50 amazing ‘did you know’ facts most people actually don’t know

Like humans’ fingerprints, each lion has a whisker pattern unique to their nose, according to the New York Times. Back in the late ’60s, researchers conducted a whisker hole identification method that involved overlapping photographs of lions noses with a standard grid.

Gadsby is a lipogram, or, a novel written without the letter ‘E’. The author, Ernest Vincent Wright, wrote the novel in 1939.

It sounds phony, but it’s time tested. If an egg floats when you set it in water, then it’s old; if it sinks, it’s a fresher egg and you’re good to go.

Here’s where you can unlearn the false ‘facts’ about eggs.

Because postage was cheaper than a train ticket, according to Smithsonian, some frugal parents in the USA chose this option. Newspapers ran amusing headlines, such as “Baby by Parcel Post” and “Parcel Post Baby Makes Trip Along L & E Railroad.”

A survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi and German foundation Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung found that a high number – 84 per cent! – of Indian youth were in arranged marriages.

The intuitive reason why humans blink so much, 15 to 20 times per minute, is for eye lubrication. But, new research suggests that it’s to give our brains a break. Although these breaks only last for a few seconds, they could be giving the brain a chance to go idle and recharge.

Well, for only about 15 seconds. It takes that long for humans to lose consciousness in space due to lack of oxygen to the brain. In 1965, a technician was inside a vacuum chamber and accidentally depressurised his suit. After 12 to 15 seconds he lost consciousness, but his suit was repressurised at 27 seconds. According to Scientific American, the man recalled “the moisture on his tongue beginning to boil as well as a loss of taste sensation that lingered for four days following the accident.”

The secret is out: it’s the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, located in one of the coldest corners of the world: an island on the Svalbard archipelago, between Norway and the North Pole. This remote location allows natural permafrost cooling necessary for proper storage of the world’s largest collection of crop diversity. If the zombie apocalypse were to become a reality, or if farmers’ fields start to dry out, this seed vault would come to the rescue.

Stuxnet is the MVP of computer viruses as it’s able to “[escape] the digital realm to wreak physical destruction on equipment the computers controlled,” per WIRED. Also, according to National Geographic, it’s been able to unlock computer-controlled locks in prisons.

According to the US Food and Agriculture Organisation, these three simple, yet vital, ingredients make up the world’s staple foods and provide the majority of the world’s calorie intake.