Month: August 2018

Posted on

This Huge Supermarket Chain Plans to Stop Using Plastic Bags in Less Than 10 Years

Supermarket chain Kroger, which owns 2,800 stores across America, recently announced that they’ll soon start phasing out plastic bags in their locations. By 2025, the company plans to eliminate plastic bags from their stores completely.

Photo Credit: iStock

The Ohio-based supermarket giant will begin their phasing out process next year in Washington state. Kroger will push customers to use cloth bags or bags made from other reusable materials.

Photo Credit: US Air Force

Out of the nearly 1 trillion plastic bags used around the world each year, only about 5% end up being recycled. Kroger’s plastic bag plan is part of its larger initiative called Zero Hunger Zero Waste. The plan aims to fight hunger in local communities and to reduce landfill waste by 90% by 2020.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

The post This Huge Supermarket Chain Plans to Stop Using Plastic Bags in Less Than 10 Years appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Why Do Planes Takeoff at Such a Steep Angle?

Planes are feats of modern engineering and we are so thankful they exist. But why the heck do they have to have such a steep takeoff?

Photo Credit: Unsplash,Martin Widenka

The answer, as you might have guessed, is for practical reasons. Planes are at their most efficient when they are at their cruising altitudes, so pilots do their best to take off, ascend sharply to around 35,000 feet, and cruise until it’s time to make that final descent.

Because the airlines and pilots have to keep customer comfort and other plane traffic in mind, the pilots can’t take off as steeply as they’d like to, but obviously, that ain’t gonna…fly…

The post Why Do Planes Takeoff at Such a Steep Angle? appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Goats Are Drawn to Happy People, According to Research

Good news, goat lovers. If goats are drawn to you, that means you are a happy person. That’s an obviously self-fulfilling statement, but it also may be scientifically true that goats prefer you because you’re happy.

At least that’s what a recent study says.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

The study says that goats prefer “positive human emotional facial expressions.” In other words, if you’re smiling, goats are more drawn to you. In the study, goats roamed and explored an area that had two black and white photos at goat-eye level. One was of a smiling human face, the other an angry face.

The goats preferred to approach the smiling face. This suggests that goats have the ability to read human facial expressions. Companion animals such as dogs are recognized as able to read human emotions, but this is the first research to show that goats might have that same ability. So get out into the country today and go smile at some of these adorable fluffers!

Photo Credit: Unsplash, L ley

The post Goats Are Drawn to Happy People, According to Research appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

These 5 Puzzles Will Warm Up Your Brain

Your brain could always use a good workout, and these five puzzles are just the thing to do the trick. Enjoy!

#5. A kingdom far, far, away.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Far, far, away lived a king who didn’t allow anyone in or out of his kingdom. There was a single bridge that connected them to the outside world, and royal orders stated that anyone moving outside should be killed, and anyone coming in should be turned back.

There’s a single guard on the bridge and he’s allowed to take rest breaks inside a hut of no more than 5 minutes. It takes 8 minutes to cross the bridge.

Even so, one woman manages to escape the kingdom. How?

 

Continue reading for the answer!

The post These 5 Puzzles Will Warm Up Your Brain appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

When Exactly Did the First Internet Search Take Place?

We use search engines like Google and Bing (jk, no one uses Bing) so often that we almost take them for granted. So, have you ever wondered when the first internet search ever took place?

Was it Google back in 1998? No. Was it ARPANET in 1969? Try again. Most people aren’t aware of it, but the fact is that the first Internet search occurred all the way back in 1963. That year, two men sent the first known long-distance computer query: Charles Bourne and Leonard Chaitin at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The project was funded by the Air Force in a time when most information retrieval – no matter what it was – demanded physical objects. Bourne and Chaitin designed their program to search for any word in a database of 7 memos that Bourne had typed onto punched paper tapes and converted to magnetic tape. Chaitin went to Santa Monica, 350 miles away, and put the files onto a military computer. Then, they sent a query from that massive computer terminal (no one can quite remember what the question was). The data went out and came back through telephone lines, and the right answer appeared. Bourne and Chaitin had proved that online search was possible.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Although the initial experiment was a success, the Air Force shut the program down. Everyday use of the pioneering experiment was still more than a generation away. But at least we can now thank Bourne and Chaitin for their foresight.

The post When Exactly Did the First Internet Search Take Place? appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

These Rarely-Seen WWII Photos are Breathtaking

World War II lasted for 6 years and took the lives of millions of people in the process, changing the world forever.

The conflict is still studied and will be examined for the rest of human history due to its impact on every aspect of life.

