fact
An English garbage man won the lottery for 10 million pounds (25 mill USD in today’s money), lost all of it then 8 years later reapplied for his old job as a garbage man.
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The CIA paid magician John Mulholland $3,000 to write a spy manual of trickery and deception as part of the top-secret MKUltra project, a CIA program that investigated mind control. Mulholland’s 1953 guide was supposed to be destroyed in the 1970s but an archived copy reappeared decades later.
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For some, outerspace represents a sense of hope and advancement.
For others, the cosmos has more of that whole “terrifying hellscape” thing going on.
This article is probably going to vibe a bit more with group 2 than the “space, the final frontier” set.
“What’s the scariest space fact/mystery in your opinion?”
Who’s ready to get plunged into some fact-based existential dread? Let’s get into it. These are the space-facts that people find the most unsettling.
“The sheer distance between things. It’s scary and somewhat depressing.” – regretfulbastard
“Definitely scary on the existential dread scale.”
“Even better, the scale is only increasing faster. Short of developing faster than light travel or the expansion of the universe slowing down, eventually the only things lighting up the night sky where humans once roamed will be our own galaxy and our nearest galactic neighbors.”
“All those other galaxies spotted by Hubble will be beyond the distance that we will ever see light from them again. The entire Milky Way will be in quarantine with just a few family members to call company for the remainder of the universe existing.” – desolation0
“If Einstein is correct (every experience so far has proved that he is, unfortunately), space isn’t meant for us.”
“Even if we manage to reach to build a near light speed spacecraft, it would take years to reach the nearest star systems – but time would seem to go by faster to everyone aboard the ship.”
“But it gets worse: any communication is also bound by the speed of light. Even if we create an outpost on Proxima Centauri b, it would take at least 8.5 YEARS to get an answer to any communication. And it’s the nearest planet. Any kind of united civilization is utterly impossible in these conditions.” – asshai
“The Kessler Effect is the theory that a single destructive event in Low earth orbit could create a cascade where satellites break up into tiny fragments.”
“Those tiny fragments would then go about taking out other satellites, breaking THEM up into smaller fragments and so on, until the earth is completely surrounded by a massive cloud of tiny flying death shrapnel which would make leaving this planet almost impossible.”
“If you look up how much space debris there is already up there and how many satellites currently orbit, plus the continued growth of the commercial space industry… I think about it a lot.” – sosogos
“A large volcano eruption has the capacity to knock out enough communication for long enough to trigger such an event. The fact that magma below the earth surface has the capacity to takeout satellites blows my mind.” – a55per
“The Bootes void.”
“An area of space where there should be 50,000 or so galaxies (compared to other areas of the same size) but there’s only about 60.”
“Could just be empty space for some unknown reason, or it could be an ever expanding intergalactic empire using Dyson spheres. Also I think it appears to be growing but that could just be galaxies moving away from the void” – nazi_marxist
“It’s 330,000,000 light years in diameter. You could travel at the speed of light for literally 330,000,000 years and see absolutely nothing.” – r0b0tMark
“This visual that either shows how slow light speed is or how vast space is, depending on which way you look at it.”
“I’ve seen videos showing the scale of the universe before, but this one really hit home for some reason. The speed of light, the fastest speed possible, looks painfully slow when you look at it in the context of even a fraction of our solar system.”
“We’re stuck here, aren’t we?” – [Reddit]
“This is the first time I was able to actually GRASP the scale of the universe. Holy sh*t is space huge…” – Cringetorics
“I can’t accept the fact that there is no end in space. But if there is indeed an end, then… what’s beyond it?”
“I’m stucked in the absurdity.”
“In the numerous answers I’ve received, the one that seems to come back the most is ‘the universe is curved, you would end up back where you started.’”
“Seems fair enough… Then again, that wouldn’t mean there is no limit.”
“On the contrary, that would just mean we are trapped in (or on the surface of) a sphere.”
“There is still a limit to a sphere. So the question remains… what’s beyond it?” – tartokwetsh
“The earth is way overdue for a civilization/all life ending event.”
“Meteors and asteroids didn’t just stop hitting earth. Will it happen in my lifetime, my kids or my grandkids lifetimes? Or 1000 years from now?”
“Humans have only been here for a minute amount of time over the course of earths complete history and many things have happened to completely wipe out almost all life as we know it.” – tonkajoe6646
“The Boltzmann Brain”
“The most likely ending to our universe will be all stars and black holes exploding and eventually the universe becomes a completely even soup of particles for all eternity.”
“In this theory, the Big Bang was actually a cosmic coincidence, in which enough of those base particles (literally every one that currently exists) collided in the even soup of a PAST universe. This collision caused the big bang to occur, thrusting into motion the energies that run our current universe.”
“Such an occurrence in the soup of infinite is INCREDIBLY unlikely.”
“What, instead, is far more likely is that just enough base particles came together in the exact right way as to create a literal floating brain in the infinite soup that has all of your memories and experiences up to the current moment.”
