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stranger than fiction
We've all heard the phrase, "stranger than fiction," and for good reason! There are some facts and statistics in the world that are stranger than anything most writers could cook up on the screen behind their desks.
And some of those facts are so strange, it's incredibly hard to believe that they could be true in this dimension, on this planet, and at this time.
Taking notes, Redditor I-eat-foot asked:
"What is your 'Oh f**k off, there is no way that's true' fact or statistic?"
Double- or Triple-Ancient!
"Ancient Egypt lasted so long that Ancient Egyptian archaeology was a career in Ancient Egypt."
- The_Mr_Wilson
"Cleopatra lived closer to our time than the construction of the pyramids."
- magicmulder
So Incredible
"Greenland Sharks can live up to 500 years. They don’t reach sexual maturity until they are over 100 years old. When they get pregnant, gestation lasts up to 18 years."
- RealHumanFromEarth
"This fact being crazy to us is probably how cats and dogs feel towards humans. 'They’re pregnant for nine months? I got pregnant, gave birth, raised my pups, and sent them off to new homes in less than six months!'"
- sweetteanoice
"I like how we are like elves to cats and dogs. We can exist for many of their generations."
- ashmole
Wait, No Way!
"A full-size basketball court can fit inside a soccer penalty box. It still amazes me."
- Bojack-Stillman
"This was the first one I had to Google because I didn’t believe it. That’s pretty wild."
- CouldntBeMoreWhite
Be Prepared, Tall Ones!
"If you're seven feet tall, you have a one-in-six chance of landing in the NBA."
- Yellowbug2001
"I like how this sounds cautionary, as though it can spontaneously happen to some tall dude on his way to pick up some drywall from Home Depot on a random Saturday."
- Cessnateur
Here Comes the Sun
"The Sun contains 99% of the solar system's mass."
- nefariousnessno77
"If you took away 99% of the sun, it would still make up 86% of the solar system."
- Totes_not_an_NSA_guy
Time Travel Worms
"Some worms were frozen solid for over 40.000 years in Siberian permafrost, then some scientists revived them. So they were actually not dead, just resting."
- itscoldinthenorth
Maybe the Hydrogen Got Confused
"There is more hydrogen in one gallon of gasoline than there is in one gallon of liquid hydrogen."
- Hob_o_Rarison
"This is one of my favorites because it’s just so counterintuitive."
- BubbleRaps
One Giant Leap
"It was only 66 years from the Wright Brothers' first flight to Armstrong walking on the moon."
- massstuff09
Quick: New Diet Trend!
"Losing weight? When your body burns fat for calories that mass is turned mostly into carbon dioxide. On a calorie deficit, the excess weight leaves your body through breathing."
"You are getting slimmer by exhaling."
- Chancoop
"(hyperventilates furiously)
- ID10T_3RR0R
Only?!
"There were only 26 episodes of the original 'Scooby-doo.'"
- masstranscience
"Of all the things in this thread, this one got me. I suppose I haven't watched Scooby-Doo in over 30 years but it just seems like there would be hundreds of episodes. I feel like I was watching different episodes all the time as a kid. Crazy..."
- motorwerkx
...Whoa
"Humans and their livestock are 95%+ of mammalian biomass on Earth."
- manyofone1
52 Pick-Up!
"There are 52! (52 factorial) ways to arrange the cards in a standard playing card deck. That's 52 × 51 × 50 × ... × 1, or 80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000."
"That is a bigger number than the amount of atoms in the entire Milky Way galaxy."
"This means that every time any deck is shuffled randomly, it is most likely ending up in an order that has never occurred before since the invention of playing cards and never will again."
- Awkward_Pangolian3254
So Many Fraudulent Charges
"If global fraud were consolidated into a single entity, it would be the third largest financial entity in the world behind the USA and China."
- Herald_of_autumn
So Sleepy
"If you live up to 84 years old, you spent roughly 28 years sleeping."
- DryHealth6257
"The best years, really."
- StinkFingerPear
"Sweet and Terrible"
"Rats can laugh, we just can’t hear it because it’s not in our audible range."
- Knut_Den_Hellige
"My rat once had a lung infection and for a while, we actually did get to hear it. It was the sweetest thing but also terrible. Thankfully, with antibiotics, it went away, but now I know how often they laugh (it's a lot)."
- theholydaddy
Some of these are so unbelievable but also incredibly intriguing. Imagining timelines for how close together some animals and people have lived is mind-boggling, and some of the other facts, like laughing rodents, are borderline haunting.
The more you know!