20 Facts You Didnt Know 5 Minutes Ago

20 Facts You Didnt Know 5 Minutes Ago

Facts You Didnt Know: In the age of the internet, an entire goldmine of knowledge is never more than a few clicks away. The problem is that it sometimes seems like there's just too much out there. How do you decide what's worth knowing and what will only clog up your brain with useless nonsense? That's where I come in. From the weird and wonderful to the downright amazing, coming up are 20 facts you didn't know 5 minutes ago!

A cucumber cure. Picture this: you have a first date planned at a fancy restaurant, but when you arrive, you realize you forgot to bring any breath mints with you. And to make matters worse, you've just ordered garlic bread as a side. Fear not, friend, all you need to do is order a side salad with cucumber! You see, fibrous vegetables, such as celery and cucumbers, boost your mouth's saliva production, which washes away odor-causing bacteria and, in turn, cures bad breath!

For a simple hack, holding a slice of cucumber between your tongue and the roof of your mouth for about 90 seconds can help to eliminate nasty odors. And if there's no cucumber on the menu, parsley also has the same odor-neutralizing effect. So, just discreetly chew on your garnish and you should be covered! Facts You Didnt Know

Facts You Didnt Know: Mysterious fingernail markings

Have you ever glanced down at your fingernails and noticed some bizarre white markings that weren't there before? This kind of discoloration is actually a common condition known as leukonychia. Most of the time, it doesn't signify anything serious, and there are a number of potential causes. The primary reason is as a result of injury to the nail bed, which can occur if you accidentally strike or pinch your nail.

Because of the time it takes your fingernails to grow, you might not even recall the injury by the time any white spots show up. Leukonychia can also appear as an allergic reaction to cosmetic products like polish, gloss, hardener, or nail polish remover. Sometimes, it can also mean your nails are deficient in certain minerals or vitamins, most commonly zinc or calcium. But unless your entire nail turns white and you experience any pain, these markings will usually go away on their own, so there's no need to worry!

Now that I've got you looking at your fingers, why don't you make them useful by heading on over to those Like and Subscribe buttons and showing them some love? See that little bell icon? You should totally tickle that too to make sure you're the first to know when I upload more amazing content. Now, let's gets get back to boosting your brains.

Say, "Prunes." Before you have your photograph taken, you expect to hear the oh-so-familiar phrase, "Say cheese!" But back in the day, prunes were on the menu instead. In the 1800s, most people weren't comfortable smiling due to a general lack of good dental hygiene, which meant they didn't have very attractive teeth. Having your photograph taken was also considered a luxury and was treated with a good deal of seriousness, meaning a big cheesy grin was seen as childish.

So, photographers in British studios in the 1840s told people to say prunes to keep their mouths taught instead. And that predates today's fish-faced pout by about 180 years! By the mid-20th century, photography had become much faster, cheaper and more casual. Plus, people had better teeth. (bell rings) So, when Kodak started making cameras in the U.S., which ordinary people could afford to buy, they marketed them with photographs of smiling faces. Former Ambassador Joseph E. Davies was the one to come up with the idea to say cheese as the perfect formula for an instant smile. And the rest is history! Facts You Didnt Know

Facts You Didnt Know: A flaming-hot invention

• Flamin' Hot Cheetos' Creation: Richard Montanez’s story is a remarkable tale of innovation and perseverance. The idea for Flamin' Hot Cheetos came from a simple accident—a broken machine leading to an unseasoned batch of Cheetos. Montanez, inspired by a favorite snack from a street vendor, dusted the plain Cheetos with chili powder and pitched the idea to PepsiCo. His success story is not only about creating an iconic product but also about how perseverance and creativity can lead to big opportunities, even from humble beginnings.
• Chocolate Differences Across the Atlantic: The second part delves into the regulatory differences that shape the taste of chocolate in the U.S. versus Europe. European chocolate is creamier and richer because of stricter standards for milk solids and milk fat percentages. These slight differences in ingredient requirements contribute to the chocolate being more decadent, with a stronger chocolate flavor. The comparison reflects how even subtle regulations can significantly affect the end product, explaining why many find European chocolate superior in taste.

