I love learning new things or just discovering things I never knew existed. It may result in a deep dive or just a burst of pleasure at a small fact.
Don’t you ever look at something and wonder what it is or how it came to be where it is?
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1. This is actually a photo of the underside of a bridge.
It can be found in Newburgh, NY, and is the work of an artist called Dasic. Since it spans up the sides and across the bridge’s underside, it creates a really neat optical illusion.
2. This looks like a pale, spotless ladybug, but it’s actually an Asian Lady Beetle.
And yes, they are two different things, even though they’re from the same family. Regular ladybugs have all-black heads and are fairly harmless.
But Asian Lady Beetles have white heads with black “M” shapes on them. They are invasive, they bite, and they give off a really bad smell when squashed.
3. This giant tooth was found in someone’s backyard.
While a perfect identification of the source is probably impossible, the pattern on the top points toward an herbivore, such as a cow or moose. Since it was found in Texas, the best guess is a bison.
4. This pic looks like a disaster happened to the artist’s work.
But that’s only half right. The sculpture is being destroyed after five years of work, but not before a master mold was made out of silicon.
It’s a common method, allowing sculptors to use softer materials to work and then cast the final version in a harder stone.
5. This was posted with a caption stating it’s the inside of a violin.
Which is cool on its own, but savvy Redditors noted the lack of a “sound post” and identified it as a contrabass instead.
6. Cashews aren’t actually nuts. They are the seeds of some funny looking fruits.
“Cashew apples” can be made into jams, juices, and even alcohol, but they are very fragile. They rot very quickly and they stain everything the juice touches.
7. Many parks have benches with plaques on them, often to honor those who have passed.
But whoever donated to have this bench placed had a really great sense of humor! The plaque simply reads “Wet Paint.”
8. These stairs have built-in ramps.
The original post thought that they were meant for wheelchairs or strollers, but people noted that they seemed a bit steep for that.
It turns out that they are very common in Europe and help bicyclists traverse stairways with their bike.
9. This diner in Okinawa, Japan, was an awesome tree house.
Visitors would enter the Gajumaru Treehouse Diner via a spiral staircase and look out over the Naha Harbor. Sadly, the diner closed and was demolished in 2015.
10. There is a tree covered in bicycles in Oklahoma City.
At night, the bikes are lit up with LEDs in a rainbow of colors.
It was installed for the Paseo Arts Festival in 2015, but the family was never told to take it down. So it stays.
11. Apparently, some buildings hide scaffolding with pictures of themselves.
This is the city hall in Madrid, Spain. It’s a really cool idea and definitely easier on the eyes than a whole bunch of scaffolding.
It probably costs a lot more than basic tarps, though.
12. A vending machine dispensed a quarter that’s entirely copper-colored.
Opinions seem to differ on how this came about. Some commenters on Reddit thought that maybe it wasn’t clad with nickel when minted, others thought that maybe the cladding had been removed, and others hypothesized that someone plated it in copper.
13. Clothing companies sometimes have a sense of humor.
These pants, which are by the brand Huffer , have a cheeky warning inside the fly.
It says, “Be careful. You’ve only got one.”
14. This is a freshly hatched California condor from the Oregon Zoo.
California condors are the largest bird in North America, with a wingspan of over 9 feet.
They almost went extinct, with only 22 known to exist. Conservation efforts began in sanctuaries, and they started to be reintroduced to the wild in the ’90s.
15. This photo looks like some sort of animal with a bundle of twigs.
From what I can tell, it seems to be a cocoon, possibly of a bagworm moth. They are known for building cocoons that look like they’re built of sticks, often referred to as “log houses.”
16. This incredible up-close shot of a wasp was taken with a phone camera.
It landed on the car windshield, and the photographer happened to have a macro attachment for their phone lens.
I need to get one of those!
17. The South Lake campus of The British School of Guangzhou in China is built next to an abandoned amusement park.
Which is both really cool and really creepy. I imagine most of the old attractions are gone, but the old rollercoaster still stands.
18. This is the view of a solar farm from a plane.
It’s the Crescent Dunes Energy Project located in Nevada. It began operations in 2015. The central tower stores excess energy in molten salt, which is just plain awesome.
19. This image just gives a little bit of perspective.
I’m not 100% positive, but it looks like those are sheep in the photo. What really speaks to me is how they all squish together to enjoy the one bit of shade available.
20. I would like an explanation for this too!
According to the post , the photographer’s neighbors had a party the night before. This was in their recycling the next morning.
What was all the Nutella for?!
21. Lots of restaurants advertise when someone famous ate there, but this one goes a step further.
President Obama sat at this table at a restaurant in Vietnam, so they encased the whole thing in glass.
Seated with Obama was Anthony Bourdain. They were filming a segment for Bourdain’s show Parts Unknown .
22. Lightning hitting the CN Tower in Toronto is cool, but the rolling shutter made it even cooler.
When a camera takes a picture, the shutter inside opens and closes super quickly. Most of the time, it’s too fast to make a difference, but sometimes the action is too fast.
In this case, the flash of light from the strike was too quick, and only part of the sky remained lit up in the photo.
23. For a long time, people thought these patterns were the ocean equivalent of crop circles.
The mystery wasn’t solved for more than a decade when researchers found the culprit: pufferfish.
The males spend days creating these intricate patterns as part of the species’ mating ritual.
Females will choose a suitable circle then lay their eggs in the center.
Even though the fish grow to only about 5 inches long, the circles stretch as large as 7 feet in diameter.
