March 2011
A glass ball will bounce higher than a rubber ball, provided that it does not break.
It all goes back to how much energy is lost or retained by the ball you are bouncing. The more energy gets lost to the surface you are bouncing on, the less bouncy your ball will be. If the ball is able to retain that energy, it will bounce higher.
You can test how bouncy your glass is at home. Tap a glass...
February 2011
It has been almost a year since a fact has made the “Top Facts” category on OMG-Facts.
We would like to thank “Ray D from Valparaiso, IN” for the submission of this fact - very clever. However, we must admit that we did tweak his original wording a bit. Ray originally said that “it has been almost a year since a fact has been GOOD enough to make the “Top Facts” category. But that can’t be true....
Charlie Chaplin’s dead body was dug up and held for ransom for over two months.
Weird story, but it’s been fact-checked by Snopes and and it’s totally true!
Chaplin died on Christmas Day in 1977 at the ripe old age of 88. This did not mean that he would ‘rest in peace’ right away, unfortunately. Nine weeks after his burial, a pair of Eastern European men dug up his coffin and hid...
To feed the world’s ever-growing population, we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000.
This is according to estimates that by 2050, the Earth’s population will jump to 9 billion. This is also based on the (somewhat dubious) assumption that in that same period of time, incomes will rise, tripling on average, with incomes quadrupling in the developing...
Elvis Presley won three Grammys, but they were all for his gospel music.
(source)
Apple used to sell a featureless iPhone app for $999.99.
The application, called “I Am Rich,” was developed to serve the purpose its name suggests - simply as a distinction that the user who purchased it is wealthy enough to do so! When activated, the app just shows a glowing red gem onscreen - that’s it. $999.99 is apparently the highest amount a web developer can sell their applications for...
The first successful blood transfusion in a human used blood from a sheep.
The first successful transfusion in general was performed by Robert Lower in 1665, and took place between two dogs! Two years later, Dr. Jean-Baptiste decided to take the process a step further and perform the feat with a human. A drowsy and feverish young man received about 12 ounces of blood from a lamb! After the...
The IRS will still collect taxes after a nuclear attack.
The United States Internal Revenue Service manual lays out the basic ground rules for “continuity planning”, which ensures that the IRS will still be able to function under any number of extreme circumstances. This includes wars, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, pandemic influenza, and yes, even nuclear explosions. (You can read all...
Albert Einstein’s brain was stolen after he died.
The man who performed the autopsy on Einstein’s body shortly after he died was a Princeton pathologist by the name of Thomas Harvey. Harvey removed the brain for examination, as is customary during autopsies, but he never replaced it. At the cost of his job and reputation, Harvey instead placed it in a jar of formaldehyde and took it home!
Over...
The human nose can distinguish more than 10,000 different smells.
There are hundreds of different kinds of neurons in the nose that specialize in recognizing different odors and transmitting those signals to the brain. This occurs when molecules of the things that you can smell travel to your nose. Whatever thing you are smelling (a flower, a piece of fruit, an onion, etc.) gives off light,...
The changing of the seasons can actually cause some individuals to become clinically depressed.
This condition, called Seasonal Affective Disorder (or SAD for short…it’s funny) results in episodes of depression that typically occur each year beginning in the fall or winter. Sufferers usually feel lethargic and are prone to mood changes. Treatment for this disorder includes light therapy,...
We were wrong. Elvis made a music video before the Beatles did.
Elvis Presley’s 1957 single “Jailhouse Rock” predates the Beatles’ music videos by 8 years! That means that our story from October, where we credit the Beatles with making the first music video, was actually incorrect. (You can still read it here though).
While we were right to credit the Beatles for being ahead of their time, the...
The Internet is running out of space.
This is assuming that computing continues to evolve at the rate predicted by Moore’s law, and with more and more people transferring larger amounts of data, including video files. Without a massive investment from Internet service providers to accommodate the increased demand from users, Internet service will be inadequate to address our needs in 3 years. It...
Quebec attempted to secede from Canada in 1995, but the vote fell short by less than 1%.
A referendum in Canada to determine whether Quebec would become a sovereign state or remain a Canadian province ended up being a nail-biter. Only 50.6% of the voters voted “No” with 49.4% voting “Yes” on the 1995 Quebec referendum. The federalists ended up with just 54,288 more votes than the separatists....
In Belgium, there is what looks like a real Super Mario underwater level!
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A plane in China had to be pushed half a mile by its passengers after landing.
Chinese Shandong Airlines Flight CRJ7 arrived at its destination at Zhengzhou Airport in September 2008 with no problems…until breaking down shortly after it landed. The plane had to be removed from the runway, and the only way to do it was to have passengers and airport staff push it! The arduous task of moving...
A billion-dollar yacht has been designed that will look like a mini version of Monaco.
A British firm called Yacht Island Design has drawn up a blueprint for what could be the world’s first billion-dollar yacht, and it is a veritable city on the sea. The “Streets of Monaco” would be a four-level, 500-foot long vessel with to-scale replicas of the country’s most famous landmarks. It would contain...