In 2019, Flamin' Hot Cheetos were declared America's favorite snack brand for the third consecutive year. But what if I told you that the super-addictive snack nearly didn't exist at all? In 1976, 18-year-old Richard Montanez was hired as a janitor at a Frito-Lay plant in Rancho Cucamonga, California. The position paid $4 an hour with benefits, and Montanez's wife filled out the application for him because he struggled to read and write. While on the job, Montanez noted that a broken machine on the Cheetos assembly line had spat out a batch of plain Cheetos, without the cheese powder dust. Facts You Didnt Know

Montanez took the Cheetos home and dusted them with chilli powder. He credits the idea to a favorite snack: grilled corn dressed with lime and chilli powder, sold by a local street vendor. Montanez first pitched the idea to former PepsiCo CEO Roger Enrico over the phone and was given two weeks to prepare a presentation to the executive suite. Of course, it was an instant hit! Montanez went on to become an executive vice president at PepsiCo North America, and is now a bestselling author and motivational speaker. What an inspiration! (air whooshes) Choc the difference.

If there's one thing Americans and Europeans will always bicker over, it's chocolate. If you've sampled both sides, there's no denying that choccy tastes totally different across the pond. But why? The simple answer is different regulations. Firstly, European chocolate is technically creamier because it requires a minimum of at least 14% dry milk solids, while the minimum amount in the U.S. is 12%. Euro chocolate is also slightly richer because it's required to contain at least 3.5% milk fat compared to the 3.39% needed in the U.S. What's more, European chocolate is, well, just more chocolatey. Facts You Didnt Know

That's because it has also has a higher requirement for cocoa content, which gives bars their deep flavor. But that's not the only reason why Europeans love to hate American chocolate. You see, Hershey's also uses a special ingredient that sets it apart from the rest: butyric acid. This ingredient makes the chocolate last longer on shelves, but also gives it that tangy flavor that many foreigners find off-putting. Does that settle the age-old Hershey's versus Cadbury debate for you?

Let's start a healthy discussion about this unhealthy treat in the comments below. Which brand of chocolate do you personally prefer? And if you can think of any other foods that taste different in your country, go ahead and let me know. I'm genuinely interested. Let's get back to the facts.  Dunce caps for smart people. At one point in the Middle Ages, the dunce cap we now associate with idiocy and punishment was actually a symbol of respected scholars. It all began with master philosopher and metaphysical thinker John Duns Scotus, whose name later lent itself to the phrase dunce cap. Facts You Didnt Know

Scotus was a proponent of the use of pointy hats, believing they would somehow act as a reverse funnel for knowledge, with wisdom flowing into the pointed tip and spreading to the brain below. These hats were also popular among his followers, known as Dunsmen, and therefore, became a signifier of high intelligence. But by the mid-16th century, popular thought had begun to turn against Scotus, and the Dunsmen came to be associated with idiocy instead. Naturally, their pointy hats were adopted as a symbol of stupidity, and found their way into elementary school classrooms where they were used to traumatize and humiliate kids until the late 1950s. Facts You Didnt Know

Facts You Didnt Know: The Spanish Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower is one of the first things that come to mind when someone asks you to think of France. But this world-famous landmark almost ended up in Spain! Designer Gustave Eiffel first pitched the plans for the monument to Barcelona. But the city rejected his ideas, thinking it would look like an eyesore. He was forced to repitch the project elsewhere, and the tower found its home in Paris, where it served as the main archway for the 1889 International Exposition. Surprisingly, the Parisians didn't like it much either. One critic even referred to the enormous iron structure as a "metal asparagus." Facts You Didnt Know

The tower wasn't supposed to stay up for long, and was even offered up for sale as scrap. It was only spared because the French army found that its 984-foot height worked pretty well as a communications tower. Thankfully, this famously-hated sculpture has since survived to become one of the world's most well-loved landmarks! (air whooshes) Who needs kneecaps? Did you know that a baby's body has about 300 bones at birth, compared to the 206 bones that adults have?