Take a look at these 20 photos that depict the reality of war.

1.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

2.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

3.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

4.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

5.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

6.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

7.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

8.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

9.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

10.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

11.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

12.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

13.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

14.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

15.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

16.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

17.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

18.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

19.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

20.

Photo Credit: Flickr,PhotosNormandie

The post These Rarely-Seen WWII Photos are Breathtaking appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

These 15 Historical Facts Will Change the Way You Perceive Time

It’s easy to think of history as one, continuous timeline. But it’s important to remember that many famous periods in history were happening at the same time.

Read through this list of amazing historical facts and then review the historical timeline you have in your mind. It’ll probably change.

1. Star Wars opened in 1977, the same year as the last guillotine execution in France.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

2. Harriet the Tortoise was collected by Charles Darwin in 1835. She died in 2006.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

3. The University of Oxford was established hundreds of years before the Aztec Empire was founded in 1428.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

4. George Washington died in 1799. The first dinosaur fossil wasn’t discovered until 1824. Washington didn’t know dinosaurs existed.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

5. Woolly Mammoths still roamed the Earth while Egyptians were building the pyramids (2660 BCE)

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

6. The world’s oldest tree was already 1,000 years old when the last Woolly Mammoth died. The tree is in California.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

7. Anne Frank and Martin Luther King, Jr. were both born in the same year, 1929.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

8. Harvard didn’t offer calculus for a few years after it was established because calculus hadn’t been invented yet.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

9. You could take the London Underground to the last public hanging in the UK in 1868.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

10. Ecstasy was invented in 1912, the same year the Titanic sank.

Photo Credit: Public Domain

11. When the Pilgrims landed in America, there was already a ‘Palace of the Governors’ in what is now New Mexico.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

12. Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler were both born in 1889. In 1940, Chaplin satirized Hitler in The Great Dictator.

13. Women didn’t get the right to vote in Switzerland until 1971.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

14. Orville Wright was still alive when atomic bombs were dropped on Japan in 1945. He died in 1948.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

15. Microsoft was founded while Spain was still a fascist dictatorship in 1975.

The post These 15 Historical Facts Will Change the Way You Perceive Time appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

There’s a Scientific Reason Why Food Tastes Bad After Brushing Your Teeth

As anyone who has ever brushed their teeth knows (and, hopefully, that’s everyone) you don’t want to eat something too soon after brushing. There are horror stories of foolish souls who thought it would be a good idea to down a glass of OJ within minutes of hitting their teeth with some Crest. They were never heard from again.

But why does toothpaste have the capacity to ruin your breakfast? Science, of course, has the answer.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

It has to do with sodium laureth sulfate – also known as sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SLES) and sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS). The chemicals are the wetting agents in your toothpaste (meaning they lower the surface tension of a liquid) and work to create the foam that makes the paste easier to spread across your teeth.

Fun fact: They’re also used in detergents, fabric softeners, paints, laxatives, surfboard waxes, and insecticides. So, you know, if you eat any of those things, watch your breakfast choices as well.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Both SLES and SLS screw with our taste buds abilities in 2 ways. First, they suppress the receptors that perceive sweetness (hence why my grape juice tasted sour), and second, they break up the phospholipids on our tongue. Those are fatty molecules that inhibit our receptors for bitterness – so when SLEs and SLS are coating our tongues, bitter tastes are enhanced.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

The bottom line is that anything you eat or drink after lapping up the chemicals in your toothpaste is going to taste less sweet and more bitter than it normally does. If the phenomenon really bothers you, there are toothpastes out there that are SLES/SLS free – you won’t have your usual foamy experience, but you can also pick your breakfast juice without worry.

Worth it? I mean…

h/t: Mental_Floss

The post There’s a Scientific Reason Why Food Tastes Bad After Brushing Your Teeth appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

12+ People Reveal A Secret Nobody Else Knows About Them

We’ve all got our secrets…some juicier than others. And some that no one else knows but ourselves. And since the internet is anonymous, telling here doesn’t count. And some of these folks have some doozies!

#15. A proper date.

“I’m 30 and have been single all my life. Never had a proper date or anything.

I tell people I did have girlfriends in the past, to not seem like a total loser.”

#14. Why I’m single.

“I want a monogamous healthy relationship. A lot of people, including my friends, think I’m single because I want to be a bachelor. They see how I live my life by doing things on my own and not being tied down. The thing is I believe in love, and I want to find the right person, but I feel like I have to take down some barriers first before even thinking of dating.”

#13. For almost a year now.

“I’ve been visiting a professional Dominatrix for almost a year now.”

#12. Secretly.