“Statistically speaking, it is unfathomably MORE likely that nothing you’ve ever perceived exists and, instead, you are merely a floating brain in an endless expanse of nothing, imagining the universe and doomed to return to the soup from whence you came, none the wiser.” – Snaz5
“There is a section of ocean where the closest help at any time is 250ish miles straight up. On the International Space Station.” – Overly-mannly-mann
“Point Nemo is the most isolated (from land) point on earth. Due to the isolation and low shipping lane traffic in this part of the world, the nearest humans to someone at point Nemo would be those astronauts on the ISS.” – ViperSRT3g
“Astronomer here! There are a lot of things posted here that are not really likely to happen any time soon or affect your life on Earth much. So, if you want something to worry about, may I introduce you to the Carrington Event of 1859.“
“Basically Carrington was a scientist who noticed a flash from a huge cluster of sunspots, which was the biggest coronal mass ejection from the sun ever recorded (aka a ton of material ejected from the sun at high speeds). It hit Earth within a day- aurora were seen as far south as Hawaii, wires on telephone poles burst into flame, and telegraph operators even reported contacting each other when not connected.”
“If a similar event were to strike Earth today, it would cause billions of dollars in damage, because blown transformers are super hard to replace and a lot of satellites wouldn’t be able to handle it (and it goes without saying you’d have a serious radio blackout for a bit until it ended on a ton of essential frequencies).”
“Electronics would be fried, batteries wiped, etc. Some scientists think it could zap us ‘back to the dark ages.’ “
“The crazy thing about the Carrington event though is we really have no idea how often such events happen. But we do know that in 2012 there was a Carrington-level solar flare that barely missed Earth…“
“However we really don’t know how common these big flares are. Interestingly data from other stars shows they seem to be much more common around other stars than our own, with huge implications for life in some cases.” – Andromeda321
“You know those classic utopian sci-fi stories, where benevolent aliens come down and end all the wars and uplift them to super-intellects and give everyone miraculous technology and immortality and welcome them into a peaceful galactic union and everything?”
“Ever wonder why, if aliens are roaming around faster than light, they haven’t swung by us yet?”
“One of the answers to that question: We might be the first. Depending on how long it takes life to develop, we might be the first to evolve to a point where we could plausibly make that happen without nuking ourselves into oblivion or destroying our atmosphere or what have you.”
“It might be up to us whether we make it or not as an interstellar species. We have the responsibility of getting our sh*t together, because it may well be up to us to save everyone else.”
“Uncountable genocides, wars, famines, death on a scale larger than our species have ever understood. Literally the fate of the universe might depend on us.”
“I look around at us now, and that’s what scares me.” – sirblastalot
OK honestly?
That last one is the one that freaks us out most.
Little kids are incredibly impressionable. Their minds are still learning and growing, which is a prime opportunity to tell them facts that will absolutely blow their little minds.
Whether you’re a parent, an aunt or uncle, a cool older sibling, or another adult in their life, there are a few facts you can tell them that will make you seem like you know everything about the world.
If you want to impress a young person in your life, this list will give you facts of all sorts that may even blow your own mind.
“What are some cool facts to tell a 5 year old?”
Take notes!
“You can’t lick your elbow.”
“Then you get a good 5min watching them try.” ~ CriticallyNormal
“Nah you wanna tell them that you can. Then they’ll try for the whole day and get increasingly p*ssed off.” ~ harkat82
“Actually a lot of kids can lick their elbow. Since they’re younger and more flexible they can bend their arms in weird directions in order to lick their elbow.” ~ chickenugget814
“You’re absolutely right. I just tried it on my 6 y/o nephew and promised him that he could have my phone (he always wants to play games with it) if he could do it. So yeah, bye Reddit!” ~ ninjatoes36
“Astronomer here! Clap your hands once, and then clap them again a second later. The two claps were actually done about 30,000 miles apart thanks to the Earth’s motion in space!”
“I did the calculation once and interestingly most of the stuff you think of, like the rotating Earth or out orbit around the sun, is a negligible part of it. The real contributions are from our star orbiting the galaxy, and the galaxy’s motion itself in space.” ~ Andromeda321
“Is that the earth moving around the sun or the sun moving around the center of the galaxy? Hey, are we aware if galaxies are rotating around a central universal point?” ~ whohw
“The earth moving around the sun is much, much less distance at any moment than the distance we get from the sun orbiting the galaxy.”
“Galaxies do not orbit around a central point, but galaxies around us are heading in the direction of the ‘Great Attractor’ which is outside our visible universe. It’s probably just an even bigger group of galaxies.” ~ Andromeda321
“The ducks at the park are free, you can take them home.” ~ NotDaWaed
“I tried this last week. Park police were not too impressed.” ~ mavinochi
“I caught one when I was a kid! And that’s how I got bitten by an angry mama duck.” ~ ZarquonsFlatTire
“Gotta be careful with them ducks. Some belong in gangs n sh*t.” ~ mavinochi
“Every ‘c’ in ‘Pacific Ocean’ is pronounced differently.” ~ UWYO-Agent-7
“I just repeated Pacific Ocean several times in a really exaggerated manner just to be sure.” ~ AnRudIsAnamh
“Just told my wife ‘every c in Pacific ocean is spelled differently’… Whoops.” ~ Curran919
“There are numbers below zero.” ~ Sergeant_Dimitri
“And other numbers orthogonal to the real number line entirely.”
