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Original poster

What's your favourite fact?

638 replies

GlitterSquid · 09/02/2022 20:19

Fill me full of your favourite facts. The more obscure, the better!

My favourite all time fact is that two halves of a supermarket sandwich are never from the same sandwich and are each another half of another pair. Unbelievable.

I met a grown man who didn't know peanuts grew underground recently too, which pleased me.

Enlighten me further!

OP posts:
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6
ErrolTheDragon · 12/02/2022 23:50

@AuxArmesCitoyens

You can tell an animal's diet from its eye shape. Predators have forward-facing eyes with vertical slit pupils, prey animals have eyes on the side with horizontal pupils.
So what about round pupils?
Mollysocks · 13/02/2022 00:11

I don’t think pupil shape has anything to do with whether an animal is a predator or not has it? I thought slurred pupils were more likely to belong to nocturnal animals as this shape can open to let more light in.

Otherwise what about wolves…and us, we are predators but have round pupils.

Mollysocks · 13/02/2022 00:12

Slitted*

jontyl · 13/02/2022 05:25

@BoredZelda

This is why you can never get to the end of one.

The reason you can’t get to the end of a rainbow is to do with perspective.

I did though driving down the motorway the end of the rainbow was on the opposite hard shoulder.
SunshineCake1 · 13/02/2022 08:55

@Cattenberg

John Tyler, the 10th US President, was born in 1790. One of his grandsons is still alive.
Actual grandson or a great x how ever many ?
BluTangClan · 13/02/2022 09:05

Una Healy from 'The Saturdays' invented the trainer's with the wheels in the bottom, to get around quicker when backstage at concerts.

ErrolTheDragon · 13/02/2022 09:24

@Mollysocks

I don’t think pupil shape has anything to do with whether an animal is a predator or not has it? I thought slurred pupils were more likely to belong to nocturnal animals as this shape can open to let more light in.

Otherwise what about wolves…and us, we are predators but have round pupils.

I think from the link posted just below that if an animal has slit shaped pupils the orientation is likely to correlate with being predator or prey. But it's not a simple rule, and many animals (predator, prey, nocturnal and diurnal) have round pupils which give no clue. Mice are nocturnal with round pupils and not particularly sideways-facing eyes. But the different slit shapes are interesting for sure - I've just been reading about multi focal eyes. The not pedantically true 'facts' can give more pause for thought and further reading than 100% accurate ones - I've enjoyed looking at sinusoidal rivers and Benson's rule as a result of this thread.Smile
ErrolTheDragon · 13/02/2022 09:36

Actual grandson or a great x how ever many ?

Actual grandson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HarrisonRuffinn_Tyler

He's 93, his father was 75 when he was born, his grandfather (president Tyler) was in his sixties when that one was born.

AuxArmesCitoyens · 13/02/2022 09:42

Yes it's not a 100% hard and fast rule, like boys being taller than their mothers, more a general correlation.

BudgeUpAnne · 13/02/2022 10:02

A child's skull has all its adult teeth above its current teeth, their skull looks like the attached pic.

This one always blows my mind : anyone or any thing that has ever lived, over however many million years, is still on this planet right now in some shape or form - be it ashes, skeletal remains, or fossils.

At this current second in time, as in right now, you will never be younger than this age ever again. And also, this very second is currently the oldest you have ever been

BluTangClan · 13/02/2022 10:46

@BudgeUpAnne

A child's skull has all its adult teeth above its current teeth, their skull looks like the attached pic.

This one always blows my mind : anyone or any thing that has ever lived, over however many million years, is still on this planet right now in some shape or form - be it ashes, skeletal remains, or fossils.

At this current second in time, as in right now, you will never be younger than this age ever again. And also, this very second is currently the oldest you have ever been

Haven't some people had their ashes launched into space? Also space junk must be made from atoms which were once 'life' on this planet.
ErrolTheDragon · 13/02/2022 11:45

Haven't some people had their ashes launched into space?

Yes, I think James Doohan (Scotty) is one of the best known. I'm not sure if anyones ashes have got beyond low earth orbit though?

Mollysocks · 13/02/2022 12:45

@BudgeUpAnne

A child's skull has all its adult teeth above its current teeth, their skull looks like the attached pic.

This one always blows my mind : anyone or any thing that has ever lived, over however many million years, is still on this planet right now in some shape or form - be it ashes, skeletal remains, or fossils.

At this current second in time, as in right now, you will never be younger than this age ever again. And also, this very second is currently the oldest you have ever been

😮😮😫 That is both fascinating but absolutely terrifying for someone with trypophobia (me)
KittenKong · 13/02/2022 12:59

@ErrolTheDragon

Haven't some people had their ashes launched into space?

Yes, I think James Doohan (Scotty) is one of the best known. I'm not sure if anyones ashes have got beyond low earth orbit though?

My sister wants that done. Her daughter is apparently working on it (sis it terminally ill and we have a very dark sense of humour in our family) 😔
junglejane66 · 13/02/2022 13:11

@Alarae

The chocolate bit inside a KitKat is made up of other rejected KitKats which have been smashed up.
They must have a huge amount of rejects that to make one good kit kat you need a rejected one. Massively inefficient and costly and why so many rejects and only kit kats?
junglejane66 · 13/02/2022 13:16

"I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
“I am,” is a complete sentence because it has a subject (I) and a predicate (am).

So maybe 'no' isnt a complete sentence after all?

junglejane66 · 13/02/2022 13:18

The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat."
Shah Mat means “the king is dead.”

FunkyPhantom · 13/02/2022 13:34

The space between your eyebrows is called the glabella

The little plastic thing that sits in a pizza box is called a box tent

The wire cage that holds a cork in a bottle of champagne is called an agraffe

SmudgeButt · 13/02/2022 14:08

Santa Claus lives at the North Pole which is in Canada
So his official post code is H0H 0H0. (HO HO HO, get it?)

Who ever said that Canada Post didn't have a sense of humour.

SunshineCake1 · 13/02/2022 15:35

@creamcheeseandlox

Leap years and the Summer Olympic games always fall in the same year. A good way to remember when a leap year is...or visa versa.
Except for in the age of covid.
SunshineCake1 · 13/02/2022 15:36

@MrsJamieFraser22

Every tiger has a unique stripe pattern.

Loving some of the facts on here particularly the stone carrying otters

And cats have an M on their head if not all one colour.
SunshineCake1 · 13/02/2022 16:02

@ErrolTheDragon

Actual grandson or a great x how ever many ?

Actual grandson [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison]]Ruffinn_Tyler

He's 93, his father was 75 when he was born, his grandfather (president Tyler) was in his sixties when that one was born.

Thanks. Took me a while but I got it.
SecretKeeper1 · 14/02/2022 01:24

@BluTangClan

Una Healy from 'The Saturdays' invented the trainer's with the wheels in the bottom, to get around quicker when backstage at concerts.
Ha ha, did she heckers!
WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 14/02/2022 02:38

Una Healy from 'The Saturdays' invented the trainer's with the wheels in the bottom, to get around quicker when backstage at concerts.

I'll be honest: you had me there for a brief moment! Sometimes, these things are true - like Mike Nesmith's mum inventing liquid paper and Mike himself being a co-originator of the concept of pop music videos! Isn't/wasn't his fellow Monkee Peter Tork's family big in bog roll too?!

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