Over time, the process of smaller pieces fusing together reduces the number of bones in the body. One seemingly crucial thing babies aren't born with is kneecaps. Instead, babies are born with a piece of cartilage that will eventually become a bony kneecap, or patella. Facts You Didnt Know

Cartilage, which can be found in the nose, ears and joints, is flexible and gives structure where it's needed in the body. Most children's kneecaps begin to ossify, that is, turn from cartilage into bone, between the ages of two and six. Often, several pieces of cartilage will begin to harden into bone at the same time until the kneecap is one complete bone by the age of about 10 or 12. Being born with kneecaps could actually make the birthing process more difficult, or could even result in birth injuries because bone is rigid and less flexible than cartilage. Isn't the human body smart?

Facts You Didnt Know: Space booze

Drifting 10,000 light years from Earth in a constellation far, far away is a massive cloud of alcohol. The cloud, which was discovered in 1995 near the constellation Aquila, is 1,000 times larger than the diameter of our solar system. What's more, it contains enough ethyl alcohol to fill 400 trillion trillion pints of beer. Anyone got a rocket I can borrow? Sadly, the cloud is 58 quadrillion miles away, so an interstellar pub crawl is probably off the cards. Facts You Didnt Know

What's more, it contains a cocktail of 32 compounds, and some, like carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide and ammonia, aren't so desirable. Another alcohol cloud, called Sagittarius B2, also holds 10 billion billion billion liters of mostly methanol alcohol, which is used in anti-freeze and windshield-wiper fluid.

But how did this cosmic hooch get up there? Well, if the conditions are just right, simple alcohol compounds can form completely naturally in space, often on the surface of bits of floating space dust. As this dust moves within the high-energy vicinity of celestial bodies, like stars, the alcohol is forced to separate from the dust, forming massive alcohol clouds, which then float off, presumably to get some aliens very drunk. I wonder if space booze goes well with moon cheese?

Use your head. How many times have you parked your car in a parking lot and walked away only to realize you forgot to lock it? Instead of retracing your steps towards the car until it's in range, there's one simple way to reach your car from further away: hold the metal key part of your key fob against your chin, then press the lock button. You might look slightly weird while doing it, but you'll be grateful when it saves you a few extra steps. Facts You Didnt Know

The trick works by turning your head into an antenna, according to Silicon Valley radio engineer Tim Pozar. With all the fluids in your head and the electrical currents flowing in your body, your noggin ends up being a pretty decent conductor. It won't work across great distances, but using your head can actually extend the key's wireless range by a few car lengths!

Battery hack. Most modern smartphones are supposed to have a great battery life. But it seems to me like they're always dying when you need them the most! Thankfully, there's one super-simple way you can make the most out of your remaining juice. If, like most people, you carry your smartphone around in your pocket, then part of the problem might be that your pocket is too warm. You see, cell phone batteries do actually last a bit longer if they're kept cool.

The average 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit body heat of a human being, when transmitted through a cloth pocket to a cell phone inside, is enough to speed up chemical processes inside the phone's battery. As a result, it runs down at a faster rate. The simplest way to keep your phone cooler is to carry it inside your bag or on a belt clip instead. And if you ever find yourself away from home without a charger, you can switch off your phone and pop it in the refrigerator to slow the battery losing charge. I don't recommend using the freezer though.