“You might have to explain exponents/squaring things but some kids are precocious.” ~ 7788445511220011
“Are those imaginary numbers?” ~ rushingkar
“Yes. There might even be more examples that I’m not aware of tbh, but that was what I was thinking about.” ~ 7788445511220011
“Yep, we can get weirder. Real number exist in a line, complex numbers exist in a plane, and quaternions exists within a volume.”
“So, there exists a range of numbers orthogonal to both the simply real numbers and the simply imaginary numbers. Numbers above zero, numbers below zero, numbers to either side zero, and … hmm, before and after? back and forth from?”
“I dunno, I’m already disoriented.” ~ Haven_Stranger
“If your being chased by a bully, run until there right behind you then drop into a ball and they’ll trip over you.”
“Then kick ’em in the d*ck.” ~ Lucidpotato666
“Did this as a kid. It worked SO well like it was a movie or something. I can still see him in the air.” ~ Mission_Huckleberry
“Will he ever land?” ~ PurpleVein
“That must have been one hell of a kick in the d*ck.” ~ striped_frog
“You can’t move your upper teeth.” ~ SNOUMANN
“Some other person on here said my upper teeth are moving at 30,000 miles per second.”
“Get your stories straight reddit. ComeOn!” ~ vitium
“My 7 year old can move one of her upper teeth- it’s loose and we’re waiting for it to fall out.” ~ linuxgeekmama
“Canadian dentistry simply consists of taking part in a hockey match where the offending teeth can be smashed out of your face by a large stick.” ~ imagine_amusing_name
“You can if you have dentures :D” ~ sodapopzero
“A group of zebras is called a dazzle and a group of giraffes is called a journey.” ~ Magicbean96
“Don’t Stop Believin’ this.” ~ termiAurthur
“I thought a group of giraffes was called a Tower…” ~ MyCatsAreDumb
“Eiffel for that every time…” ~ PawnedPawn
“We will never experience tomorrow as by the time it’s ‘tomorrow,’ it will be today.” ~Redditor
“You can say this about right now. There is never a right now bc once you even say it or think about it, it’s gone.” ~ thedopestantelope
“I keep trying to explain to my almost five year old that no, it’s not tomorrow now.” ~ linuxgeekmama
“Easy: promise you’ll take him to the zoo (or Disneyland or whatever) tomorrow. Then, every day: ‘Are we going to the zoo today?’ ‘No, it’s today. I said we’d go tomorrow.’”
“Eventually, they’ll catch on: My parents don’t love me. Also, the concepts of today and tomorrow. The important things.” ~ theAlpacaLives
“Flamingos get their pink colour from shrimp they eat.” ~ cthullu-and-the-maid
“But how many shrimps do you have to eat, to make your skin turn pink?” ~ greccojunior
“I have never eaten a shrimp and my skin is pink.” ~ diablorious
We tend to think we know it all.
But sometimes we are learning just as much as the little ones in our lives.
Truly, we do learn something new every day.
Online dating seems to be the norm for finding a partner these days, but the process can seem a bit esoteric and confusing for those who haven’t been using the apps all along.
Working for the companies that run dating apps and websites is more interesting than the average person might expect, too.
“Redditors that worked with a dating company (Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, etc.), what’s the most insane user stat or behind-the-scenes fact you found out about?”
“I ran operations for an online dating company (notably not affiliated with Match). From database analytics I can tell you a few things.”
“Men initiate contact around 80% of the time in straight matchmaking, and if you are a woman looking to date other women and you simply initiate contact with another woman you have a good chance of success simply because it’s very very very common for women to match but then neither initiates contact.”
“IIRC we were able to determine that it takes on average about 3 dates before sex happens (I don’t recall how we worked that out, I’m not a data analyst, but presumably it was some keyword based algorithm looking at chat messages).”
“We got so many requests for information from the police that we had an informal system with them, to save them from wasting time getting warrants for information about people who we didn’t have data on, they would ask about a particular name/email/whatever other identifier and we would just say yes we have data about them or no we don’t, and if we did they’d then go get the warrant to get a copy of it.”
“The other thing I can tell you from our analytics, that really shouldn’t be at all surprising, is to get some decent profile photos.”
“Go get your talented friend or just hire a photographer to take some really nicely-lit well-composed photos of yourself and watch your match rate soar.” – jamesinc
“I used to work at a dating site in the UK. I was on the tech side but most of the staff was a group of young women who manually approved images and text changes to profiles.”
“There was about 10-15 of them and the turnover rate was about one a week. The work was just so mind numbing.”
“About 10 times a day they’ed shout that they’d ‘got another one’.”
