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![Earth’s land masses move just a few centimeters per year, the same rate as your nails grow]()
Individual tectonic plates move at different speeds. Coastal California, for example, moves faster than the continental U.S. at 5 centimeters, or 2 inches, annually. The relatively fast movement explains why the region experiences so many earthquakes.![Instead of turkeys, baked ham or tamales, Japan’s staple Christmas food is Kentucky Fried Chicken]()
After allegedly overhearing an expat say they missed eating Turkey on the holiday, the enterprising manager at Japan’s first KFC was able to capitalize on the country’s lack of traditional Christmas meal customs. Hence, chicken became the next best thing.![The name Mohammed, including its different variations of spelling, ranked globally as the most popular first name last year at 133 million people. Maria was the next most common name at 61 million people]()
Mohammed can also be spelled as Muhammad, Mohamed and Mohammad.![Cows can’t walk down stairs without assistance even though they can walk up. This is because their knee structure and weight distribution are not designed to descend the steep decline of a staircase]()
Because a cow’s neck is far less mobile than a human’s, they also have difficulty seeing when descending downwards.![While the U.S. has 11 public holidays, Nepal has three times as many at 39]()
Nepalese workers receive extra time off to properly observe their national holidays, easing their regular six-day work week.![The global human population is currently over 8 billion people. That means each person shares their birthday with another 20 million people or so]()
The most common birthdays in the U.S. are in September. Some say that babies born in this month were conceived around the holidays when couples had more free time and felt more festive.![Among the entire human population, only 10% are left-handed. However, the US, Netherlands, and Canada have the highest rates of left-handed people at about 13%. Asian countries have some of the lowest rates with China, Japan, and India at 5% or less]()
Negative attitudes toward left-handedness in China led people to force a right-handed dominance. Teachers may even change a child's writing hand to the right.![Beef fat or bees wax used to be the main ingredients for candles, allowing people to eat them when food became scarce]()
Instead of tallow, candles are now commonly made of paraffin wax, which derives from petroleum, coal, or oil shale.![Because the Moon is still losing heat from its inner core, which stresses the celestial body’s outer layer, and is constantly affected by Earth’s gravitational pull, quakes occasionally occur.]()
Moonquakes are not like earthquakes. Lunar seismic activity can last up to hours while terrestrial tremors usually last for seconds. However, moonquakes have so far been measured at smaller magnitudes.![While]()
It’s no coincidence that the characters "J" and "I" sit next to each other in the alphabet. The letter "J," which originated as a fancy way of writing "I," eventually evolved to become its own letter in 1524.![A blue whale heart weighs about 400 pounds, big enough that its heartbeat can be heard 2 miles away]()
During dives, a blue whale's heartbeat slows down to four to eight beats per minute.![Russi Taylor and Wayne Allwine, the voice actors for Disney’s Mickey and Minnie Mouse from late 20th century to early 21st century, actually got married in 1991.]()
Allwine, who voiced Mickey Mouse from 1977 until his death in 2009, and Taylor, who voiced Minnie Mouse from 1986 to her death in 2019, kept their romance private but often praised each other publicly.![A chef’s hat traditionally has 100 folds to represent the different ways a chef knows how to cook eggs.]()
Today, many chef's hats still contain pleats as an ode to tradition rather than to signify skill.![Olympians were once able to compete in art including music, painting, sculpture, architecture and literature between 1912 and 1948]()
Art competitions were abandoned in 1952, because the International Olympic Committee required all competitors to be amateurs but found most of the artists to be professionals.![Got a tooth ache? Unfortunately, teeth are the one and only part within the human body that can’t repair itself]()
Teeth can’t repair themselves since they are coated in enamel, which is not a living tissue.![In 1953, an employee overestimated the amount of turkeys a food production company had to order to keep up with holiday demand. Instead of bearing the loss of 260 tons of frozen birds, a salesman birthed the idea of TV dinners]()
By the end of next year, the company C.A. Swanson & Sons was able to sell ten million turkey dinners.![Historians said the first ever Thanksgiving celebration likely didn’t start with turkeys]()
