28 Random Facts That Will Surprise Even The Smartest Of People

by: Lauren Kochanowski
July 17, 2019

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.

1. Killer whales aren’t actually whales. In fact, they’re the largest member of the dolphin family.
2. 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.
3. The Harry Potter book series, PlayStation, and the Rubik’s Cube are among the best-selling products of all time.
4. Humans completely replace their outer layer of skin every month.
5. Naked mole rats are immune to cancer.
6. The odds of being struck by lightning in any one year in the United States is 1 in 700,000.
7. Speaking of lightning, men are six times more likely to be struck than women.
8. There are more lifeforms living on one human’s skin than there are people on the entire planet.
9. The three richest families in the world have more assets than the combined wealth of the world’s 48 poorest nations.
10. There are more than 200 dead bodies lining the summit of Mount Everest.
11. Two-thirds of the world’s population have never seen snow.
12. 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.
13. A shark can detect one part of blood in 100 million parts of water.
14. A strawberry isn’t actually a berry – but a banana is a berry.
15. Mosquitos have killed more people than all of the wars in history. Malaria alone kills more than 600,000 people each day.
16. The tongue is the strongest muscle in the human body (when considering proportion to its size).
17. A flea can jump 350 times its body length. That’s the equivalent of a human jumping the entire length of a football field.
18. If you make ice cubes using tap water, they will appear white. If you make ice cubes using boiled water, they will be clear.
19. You are more likely to be killed by a falling coconut than a shark attack.
20. You are also more likely to be killed by a falling vending machine than a shark attack.
21. The average human consumes one pound of insects each year, mostly from being mixed in with other foods.
22. In France, executing people by guillotine was still legal until 1977.
23. Cows choose best friends and get quite stressed out when they are separated.
24. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
25. For every human, there are 1.6 million ants.
26. On average, the hottest place in the world is El Azizia, Libya, while the coldest place in the world is Antarctica.
27. Dolphins call each other by name.
28. 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.