Random facts.
September 1, 2025
Scientists have found that a single tree can be home to a trillion microbial cells. So what looks like one thing is a trillion-in-one organisms living together.
Only 54% of US adults say they drink alcohol, the lowest rate recorded since tracking began in 1939.
The Guinness World Record for unaided breath-holding is 11 minutes and 35 seconds. The average person can hold their breath for between 30 and 90 seconds.
The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and Paralympics will sell the naming rights to the competition venues, a first for the Olympic Games.
A newly developed brain-computer interface (BCI) technology can translate thoughts into text or sound. In tests on four volunteers with severe paralysis, the decoder hit an accuracy rate of up to 74 percent in translating thoughts into audible speech.
“KPop Demon Hunters” has become Netflix's most-watched movie ever with over 236 million views.
The Rhisotope Project in South Africa has developed a safe method to embed low-level radioactive isotopes into rhino horns to combat poaching. The horns are detectable by radiation scanners at borders and ports worldwide.
In the late 1890s, strongman Eugen Sandow helped market Plasmon, a powdered milk protein supplement pitched as the ideal fuel for strength and vitality.
There are 3,466 miles of beach in the U.S.
According to a new study, heat wave exposure can accelerate biological aging.
Baseball umpire Jen Pawol made history as the first woman to work as an umpire in a Major League Baseball regular season game.
A new statistical model has ranked Barry Bonds ahead of Babe Ruth as baseball’s greatest player of all time, generating excitement among statisticians.
Computer science graduates say they’re struggling to land jobs amid the spread of A.I. programming tools and layoffs at companies like Amazon and Microsoft.
An analysis of over a million scientific papers uncovered a network of large-scale fraud in which corrupt editors and publishers collude, empowered by AI.
The Dalai Lama and China’s Communist Party are locked in a dispute over who controls the selection of the next Dalai Lama. While Tibetan Buddhists believe the Dalai Lama reincarnates and should be identified through traditional religious methods, China’s atheist government claims only it has the authority to oversee choosing his successor.
Chinese checkers was invented in Germany.
An astonishing 63 million Americans—nearly 1 in 4 adults—now provide care to an adult with health or functional needs, or to a child with a serious medical condition or disability.
Diseases like dysentery, typhoid, and malaria killed nearly two-thirds of those who died during the U.S. Civil War.
Chinese scientists have successfully transplanted a pig lung into a human being for the first time, with the organ partially functioning before it was removed.
Centenarians, once considered rare, are the fastest-growing demographic group of the world's population, with numbers roughly doubling every ten years since the 1970s.
The Aalborg Zoo in Denmark is asking owners of companion animals nearing life’s end to instead donate them as food for captive lynxes, lions and other carnivores.
If you adjust for inflation, “Gone With the Wind” is the highest-grossing movie of all time, earning approximately $1.8 billion.
A primate study revealed a correlation between longer thumbs and larger brains, suggesting that increased cognition evolved alongside improved manual dexterity.
Henry Ford built a plastic car from soybeans in 1941. At 2,000 pounds, the car was much lighter than all-steel ones, but production stopped during World War II.
California’s Golden Gate Bridge was considered an “impossible” build by many engineers of the era.
Deaths in Japan outnumbered births by 900,000 last year, the largest population fall on record. The country’s population is down to 120 million, having declined for 16 consecutive years.
An average of 99,000 new songs were added to streaming services each day in 2024.
McDonald’s released a new protein-heavy burgers with a soy- and pea-protein slice in India, where almost three-quarters of the country’s nearly 1.5 billion people have a protein-deficient diet.
Mario Puzo had never written a screenplay when he adapted “The Godfather” and won two Oscars. When he later bought a screenwriting book to learn the craft, the first chapter said “Study Godfather I.”
“Baby Shark” is YouTube’s most-watched video with over 16 billion views, reaching No. 32 on the Billboard Hot 100. The brand generated $32.6M for Pinkfong in early 2025 and expanded into TV shows, Netflix series, films, apps, and brand partnerships like SeaWorld.
From 2003 to 2023, the share of Americans who read for pleasure fell 40 percent. Researchers called the size of the decrease “surprising,” given that the study defined reading broadly, encompassing books, magazines and newspapers in print, electronic or audio form.
If you’re one of the rare people who still reads for both pleasure and insight, you’re going to love this!
Stay passionate!