While there were plenty of turkeys at that time, historians say there are no records that suggest they were eaten. Instead, fowl such as ducks or geese were likely served instead.![The wood frog can freeze solid during the winter and come back to life once they thaw]()
Glucose in the wood frog’s blood prevents the animal’s cells from being damaged when frozen.![If you could travel at the speed of light, you could reach Pluto in four hours and the Sun in eight minutes]()
While a quick trip to Pluto would be a technological milestone, the fastest man-made object ever, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, can only travel about 400,000 miles per hour or 0.06% the speed of light. At that speed, it would take three-quarters of a year to reach Pluto.![While the human population weighs 350 million tons, there are about 445 million tons of termites on Earth]()
An established termite queen can lay up to 40,000 eggs every day to ensure a fast-growing colony.![Nothing can be heard in space including explosions, crashing asteroids or supernovas]()
Because space is nearly a perfect vacuum, there's not enough air molecules for sound waves to travel. The only exceptions are sounds within a spacesuit or spaceship.![The space on the head of a pin, which is typically around 1-2 millimeters in diameter, can accommodate approximately 10,000 human cells]()
A typical human cell is around 10 to 15 micrometers in diameter.![The Bee Hummingbird of Cuba, the world’s smallest bird, weighs less than a penny.]()
While a penny weighs 2.5 grams, a Bee Hummingbird weighs 1.5 grams.![Canada has about 60% of the world’s lakes at 879,800]()
Of the world’s 1.42 million lakes with a size over 0.1 sq. km, Canada is home to 62% of them.![It is impossible for pigs to look up. Just to look at the top of a tree, a pig has to take a few steps back in order to see it.]()
The anatomy of a pig’s neck muscles and spine restricts them from looking upwards.![Robert Wadlow, who lived from 1918 to 1940, broke the record as the world’s tallest person at 8 feet and 11 inches.]()
The "Giant of Illinois" grew to almost nine feet tall because his pituitary gland released too much human growth hormone.![Nails grow slightly faster in hot temperatures, possibly due to increased blood supply to the fingertips.]()
Relaxing during summer holidays could also contribute to less wear and tear to the nails.![All stars visible to the naked eye are within 4,000 light-years away]()
Astronomers estimate that the death rate for visible stars is 10,000 years, making it likely that the stars we see now still exist.![Two mirrors facing each other can’t produce infinite reflections. Because mirrors absorb a fraction of light, each reflection will become darker than the previous, eventually fading into invisibility.]()
Mirrors facing each other can produce just a few hundred reflections.![The human body is 56% bacteria. However, because the bacterial cells are extremely light, we are still 99.7 percent human by weight]()
In 2016, researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science revealed that previous estimates suggesting the human body was 90 percent bacteria were wrong. Instead, the average adult has about 40 trillion bacterial cells and 30 trillion human ones.![While identical twins are essentially clones of each other, they actually have different fingerprints]()
Environmental factors during development, such as positioning in the womb and rate of growth, cause slight differentiation of each fingerprint.![Martin Luther King Jr., who called for the end of segregation in the U.S. with his]()
Despite the grade, MLK Jr. graduated valedictorian of his class in 1951 and became one of the most highly respected speakers in U.S. history.![In the mid 1800s, most citizens worked as farmers. Early November was considered a good time to vote because it was after the busy harvest season while the weather was still relatively mild.]()
Election days were set on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November for several reasons. Sundays were meant for worship, and Wednesdays were often market days. To accommodate for long travel, Tuesdays became the best day of the week to vote. Election days also couldn't be the first Tuesday of the month in order to prevent voting on Nov. 1, a day some Christians observed as All Saints' Day.![Vermont is the only U.S. state that doesn’t have a capital with a McDonald’s]()
Montpelier, Vermont, has the smallest population of any state capital at 8,000 residents. While it is the only state capital without a McDonald's, there is one right outside its city limits.![CHILDREN'S FEET OFTEN SMELL BECAUSE THEY SWEAT TWICE AS MUCH AS ADULT FEET]()
