Useless Facts

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Marie Curie's 100-year-old belongings are still radioactive.​

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Nobel Prize-winning scientist Marie Curie died as a result of the vast amounts of radiation she was exposed to during her groundbreaking work. But her body wasn't the only thing to absorb the emissions. Her clothes and belongings—including her furniture, cookbooks, and laboratory notes—were also saturated with the deadly radium particles. That's why, even though Curie died around 85 years ago, her possessions are still radioactive, according to The Christian Science Monitor.


And since radium has a half-life of 1,601 years, they're likely to stay that way for a while. Currently, Curie's laboratory notebooks are being safely stored in lead-lined boxes at France's Bibliotheque National in Paris. Anyone who wants to see them has to first to sign a liability waiver and then agree to wear protective gear.

 

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Most pandas in the world are on loan from China.​

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If you're lucky, you may be able to see a panda or two at a nearby zoo, but that cute creature is most likely on loan from China. In fact, the majority of pandas around the world either come from China or, if they're born somewhere else, have to be sent to a Chinese breeding program before they turn four in order to expand the gene pool of the species.

 

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Sweat doesn't smell bad.​

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Yes, you might stink when you're sweaty, but it's not the sweat that smells bad. Medical News Today explains that body odor—also known as B.O., bromhidrosis osmidrosis, or ozochrotia—is actually caused by bacteria breaking down the protein in sweat and turning it into certain (unpleasant) acids. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about it—except shower, of course.

 

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Sweat doesn't smell bad.​

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Yes, you might stink when you're sweaty, but it's not the sweat that smells bad. Medical News Today explains that body odor—also known as B.O., bromhidrosis osmidrosis, or ozochrotia—is actually caused by bacteria breaking down the protein in sweat and turning it into certain (unpleasant) acids. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about it—except shower, of course.

Mind blown!

 

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More than two-thirds of millennials sleep nude.​

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There are two kinds of people in this world: those who love to sleep naked and those who could never drift off if they aren't wearing proper PJs. But according to a survey conducted in 2018 by MattressAdvisor.com, plenty of people prefer to head to bed in the buff. The poll found that 65 percent of millennials sleep in the nude.

 

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The average person has four to six dreams a night.​

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If you're over 10 years old, you likely have around four to six dreams every single night, The National Sleep Foundation says. And, according to a 2003 study published by the Association for the Study of Dreams, the most common dreams include being chased or pursued, falling, school and studying, and sexual experiences.

 

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Maryland tried to ban Randy Newman's song "Short People."​

Warner Bros. Records
In 1977, Randy Newman sang, "Short people got no reason to live … Well, I don't want no short people … Round here." Although it's meant to be a satirical take on short-sighted people's intolerance and prejudice, the state of Maryland didn't take kindly to the tune. In 1978, delegate Isaiah Dixon Jr. tried to introduce legislation to make it illegal to play the song on the radio, proposing a $500 fine. However, his effort was unsuccessful; the assistant attorney general deemed that the move would be a violation of the First Amendment.

 

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The U.S. Air Force introduced Bob Ross to painting.​

Bob Ross via YouTube
The late Bob Ross, the host of The Joy of Painting, was known for being a soft-spoken artist with a signature hairstyle and a stunning talent for painting dreamy landscapes filled with happy trees. But he might not have ever been the painter we came to adore if he hadn't been in the U.S. Air Force, according to an interview with the Orlando Sentinel. While rising to the rank of Master Sergeant, Ross was also able to take a painting class, and he was inspired by the scenery in Alaska where he was stationed. The state's landscape would often pop up in his work throughout his artistic career.

 

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The sun makes up more than 99 percent of our solar system's mass.​

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The Earth may seem like a giant place, but our planet is incredibly small compared to the sun, which makes up an incredible 99.8 percent of our solar system's entire mass, according to the experts at Space.com.

 

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There's a tiny home in Virginia called the "Spite House" because that's why it was built.​

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In the Old Town district in Alexandria, Virginia, John Hollensbury once owned a house on Queen Street. He apparently hated the fact that horse-drawn wagons would travel down the alley beside his building and wasn't fond of the people who liked to hang out in the space either. So, to spite them, he built a second tiny house in the alley to keep everyone out, which is how the home earned its name: the "Spite House," according to The New York Times. The house is seven feet wide and 25 feet deep. There's also a walled patio outside that goes back an additional 12 feet.

