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!

Sea otters hold hands when they're sleeping to avoid floating away from each other 😍

@Pinkywoo

Hippos make their own sunscreen by sweating a red oily substance that protects their skin from the sun, apparently that's where the phrase "sweating blood" comes from.

And hippopotamus means "river horse".

A mushroom is genetically closer to a human than any other living thing. A mushroom is not able to be classified as a plant or animal.

And a hippodrome is where hippos land and take off.

I came to say koalas have a forked penis head but thought I'd Google first to check.. and apparently..

“Fact #2. Male koalas have a forked penis”
“Watching a male koala become aroused is like a scene from an alien horror movie.”

“Not only does a koala's penis have two heads, it is pink, very large and prominently-veined.”

“Koalas are well-endowed in both girth and length.”

How: the two heads don't stick out far and can be retracted.
Why: No-one is really sure, but maybe it helps sperm enter two of the three branches of the vagina?

Err, wow..

At one time carrots were purple, not orange.

If you've eaten a banana recently, it was probably a Cavendish banana, from the plants originally developed in the greenhouses of Chatsworth House.

I've thought about the pirate eye patch thing, but surely it would have been a natural reaction to close the eye with the patch, so how would that have benefited below deck vision? Maybe it had more to do with taking sightings at noon?

Just got off my backside - found my car keys - gone outside and pressed unlock for 5 secs on my key....nothing happened to the windows😐

@canyoucallbacklater

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.

That's not true.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brace_position

I have an excellent fact about the Battle of Yorktown when the British surrendered to the Americans thus bringing the War for Independence to an end...

More people attended the 200th anniversary re-enaction of the battle in 1981 than were at the actual Battle of Yorktown in 1781.

(Yep. Been watching Hamilton)

Off to find my car keys now...

And cows have cow best friends.

The flappy bit of skin that covers your elbow is called a wenis, or the olecranal skin. Both are fun to say.

A one-hundredth of a second is called a jiffy

@theluckiest

And cows have cow best friends.

This is in the Times today, as it happens.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/want-a-sophisticated-social-life-cows-have-got-it-licked-hsjn293qh?shareToken=fa37ccdffa6f26c29f36d714ea6f96e1

Comment

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-cow-friendships-companiable-cattle-lc6rntm2q?shareToken=2088ef74219b41a3a76d83394aa2c2a5

@ChazsBrilliantAttitude

Add a charm of goldfinches.

The smallest bones in the body are found in the ears.

And a zephyr of bumbarrels.

Bumbarrels are, of course, long-tailed tits.

How would you even know if a goldfish was constipated? @wrongsideofhistorymyarse

Schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease are the chemical opposites of each other. Schizophrenia is characterised by high levels of dopamine and Parkison's is low dopamine. Parkinson's is treated with an artificial dopamine replacement called L.Dopa - if the dose is too high, patients will suffer hallucinations. When schizophrenia is treated with anti-psychotics that lower dopamine, if the dose is too strong they experience tardive dyskenesia which is muscle tremors similar to those experienced by those with Parkinson's.

When you kill a wasp a pheromone is released to let the rest of the wasps know one of them has died.

@NavyBerry

Newborns don't have tears

Mine did. While we were still in hospital they had to take blood every 12 hours. They'd bring him back with tears streaming down his face. Broke my heart!

Collective nouns I like include
A bevy of quail
A chatter of budgerigars/chattering of choughs
A zeal of zebras

My favourite is
A flamboyance of flamingoes.

"At one time carrots were purple, not orange."

Purple carrots can still be found.

There are also white & yellow ones.

The colour orange is named for the fruit, not the other way around.

I love the pirate one!

The Jim/Van Morrison one would be great if true.

Van Morrison's name is Ivan, I think.

Salmon are biologically speaking more closely related to camels than hagfish so there's no such thing as a 'Fish'

😉

Purple carrots can still be found
I didn't say that purple carrots were never found!

@AdaColeman

Purple carrots can still be found I didn't say that purple carrots were never found!

I read your "at one time carrots were purple" as also meaning that they no longer are-apologies!

The ejaculation of the male honey bee is so violent that its penis explodes. It somersaults backwards and falls dead to the ground leaving the tip inside the queen to plug the semen.