While adult feet can produce a cup of sweat each day, kid’s feet can sweat twice as much.![There’s enough gold inside the Earth to cover the entire planet in a knee-high layer. It’s just over a thousand miles below the surface.]()
According to the WorldAtlas, the precious metal is located 1,800 miles below the surface of the Earth and at many thousands of degrees.![The human body has 206 bones. A quarter of those bones, exactly 52, are located in your feet!]()
Each foot also has over 100 muscles, ligaments, and tendons.![All insects, such as ants, breathe through tiny holes found all over their bodies]()
This is why insects can never get very big. Their respiratory system wouldn't allow oxygen to travel to the inner parts of a larger animal fast enough.![A large majority of all orange cats are male! This is because the cat’s color gene is linked to sex. Female cats need two X chromosomes with the orange code while males only need one.]()
Receiving two X chromosomes with the orange gene is not common, especially when other colors, such as black, are much more prevalent among cats.![As the largest animals to have ever existed, blue whales can weigh as much as 200 tons. Their tongues alone can weigh as much as an elephant!]()
The whale's massive tongue helps the animal to eat massive amounts of krill, about 40 million krill a day.![Alpine bumblebees are able to fly up to 29,527 feet, higher than the tallest mountain in the world]()
Bumblebees, which have a large body size and relatively small wings, were previously expected to struggle flying at high altitudes. However, alpine bumblebees surprisingly proved that they can hover at extreme barometric pressures, according to two researchers from the University of California and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.![Platypuses don’t have nipples. They feed their young by sweating milk! The nursing babies then drink it off the mother’s fur.]()
According to the American Museum of Natural History, platypuses are unlike all other mammals when it comes to producing milk for their young.![The typical cumulus cloud spotted on clear, sunny days weighs about 1.1 million pounds]()
Cumulus clouds measuring one kilometer by one kilometer weigh about 131,894 gallons, according to the Library of Congress.![Residents in Switzerland are prohibited from owning one guinea pig as the animals are considered very social creatures and need companionship to thrive.]()
Switzerland’s Animal Protection Ordinance states that guinea pigs "must be kept in groups of at least two animals."![Fun Factoid graphic.]()
Japan is the country with the highest density of vending machines in the world.![The Marathon des Sables, which is about the distance of six regular marathons, is a foot race that takes place over seven days in the Sahara Desert]()
The race, known as the Sahara Marathon or Marathon of the Sands, is 160 miles long and takes place in southern Morocco.![Unlike the rest of the solar system, Venus spins clockwise on its axis]()
The reason behind the planet’s retrograde, or backward, rotation is not clear. One theory suggests that a giant collision with another large body disturbed Venus’ counterclockwise rotation and caused the planet to spin the other way.![The longest word in the English language has 189,819 letters and takes at least three hours to pronounce. It is the chemical name of the protein titin.]()
Titin, which starts with "methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylsery," is the body’s largest known protein that maintains muscular passive elasticity.![Australia is wider than the moon]()
According to NASA, the celestial body is slightly more than one-quarter the size of Earth.![A coin has a 51% chancing of ending on the same side during a coin flip and has a 49% chance of flipping to the opposite side]()
According to the American Mathematical Society, neither one side of the coin nor the other is more likely to come up during a coin flip. Instead, the coin will land slightly more often on the same side that it started with.![Because humans and fruit flies are 60% genetically similar, fruit flies were chosen to be the first animals sent into space]()
The fruit flies were sent into space in 1947.![About 29,000 man-made objects about four inches or larger orbit the Earth]()
Space junk of that size could cause catastrophic damage to a satellite if a collision occurs, according to the European Space Agency.![Pandas can fake pregnancies, a phenomenon scientists have been having difficulty understanding.]()
Phantom pregnancy occurs in 10 to 20% of pandas, according to the director of a China research and conservation center.![There is a special jail in Canada that holds polar bears that are considered dangergous until they can be relocated]()
Before the Polar Bear Holding Facility was created in the small town of Churchill, Canada, in the1980s, dangerous polar bears were shot instead.![People actually sigh 12 times an hour, a vital and life-sustaining reflex that helps keep lungs functioning]()
