8 Mildly Impressive Facts You Won’t Believe Were Discovered on Reddit – How Many Will You Bother To Remember?
Reddit is both a wondrous platform where folks from all walks of life can share information and a cesspool where people from a particular walk of life can spread misinformation. But for this article, we’re going to focus on the former, because the last thing we want to read today is gloom and doom! The subreddit “r/todayilearned” is chock full of interesting facts and tidbits that you might have known or even care to know! But we’re going to deliver the goods anyway!
Bananas are actually berries, while strawberries are not
This fact is undoubtedly going to change your perspective on life. Bananas? They’re berries. But strawberries? Their name is built on an unholy foundation of lies! As wise and knowledgeable Redditors have pointed out, the true definition of a berry is a “fleshy fruit that lacks a pit and is produced from a single flower containing one ovary.” Banana right there, friends. Meanwhile, strawberries are actually classified as aggregate fruits, meaning they develop from multiple ovaries within a single flower. In dumb people’s language, each seed on a strawberry is considered an individual fruit. But now that we know the truth, what can we do with it? Meh. Not much.
Cleopatra lived closer in time to today than the Great Pyramid’s construction
It’s really difficult to wrap our heads around the vastness of human history, as anything that took place before the original Star Wars trilogy came out in theaters is of no consequence if we’re being honest with ourselves. But it’s still worth pondering this nugget: the birth of Cleopatra, the last Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt and winner of an Elizabeth Taylor look-alike contest, took place around 2,060 years ago. Meanwhile, the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza was completed approximately 2,530 years before she was born. In other words, the Pyramids were more regarded as ancient history back in her time than her existence is to us. If that doesn’t cause your brain to twist and turn, sorry but that’s all we’ve got.
The sound of the TIE fighters in Star Wars is a mix of screaming elephants and a car driving on wet pavement
Speaking of Star Wars, what makes the franchise so memorable aside from, well, the iconic characters, and we suppose the story itself, is all of the distinct sounds. Think of the distinct hum of the lightsabers or the silly, high-pitched “teedee” from those Jawa thingies. But as Reddit users have pointed out, the sound generated by the TIE fighters involved some real outside-the-box thinking. More specifically, sound designer Ben Burtt surmised that when one of those flying vehicles whizzed by, the sound generated probably resembled that of an elephant’s yell combined with a car driving on wet pavement. So that’s what he went with, and the rest is history.
A “moment” is an actual unit of time equal to 90 seconds
When we tell our friends and enemies that we’ll be back “in a moment,” we generally think of this as “several minutes” or “never,” depending on whether the people we are interacting with can be described as the former or latter. But one Reddit know-it-all let it be known that “moment” is an actual, measurable unit of time, not a mere colloquialism for time briefly passing. Back in the medieval days, rather than dividing an hour into 60 minutes, astronomers were inclined to measure in moments, which came out to 40 an hour, and thus if you are brilliant at math like we are, you’ll find that one moment equals 90 seconds. Or you can just trust us on this one.
The Eiffel Tower grows in the summer and shrinks in the winter
The Eiffel Tower is taller in the summer than in the winter. What? How? Wizard Magic? The explanation is pretty simple, and the Reddit community would be happy to explain if you have a few moments of your life that you don’t mind ever getting back. Iron – which the world’s most overrated touristy structure is made of – expands in heat and contracts in cold. As a result, the Eiffel Tower “grows” around 15 centimeters (6 inches) in length during the summer season. Once winter arrives, it returns to its original height. Impressed? Not really?
The inventor of the Pringles can is buried in one
Next time you decide to pop open a can of Pringles, just keep this in mind: you might actually end up inhaling Fredric Baur’s ashes. Okay, that’s a complete, 100%, unquestionably false lie, so no lawsuits, please, and thanks. Baur, you see, is credited with inventing the iconic cylindrical can that keeps Pringles “chips” (i.e., potato-and-flour-based goo that is molded into the shape of a hyperbolic paraboloid) fresh and intact. And as one Reddit user noted, upon his death, he was cremated and his ashes were put into a Pringles can before his burial. Did his family do this to troll him? Nah, it was his own request. But it sure would have been funny and evil if they’d done this of their own volition.
The world’s quietest room is so silent, you can hear your own blood flowing
Looking for a bit of peace and quiet? You could find yourself in a calm and tranquil pond and go fishing for the afternoon. But then how on earth would you be able to hear your own blood flowing in your veins with all those birds chirping and frogs ribbiting? This is where Orfield Laboratories – home to the quiet room in the world – comes into play. Situated in Minneapolis, the anechoic chamber literally has negative background noise. We’re talking -9.4 decibels, according to Reddit, so quiet that you can actually make out the squishy sound of your blood moving around. Most folks don’t stick around very long as even a few minutes of extreme silence is enough to cause disorientation and the dancing psychedelic lizards and whatnot.
Cows have best friends and aren’t keen on being separated from them
Cows are people too. Not really, but they are social animals just as we are. Indeed, one Reddit post mentioned a study in which cows were found to prefer the company of specific cows within their herd, and when separated from their best pals they would experience anxiety. This should give us all a new appreciation for the emotional lives of these moo-beasts, in addition to how delicious they taste when grilled and put on a bun.
So, how many of these facts did you already know?
