In need of a 5* fact! Anyone with a brilliant fact they’d like to share?

[Pombearsandnaiceham]

Hi everyone,

Sorry for a very boring AIBU but does anyone have any interesting facts they’d like to share? I need a good fact for a work meeting this morning - any ideas?

Thank you!

I've rushed upstairs to read this thread to DS2 who is 13 and a complete mental fact addict!

One of his:

The part on your back that you can't reach to scratch with your hands is called the acnestis.

Also, your blood travels about 11,800 miles around your body every day. Whoa!

There are 4 types of adhesive in a toilet roll.

The world's smallest antelope is smaller than the world's largest frog.

The recovery position on planes is to protect your teeth upon impact.

If the plane crashes you can be identified easily by your dental records.

I reckon about 30% of these are bollocks.

@MrsSSG

I love this thread!

I have no interesting facts, but my 6 year old just offered this: herbivore dinosaurs used to eat rocks to help crush up the plants in their stomachs.

I think crocodiles do this too.

Just marking my place. Excellent thread!

Baby kangaroos climb into the pouch by themselves when they are still a tiny fetis

Electric eels are not eels, but can produce a shock powerful enough to kill a horse.

Horses can't vomit. They also technically walk on one very large toe.

The Italian world for tomato - pomodoro, comes from pom d'or or golden apple, because they used to be yellow.

The red and white stripey poles outside barber shops represent bloodied bandages as they used to perform surgery as well as cut hair.

Glass is an amorphous solid and runs over time, which is why very old windows have a sort of wobbly look.

A species of bacteria has now evolved that eats plastic (which the scientific community are understandably pretty excited about)

The national animal of Scotland is a unicorn.

The hard bit on the end of a shoelace is called an aglet

Boring but a castrated male lion doesn’t grow a mane..

Coelacanths (and other lobe fish) are more closely related to tetrapods than other fish

The only team sport you have to play right handed is polo.

We are only born with 2 innate fears. Falling and loud noises. All others fears are learnt.

Banana plants can "walk" up to 40cm in their lifespan

The amniotic sac in mammals is technically a vestigial eggshell.

@ihatethecold

VeniVidiWeeWee

ihatethecold
The Ivy League colleges on the east coast of America were funded and built because of heroin.
Really?

Harvard founded 1636.

Heroin trademarked 1898.

I watched a fascinating documentary on China , the poppy trade and the US colleges on Aljazeera a couple of months ago.

The money that was made due to poppies being grown and made into a drug funded the building of key US colleges

I’m trying to find the program again.

Very likely, but we're talking facts and Heroin is a Bayer company product trademarked as such.

Glass is an amorphous solid and runs over time, which is why very old windows have a sort of wobbly look.

The first bit is true, the second not.

"Whatever flow glass manages, however, does not explain why some antique windows are thicker at the bottom. Other, even older glasses do not share the same melted look. In fact, ancient Egyptian vessels have none of this sagging, says Robert Brill, an antique glass researcher at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, N.Y. Furthermore, cathedral glass should not flow because it is hundreds of degrees below its glass-transition temperature, Ediger adds. A mathematical model shows it would take longer than the universe has existed for room temperature cathedral glass to rearrange itself to appear melted."
Scientific American

@cooliebrown

if you hold down the unlock doors button on your car key fob for 5 seconds it lowers all the electric windows in the car - ideal when approaching a scorching hot car....

This is amazing! It actually works!

Glass is an amorphous solid and runs over time, which is why very old windows have a sort of wobbly look.

Nope. It's just 'cause glass making was a bit crap back then 😁.

The pirate one has always been my favourite fact.
Car window one doesn't work on my car. On DHs, it puts the roof down too.

The word 'koala' means 'no-drink'. Hence my user name.

The collective noun for flamingoes is a flamboyance.

Leeches have 32 brains

Otters have little pockets in which they keep their favourite stone