Air sacs in our lungs would slowly collapse if we didn’t sigh every five minutes, according to UCLA and Stanford researchers.![Nearly a century ago, parents living in London apartments used to suspend wire cages outside their windows to]()
According to Rare Historical Photos, "baby cages" were popularized in London partly due to an 1884 book that stated fresh air was required to renew and purify blood, suggesting that exposure to cold temperatures allowed babies to build an immune system.![Play-Doh was originally used to clean soot that furnaces often left on walls in the 1930s]()
The now-famous kids’ toy used to be an off-white dough people would roll across their walls.![There are over 1,000 varieties of bananas but we only eat one of them.]()
The most commonly eaten variety in the U.S. is the Cavendish banana, partly due to its long shelf life, lack of seeds and lower production costs.![Female giraffes give birth while standing up, causing its newborns to enter the world with a nose dive]()
This birthing method actually helps snap the female giraffe's umbilical cord. It also stimulates the newborn's first breath and even prevents damage to their necks.![In 18th century Europe, pineapples were so rare and exotic that they were reserved for royalty. Sometimes, people would rent them out for special occasions.]()
At dinner parties, attendees would not eat the fruit but admire it.![A blood cell makes a loop within the body every minute]()
At this speed, blood can travel about three feet per second, according to the Albert Vein Institute.![There are no stop signs in Paris. Instead, drivers give the vehicle on the right priority.]()
The French capital removed its stop signs to make police intervention "from secondary ways" smoother and avoid penalizing residents, according to the country's police prefecture. However, other cities in France still use them.![China cuts down 20 million 20-year-old trees every year to produce 80 billion disposable chopsticks per year]()
A forestry expert estimated the burden of producing disposable chopsticks in 2013, according to the South China Morning Post.![China owns nearly all of the world’s giant pandas and rent each one out for $1 million per year]()
While $1 million is a hefty price, some zoos are far from going bankrupt over the pandas, according to Business Insider. Scotland's Edinburgh Zoo saw a 51% increase in attendance due to their pandas in 2012. The National Zoo in Washington, D.C., also saw its food and merchandise sales double following the arrival of its two pandas in 2001.![Contrary to their male counterparts, female productivity levels in the office increase when the office temperature is higher]()
While men and women have different productivity levels depending on office thermostat settings, the relationship between temperature and female work performance was more pronounced, according to a USC study.![Snails and slugs have a flexible band of thousands of microscopic teeth]()
While a slug's jaw cuts off larger pieces of food, its flexible band of teeth scrapes up the food particles.![To burn one calorie, you’d have to click a computer mouse 10 million times]()
It may take a total of 11.5 days of clicking to burn one calorie, according to Wired.![Canada’s Hudson Bay area is exhibiting signs of less gravity than other regions]()
The Laurentide Ice Sheet, which once covered much of Canada, caused a large indentation near the Hudson Bay. One theory suggests that the Hudson Bay's lack of mass has affected its gravity.![Left-handed people may have shorter life expectancies because everything is designed for right-handed people]()
Right-handed people tend to live longer than left-handed people by nine years, according to a 1991 study.![A NASA spacesuit cost about $20 million 50 years ago]()
NASA is in the process of developing its next generation of spacesuits, which will cost over $1 billion.![Dinosaurs used to experience 23-hour days]()
The length of an Earth day has been gradually increasing over the planet's 4.5-billion-year history. This is due to the Moon's influence in slowing down Earth's rotation, according to Dr. Rosemary Mardling, a mathematical scientist at Monash University.![There are more than 7,500 known cultivated varieties of apples]()
From Honeycrisp to Granny Smith, there are 7,500 known varieties of apples in the world.![Atlanta has 71 variations of the word]()
The word peachtree was deeply rooted in the Georgia city due to an indigenous Muscogee settlement that translated into "Standing Peach Tree."![Airplanes fly slower today than they did in the past]()
