There are more twins today than ever. This is because the later you decide to give
birth, the higher your chances to get twins — and people today tend to create families
later than ever before. There are more living things on and inside
your body than there are people on Earth. And not just twice or three times so — the
numbers are simply mind-blowing. Speaking of which, bacteria make up from 2
to 9 pounds of your body weight. It’s hard to imagine how many of them there
are in your body. If you have a kid, be prepared for question
bombardment: an average four-year-old asks something over 400 times per day. There’s a chili pepper that you can’t
eat if you want to stay alive. It’s never used in cooking, though: it was
designed as a painkiller. Scientists believe Leonardo da Vinci could
write with one hand and draw pictures with the other at the same time. Talk about multitasking! Your outer skin gets totally replaced each
month. Overall, an average human sheds about 40 pounds
of skin throughout their life. There’s a room in the Microsoft’s headquarters
in Washington that holds a world record for being the quietest room in the world. Standing inside it, you can hear your heart
beating. In August 2010, Beijing witnessed the longest
traffic jam ever: it lasted 10 days and was 62 mi long. The Metric system is the most widely accepted
system of measurement in the world. Only three countries still use the imperial
units: Liberia, Myanmar, and the US. John D. Rockefeller still holds the record
as the richest man in the world: his net worth, adjusted for inflation, is 10 times more than
that of Bill Gates. Starfish can not only regenerate their lost
limbs, but even a limb can regenerate the whole starfish. Thanks to the Montreal Protocol, signed in
1987, scientists believe the Earth’s ozone layer will fully restore itself within half
a century. Yay! In 2011, Forbes decided to estimate the net
worth of Scrooge McDuck. They came to a conclusion that it was $44.1
billion. If taken together, all ants in the world will
weigh as much as the whole human population of the planet, and then some. Chicken are more than twice as numerous as
humans. In 2009, their overall number in the world
was estimated to be 18.6 billion. Purple is the least popular color when it
comes to national flags. There are just two countries in the world
that use it in theirs: Dominica and Nicaragua. If you’ve seen snow in your lifetime, consider
yourself lucky: two-thirds of people on the planet can’t say the same about themselves. Domestic chicken is the closest relative of
dinosaurs. Yes, including the mighty T-Rex. Leaves on trees turn yellow and red come fall
because they don’t have enough warmth and sunlight to produce the green pigment — chlorophyll. Cold nights and bright sunny days mean more
vibrant colors. Bart Simpson should be older now than his
mother was in the first season of the show. That is, if the yellow family aged normally. There’s a $20 coin made in 1933 that was
sold 70 years later for more than $7 billion. Also, it was never actually used as currency. Don’t ever suppress a sneeze if you don’t
absolutely have to. The pressure can result in a rupture of a
blood vessel in your head or neck, which can lead to injury. There’s a town in Honduras where every year,
at around the same time of the year, it rains fish. Scientists don’t have an explanation to
this phenomenon yet. Although there are 24 hours in a day, there
are more than 24 time zones on the globe. Some of them are just 45 or even 30 minutes
apart from their closest neighbors. Jeep is actually an abbreviation: originally,
it was called a G.P., or a general purpose vehicle. The first Native American to greet the pilgrims,
whose name was Samoset, could speak English even before he met them. Sweden is the largest island country in the
world. It has over 221,800 islands, only about a
thousand of which are inhabited. A jellyfish melts in the sun because it’s
95% water. Talk about cucumbers. In 2012, twin girls Amy and Katie were born
87 days apart. They’re now in the Guinness World Records
for the longest gap between the birth of twins. All pandas in the world’s zoos belong to
China. If you see a giant panda at a zoo, you can
be sure it’s just a guest there. If you were to watch every video on YouTube,
you’d have to spend 1,000 years on that. And then about 1,000 times more because of
all the new videos that would appear by then. A mouse’s bones are so flexible it can fit
into a ballpoint pen-sized hole. If you cage one, make sure the grid is small
enough. The most popular language in the world is
not English, and by far. The title belongs to Mandarin Chinese, with
over a billion speakers around the globe. The record for the longest-lasting hiccups
belongs to a man named Charles Osborne. He had this condition for 69 years straight. Human fingers are extremely sensitive as an
evolutionary perk. If your fingertips were the size of Earth,
you’d feel the difference between a one-story house and a car. China is home to the most bicycles in the
world. However, the most bike-friendly city is Copenhagen
in Denmark. A giraffe’s tongue is so long the animal
can clean its own ears with it. Which it does every so often. I am jealous. A hummingbird’s heart beats at the average
rate of 1,200 beats per minute. That’s 20 beats per second! Only about 86% of the world’s adult population
can read, and it’s considered a huge leap forward compared to half a century ago. Lobsters, due to their cold-blooded nature,
can come back to life after being frozen and thawed again. And they are delicious. Just sayin’. Prairie dogs kiss each other to say “hi.” Aww. Facebook can qualify as a country of its own:
today, there are over 2 billion people using it, which is more than the population of the
US, China, and Brazil combined. Africa is a challenger, though: by 2050, it’s
estimated to grow to 2.3 billion people living there. During a flight on an airplane, our sense
of smell and taste is 20 to 50% lower than usual. That’s why the food on board doesn’t seem
delicious. Japan is home to the oldest hotel in the world. It’s been welcoming guests since 705 CE. French was the official language of England
for about 450 years. In 1066, William the Conqueror, who was of
the French origin, brought the language to the country. Some of the first graffiti of the similar
kind we have today appeared in Pompeii. They date back almost 2,000 years. The full name of Oz from the Wonderful Wizard
of Oz by L. Frank Baum was actually Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel
Ambroise Diggs. Yeah, I can see why he shortened it to Oz
– less keystrokes. Cows are highly social creatures, and they
even have best buddies they spend most of their time together with. They become upset if they get separated too. In case you didn’t notice, goats have rectangular
pupils. And they’re the only animals with such an
eye structure. There’s archeological evidence of an extinct
penguin species that was about 6-foot tall. Imagine a penguin looking you straight in
the eye. Hey, nice tux. You too, pal. It rains diamonds on Jupiter and Saturn. This happens because methane turns into carbon,
which then hardens to become graphite and eventually diamond. High heels were originally men’s wear. In Ancient Egypt, butchers wore them to avoid
blood on the floor. Dogs don’t see the world in shades of gray. In fact, they can see colors, just fewer of
them than people. The name of the man who invented cotton candy
was William Morrison. He was a dentist. There’s a thunderstorm in Venezuela that
occurs every year and lasts for about 140-160 nights. It even has a name: Catatumbo. Michelangelo couldn’t stand painting the
Sistine Chapel’s ceiling so much that he even wrote a poem about it. Ever got chills from listening to your favorite
track? It’s because your brain reacts to it by
releasing dopamine — the happiness hormone. Figures. You probably know that tomatoes are technically
berries, right? Well, bananas, peppers, and eggplants are,
too. John Cage, an avant-garde composer, wrote
the longest musical piece in history. It’s supposed to be played as slowly as
possible, and it’s estimated to take 639 years to play to the end. Does the orchestra get paid overtime for that? Black belt in martial arts, such as karate,
translates from Japanese as “first step.” That’s because achieving the black belt
is just literally the first stage of mastering the art, with much more to come yet. Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin
lookalike contest… and lost it! The same happened with Dolly Parton almost
a hundred years later, in 2012. Mark Zuckerberg is red and green colorblind. That’s why he designed Facebook in shades
of blue — that’s the color he can see best. Horseshoe crabs have a total of 10 eyes, two
of which are located right on its hard shell. Well, what did you expect from a creature
that’s called a living fossil?