“Which basically meant one of the hundreds of thousands of men on the site has differently thought ‘I’ve thought of something nobody else has tried, I’ll upload a picture of my c*ck’ at which point they’d all laugh at it, cancel the profile upload and go back to reading about people’s choice of pets or whatever else they thought was interesting.” –mvrander
“My ex bf worked for the Yahoo Italy dating site back in the earlyish 2000s. His job was to pretend to be a woman, and message male customers just as their accounts were going to expire.”
“This would encourage them to pay to renew their subscriptions. Once they renewed, he would ghost them.”
“He only lasted for a few months due to how unethical it was.” –visualisewhirledpeas
“I used to work at Bumble, although this was about 4-5 years ago. Globally, about 90% of the users are men, so there is a huge male to female disparity, although it’s not that bad on a per country basis (for some countries).”
“The most depressing stat though was the histogram of word count in messages. Something like 91% of opening messages were just one word ‘hey’, and ~85% of conversations were just one exchange long (‘hey’ -> no reply ever).”
“Looking at human, digital mating habits splayed out in data science form was really depressing.”
“The countries which had better male-female ratios (which I can remember) were the Nordic ones, Sweden and Norway were close to 50/50, and for a time, one of them even had more women on the app than men.”
“Not sure how it is now.” –trias10
“[There was] A dude with over 2000 right swipes and no matches.” –Deleted Account
“Bless him – that’s quite sad actually. Hope he found someone eventually.” –brunetteht3
“Lots of gay guys get banned from grindr selling weed. Would get a lot of emails of ‘why am I banned’ .”
“Go to their profile and will say ‘HMU for that 
‘” –PayneTrayne
“At my bachelorette party in New Orleans someone wanted weed and was going to try to find someone on Burbon Street. My friend said it was way easier and safer for him to use Grindr 
”
“Took less than ten minutes!” –mathlady89
“Most dating sites and apps are owned by one company The Match Group. They have a near monopoly. I think Bumble is one of the few not owned by them.” –HueJass84
“Funny you should say that, Bumble is owned by a woman who was also a co-founder of Tinder. The rest of that founding team owns The Match Group.” –zadeon9
“To be fair, she (Whitney Wolfe Herd) launched Bumble as a more comfortable and empowering alternative to Tinder and later sued them for sexual harassment. This comment seems to imply that she’s somehow in cahoots with Tinder/Match.” –spacemanaut
“I used to moderate OK Cupid. The amount of unsolicited dick pictures men would send women, not even accompanied by any words was horrifying.”
“I mean, you’d expect it because online dating is a cesspit but the sheer amount would still surprise you.”
I had to look at each reported picture and say ‘Yes, that’s a penis’.” –Jimmypeglegs
“99% of the time, the dick pic doesn’t work. What happens after it’s reported?” –IsThisNameTakenThen
“I’m guessing they think it’s a numbers game? I’d only ever see the picture if it had been reported by the recipient, but if they liked it then fair enough.”
“As to what happens afterwards, usually their account would be banned. OKC were usually quite quick at getting rid of surprise dick piccers.” –Jimmypeglegs
“I worked for Match for a couple years. This is probably widely known but women frequently lie about their age and weight and men lie about their height and salary.”
“Also, it’s a big problem that women are inundated with DMs while most men get none.” –ChickumNwaffles
“Ok so I didn’t work with a dating company per se… But I helped software engineers optimize their profiles.”
“Men get VERY FEW matches, regardless of how good their profile is. Women get A LOT of matches, but most of those matches are useless.”
“1) Don’t try to appeal mildly to EVERYONE. Appeal strongly to a small subset of people. Emphasize who you are.”
“2) Show don’t tell—what makes a person want to date you? Will you impress them with your volunteer work?”
“Will you bring them fun places? Will you make them laugh?”
“3) Get good photos. If you have to, get a friend with a good camera to take photos of you multiple times over a day with several changes of clothes.”
“4) Be brutally honest. Do you need to go to the dentist because your teeth are gray? Go.”
“Do you need to get a haircut? Go somewhere that charges $50 a haircut and tell them to do what they want (if male).”
“Do your clothes fit? Ask a fashionable friend.”
“Remember: people are judging you on your appearance as much as you are judging them. They can’t see you’re kind of funny or interesting.”
“They can see if you’re well groomed and making an effort.” –Katamende
While online dating might seem even scarier after reading these facts, it’s still worth giving it a try if you’re looking for love.
Just remember to put your best (online) foot forward!
The human story is an impossibly long and yet relatively short period of history. And most humans are met with an insatiable desire to figure out their purpose in life—something sometimes their past can shed a light on.
In our infinite curiosity, we’ve updated technology to the point we can now trace our very own DNA back generations and find members of our extended family from all around the world.
However, digging up our genealogy can unearth some secrets we may have never wanted to hear.
“People who have taken an ancestry DNA test and accidentally uncovered a family secret, what was it?”
People shared their stories from inception to thrilling conclusion.
“Not my story, but someone very close to me discovered that none of the ethnic background that they were expecting was present in the results.”