In the late 20th century, airlines began reducing cruising speeds in order to save on fuel costs, which spiked dramatically following the 1970s oil crisis.![UPS drivers will make a left turn only 10% of the time]()
Because motorists spend a lot of time and gas waiting for left turn signals, UPS drivers usually make only right turns. This strategy also helps curtail accidents at traffic lights.![An average household has 300,000 items]()
While American kids make up 3.7% of the world’s children, they have almost half of all toys and children’s books, according to the Los Angeles Times.![A soccer field of forest was lost every second in 2017]()
A forest area equivalent to the size of Italy was lost that year due to deforestation.![3:44 AM is most common time to wake up at night]()
A study into 3,000 sleep-deprived Brits revealed that people were most likely to wake up at 3:44 a.m.![Flamingos can drink water near boiling point]()
Flamingos typically live near lakes with extremely high salt concentrations, so they often resort to boiling geysers for fresh water.![All the Nutella sold in one year could spread over 1,000 football fields]()
One jar of Nutella is sold every 2.5 seconds across the globe.![A pencil could potentially draw a 35-mile-long line]()
That is enough to write 45,000-50,000 words or the entirety of "The Great Gatsby."![Astronauts can vote from space]()
The first people to vote from space were two Russian cosmonauts in 1996. NASA astronaut David Wolf became the first American to vote from orbit the following year.![The word "hello" was previously used to attract attention, such as, "Hello, what do you think you're doing?"]()
The word "hello" was previously used to attract attention, such as, "Hello, what do you think you're doing?"![The Harvard University Library once contained a book bound in human skin but officially removed it in 2024 due to the book’s unethical origins]()
The original owner of the book, a doctor, sourced the binding from a deceased female patient at a hospital where he worked. According to him, "a book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering."![If the Earth were the size of a grain of sand, the Sun would be the size of a tennis ball]()
It would require 1.3 million Earths to fill the volume of the sun.![If a car could drive upward, it would take an hour for the vehicle to reach space]()
The distance between sea level and the edge of space is 62 miles.![Humans were able to place a man on the Moon before putting wheels on luggage]()
Wheels were added to suitcases in 1970, one year after Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon.![The current U.S. flag was designed by a high school student for a class project - he originally received a]()
His teacher later bumped his grade to an A after the U.S. Congress accepted it as America’s national flag.![The average person will spend about a total of 6 months waiting at red lights]()
People will waste sixth months of their lives waiting for traffic lights to turn green.![Humans are about 1-2 cm taller in the morning after getting out of bed]()
Humans will start the day just slightly taller.![Before the invention of the eraser, writers used to correct their graphite mistakes with wet bread]()
Writers used to use wet bread as erasers until the modern rubber tools were invented around 1770.![Beer wasn’t classified as alcohol in Russia until 2013!]()
Many Russians considered beer a soft drink until a decade ago.![Wombat feces are surprisingly cube-shaped, allowing the fecal matter to not roll away when the mammals mark their territory]()
The Australian marsupials are the only animals known to produce cube-shaped feces.![A person typically produces enough saliva in their lifetime to fill two swimming pools!]()
Salivary gland production varies between two to six cups per day.![The world’s deepest Postbox is in Susami Bay, Japan, where people can dive 10 meters underwater to send messages]()
The underwater mailbox was proposed to attract more tourists and divers to Susami Bay.![Cheese is considered one, if not, the most shoplifted food worldwide, with nearly 4% of total cheese inventory stolen each year]()
The addictive quality and small packaging of cheese makes the dairy product highly targeted among shoplifters.![Singapore, one of the cleanest countries in the world, made chewing gum illegal in 1992]()
The 1992 law helps prevent people from spitting gum on the ground.![A jellyfish species, the Turritopsis dohrnii, has been deemed biologically immortal, due to its ability to reset its developmental stage after reaching maturity]()
The "immortal jellyfish" can also hit the reset button when it becomes injured or threatened.![The world’s largest cave, Son Doong in Vietnam, has its very own ecosystem, complete with a river, forest, sunlight and climate. It’s so big that it can fit an entire NYC city block inside!]()
