Barnorama All Fun In The Barn
Prepare to have your mind expanded with 31 Astonishing Facts That Defy Belief! This captivating collection unveils a series of incredible truths that push the boundaries of what you thought was possible.
“In Switzerland, it’s illegal to own 1 guinea pig. They consider them social animals and require companionship, so you have to have at least two!”
“Magnolia trees are so old that they predate bees by about 40 million years, and as a result are pollinated by beetles.
They are considered the first flowering plant on earth.”
“Birds have been observed intentionally lining their nests with cigarette butts. While the nicotine in them is toxic to the birds, it’s a low enough dose that it’s not a significant risk to them in the short term (they don’t live long enough for the long term effects to be a problem), and it k*lls parasites that may try to hide in the nest and infect the chicks.
Smaller bird species have been sighted stealing the anti-bird spikes that we put on buildings and lining their nests with them, like little palisade walls against other birds and predators. A small species like a songbird can navigate the spikes easily, but it makes it more difficult for a predator like a hawk or a rat to get to the nest.
Crows have also been observed stealing lit cigarettes from ashtrays and wafting the smoke through their feathers to k*ll parasites.”
“During the great depression, FDR created the Civilian Conservation Corps for young men. They planted over 2 BILLION! trees in their 7 years of existence. They also built a lot of the buildings and lodges at the national parks.”
“The sea produces more oxygen than trees.”
“Pistachio ice cream is about 2000 years older than Chocolate or Vanilla ice cream. Persians were making ice cream as early as 500BC, often flavored with Pistachio. Chocolate and Vanilla, on the other hand, are native to the New World and wouldn’t make it there for another two thousand years.”
“A group of pandas is called an embarrassment.”
“How old the Appalachian Mountains really are:
They are older than trees, bones (including all dinosaurs), and the splitting of Pangaea — so part of the mountain range is in Scotland.
The layering on the mountains looks “wrong” at some points because the tops of the mountains have eroded down & “new” geological forces have caused parts that weren’t the top to rise above that…so the valleys of the current mountains may actually be the top of the original Appalachian Mountains.”
“A million seconds is about 11.5 days.
A billion seconds is over 31 **YEARS**.
Think about that when you consider the wealth of a millionaire vs a billionaire.”
“80% of Soviet males born in 1923 didn’t survive WWII.”
“Cows have best friends!! you know how wee see them group all the time but they still has this their very best of friends for them. if they would sperate they’ll get stressed about it. they really have this strong bond.”
“The last execution by guillotine in France was the same year Star Wars hit theaters, 1977.”
“Italy didn’t have widespread use of the tomato until the 1700s and the pasta sauces we think of being a core of their cuisine didn’t exist until the 19th century.”
“There are bears in super rural parts of Russia that are addicted to huffing fuel meant for the power generators, and there’s nothing the locals can do about it, because when the locals try and take away the fuel from the bears it doesn’t go well.”
“Every glass of water you drink is almost 100% guaranteed to have at least one water molecule that was also drank by dinosaurs.”
“Chloroplasts are the organelles responsible for photosynthesis.
A sea slug called the emerald elysia, which has a transparent body, steals chloroplasts from algae and packs them into its own cells.
The chloroplasts continue to photosynthesize, providing the slug with ~80% of the total calories it will consume over its life.”
“There’s a type of jellyfish that’s immortal. The Turritopsis dohrnii, also known as the “immortal jellyfish,” can transform its body into a younger state through a process called transdifferentiation, essentially making it immortal.”
“We need a steady supply of horseshoe crab blood to run our modern medical system. Their blood contains compounds that detect miniscule amounts of harmful bacteria, otherwise IV drugs wouldn’t be safe.”
“The Deepest part of the ocean *isn’t* the abyss. It’s called The Hadalpelagic Zone. It encompasses the bottoms of trenches and sea floor caverns.
And we know frighteningly little about it.
The Challenger Deep is only the deepest *known* part of the ocean. There’s almost certainly points in the ocean that are much deeper.”
“Chimpanzees share more DNA in common with humans than they do with any other primate.”
“Mammoths were alive during the construction of the Great Pyramid.
Also if you put it on a timeline, Cleopatra and Ceaser are closer to today than to the construction of the Great Pyramid.”
“When Betelgeuse goes supernova (if it hasn’t already and we don’t know yet) it will be visible in the day for roughly a year, and several more years we’ll see it at night. That said, the prediction of ‘when’ by scientists is somewhere between today and 100,000 years from now. Odds are, none of us will see it.”
“Gavrilo Princip tried to k*ll Archduke Franz Ferdinand during a parade through the streets of Sarajevo, but could not get close enough to the motorcade because of security. Later in the day, after the parade had been over for hours, Princip retreated sullenly to a small sandwich shop elsewhere in the city, when suddenly and completely out of the f*****g blue, Franz Ferdinand *just happened* to roll past him on his way back from a speech after taking an unscheduled detour down the same street as the sandwich shop. Princip walked right up to the car and shot the Archduke at point-blank range, k*lling him, which started World War I — the deadliest conflict in human history up to that point.”
“Earth’s core is as hot as the Sun’s surface.”
“There are currently more chickens than all other birds combined on this lovely planet.”
“1/120 humans alive today are slaves paid nothing for their work. This doesn’t include low wage slaves such as US prisoners. There are more slaves today than any other point in history.”
“About 25% of people on earth don’t know their birthday because they’re from countries that don’t have birth certificates. That’s why about 14% of immigrants to the U.S. list January 1 as their birthday – because they had to make one up.”
“Australia is wider across than the moon.”
“Saudi Arabia imports sand.
Bonus fact: they also import camels.”
“A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus.”
“The most common cause of death in pregnant women is homicide by their male partners.”
“We ground up most of the ancient Egyptian mummies into powder to paint with or…eat.”
“There is also a shark (greenland shark, i think) that lives like 500 years; so there are sharks alive today that were alive before America became a country.”
“Honey never spoils; researchers discovered edible honey in the pyramids.”
“Screech owls will sometimes bring live sankes into their nests with their chicks nesting inside. Probably because the tiny snakes will eat parasites, although the chicks do sometimes eat the snakes.”
“Caterpillars essentially liquify themselves, before turning into butterflies, in a process called larval ecdysis.”
“The timespan between the use of copper swords and then steel swords is longer then the timespan between the use of steel swords and the nuclear bombs.”