“This person, whose father was deceased at the time, questioned their mother. The mother admitted that the person’s father was not biological as they believed their entire life (they were older than 40).”
“The mother gave the name of the biological father. My friend then found the biological father, contacted him, and then discovered that they had several 1/2 siblings.”
“The biological father was unaware he had another child and accepted my friend into his family as did the siblings.”-galtsgulch232
“My bio-dad left his family and two daughters in Washington and married my mom in Los Angeles 5 weeks later.”
“I found his first marriage certificate but nothing about a divorce. I’m pretty sure he was a bigamist.”-khegiobridge
“I have an uncle that was put up for adoption. He contacted my grandma and she thought he was going to extort her (they’re well off). Turns out he’s a multi, multi millionaire on his own.”
“They still have limited contact, though my dad has reached out and formed a relationship.”
“Apparently they look exactly alike and have the same personality (which sounds kind of stupid now that I’m writing it out, but they’re only half-siblings).”-RolandDPlaneswalker
“I exported my raw DNA from 23andme and threw it through promethease to find out why I have porphyria, which is supposed to be hereditary.”
“My mom and dad are definitely my mom and dad, but neither of them have this, which means it was environmental exposure that caused it.”
“Discovered a rare AMPD enzyme deficiency in mom, found out dad carried a recessive LUPUS gene and gave it to my sister. DNA is WILD.”-djspacebunny
“A woman over in Chicago decided to find out who her real parents were. She was getting close to 60 and realized that there may not be much time left to find her father.”
“So through the magic of ancestry she was matched to my grandfather.”
“She reached out to him and told him who her mother was. He didn’t recognize the name but dug up his little black book and lo and behold…there she was.”
“So now I’ve got a new aunt!”-dazeyd
“My male cousin did one and found a female cousin we did not know about. He reached out to her and apparently our deceased uncle was good friends with her mother.”
“Mom wanted a baby so uncle got her pregnant simply as a sperm donor.”
“Female cousin lived a few blocks away from my grandmother. She had met her a few times going around selling Girl Scout cookies or something.”
“My grandmother had no idea that she was buying cookies from her granddaughter.”-OrangeTree81
“Not me, but a friend never knew who his father was (mom had a weekend fling in college and never contacted the guy after) and his wife helped him use ancestry.com to try and track him down.”
“My friend reached out and the guy was obviously surprised, but flew across the country to meet him.”
“They have a great relationship now, the dad attended his wedding, and they try to get their families together a couple times a year or so.”-djsquidnasty
“A full 100% older brother. My mother got pregnant by my father before the were married. Scandalous in 1960.”
“So, with my father’s knowledge of the situation, mom left town, and lived with my aunt until the birth. Mom gave the baby up for adoption, and then returned home.”
“A couple years later, she married my dad and had three more children together, including me.”
“Fifty five years later, after both my parents had died, my aunt let it slip that me and my siblings that were not the only children of our parents.”
“To paraphrase from Star Wars, there is another. My sister took a DNA test, and a couple of year later she got a hit. Soon thereafter, we met our new big brother and his family (wife, kids) and have become quite close.”-Freeagnt
“My great gran (who I knew) was an orphaned live in servant in Greenock, Scotland in 1900, got pregnant by her employer, kicked out, ended up in the poorhouse where she abandoned the baby.”
“DNA turned up the granddaughter of the baby. Met her in Glasgow a couple of years ago. She turned up as a cousin via DNA.”-TheRealMommaG
“So, I did the health DNA one 18 months ago because I wanted to see if I had the breast cancer gene, as there is several incidences on both sides of my family.”
“Got my results and became very confused, it claimed I had no Italian despite my father’s grandma literally coming over from Sicily in 1920. It took me a few minutes to realize what that actually meant.”
“My parents have been together since my mother was 14, I was born when she was 17, and my father joined the military and married my mother.”
“Called my mom and she literally said ‘that’s interesting.’ Then she asked me not to talk to my father and she would explain everything the next time I visited. She did not, and just refused i talk about it.”
“Honestly, I was just shook. I did not see it coming and it was never even presented to be a possibility to me. My sister ended up doing a DNA test and it showed that we were half siblings.”
“I went no contact with my mother 4 months ago, due to this incident and several others. I haven’t told my dad but I realize at some point the truth is going to come out, my sister matched with some of my fathers relatives while I did not so if anyone checks that sh*t, they’re gonna be asking questions.”-sunshineykris
“That my grandmother was biracial. She was abandoned shortly after birth at a church by an older white lady, adopted by a white farmer with 11 kids, stopped talking to most of that family due to nondescript unpleasantness as an older teen.”
“She died 20 years before I was born and looks like Maya Rudolph in the few photos I’ve seen but insisted she was part-Sicilian.”
“My father and his brother both look more white than not; my father worshipped the ground she walked on and never questioned her ancestry.”
“My uncle was always pretty sure she was Black and argued with her a lot (both dad and uncle ended up being super active in the civil rights movement and still are devoted to antiracism work nearly 60 years on, which largely stemmed from these discussions growing up).”