 

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In old Christian art, good angels were red and Satan was blue.​

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If you were to draw the devil, you'd probably give him horns, a tail, and a pitchfork. And even if you decided to take a few creative liberties, there's still a good chance you'd make your demon red from head to toe. But this is a modern interpretation. The oldest representations of Satan in early Christian art actually showed him as a blue angel, while the good angels were red.

 

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The first Nerf ball package claimed the toy "can't hurt babies or old people."​

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When Parker Brothers released the first Nerf ball in 1970, they wanted the public to be aware of how safe the four-inch foam toy was. To do that, they included text on the box that told buyers, "Throw it indoors. You can't damage lamps or break windows." They also added, "You can't hurt babies or old people." What a selling point!

 

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The tallest supported bamboo sculpture is more than 164-feet high.​

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In April 2019, the Kasama Kita Sa Barangay Foundation and the people of Bayambang in the Philippines set the Guinness World Record for the tallest supported bamboo structure. They built a sculpture of St. Vincent Ferrer that stood 164 feet and 9 inches tall.

 

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A Harry Potter book filled with typos sold for $90,000.​

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Although American readers may recognize the book as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the British story was originally titled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. And when a few of the first editions were printed, there were some mistakes inside. On top of the word "philosopher" being misspelled on the back cover, "1 wand" was listed twice when it came to the supplies Harry was meant to take to school. When one of these books was up for auction in March 2019, it sold for a staggering $90,000.

 

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There is a metallic asteroid shaped like a dog bone named "Kleopatra."​

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Space is filled with all kinds of wonders, including an asteroid called "Kleopatra." While it sounds like an Egyptian queen, the metallic minor planet—which has two of its own moons, Alexhelios and Cleoselene—is similar in shape to a dog bone

 

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Queen Elizabeth II's cows sleep on waterbeds.​

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It turns out even Queen Elizabeth II's cows enjoy a life of luxury. The monarch's 165 dairy cows spend much of their time snoozing and relaxing on waterbeds, said Mark Osman, the manager of the royal's farm at Windsor Great Park, in an episode of BBC's Countryfile. "As the cow lies down, the water pushes underneath the pressure points where the cow lies, and the cow ends up floating," he said.

 

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Queen Elizabeth II's cows sleep on waterbeds.​

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It turns out even Queen Elizabeth II's cows enjoy a life of luxury. The monarch's 165 dairy cows spend much of their time snoozing and relaxing on waterbeds, said Mark Osman, the manager of the royal's farm at Windsor Great Park, in an episode of BBC's Countryfile. "As the cow lies down, the water pushes underneath the pressure points where the cow lies, and the cow ends up floating," he said.

That's pretty sad when she could have been spending that money to better her people and kingdom...

 

[01dragonslayer]

A journalist in 1950 predicted that women in the year 2000 would be amazons like Wonder Woman.​

Warner Bros. Television Distribution
In 1950, an Associated Press article titled "How Experts Think We'll Live in 2000 A.D." included a prediction from editor Dorothy Roe, who thought that in the future, the average woman would "outsize Diana," AKA Wonder Woman.

"She will be more than six feet tall, wear a size 11 shoe, have shoulders like a wrestler and muscles like a truck driver," Roe said. "Her proportions will be perfect, though Amazonian, because science will have perfected a balanced ration of vitamins, proteins, and minerals that will produce the maximum bodily efficiency, the minimum of fat." She also thought that women would forgo traditional meals and instead opt for "food capsules."

 

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A British teen changed his name to "Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined."​

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In 2008, then-19-year-old George Garratt from the U.K. legally changed his name to this incredibly long moniker, which was believed to be the longest name in the world. Once he "decided upon a theme of superheroes," he apparently just went for it.

Unfortunately, the name change also meant that his grandmother was no longer speaking to him, Mr. Captain Fantastic told The Telegraph.

 

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According to the Bible, the chicken came before the egg.​

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If you pick up a Bible and flip to Genesis 1:20–22, you'll find the following: "And God said, 'Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.' So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.'"


Therefore, according to Moses, who is credited with writing Genesis, God made birds first and the egg would have come afterward when those birds were "fruitful" and multiplied.