Surprising salmon. Salmon is one of the most popular seafoods in the world. But if you've ever prepared the fish yourself, then you'll have probably run into the issue of that white funky stuff that seems to appear when you cook it. Most people assume it's just fat, but the white gunk you see oozing from your dinner is actually a simple protein called albumin. Whether boiled, baked, fried, or barbecued, the substance will still appear. Facts You Didnt Know

Albumin lives in fish in liquid form and appears when the muscle fibers are heated and they contract, pushing out the white-colored protein. Although it's totally safe to eat, some people find it unsightly. To try and remove albumin, you can either blot the cooked fish with a paper towel or brine it before cooking. To brine your fish, just give it a quick soak in a blend of sea salt and water, which should help to relax and dissolve the muscle fibers and minimize the appearance of albumin. Facts You Didnt Know

Facts You Didnt Know: Giggling rodents

Rats aren't the most conventionally cute animals, but their reputation as disgusting vermin seems a little harsh, especially when you learn that they're ticklish! A study conducted in 2016 was able to pinpoint the tickle center of the mammalian brain, showing for the first time that stimulating neurons in that particular region can elicit a series of ultrasonic squeaks that are too high to be heard by human ears.

Shimpei Ishiyama, a neuroscientist at the Humboldt University of Berlin, noted that the rats not only return over and over again to the place where they were tickled, but that tickling their bellies also triggers the neurotransmitter dopamine in the key reward-related brain circuits in the rodents. If that wasn't enough to prove that they love being tickled, rats also show a classic display of positive emotion found in many species, such as dogs, foxes, and even human children, called joy jumps. True to their name, this involves leaping into the air with both legs together. Talk about a cuteness overload! Facts You Didnt Know

Disappearing socks. During a clothes wash, socks seem to creep into the yawning abysses of the laundry drum, never to be seen again. But where do they really go? There are actually a couple of explanations for their mysterious disappearance. If you have a top-loader machine, a sock could sneak into the crevice between the inner and outer drums, then get snagged in the water drain or pump as a result of overloading the appliance. It's also possible for a sock to get stuck underneath the spinning agitator. For front-loading washers, though, a rogue sock might get lodged just underneath the rubber water seal known as the gasket.

And if you pull this part back, you could find a goldmine of lost socks. Even if socks do make it to a dry cycle, they can be easily victimized by static electricity and get stuck to the inside of pant legs or other materials during the folding process. In short, no, there isn't a sock-eating monster in your washing machine! (air whooshes) Waterfall wonders. Niagara Falls is pretty big, but it's far from the biggest waterfall known to man. Some claim Angel Falls in Venezuela is the world's tallest, with a staggering height of 3,212 feet and a plunge of 2,648 feet. But that doesn't even come close to the truth.

The Denmark Strait is more than three times the height of Angel Falls, and it can be found in the ocean. That's right, this mammoth waterfall, located near the southern tip of Greenland, begins 2,000 feet under the ocean surface and plunges to a depth of 10,000 feet; a nearly two-mile drop! What's more, the Denmark Strait carries an estimated 123 million cubic feet of water per second. That's equivalent to almost 2,000 Niagara Falls at peak flow! But how can a waterfall happen underwater? Simply put, cold water is denser than warm water. In the Denmark Strait, southward-flowing frigid water from the Nordic Seas meets warmer water from the Irminger Sea.

The cold, dense water quickly sinks below the warmer water and flows over the huge drop into the ocean floor, creating a downward flow that goes completely undetected without the aid of scientific instruments!

Facts You Didnt Know: An iPhone secret

Apple's newest set of iPhones come with a whole array of new features, not to mention a hefty price tag. But there's one thing that sets the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max models apart from their predecessors. In addition to the three super-powered cameras, look a little closer at the back of the phone and you'll notice an inconspicuous black dot in the bottom right corner. It's completely flat to the touch and pretty easy to miss on first glance. But what is it? Facts You Didnt Know

It's officially known as a LiDAR scanner, which stands for light detection and ranging. This is a radar-related method for optical distance and speed measurement which uses tiny laser beams that can't be perceived by the human eye. A LiDAR scanner determines the distance between itself and an object by monitoring how long it takes a laser to bounce back. By sending hundreds of thousands of light pulses every second, LiDAR scanners can accurately work out distance and object sizes over small distances.

