28 Random Facts That Will Surprise Even The Smartest Of People

source: Physics Stack Exchange / Instructables
Human beings are curious by nature. Because of this, we love to learn and absorb new information. The world is an unimaginably large, complex, and mysterious place – that being said, we’re always learning new facts about it! Here are 28 random but fascinating facts that the majority of people don’t know about.

- Killer whales aren’t actually whales. In fact, they’re the largest member of the dolphin family.
- More than 99% of earth’s gold is located in the earth’s core. It sank to the center of the earth billions of years ago.
- The Harry Potter book series, PlayStation, and the Rubik’s Cube are among the best-selling products of all time.
- Humans completely replace their outer layer of skin every month.
- Naked mole rats are immune to cancer.
- The odds of being struck by lightning in any one year in the United States is 1 in 700,000.
- Speaking of lightning, men are six times more likely to be struck than women.
- There are more lifeforms living on one human’s skin than there are people on the entire planet.
- The three richest families in the world have more assets than the combined wealth of the world’s 48 poorest nations.
- There are more than 200 dead bodies lining the summit of Mount Everest.
- Two-thirds of the world’s population have never seen snow.
- You can tell a real diamond from a fake one by breathing on it – a real diamond will stay clear, while a fake one will fog up.
- A shark can detect one part of blood in 100 million parts of water.
- A strawberry isn’t actually a berry – but a banana is a berry.
- Mosquitos have killed more people than all of the wars in history. Malaria alone kills more than 600,000 people each day.
- The tongue is the strongest muscle in the human body (when considering proportion to its size).
- A flea can jump 350 times its body length. That’s the equivalent of a human jumping the entire length of a football field.
- If you make ice cubes using tap water, they will appear white. If you make ice cubes using boiled water, they will be clear.
- You are more likely to be killed by a falling coconut than a shark attack.
- You are also more likely to be killed by a falling vending machine than a shark attack.
- The average human consumes one pound of insects each year, mostly from being mixed in with other foods.
- In France, executing people by guillotine was still legal until 1977.
- Cows choose best friends and get quite stressed out when they are separated.
- An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
- For every human, there are 1.6 million ants.
- On average, the hottest place in the world is El Azizia, Libya, while the coldest place in the world is Antarctica.
- Dolphins call each other by name.
- Oceans take up 71% of the earth’s surface, but humans have only explored about 5% of them. This means that 95% of the earth’s oceans are unknown to humans.