7 fascinating facts that you will most likely find difficult to believe.
Here are some of the most mind blowing facts and stories ever told on earth.
1. Prince Charles drives a wine-fueled car!
The great distinguished heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, has been driving his Aston vintage car for fifty two years now. Given to him by Queen Elizabeth on his 21st birthday, the Prince is determined to drive it for as long as he can, with absolutely no remorse whatsoever. As an environmentalist, he is imperative that a wine fueled car is more eco-friendly than one running on fuels.
2. You are dead before you see it coming!
Wondering what this is?
Get yourself in the path of an expert marksman with a “sniper”. You shall be no more before you know it. A single bullet from this rifle travels at 762 m/s while the speed of sound is 343 m/s, which literally means you will be long gone before you even have the chance of knowing you were a target.
3. Which color is a polar bear? White, right? Unfortunately science and reality seem to think differently.
The apparently white polar bears are not white as many think. Nor is their skin black! Due to their exceptional fur, they can camouflage under different light conditions.
Their fur is transparent and hollow such that when light hits the fur, some of it is absorbed while the rest is scattered away. This gives them a white glowing color because they have reflected sunlight, which is also white. Due to this structural property of their fur, they have the ability to change color under different lighting conditions. On a cloudy day, they appear slightly gray or reddish orange at sunset.
Naturally, their skin is black which is why some of the light is absorbed while the rest is reflected.
Disclaimer: You might question the validity of the picture below, but its absolutely true. Check out its source: https://www.quora.com/What-do-bears-without-fur-look-like
4. A world record holder, the Champawat tigress owns the highest human death toll ever recorded in history.
The Champawat tigress, originating from Nepal, killed more people than thirty years of snakes, tigers and bears altogether.
During her lifetime, she butchered 436 people from Nepal and India while evading many hunters. An experienced player in the hunting game, the tigress had developed wise hunting tactics and even preyed in broad daylight, an unfamiliar behavior for a tiger. Unfortunately for the tigress that had paralyzed life across many regions, it only took three shots from a huntsman to end it its life.
The ferocious beast was only twelve years old when it died in 1907.
5. Mike was headless yet lived for one entire year and some months.
Seventy years ago, a farmer in Fruita Colorado, beheaded a chicken but it persisted. The chicken lived for eighteen months long and earned the farmer and his family a little fame and fortune. It traveled country-wide, appeared on television shows and magazines, and was displayed at several events and carnivals.
For Mike to live that long, he was fed with liquid food and water that was dropped directly into his esophagus. His throat was also cleared from mucus with a syringe.
Now, one day in the middle of the night, the farmer and his wife wake up to the sound of a choking bird only to find it is their lovely Mike. There is no sight of the syringe they used to clean his throat with anywhere. Before they could find an alternative, Mike was already suffocating on his own spit. A few seconds later, he went still.
How had he been able to live that long? Scientists say that most of the chicken’s brain is found at the back of the neck. So when the farmer cut off Mike’s head, he left the part of the brain that controlled digestion, breathing, and other bodily functions intact, leaving him with a chance to live.
Even though this story ended decades ago, Mike the headless chicken hasn’t lost his fame among the people of Fruita. Every year, the city organizes a festival in his honor.
6. Why did pirates wear eye patches? Definitely not to cover a missing or wounded eye.
Eye patches were much more than pirate fashion or a veil for eye injuries to pirates. A pirate with no eye patch was no pirate. These patches gave them a sort of power over their adversaries.
When in battle, the covered eye was better trained to see in the dark which gave the pirates an advantage when fighting below decks.
Science holds it that it takes 25 minutes for a human eye from the sun to get adapted to the dark. But for these brainy pirates, all they did was swap the patch to the other eye and use that already accustomed to low light conditions to see.
7. Have a taste of garlic without getting it close to your mouth.
Chemistry brings us one of its many incredible tricks again: How we can taste garlic with our feet!
The idea is pretty simple. Take your feet, place them in say, a bag of garlic, and rub the bottom of your foot in it, or rub a glove of garlic on it, and you’ll sense its taste in your mouth.
The chemistry behind this is that the chemical allicin, responsible for garlic's unique smell can penetrate into the skin, pass through the bloodstream and end up in the mouth and nose where its pungent odor can be smelled.
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