“That I’m secretly bisexual.”

#11. I can’t tell him.

“I have a crush on a close friend.

I can’t tell him because I don’t want to make our friendship weird or awkward.

If my family found out, I would never stop getting crap for it or harassed because my family is racist and homophobic

Edit: someone asked in a pm, so I guess I’ll put it here. I’m white and he’s asian.”

#10. It’s been two years.

“TL;DR – Tried to suck my own dick and succeeded but it fucked up my back and had to miss 5 months of high school because of pain. Failed college entrance exams because I didn’t go to classes and knew nothing about the subjects. I am now repeating an entire year now so maybe at least I can get into a good college next year. It’s been 2 years and I still can’t sit for more than 30min without cramps in my mid back.”

#9. Not a relative.

“That I am actually very lonely. I wish i had someone who isnt a family relative that really cares and loves me.”

#8. Someone at work.

“I’ve been dating someone at work for about a month now.”

#7. Ridiculously good.

“I am ridiculously good at throwing knives. I threw for fun pretty much daily for about 10 years growing up, without even realising I was actually honing a skill to perfection. Stopped as I moved out of my parents house and went to college. 20 years later, I can still pick up any knife, immediately estimate the weight/balance and nail a tree 5 meters away.”

#6. My parents let it happen.

“I was physically abused by my brother growing up and my parents let it happen, besides that I was verbally abused. I’m now in therapy for depression and anxiety and now realizing thanks to my therapist that I’ve been traumatized from being abused as a kid.”

#5. The looks I get.

“I get so much shit for working in retail with a bachelor’s degree. It’s not my dream job, but neither is my degree. I stuck it out in college because that seemed like the right thing to do. I don’t know what I want to do with my life, but I figure if I have a stable job, that’s better than a spotty track record. I’ve stopped telling people I have a degree because the looks I get turn my stomach.

Woof- had to get that off my chest.”

#4. My plan.

“That I am studying Japanese. My plan is becoming fluent, then bang my head on some cupboard or something, and pretend I can no longer speak any language other than Japanese, and acting very confused about it.”

#3. Sad inside.

“I spend my time making everyone happy cause I’m sad inside.

Edit: to all those that know or feel how I feel I hope you find your happiness.”

#2. My friends all work and wonder.

“I make a lot of cash betting and playing games online. Like, more than enough to not need a job while studying.

Meanwhile my friends all work and wonder why my lazy ass doesn’t get a fucking job.”

#1. Everything happens so fast.

“That im terrified of growing up, i just turned 20 a couple weeks ago and I still have no idea what i want to do with my life. Everything happens so fast.”

The post 12+ People Reveal A Secret Nobody Else Knows About Them appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Women Are More Resilient Than Men, According to Science

Women are pretty darn strong. Need I remind you that many spend months of their lives enduring pregnancy and hours of labor all to push something the size of a watermelon out of their vaginas? Think men can do that?

Photo Credit: AMC

Although the recent research defines men as people with an XY chromosome makeup and women as ones with XX’s – meaning it applies to cis individuals and not people who identify as different from their chromosomal makeup – it’s still pretty damning when it comes to which of the sexes is more likely to survive through tough situations. James Vaupel and his team at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense concluded that in fact women are statistically more likely to survive in times of crises (I mean, we saw this on The Walking Dead, so good luck with the zombies, dudes!) like famines, epidemics, and enslavement. The conclusions were drawn by measuring things like population and life expectancy, and it boils down to the fact that women are survivors.

Photo Credit: AMC

Virginia Zarulli, from the University of Southern Denmark’s Institute of Public Health explained to Global Citizen that females are simply born with a different sort of advantage:

“In simple words, it is easy to see that if by chance a bad mutation takes place on the X chromosome, women have another X that can partly – or totally – compensate for it, while men don’t have that possibility.”

Not only that, but as a report in The Guardian points out, bodies that produce estrogen have more of a guard against disease. Producing testosterone increases the risk of fatal infections, not to mention that high levels of testosterone leads to more risky and life threatening behavior.

Photo Credit: Marvel

The advantage begins at birth – male infants have higher mortality rates than their female counterparts – and continues through the end of life, as the life expectancy for women globally is four years longer than that of men.

Don’t feel bad, guys – you’re still really good at plenty of things. When it comes to digging into life by the fingernails and not letting go until God him- (her-?)self rips you loose, though, women take the cake from cradle to grave.

So make friends with the women in your life, maybe consider it part of your preparation for the zombie apocalypse. I mean. It can’t hurt.

The post Women Are More Resilient Than Men, According to Science appeared first on UberFacts.