“Anyway, my mom (divorced from my dad) got me a DNA test a few years ago. My grandmother was definitely half-Black, I have no Sicilian or Italian DNA.”
“I’ve connected with a few Black distant cousins over email and zoom, am waiting for the pandemic to mostly end to talk to my dad about it and introduce him to more family.”-ReddishWedding2018
“Not me, but a friend. My friend (34F[emale]) decided to get her twin sister and parents a DNA testing kit for Christmas.”
“When her parents opened the gift they looked at each other and said ‘Oh…thanks.’ They quickly tried to move on to other presents. My friend was slightly confused, but dropped it.”
“Later they went for their Christmas Day walk. The mom and sister were walking ahead while she walked with her dad. Her dad spilled the beans! Her and her sister were adopted.”
“The mother looked back and started crying – she couldn’t believe her husband told her daughter without them talking about it first. They were going to keep it a secret forever.”
“She had never suspected she or her sister were adopted because they look a lot like their parents. They are also very short, as are their parents. Whoops!”-hyggelady
With new technology comes great opportunities. However, this is a clear case of “be careful what you wish for.”
Not everyone finds out that their whole life is a lie, but still-an opportunity to trace your heritage is not something to take lightly.
Be prepared for it if you decide to do so.
No one told you life was gonna be this way *clap, clap, clap.*
But now we can tell you all the things you didn’t know about one of the biggest sitcoms of all time.
Things you have to know about your favorite Friends.
Fascinating facts about 'Friends.'
pic.twitter.com/wPcUydrMTX
— UberFacts (@UberFacts) July 4, 2021
What’s in a name?
Before settling on Friends as the title of the show, Insomnia Cafe, Six of One, and Friends Like Us were also considered.
The iconic fountain
Sitcom super fans who try to visit the show’s locations will be disappointed to discover that the iconic Friends opening credits were actually filmed on a Warner Brothers Studio soundstage in California.
No such fountain exists in New York City.
Speaking of the fountain
Jennifer Aniston thought it and the whole opening were weird.
The cast didn’t like the theme song either, but “I’ll Be There For You” by The Rembrandts went on to become a Top 20 hit in 1995.
Then, there were six
Friends turned the six stars into household names.
So it’s crazy to consider that originally there were only supposed to be four main cast members!
At first, Chandler and Phoebe were going to be supporting characters.
And who would Monica have married if not Chandler?
Co-creator Marta Kauffman revealed Monica was meant to pair with Joey!
They had a lot of plans for Joey
The cast was very upset when Joey and Rachel became a couple.
Matt LeBlanc described the cast as “super defensive” since they all felt she belonged with Ross.
What could have been
Simpsons veteran Hank Azaria auditioned twice for the role of Joey.
Actresses Jane Lynch and Kathy Griffin were both considered for the role of Phoebe.
And actor and director Jon Favreau auditioned to play Chandler.
Meanwhile, David Schwimmer didn’t audition for Ross. He auditioned for a different show a year prior but the showrunners liked him so much, they skipped formalities and offered him the role outright.
Whoops!
Did you notice this minor set change?
Monica’s apartment number was 5 and changed to 20 in the middle of season one.
Chandler and Joey’s apartment also changed from number 4 to 19.
The writers didn’t realize how New York City apartments are numbered and that apartments 4 and 5 would most likely be on the first or second floor.
The end is tough
Wrapping up Friends really affected the cast members.
LeBlanc was so stressed that after 4 nicotine free years he started smoking cigarettes again.
The finale
For the season finale Central Perk was torn down and the set was built back as the airport that Rachel almost took off from.
Friends IRL
16 years after the show’s 2004 finale, the cast still keeps in touch
Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow even maintain a group chat together!
Social media icons
In 2019, Aniston joined Instagram, posting a selfie with the whole cast. The popularity of the post temporarily crashed Aniston’s profile on the photo-sharing site.
The post has earned 16.6 million likes.
The one with the reunion
Earlier this year we learned several lesser-known facts from the HBO Max FRIENDS reunion.
Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer crushed on each other on and off-screen. That explains their character’s chemistry.
But, David Schwimmer did have some issues with one of his costars, the adorable monkey known as Marcel.
In “The One Where No One is Ready” Joey and Chandler are fought over a chair. In one scene Matt LeBlanc was supposed to jump on the chair while Matthew Perry was out of the room. On the last take, LeBlanc tripped and dislocated his shoulder. That is why Joey had an arm sling for a few episodes.
Chandler and Monica were not supposed to be endgame, but the audience loved the pair so much, writers reconsidered the storyline.
The one we would pay to see
While creators and cast members have denied a Friends reboot, Aniston did suggest to InStyle that she, Cox, and Kudrow reprise their roles for a Golden Girls-like spin-off.
Who wouldn’t want to see that!
Space, the final frontier, which few have been lucky enough to experience first hand and even fewer have called home.
The International Space Station (ISS) is home to astronauts from all over the world, demonstrating that the global community can come together for science and progress.
