40 Extremely Random Things I Just Found Out That Completely And Totally Blew My Mind Last Month
1.This is Ruth Malcolmson, the woman who won the 1924 Miss America pageant:
Let's give it up for Ruth, the champ.
2.There's a bird that looks JUST like Danny DeVito:
It's called a royal tern.
3.This is what a 4,500-pound block of cheese looks like:
Nature is so beautiful.
4.The world's verified oldest woman just had a birthday last month:
Imagine hearing the "Happy Birthday" song 117 times. Heinous stuff.
5.This bad boy is Zach T. Wilcox, owner of the world's longest beard, in 1922:
Whoa, Zach! Save some beard for the rest of us, playboy.
6.This is what a piece of the moon and a piece of Mars look like:
Read and see more here.
7.Slang may just have peaked in the Victorian era:
We gotta bring back the morbs. We gotta.
8.This painting by Leonardo da Vinci is the most expensive painting ever sold:
The painting, "Salvator Mundi," sold for $450 million in 2017. There's also some controversy as to how much Leo had to do with it, but that's for another post.
9.This boat, known as Boomin' Beaver, is apparently the smallest ship in the US Navy:
It's apparently used to "tow small ships and deploy underwater fences." Folks, do we stan the tiny little ship?
10.This is what a Twix that hasn't been dipped in chocolate looks like:
A "nude" Twix, if you will.
11.This is what a stairwell that doesn't loop around and only goes in one direction looks like:
This is like something you'd see in a dream.
12.This right here is a baby platypus, known as a "puggle":
This is the most important thing you'll learn all day.
13.The most points you can get for a word in Scrabble, specifically for the word "oxyphenbutazone," is 1,778:
It's actually the name for a baby ocelot! Just playin' — it's a type of drug.
14.This is how condoms were tested in the 1930s:
Can only imagine the epic water balloon fights at the ol' condom factory.
15.You can tell the difference between cheap pasta and expensive pasta by looking at them:
You know, if you're ever so inclined to inspect your pasta instead of eating it.
16.This is the Hoba meteorite, the largest meteorite on Earth:
The largest that we know of, that is. It's located in Namibia.
17.Hammerhead sharks look absolutely terrifying in X-ray form:
No thanks!
18.This is what the inside of a wind turbine blade looks like:
Would love to rent this out for $850 a month.
19.Some children's doctor's offices put doorknobs up super high on doors so children can't "escape":
This is some Dr. Seussery, right here.
20.This is what a license plate from Antarctica looks like:
Read more about why this exists here.
21.And, finally, this proposed design for a "female urinal" looks...not...great:
I don't see any way that this doesn't end in a disastrous mess. Sound off on how you'd clean this disastrous mess in the comments!
22.This is what a turtle getting an X-ray looks like:
Thoughts and prayers to my man here. You'll get through this.
23.This is the view from the toilet on the 155th floor of the United Arab Emirates' Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world:
Add it to the list.
24.Hail can be really, really, really big:
This is from a storm in Australia, unsurprisingly.
25.Entire houses can be moved on the back of a truck:
Imagine you wake up and look out the window and you're passing Exit 28, Fort Ticonderoga. What a life.
26.This is what a smoker's window looks like compared with a nonsmoker's window:
Can you tell which is which?
27.This is what the inside of a walnut tree looks like:
Shoutout to walnuts. Great nut.
28.The picture, from 1930, shows what the Empire State Building looked like while it was under construction:
Neat!
29.This 65-foot-tall behemoth is the world's largest sandcastle, built in Denmark in 2021:
Just when I was about to be out on the Danes, they go and do something incredible like that. Thank you, Danish peple.
30.Maple leaves...maple leaves can be very, very tiny:
Canada: You need to fix this now. Get it together.
31.This is how big Plymouth Rock is in real life:
Puny little rock. Pathetic.
32.This is one of the world's largest offshore gas platforms, the Troll A platform, located in Norway:
You know me, so you know I don't say this lightly: That is a big platform.
33.This particular breed of sheep, known as Hissar or Gissar, is famous for its large, ample buttocks:
As you can plainly see.
34.This is what a completely empty CVS store looks like:
Nature is wonderful.
35.See that little hole there? This is what Mount Vesuvius looks like from space:
Cool!
36.This is what a counterfeit $50 bill (on top) looks like compared with a real one:
They did my boy Ulysses S. Grant dirty.
37.These are the real-life outfits doctors would wear to treat plague patients in the 1600s:
No thanks! I'm all set.
38.This is what a pineapple that has flowered looks like:
Pineapple continues to surprise and impress me.
39.This isn't a big ol' grape. It's the world's largest single-celled organism:
It's called Valonia ventricosa, and it's a type of algae.
40.And finally, every single letter in the alphabet appears in at least one US state...except for the letter "Q":
No state names have a "Q" in them!