Recently, Reddit user u/Dapper_Exam_202 asked the people of r/AskReddit, "What is ONE USELESS FACT that everyone needs to know?" Here are some of the most-upvoted replies:
1. "A human's ability to smell petrichor (smell of wet earth from rain) is 200,000 times greater than a shark's ability to smell blood in water."
2. "Lighters were invented before matches."
3. "The King of Hearts is the only king in a deck of cards without a moustache."
4. "Helicopter' isn’t heli + copter; it’s helico (spiral) + pter (wing)."
5. "The inventor of the Pringles can was buried in a Pringles can. (Yes, he was cremated first and only part of his ashes were buried in a can. I’m not telling you which part.)"
6. "A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time. It is the time light takes to travel femtometre, which is a millionth of a millionth of a millimetre. There are about three hundred thousand billion billion jiffys in a second."
7. "A woodpecker's tongue splits at the back of its head and wraps around its skull."
8. "Nintendo was founded in 1889. They made playing cards. Coca-Cola was first served in 1886. Dracula was published in 1897 and was set in the same time. Ergo, you could have a Dracula adaptation where Dracula drinks a Coke and plays Nintendo and it would be historically accurate."
9. "Russia has a bigger surface area than Pluto. You could literally fit all of Pluto into Russia."
10. "The Rolls-Royce Ghost was initially so quiet it made drivers feel nauseous and sick, so they had to intentionally allow more sound to come into the vehicle."
11. "The board game Monopoly was originally invented as a way to teach the player about the negative effects of unbridled capitalism."
12. "Cats have the cognition to comprehend the passing of time."
13. "Dolly Parton was included in the production of Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
14. "Baby hedgehogs are called hoglets. It's super important that you look at pics of them."
15. "Bananas are berries, but strawberries are not."
16. "A group of pandas is called an 'embarrassment.'"
17. "All mammals above a certain weight pee for an average of 21 seconds, no matter if it’s an elephant or a skunk."
18. "Earth is the only planet in our solar system that doesn't take its name from Greek or Roman mythology."
19. "Honey never spoils. Archaeologists have found pots of honey in ancient Egyptian tombs that are over 3,000 years old and still perfectly edible."
Shout out to u/Dapper_Exam_202 and r/AskReddit for having this discussion.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.