There are question marks all around us, and if you’ve ever had a toddler in your house, you’ve probably been made aware of roughly 1,000 that had never even occurred to you. The vast majority of us will, at some point in our lives, either drop the questions, or direct them down a particular path.
But the questions are still there – we might just not realize that we haven’t asked them. And it might not even occur to us to ask them until they’ve already been answered!
There are different kinds of tears, and they even look different under a microscope.
These are dried human tears, each expressed under different conditions, as viewed under a microscope. There are distinct molecular differences to tears based on why you cry them.
The original software patches were literal patches.
Remember, in the early days of computing, the machines used punch cards. When programmers needed to make changes to their programs, they went back and patched up their punch cards and put holes where they should be.
Plants can be albinos, too.
Well, albinos of a sort. This mint plant has no chlorophyll, making it appear stark white instead of green.
And how does a plant with no chlorophyll even survive? By leeching nutrients from nearby plants – so it’s probably more accurate to say it’s a vampire plant rather than an albino.
Animals have some strong instincts.
So, what do birds do when they don’t have access to twigs and grass and the like? They still build their nests – as here, where pigeons have made a nest out of whatever materials they could.
Myth confirmed.
You know that urban myth about being able to clean rust off using cola? Well, this person decided to experiment on a rusty lock, and presto, the rust came off after a cola bath. It’s not exactly shiny and new, but it’s certainly an improvement.
That’s a heck of a shelf life.
We all know that pasta stays good for a heck of a long time, but these noodles are on another level entirely. Unearthed in China back in 2005, they were buried for approximately 4,000 years.
The bowl of noodles had been prepared and were ready to be eaten but an earthquake struck. The bowl flipped over and ended up preserving them for four millennia.
What a difference a focal length makes.
Hey, if you’ve ever wondered why your pictures don’t turn out quite as you’d hoped, check this out.
This is the same person photographed with two different focal lengths. For the record, experts say that a 50mm focal length is the closest to natural human vision.
Getting the lay of the land.
Hey, that Street View feature we’ve all come to know and love has to come from somewhere, and this is how Google gets it: a person just walking the streets carrying around a giant backpack.
There are remnants of the past all around us.
Like this improbable, oddly casual spot for a chunk of Ancient Roman-era wall, just sitting in a parking garage in London. Old Londinium just pokes through in spots, apparently.
And then there’s this.
We all know that trees can be time capsules, but that’s usually a matter of counting the rings. This one has been hiding something for a long time – a musket ball.
The uploader wrote that it was right in the heart wood, too, and figured the tree had been shot about 180 years ago.
Somebody outfitted this car for a special purpose: recreating the cross-country race from the *Cannonball Run*.
You might expect the Lamborghinis and Ferraris and Porsches you saw in the movie, but this is clever – it’s not going to attract a ton of attention from the cops.
And it has extra fuel capacity so it doesn’t have to stop for gas as often, as you can see in the bottom pic.
A spider got inside this clock and did what spiders do.
I know I had never had the internal debate over whether spider webs could stop the sweep of a clock’s hands, and now I don’t have to. I have seen that indeed, a spider can stop the march of time.
If nature or human intervention makes a tree grow horizontally, you’ll likely see its branches reach for the sky.
Apparently, those who dedicate themselves to caring for Bonsai trees refer to this type of growth as “raft style.”
If you’ve ever wondered how locksmiths and others who train to pick locks learn how to do it, the answer isn’t simply “the hard way.”
As you can see, transparent locks like this help give students a frame of reference for what they’re doing and why their picking attempt either succeeded or failed.
This photo’s uploader claimed they captured their friends exchanging a “lightning fist bump,” which means they caught the static shock between them on camera.
Although one commenter accused them of holding a glow stick between their hands, what’s going on here does resemble a genuine example of static electricity appearing on camera.
So while it’s improbable that the uploader timed this picture so perfectly as to catch an actual static shock, it’s not impossible.
Those who have always wanted their baked beans to be Dr.Pepper-flavored for whatever reason are in luck.
Because as we can see here, there is a company that sells precisely that product.
One retailer has attracted pretty divisive reviews for this product but it also seems their stocks have sold out.
I’ll just be diplomatic and call this “an acquired taste.”
If you’ve ever lain awake at night wondering how they ship forklifts, I’m happy to present you with your answer.
Apparently, they’re shipped while overturned and bolted to a frame to keep them secure.
And as the uploader explained, getting them on their wheels once they make it to their destination requires a large pickup truck with a generator and a crane.
You either broke open a snap bracelet as a kid and discovered the truth or you didn’t.
And if you didn’t, the care you took with your belongings can now be rewarded as you’ve learned that they pretty much all contain measuring tape inside without actually having to wreck one.
Although there’s something scenic about the elevated cemetery of St. Olave’s Anglican Church in London, it has a morbid reason for looking like that.
As Stephen Porter wrote in Black Death: A New History of the Bubonic Plagues, it wasn’t uncommon for churches to have to resort to “great pits” as a means of accommodating the victims of the Black Plague.
In particular, the diary of a man named Samuel Pepys remarked at the time on how St. Olave’s graves “lay so high upon the churchyard.”
Most of us may not have imagined trying to draw a portrait with a typewriter but it’s apparently possible.
And while people have been making crude ASCII art on computers for decades, this woman has a knack for making her typewriter portraits appear hand-drawn.
You know those “Bridge Ices Before Road” signs? Well, here’s why they’re there.
Bridges don’t have the benefit of insulation like roads on the ground do, so they’ll get colder faster. But you seldom see it so glaringly illustrated like you do here.
Installing fencing horizontally rather than vertically is an interesting choice.
I’ve definitely never seen it done that way before. Around here, the slats are all vertical and slightly offset. I’m curious to see how this stands up in a good wind storm.
So that’s how they do it.
Changing the light bulbs in this state capitol’s extraordinarily high ceilings looks like a headache and a half.
The poor guy has to get on a lift just so the incredibly long pole can reach the socket. Talk about a job I’m glad I don’t have to do!
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This person managed to collect all the hair they shed in a month and it’s pretty wild to see how much each little strand can add up.
And the most staggering part is that this may not even be an abnormal level of hair to come off our heads.
According to the American Academy of Dermatology Association, it’s perfectly normal to shed between 50 and 100 hairs a day.
In Britain, you’ll see wavy walls in some places.
Why build a wavy wall? Isn’t it better to build them straight? Well, it’s all about the arch.
The arch is a strong shape and it allows you to build a wall with only one layer of bricks of similar sturdiness to a straight wall with two layers of bricks, so you save on materials.
Speaking of saving on materials…
Building a bridge using an old train car probably makes a lot of engineers out there sweat; it’s not exactly up to code, is it? But it’s at least a low-cost solution that reduces waste, so there’s that.
Big cats are sometimes just little cats at heart.
And in body as well. Just like your pet cat’s tongue has that sandpaper-y feel to it, this tiger’s tongue is seriously abrasive, and this pic shows in great detail just how gritty it is.
Of course, a tiger does a bit more with its tongue than a house cat does, so it makes sense.
