Sarah Rogers
We come across crazy facts on the internet every single day. Now just when you thought that you’d seen it all, we found these 18 facts that are true, but sound more like total BS! Get ready to have your mind blown…
18. Till date, wasps have brought down 2 commercial airline flights, killing over 200 people.
Mud Dauber are a species of wasps that build their nests from mud. On September 12, 1980, the Florida Sommuter Airlines Flight 65 crashed, killing all 34 passengers and the crew. This was due to a malfunctioning air speed indicator, ruined by mud dauber nests that were not cleared from the aircraft’s pilot tubes.
On February 6, 1996, Birgenair Flight 301 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean after a mud dauber built a nest inside the pitot tube. All 13 crew members and 176 passengers died.
17. A Chinese monk’s devotion has literally left a mark on a temple in the monastery town of Tongren. After kneeling in prayer a 1000 times each day for the last 20 years, the ageing monk’s footprints are now etched upon the temple’s wooden flooring.
16. There is a tree named Pando that is technically an entire forest!
A colony of 4700 aspen share the same root system. Pando translates to ‘I spread’ and the tree/forest is popularly called The Trembling Giant.
15. Scientists in Mexico were able to turn Tequila into diamonds!
This discovery was chanced upon when researchers at the National Autonomous University experimented with making ultra-thin films of diamond from organic solutions like acetone and ethanol. The mix that was most effective comprised 40% alcohol and 60% water, similar to the proportions used in Tequila. Now this just ups Tequila’s cool quotient!
14. A trained beagle assistance dog won an award when she managed to call 911 after her diabetic owner had a seizure and collapsed.
17-pound beagle, Belle, became the first canine recipient of the VITA Wireless Samaritan Award. She bit into her owner’s phone and called 911 when he collapsed.
13. Thanks to technology, you now know how the sun sees you!
Here’s an awesome video of what people look like with an ultraviolet camera.
12. In 1850, Thomas Austin released 24 rabbits into the wild for hunting in Australia. Almost 70 years later, the rabbit population grew to a whopping 10 billion!
The rabbits reproduced at a rate of 18-30 per single rabbit female per year. With mild winters, no predators and an abundance of land, Australia proved itself as the perfect nesting ground for rabbits.
11. An 18-year old freshman crowd funded his education by asking 2.8 million people for one penny.
In 1987, Mike Hayes, a chemistry Freshman wrote to Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene, asking him to request each of his readers to send Hayes one penny each. The ‘Many Pennies for Mike’ campaign had 2.3 million pennies. Thanks to this quirky idea, Mike graduated from the University of Illinois.
10. Penguins can drink salt water.
The supraorbital gland in penguins allows them to drink salt water. The gland acts like a filter and separates the salt from water.
9. If you want to melt that fat, don’t swing your arms while walking. This increases the effort of walking by 12%!
8. Snake man, Bill Haast, was bitten by snakes at least 173 times during his 100-year life.
His secret? He injected himself with snake venom every single day for 60 years and built up an immunity to the poison! Bill has saved many lives by donating his antibody-rich blood to 21 snake bite victims.
7. If all the stars in the universe were divided by the population, everyone would own 44.1 trillion stars each!
6. The doctors pronounced the premature baby dead. Two hours later, he was brought back to life by his mommy’s cuddles!
Kate Ogg simply couldn’t digest what the doctors told her. She picked up her son and pressed him against her chest. She spoke to him and held him close for two hours when he started breathing again! The power of a mother’s true love…
5. A species of frog in Alaska completely freezes during winter. It stops breathing and cannot move. Come spring, the frog’s body thaws and normal life resumes.
4. A spoonful of matter taken from a neutron star would weigh 5,500,000,000 tons – more than Mount Everest or 900 Pyramids of Giza!
3. A sheep in China gave birth to a sheep dog. It resembles a dog and even plays like one!
Chinese farmer Liu Naiying who raised the sheep said he’d never seen anything like this in 20 years. Experts named this the ‘abnormal lamb’.
2. A prison in Brazil uses geese as an alarm system!
Two geese at a prison in Brazil alert security guards when convicts try to escape. The geese make a lot of noise when they sense ‘strange movements’!
1. Guess what? The perfect school that you always dreamed of actually exists! The Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts, U.S., has done away with their curriculum. The school does not conduct tests or assign homework. Classes are held only when the students request for it!
And here’s a shocker – 82% of these students get accepted to college as opposed to the 63% national public school average!
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