17 Not-So-Fun Facts That Are Actually Pretty Damn Dark
BuzzFeed
·9-min read
Warning: This article contains mentions of murder, death, and suicide. Please proceed with caution.
Recently, redditor u/Ghost-5AVAGE_786asked, "What is your not-so-fun fact?" Users from all around the world shared their less-than-fun facts, which ranged from unpleasant to straight-up dark. Here are 17 of them:
If you'd like to learn more about a particular topic, sources have been linked out for each fact.
1.Butterflies are attracted to blood, sweat, and tears in the same way they are attracted to nectar.
2."The low reflective bumper on the rear of an 18-wheeler trailer is called a Mansfield Bar. It's named after actor Jayne Mansfield, who died after her driver ran into the back of a trailer at 2 in the morning in 1967. Jayne, her lawyer, and her children, including 3-year-old Mariska Hargitay, were in the vehicle. The car slid under the trailer and none of the adults survived the crash."
3."Horses can't throw up. If they need to throw up, they'll die."
4."There is a condition in which damaged tissue is replaced by bone. People with this condition are slowly consumed by their own skeleton and have to choose which position they want to spend the rest of their life in after a certain point."
6."Judith Barsi, the girl who played Ducky in The Land Before Time, was shot in the head by her own father after years of abuse at his hands."
7."The first suicide hotline was created after a man — 23-year-old deacon Chad Varah — conducted the funeral of a 13 or 14-year-old girl. She killed herself after she got her period for the first time and assumed it was an STD, since no one talked about periods at the time."
8."There is a whale nicknamed "52 Blue" who is the only whale who sings at a frequency of 52 hertz, meaning it can't communicate with other whales. It is considered the loneliest whale on the planet."
9."When bed bugs have sex, the male stabs his barbed penis directly through the female, into her organs."
10."The same guy — Thomas Midgley, Jr. — invented both leaded petrol and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). I'm not sure if there is another single individual in history who caused more damage to the environment."
11."Female hyenas have a pseudopenis that they give birth through."
12."Bus seats are designed so that you can't tell how dirty they are."
13."Dolphins can be sexually attracted to you and will definitely try to do something about it."
14.Some of what doctors know about hypothermia and how to deal with it came from "Nazi science" in WWII.
15."One of the most common ways to get testicular torsion is just sleeping wrong."
16."Andy was a goose who was born without feet on a farm in Nebraska. He was disabled for the first two years of his life, until an inventor named Gene Flemings heard about his disability and decided to create a new method of movement for him. He initially tried to teach Andy to ride a skateboard but eventually settled on teaching the goose to walk in baby-sized sneakers. Since Gene worked with a local charity for disabled children, Andy became a role model, and even caught the eyes of the media, with Nike offering a lifetime supply of shoes and the pair being featured on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Andy disappeared on October 19th, 1991, and was later found with his head and wings torn off. The perpetrator was never found."
17.And finally, "Melting permafrost could soon present humanity with deadly diseases that we have no vaccines for."
Do you know any not-so-fun facts like these? If so, tell us about them in the comments below.
Note: Reddit comments have been edited for length, clarity, and/or factual accuracy.
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