Out of this world facts about the International Space Station
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— UberFacts (@UberFacts) July 23, 2021
The International Space Station (ISS) has been orbiting the planet for more than 20 years, since November 2000.
It is the single most expensive object ever built. The cost has been estimated at over $120 billion!
An international crew of between three to six people live and work aboard the ISS while traveling at a speed of five miles per second, orbiting Earth about every 90 minutes.
In 24 hours, the space station makes 16 full orbits of Earth, traversing through 16 sunrises and sunsets.
240 individuals from 19 countries have visited the ISS so far.
Peggy Whitson holds the record for spending the most time living and working in space. She was there for 665 days.
Thanks to the acre of solar panels that power the ISS, it can actually be observed with the naked eye from Earth as it flies overhead.
Which is pretty amazing because it flies at an average altitude of 248 miles above Earth.
Speaking of home-y, the ISS really is.
The living and working space in the station is larger than a six-bedroom house. It has six sleeping quarters, two bathrooms, a gym, and a 360-degree bay window.
Astronauts must exercise for two hours a day to combat the loss of muscle and bone mass that occurs while in space.
The largest modules and station pieces were delivered on 42 separate assembly flights.
The ISS is 357-feet end-to-end, only one yard shy of an American football field including the end zones.
There’s nearly 8 miles of wires making up the electrical system.
That’s longer than the perimeter of Central Park!
More than 50 computers control all the systems on the space station.
And the ISS computers aren’t immune to viruses, in fact they’ve been infected 52 times and counting.
The ISS is likely one of the only places you can actually smell space.
Astronauts have described it as a “metallic-ionization-type smell.”
And, for most of us, the ISS has seemed way too far out of reach. Especially if you never got to go to Space Camp. But NASA has announced plans to change all that, and allow regular tourists to actually visit!
The first visits won’t come cheap, likely costing more than a million dollars for the first trip.
But you can’t beat that view!
When thinking of a classic action movie filled with gadgets, flawless suits and incredible cars, it’s hard not to think about the iconic 007 James Bond.
But, there is more than martinis and Tom Ford behind the most famous spy.
And, yes I would like to point out the irony of a “famous spy.”
Debonair facts about James Bond
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— UberFacts (@UberFacts) July 26, 2021
More than a spy, James Bond is perhaps the most iconic action hero ever. So, it makes sense that he was created by a real-life action hero.
Ian Fleming, the author of the original James Bond novels, was a Commander in the British Naval Intelligence who created “Operation Ruthless” and “Operation Goldeneye” during WW2.
After the war, Fleming told friends he planned to write “the spy novel to end all spy novels.”
Fleming wrote Casino Royale, the first Bond novel, at his GoldenEye Estate in Jamaica, but the history of Bond’s name belies that reputation of violence and adventure.
Fleming borrowed Bond’s name from an ornithologist who wrote a book about birds he liked.
Fleming loosely based his protagonist on John Dee, who in the 16th century would sign letters to Queen Elizabeth I with a “007.”
While Fleming wrote 13 novels and one collection of short stories, there have been 26 movies about James Bond.
The first movie not based on a Bond story was GoldenEye.
While Bond has driven several notable cars, like the BMW Z3, his most iconic car is the Aston Martin DB5 which appeared in six of the movies.
Meanwhile, over 15 BMW 750s were destroyed during the filming of Tomorrow Never Dies.
On film, Bond has been played by nine different actors.
The first on-screen appearance of James Bond is in the 1950s TV show Climax, where he was portrayed as an American named “Card Sense Jimmy Bond” by Barry Nelson.
The first actor to play Bond on the big screen, Sean Connery, rocketed to stardom with the role.
The way he delivered his introduction, “Bond… James Bond” is a red-letter date in the history of cool.
However, Connery worried about being typecast as a spy.
“I’ve always hated that damned James Bond. I’d like to kill him,” Sean Connery said.
In 1967, comedy actor David Niven played a parody of Bond in Casino Royale.
George Lazenby portrayed Bond in On His Majesty’s Secret Service in 1969.
Though many fans consider it a high point of the franchise, he was never asked back.
When Pierce Brosnan took over the role with 1995’s GoldenEye, the character was reimagined as less sexist, and slightly more sober.
But Brosnan’s Bond was the deadliest Bond, taking out 47 foes.
Meanwhile, Roger Moore only took out one person in The Man with the Golden Gun.
Daniel Craig’s first outing as Bond in 2006’s Casino Royale, was controversial due to his blonde hair.
For the opening scene of Skyfall, 85 identical versions of Bond’s Tom Ford suit were made.
“Spectre” is an anagram for ‘Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion.’
The newest Bond movie, No Time to Die, is named after a 1958 British war movie.
There has only been one James Bond remake:
Never Say Never Again is based on the same story as Thunderball.
The remake starred Sean Connery, 12 years after he said he would “never” play Bond again.
James Bond is the second longest-running film franchise after Godzilla (1954).
And the franchise is showing no signs of slowing.
Most grownups think they’ve got it all figured out.