Birds, monkeys and even snakes have been spotted inside the Vietnamese cave.![In one lifetime, the average person will eat the weight equivalent of 6 elephants]()
An average person in the Western world eats about 70,000 pounds of food in a lifetime.![The Eiffel Tower was originally intended to be a temporary exhibit until it became so popular that it was no longer in danger of demolition]()
The Eiffel Tower was scheduled to be demolished after 20 years.![The average lightning bolt runs at temperatures five times hotter than the surface of the sun!]()
Lightning also moves about 30,000 times faster than a bullet.![The world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is more than twice the height of NYC’s Empire State Building]()
Dubai's Burj Khalifa set the record as the world's tallest building in 2010, when it first opened.![Humans blink about 15-20 times per minute. If you live to be 80 years old, you will have spent about 5 years of your life with your eyes closed due to blinking.]()
People would spend five years of their entire life with their eyes closed solely from blinking.![The Antarctic ice sheet is so massive that if it were to melt completely, global sea levels would rise by about 58 meters (190 feet).]()
Antarctic glaciers contain so much water that they would raise sea levels by 190 feet if they ever completely melted.![It takes about 1,800 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef, which equals 10 full bathtubs to create one quarter-pound burger. This includes water used for drinking, feed, and processing.]()
A quarter-pound burger requires the equivalent of about 10 bathtubs of water to be created.![Mount Everest grows approximately 0.16 inches (4 millimeters) per year due to tectonic activity. Over a human lifetime, this growth can be quite noticeable, adding about 10 inches (25 centimeters) in 60 years.]()
Mount Everest could grow 10 inches in the span of a human lifetime.![There are more trees on Earth than stars in the Milky Way: While estimates vary, it's generally accepted that there are around 3 trillion trees on Earth, whereas there are estimated to be around 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy.]()
There are more trees on Earth than there are stars in the Milky Way.![To produce one pound of honey, a colony of honeybees must fly approximately 55,000 miles and visit around 2 million flowers.]()
Honeybees must visit 2 million flowers to create one pound of honey.![The Great Wall of China is over 13,000 miles (21,000 kilometers) long. If laid end to end, it would stretch more than halfway around the Earth.]()
The length of the Great Wall of China equates to more than half the Earth's circumference.![The global population reached 1 billion in 1804. It took 123 years to reach 2 billion (in 1927) and only 12 years to go from 7 billion to 8 billion (2022).]()
While it took over a century for the human population to go from 1 to 2 billion people, it took just over a decade for 7 billion to go to 8 billion.![Due to thermal expansion, the height of the Eiffel Tower can vary by up to 15 centimeters (6 inches) depending on the temperature. In hot weather, the iron structure expands, and in cold weather, it contracts.]()
The Eiffel Tower can stretch an extra six inches depending on the temperature.![A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus: Venus rotates very slowly on its axis, taking about 243 Earth days to complete one rotation. However, its orbit around the Sun only takes about 225 Earth days, making a day (rotation) longer than a year (orbit).]()
On Venus, a day shockingly lasts longer than a year.![Every day, about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created globally. That's equivalent to 250,000 Libraries of Congress.]()
Data equivalent to a quarter-million Libraries of Congress are created every day.![The total length of a human's blood vessels could circle the Earth at least twice.]()
The total length of a human's blood vessels could circle the Earth at least twice.![If all the blood vessels in the human body were laid end to end, they would measure approximately 60,000 miles, enough to circle the Earth more than twice.]()
In 2010, the longest traffic jam in history occurred in China, lasting 12 days.![Around the world, there are about 8.6 million lightning strikes every day. Around the world, there are about 8.6 million lightning strikes every day. That's over 100 strikes per second!]()
There are over 100 strikes per second around the world.Fun Facts: Continents move about the same rate as fingernails grow
Did you know that individual tectonic plates shift only a few centimeters annually, and that Japanese people will line up in massive queues to eat KFC on Christmas Day?
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- Fun Facts: Continents move about the same rate as fingernails grow
