Bat bombs? Immortal crocodiles? These facts sound so insane that they'll have you saying b.s.
Liquid breathing
It’s possible for humans to breathe liquid. However, it only works with very special oxygen-rich liquids, such as perfluorocarbons, so don’t try this in a swimming pool because you’ll just die.
The real Navy seals
The U.S. Navy’s combat dolphins are serious military assets (to the tune of $14 million in funding a year, and has the Pentagon’s financial backing through the year 2020). Military dolphins have been trained to rescue lost naval swimmers and locate underwater mines. They’ve already contributed to saving more lives in open water than specially trained life savers. As of 2015 the Navy employs 85 dolphins and 50 sea lions. Lol when sea mammals have a cooler job than you.
The sexy octopus
One of an octopus’ tentacles is actually a penis. The male octopus can detach that tentacle and throw it at its mate. Once the tentacle reaches the female octopus, it will attach itself to her mantle via suckers and wiggle its way inside so that she can inseminate herself. Males will often die after throwing their tentacle at a female.
Gazelles are FAST.
A two day old gazelle can out run a racehorse and is capable of running at around 50 miles per hour.
Space alcohol
There’s a massive cloud of alcohol floating somewhere in space. Unfortunately, it’s about 6,500 light years away and not suitable for human consumption.
There are crystals inside your ear.
Dizziness and nausea can be caused by loose crystals (called otoconia) in the inner ear. The nausea can sometimes be fixed by moving your head through a set of positions to readjust the crystals inside your ear.
We’re the tortoises of the animal kingdom
If a race is long enough, a human can outrun a horse. Basically, humans are the best long distance runners and can outrun just about any animal. Slow and steady wins the race!
A peculiar food chain
Killer whales are considered natural predators of moose. Not only that, but they’re also the moose’s only known marine predator. The orcas get the moose when they swim between islands out of North America’s Northwest Coast.
One of the CIA’s crazier plans
During the Cold War the CIA had a plan to get rid of Fidel Castro by spreading rumors that he was the Antichrist. They planned to do this by faking the Second Coming off the coast of Cuba and projecting images of Jesus Christ onto low-lying clouds while firing off star shells into the air from a U.S. submarine. They would then use a U.S. military plane (camouflaged by the clouds) with a loudspeaker and pretend to be Jesus, urging the population to denounce Communism and overthrow the regime.
Of course it lives in Australia.
One of the most venomous animals in the world is a snail. If you receive a high dose of venom from the marbled cone snail you will experience vision loss, respiratory failure, muscle paralysis and eventually death. There is no anti-venom available, so it’s extremely difficult to treat a victim. It can also cause immediate paralysis in it’s prey (fish).
Operation Acoustic Kitty
At the height of the Cold War the CIA decided to spy on the Russians using surveillance cats—yes, actual cats surgically implanted with microphones and radio transmitters (the tails were used as antenna). The project was called “Acoustic Kitty” and according to an executive assistant to the director of the CIA in the 1960s, the agency spent nearly $10 million on the spy cats. The planned to drop off the acoustic kitties near soviet embassies, but it’s rumored that the first one they released was run over by a taxed and killed before it could reach it’s target. The CIA, of course, denies the cat was ever killed, but eventually scrapped the project nonetheless.
The Leaning “Tower of Eiffel”
The top of the Eiffel Tower leans away from the sun, and as the metal facing the sun heats up, it expands and moves as much as seven inches away from the sun. Similarly, the “crooked spire” in Chesterfield, Derbyshire has twisted over the centuries as one side heats up faster than the other.
Technically, crocodiles could live forever
Crocodiles actually have no life span. If they lived in a perfectly suited environment with no predators or diseases, they would live forever. The process is called negligible senescence and organisms who possess this capability have no reductions in their reproductive or functional capabilities with age. Basically their death rates do not increase with age, and the main reason most crocodiles die (besides disease) is because they don’t stop growing as they age. Because of this, they’re not able to find enough food to sustain their size and end up dying of starvation. Turtles also have this capability.
Trees are important but…
Although plants and trees generally get the credit for producing the oxygen we breathe, roughly 75 percent or more of the world’s oxygen is actually produced by algae and phytoplankton.
Bat bombs
During World War II, the U.S. Navy had serious plans to use incendiary bat bombs against major Japanese cities. Hundreds of thousands of bats were to be dropped from airplanes above Japanese cities during the early morning. Because bats are nocturnal, they would’ve hidden among all the houses and buildings, permeating the cities. The bats were armed with timed bombs, which would explode and turn entire cities into infernos. As history shows, there were no bat-induced infernos in Japan. They did however capture, experiment and put bombs on thousands of bats, which was an exceedingly slow process. At one point, one bat escaped and nearly burned the entire base down. The project was eventually scrapped because it was taking too long to finish and the Manhattan Project was coming to fruition.
Technically, we glow in the dark
Humans are bioluminescent and glow in the dark, but the light that we emit is 1,000 times weaker than our human eyes are able to pick up. In fact, almost all living creatures produce a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day.
Old tech
The fax machine was patented in 1843.
Darker coffee does not equal more caffeine
Caffeine content varies by roast level. The longer you roast your coffee, the less caffeine is contains, therefore, dark roasted coffee has less caffeine.
The state might owe you money.
Every U.S. state holds onto money that people are owed and haven’t claimed, including from third-parties. All you have to do is go to their website and look yourself up. Just click the “Search by State” button and see if you have anything coming your way! Click here to get started.