Life experiences may have made them more street-savvy, but when it comes to science, it turns out we all still have plenty to learn.
We never stop learning, and isn’t that a wonderful thing?
“What is a science fact that not many people know that will change the way they look at life?”
How well do we know the species with whom we share our planet?
“Elephants are known to bury their dead under foliage and remain with the bodies for some time afterwards, exhibiting behaviour not dissimilar to human mourning.”
“Indeed, it is the association of apparent grief or mourning that is considered to indicate a ‘burial’, as opposed to simply covering up or disposing of a body.”
“I also read somewhere that they have buried humans.” – ErrorCodeTaken
“Not a single Tarantula species is able to kill you with venom, so if you see a big hairy boi just know, it can’t kill you, not yet, also link to a picture of my escaped Tarantula” – MeGaPP-_-
“Most people know that the mosquito is the deadliest animal when it comes to total human deaths ever. Next to humans of course.”
“And this is due to the malaria parasite spread by mosquitoes. It is estimated that four to five per cent of all humans that have ever lived died from malaria (rather than half as some sources state).”
“The treatment for malaria is quinine, which was known since the 1700’s. This is often contained in tonic water, which is bitter and not that palatable.”
“The anecdotal story is that during the days of British colonization of India, the British East India Company had of course problems with malaria.”
“Drinking tonic water was not popular with the British, so what’d they do? add booze, i.e. gin. And this is where you get gin and tonic.”
“Of course modern research has shown that the amounts of tonic water you’d need is quite large (~1 liter for a minimal effect) to make that story apocryphal at best (although I know some people who probably managed to meet the necessary quota to ward of malaria).”
“But it is interesting to think that we managed to make the treatment for one of the worst disease humanity has known into a cocktail.”
“What is real though is that malaria can be used to treat syphilis. Malaria causes a high fever which kills the syphilis bacteria.”
“In fact, Dr Julius Wagner-Jauregg received the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1927 for this discovery (but he later became a hardcore Nazi and eugenisist. Of course we no longer use this because the mortality rate was 15%, but this was much lower than the death rate for syphilis.”
“Unfortunately, many parts of the world still suffer from malaria, where it is still a major killer.” – monkeypie1234
We have lived on one planet our entire lives and yet there are many facts about our home that elude us.
“Water does not innately conduct electricity, it is all the dissolved stuff that allow electricity to pass through it.”
“Water is fascinating stuff.” – Nicholi417
“Earthquakes can happen literally everywhere on Earth, however humans rarely feel anything below a 2.5 in magnitude.” – botchman
“The Amazon Rainforest isn’t actually the lungs of Earth.”
“Almost all the Oxygen generated by the Amazon is used by the life found in the Amazon.”
“40% of Earth’s oxygen is actually produced by tiny Organisms called Diatoms.”
“These organisms can replicate at an incredible rate and trillions of them spread throughout the Oceans and create Oxygen through photosynthesis.”
“When the Diotoms die they transform into underwater snowflakes that remain on the sea floor.”
“When these seas dry up, the dead Diatoms create a salt desert, like the one in Northern Africa.”
“Huge sandstorms pick the Diotoms up and carry them across the Oceans and drop them down on the Amazon and are used as a fertilizer for the rainforest.”
“Where are Diatoms born? The rainforest, they spread to the sea, create Oxygen through photosynthesis, die, create salt deserts, get taken back to the rain forest and help create the rainforest that creates them.”
“That’s the circle of life right there.” – LordTopley
“On average, Mercury is the nearest planet to every planet in our solar system.” – MoguoTheMoogle
We already know we are very complex organisms.
But just how complex is our species?
Keep reading.
“Everyone on earth is at least 50th cousin with everyone else on earth.”
“And if you are currently dating or married to somebody who is from your own country and is of your own ethnicity, there’s a one in five chance that the two of you share a common family member fewer than 10 generations ago.”
“Happy investing!” – ArmstrongBillie
“That the human skin Is quite heavy Its around 16% of your body weight.” – Idontknowtbhsss
“The first cellular life derived from highly complicated chemical reactions in inert matter. Thus, you could say, that all matter tends towards complication: and once a level of complexity is reached it is then ‘considered alive’.”
“This being true would indicate over time that most atoms in the world, including the ones that make you up, have transitioned through of living systems and inert matter, and if not bound by time, complex information tends towards constructing life, thereby, all matter in the universe could have been potentially alive during its existence before being broken down again—simplified—returning to non life, in a cycle that repeats infinitely.”
“We got stuff from stars in us. And you won’t be remembered but the matter you give life to will exist for unknowable trillions of years, potentially becoming the same matter in another being.” – jert3
“The retinas of our eyes capture things ‘upside down’. Our brains correct for it and turns the image ‘the right way up’.” – lardill
One fascinating factoid I learned was that we had more bones when we were born.
We basically had 300 bones with cartilage between them, making us flexible enough to pass through the birth canal.
As we grow older, our skeletal bodies end up with 206 bones, as many of them fuse together through our early rapid development.
When you think about it, our mere existence is, in itself, a true miracle.