"Humans Glow!": 25 Facts That Give Off False Energy But Have Been Proven True

Even if we like to think that anything is possible, we still expect reality to follow certain rules of logic. Yet the world is a surprising place where things don’t always seem to make sense. We can’t always explain how conflicting aspects of reality can all be true, but that doesn’t make them any less real. These days, we may be more accepting of the world’s paradoxes, but they can still astonish us. When someone online asked, “What sounds like complete nonsense but has been proven to be true?” Redditors offered all kinds of examples. We’ve collected a few favourites in the gallery below that are sure to leave your brain thoroughly bemused.

#1

Image source: NerobyrneAnderson, Visual Karsa There are more castles in Germany than McDonald's in USA.

#2

Image source: brennandd0, Luismi Sánchez Tumbleweeds are not native to North America. They are invasive.

#3

Image source: ProofIndependence439, Ramez E. Nassif HUMANS GLOW! We glow an infrared light from biochemical reactions. it's just too weak for your eyes.

#4

Image source: roadsideweeds, CDC If you take a tiny bit of weakened virus, or just the part of it that says "hey I'm such and such virus," and put it in your body it will later protect you (and those around you) from said virus.

#5

Image source: an_older_meme, Anıl Görkem Özşan Tall people are more likely to get cancer than short people because having more cells increases the chance that any one of them will mutate. They're basically just bigger targets.

#6

Image source: Degonjode, Getty Images In an experiment where ground-breeding bird nests were observed, deer raided more of the nests than foxes and wildcats.

#7

Image source: GreatTragedy, Jon Tyson One aspect that makes memory unreliable in detail is that you only remember an event one time. After that, each time you recall it, you're only remembering the last time you remembered it, not the event itself. Memory is a game of telephone we play with ourselves.

#8

Image source: ActafianSeriactas, John Morton The platypus.

#9

Image source: xenomorphbeaver, National Cancer Institute Placebos show positive effect even when you know you're being given a placebo.

#10

Image source: Calm-Professional103, Oren Jack Turner Quantum entanglement. Einstein called it “spooky action at a distance”.

#11

Image source: weekendclimber, Vadim Sherbakov Oxford University is older than Machu Picchu in Peru.

#12

Image source: Gail_the_SLP, Faruk Tokluoğlu We have little crystals in our inner ear. If they get out of place, it can upset your sense of balance. It’s sometimes possible to get them back into place by moving your head a certain way. I’m a speech pathologist. I studied audiology and the anatomy of the speech and hearing mechanisms, but that was over 25 years ago and I never heard about these crystals. Apparently they were discovered before that time so I don’t know why we were never taught about them. My mom told me the doctor had her move her head to get her crystals back in place and I thought it was a total hoax until I looked it up.

#13

Image source: usps_made_me_insane, Osarugue Igbinoba Most of the cells in your body don't belong to you. We are a superorganism. We evolved a symbiotic relationship with good gut bacteria. You literally need and depend on bacteria inside your body to perform functions your body cannot perform on its own. .

#14

Image source: chalk_in_boots, Harshal S. Hirve Carrots make you see better in the dark. A lie created by the British in WWII so the Germans didn't realise the radar the British pilots had. Later it was discovered the keratin in carrots actually *does* help you see at night.

#15

The Banach-Tarski Paradox. It's a mathematical theorem that essentially states, if you have a solid ball, you can break it up into five disjoint sets of points, move them and rotate them, and end up with two separate solid balls of the same size as the original. In effect, duplicating a ball by cutting it up and rearranging it. I love me my weird math facts, but this is one that I have trouble accepting sometimes. Image source: FireFerretDann

#16

In my area (linguistics), the idea that languages can't be correct or incorrect. We grow up in such policed language environments in school that we normalise this entirely. "Correct" language is quite literally what people want it to be, same with "incorrect" or "bad" language. Image source: SeaPride4468

#17

Image source: DavosLostFingers, Caleb Miller Per capita, the Vatican City has the highest crime rate in the world.

#18

Image source: SendMeYourDPics, Ocean Ng That time literally runs at different speeds depending on where you are. Because of gravity and relativity a clock on the floor ticks a tiny bit slower than a clock on a shelf and scientists have actually measured the difference with insanely precise atomic clocks.

#19

Image source: crimsonbub, Planet Volumes The closest planet to Earth is... *usually Mercury*. Because Venus has a longer orbit and spends more time the other side of the Sun, while Mercury has far less of an orbit and does it quicker.

#20

A woodpeckers tongue wraps around its skull. Image source: the_mindful_microbe

#21

Image source: Professional_Wrap_34, Katherine Marchena There are more stars in the observable universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world.

#22

Image source: 0n10n437, Getty Images You are mostly made of empty space between atomic particles.

#23

Humans have stripes, they're called blaschko lines, they only normally appear visible if you have specific skin conditions/syndromes. There are theories though that some animals can see them visibily even without those presenting conditions, which would be funny, if our pets are just thinking we're goofy striped animals. Image source: vampire369

#24

There used to be blue people in the US. Seems like the sort of thing they should’ve taught us in history class. Image source: GroundbreakingRip970

#25

"The old man the boat" That is a perfectly grammatically correct and complete sentence. They're called garden path sentences and are plays on how we typically encounter words and our biases in how we interpret them. If you want a crazy one: "The rat the cat the dog bit chased escaped." That is a perfectly grammatically correct and complete sentence. Image source: WinterExcellent

#26

Image source: SafariNZ, Nico Smit The French Secret Service placed a limpet mine on a Greenpeace ship and sunk it to stop it protesting French Nuclear Testing in the Pacific. They were so incompetent 2 were caught in days and the others only just managed to escape via submarine after sinking their yacht. Using trade, the French Govt then blackmailed the New Zealand Government into releasing the captives. England (NZ’s founder) refused to support them and then the USA turned against NZ because of NZ’s no nuks stand. All this drove NZ to have an independent foreign policy so they no-longer automatically follow anybody else’s lead. So much for relying your friends and allies and history now repeating with the US giving the finger to the whole world except former enemies!

#27

Image source: amlyo, Andrej Lišakov Sometimes when you move your eyes to look at a clock the second hand appears stuck for a moment because your brain retroactively edits your memory of the time your eyes were moving so you believe you've been looking at the clock longer than you have.

#28

Today, I learned about left-handed anger! If you have an angry impulse, act it out with your left hand instead cause you look so weak and stupid doing it, It's automatically funny and you deescalate yourself. Image source: ArtByAeon

#29

Transmutation It's what scientists do with supercolliders, basically. A substudy of nuclear chemistry. Image source: fiendish-trilobite

#30

Image source: BillyGrillie, Getty Images Sharks existed on Earth long before trees did.

#31

Image source: whitneywhisper_2, Robina Weermeijer You can survive without a significant portion of your brain.

#32

Image source: Level_Profession_659, Clément Falize Dragonflies experience up to 9Gs when cornering, they are the most efficient preditor catching up to 95% of the prey they go after, they breath through their bums and most varieties (not sure if that's the correct word) can't walk.

#33

Image source: wanderandwrite, Dhmmjoph The average color of the universe is a shade of beige. Google "cosmic latte".

#34

My personal favorite: you'll find more genetic diversity in a room full of 50 chimpanzees than in the entire human species. Image source: Pyran

#35

Image source: sunbearimon, Curated Lifestyle There are more ways to shuffle a standard deck of cards than there are atoms in the solar system. By a lot. It’s not even remotely close.