The data can then be used to construct 3D-models of any environment. So, whether you're an architect drawing up building plans, an archeologist creating real-time 3D-maps, or a gamer who loves augmented reality, this swanky new scanner could revolutionize the way we use our phones!

Old school sunglasses. Sunglasses, as we know them today, were first invented sometime in 12th century China. The primitive frames were a crude slab of roughly-shaped smoked quartz made to block out the sun. The darkened lenses were only available to the very rich. They weren't vision-corrected and didn't offer protection against harmful UV rays, but they did help to hide emotions from others while talking.

This was particularly handy for Chinese judges at the time, who routinely wore smoke-colored quartz lenses which allowed them to conceal their true feelings and seem emotionally detached while questioning the accused. But centuries before Chinese judges found a use for sunglasses, rudimentary snow goggles had been used by Inuit and Yupik communities. These snow goggles would be made from driftwood, ivory or bone with a slit cut into them, and protected the eyes from sunlight reflecting off bright white snow. Facts You Didnt Know

I guess they had permanent Cinemascope vision too! (air whooshes) No fancy riding. There are plenty of bizarre laws across the United States of America, but one particular law in the city of Galesburg, Illinois is a real sucker for cyclists: no fancy riding. For a definition of fancy riding, look no further than the Galesburg Code of Ordinances, which states that "no rider of a bicycle shall remove both hands from the handlebars, or feet from the pedals, or practice any acrobatic or fancy riding on any street."

Well, that rules out Galesburg for my cycling circus tour! According to a Galesburg police officer, the bizarre law probably came about during a time of great concern about bicyclists' safety when there were more crashes than usual. Thankfully, the law is seldom enforced with any punishment, so kids are free to take their hands off the handlebars without the fear of being thrown in jail! Life-saving foil seals. Ever wondered why pill bottles have protective foil seals beneath the lid? You might assume it's there to keep the pills airtight, but the real reason is far more morbid. On September 29th, 1982, Mary Kellerman took a Tylenol for a cold.

A few hours later, she was dead. That same day, Adam Janus died in exactly the same circumstances. When his brother and sister-in-law visited and developed headaches, they took Tylenol from the same bottle and both perished within the next two days. In the days that followed, three more people suffered the same mysterious fate. By early October, investigators discovered that the pills the victims took were laced with cyanide!

Over 31 million bottles of Tylenol were recalled, and a couple more deadly bottles were found on shelves in the Chicago area. Someone had taken the bottles off the shelves, put cyanide into the pill capsules and then placed them back. The criminal was never caught, but the following year, U.S. Congress published the Tylenol Bill, making it a federal offense to tamper with consumer products. And in 1989, the FDA established federal guidelines for manufacturers to make all such products tamper-proof, which included protective foil seals!

Ancient apples. They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away. But what if that apple had been sitting around for a year? Sounds totally gross, but here's the catch: most people have eaten a year-old apple at some point. Apples ripen during a very short period in the U.S., between August and September, so keeping them in stores for the rest of the year means they must be treated with chemicals and kept in cold storage. In a warehouse setting, apples usually sit for at least 9 to 12 months, with one investigation even finding that the average supermarket apple is 14 months old! But that's not all. Facts You Didnt Know

Scrape a supermarket apple with a knife and you'll notice something strange. The white substance you see here is actually shellac or carnauba wax, which is used to keep the apple fresh. Apples actually produce their own natural coating of wax, but some of that is washed away when growers wash the fruit to remove field dirt or any leaf litter. Applying an artificial coating of wax not only makes the apple look shiny and new, but helps to seal in the moisture, extending its life.

But the coating can also act as an oxygen barrier, meaning the apple may look deceptively fresh but is actually soggy and tasteless inside. What's more, consuming the wax in large doses could be harmful to the colon and small intestine. So perhaps it's best to stick to just one apple a day from now on! Which of these facts impressed or amazed you the most? Let me know down in the comments below. you can read more about Facts You Didnt Know here. you can watch more about Facts You Didnt Know: