products in human history.

• The Mona Lisa was in Napoleon Bonaparte’s bedroom for a few years.

• The Bombay phenotype is a phenomenon whereby certain elements of the blood are missing. It results in a person having a mixed blood type. Only 0.0004% of the world’s population have such blood. There is even a special storage of this blood so that people who have it can have a blood transfusion if necessary. What is curious is that this unique blood type can be transfused to any person with a regular blood type.

• Besides the senses that we all know, such as smell and touch, a person also has another sense: proprioception (being aware of the position of one’s body parts).

• Bananas have a curved shape because they reach for the sunlight when they grow.

• Mayday is the word that is used instead of SOS in radio chat.

• The Spanish word “esposas” means both “handcuffs” and “wives.”

• The blue bird from the Twitter logo has a name: Larry. The creators of the social network named the bird after basketball player Larry Bird.

• When you gain or lose weight, your fat cells don’t disappear — they just change their size.

• Some Japanese traffic lights have a blue light instead of green because historically both colors were named with the same word.

• 99% of the microbes that live inside humans are unknown to science.

• The last words that Albert Einstein spoke are unknown because he said them in German to a nurse who didn’t speak the language.

• A paper cut is more painful than a regular cut because such a wound almost never bleeds, so the nerve endings stay open to the air, which irritates them. By the way, there is an article about this on Wikipedia.

• Queen Elizabeth II is related to Vlad Tepes, the famous prototype for Dracula.

• When you take a hot bath, you burn as many calories as you would if you went for a 30-minute walk.

• When his body was exhumed in June 2017, Salvador Dali’s mustache was exactly the same as on the day he died.

Salvador Dali in 1972

• In order to burn just 1 calorie, you need to click a mouse button 10 million times.

• In 1939, American composer and pianist Earl Wild gave the first concert in the world that was broadcast on live television. 58 years later, his performance was the first online concert on the internet.

• If you make ice cubes with tap water, they will be white; if you use boiled water, they will be transparent.

• Animals avoid power lines because they are scared of ultraviolet flashes that the human eye can’t see. By the way, of all the mammals in the world, only humans and apes can’t see ultraviolet rays.

• You spend so little electricity charging your smartphone that even if you calculated the yearly cost of it, it would be less than $1.

• Charles Darwin was the first person who had the idea to attach wheels to his office chair to move around more quickly.

Do you know any other amazing facts? Share them in the comment section below!