Facts you didn't know you needed

World maps are wrong! 10 surprising facts you never imagined

Adults often assume they already understand the world, but there’s always something new to surprise us! Did you know that clouds actually have weight? Or that the day is longer for some animals? And that’s just the beginning. From hidden functions of your organs to the true color of the universe, today you’ll learn 10 fascinating facts you probably never thought to ask, but will make you sound impressively smart in your next conversation!

Unlike humans, animals don’t experience a shared "present" in quite the same way. Instead, their sense of time is tied to the rhythms of their own bodies. For very small animals with fast metabolisms like parrots, hamsters, or guinea pigs, time actually seems to pass more slowly. In a sense, they live in slow motion because their faster-working nervous systems allow them to process sensory information at a fast speed.

What if someone commits a crime and tries to blame their identical twin? Have you ever wondered about that? It’s a valid question; after all, identical twins not only look alike, they also share the same DNA. But here’s the surprising part: if investigators check fingerprints, the innocent twin could be cleared. That’s because, despite their nearly identical DNA, twins have unique fingerprints, shaped by subtle genetic and environmental factors in the womb.

You’ve probably spent time lying on the grass, watching clouds drift across the sky. They look light, fluffy, almost like cotton candy, and it’s hard to imagine them as heavy objects. But the truth is surprising: clouds are incredibly heavy. An average cumulus cloud can weigh around 1 million pounds! That impressive weight comes from the billions of tiny water droplets suspended in the air. So, how do they float? It’s because each droplet is extremely small and falls very slowly, while rising warm air currents help keep the cloud suspended above us.

Most of us have a rough image of the world map in our minds. But we have something to tell you: most maps aren’t completely accurate. Because the Earth is a sphere, cartographers have to distort some areas to represent it on a flat surface. On Mercator projection maps, countries near the poles appear much larger than they really are, while countries near the equator look smaller in comparison. For example, Alaska looks about the same size as Brazil, but in reality, Brazil is nearly five times larger!

Most people don’t realize that there’s actually a name for the color of the universe. Strange, right? But it’s true! Astronomers who studied the light from thousands of galaxies discovered that if you blend all the colors from the observable universe, the result is a soft, beige-ish white shade, famously named "Cosmic Latte" in 2002.

With 50 states, there’s no shortage of variety in their names. Almost every letter of the English alphabet appears at least once, except for one: Q, which is completely absent. In addition to this, there’s another surprisingly rare letter: J. While it isn’t entirely missing like Q, it only appears in one state, New Jersey.

Although we don’t notice it, indeed, the Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing. This happens because tidal friction, caused by the Moon’s gravitational pull on our oceans, creates a subtle drag on the planet’s spin. As a result, days are getting longer, but very gradually: by only about 1.7 milliseconds per century.

Do you remember your last dream? Whether good or bad, dreams are a constant part of sleep, but not everyone experiences them in the same way. Deaf people who use sign language in their daily lives often communicate through signs in their dreams, too. Meanwhile, blind people tend to have dreams rich in sounds, smells, and tactile sensations, using these other senses to experience the dream world.

We’re used to seeing hippos covered in mud, splashing in water, or barely peeking above the surface. But here’s a surprise: hippos can’t actually swim! That’s right. Because of their huge, heavy bodies, they don’t float or paddle like most animals. Instead, they walk or run along the riverbed.

Can your brain really "eat" itself? Well, close, but not exactly. There’s a process called phagocytosis, carried out by specialized immune cells in the brain known as microglia. These cells engulf and remove debris, dead cells, and other unwanted material. But don’t worry; it’s safe! The mechanisms exist to protect, repair, and maintain your brain.

They speak what? Where?

Migrant tongues: places with an unusual second language

Image: Towfiqu barbhuiya

Migrations, trade, and other historical events have contributed to the spread of languages to regions far from their origins. But sometimes, we arrive at a new location expecting to hear a particular language, only to be surprised by the use of a language we wouldn’t expect. Here are 10 places in the world where an unsuspected language is spoken daily.

Image: Catrin Ellis

Welsh is the sort of language one wouldn’t expect to hear outside Wales, so its presence in southern Argentina often comes as a shock. During the 19th century, a group of Welsh people sailed across the Atlantic looking for a place where they could preserve their culture, which was threatened by English colonial rule. They arrived in Patagonia and founded Y Wladfa, or ‘the colony.’ Despite the harsh weather conditions, the colony subsisted and expanded, maintaining the Welsh language and traditions. Today, Argentina has the highest number of Welsh speakers outside Wales.

Image: Miikka Luotio

Italian is the official language of Italy, but most regions have their own distinct languages. Venetian is spoken in the north-east region of Veneto, but also in the Mexican town of Chipilo, a place that received an influx of migrants from a Venetian town called Segusino. These people spoke Venetian rather than Italian, a language that they were able to maintain thanks to Chipilo being somewhat isolated from other towns. Nowadays, Chipileño is a distinct dialect within the Venetian language.

Image: Josh Reid

Gimli, located north of Winnipeg, the capital of the Canadian province of Manitoba, was established by Icelandic settlers. It is the largest Icelandic community outside Iceland, and it has preserved many Icelandic customs and traditions. While the Icelandic language is still used and taught in Gimli, its fluency is sadly declining.

Image: ibmoon Kim

The island of Sakhalin is part of the Russian Federation, but its control has changed hands multiple times in history, having been disputed by Russia, China, and Japan. After the Russo-Japanese War, Russia ceded the southern part of the island to Japan, which brought workers from one of its colonies, Korea, to work in the coal mines. When the Soviet Union recovered Sakhalin after WWII, the Korean population was around 50,000 people. Nowadays, only a fraction of their descendants are fluent in Sakhalin Korean, which follows the North Korean standard in writing, but the Seoul dialect in speech.

Image: Lucas Gallone

Before Italy became a unified country in the 19th century, many of its regions were part of different empires or kingdoms. During the Middle Ages, the island of Sardinia was part of the Kingdom of Aragon, which later became part of the Spanish Empire. Revolts during Aragonese rule led to the arrival of Catalan settlers, and the Catalan language became widespread. Although it was later replaced by other languages in much of Sardinia, it was preserved in the city of Alghero, where it is still spoken today.

Image: Marie Martin

At the start of the 20th century, Mennonite groups looking for a place where they wouldn’t be forced to abandon their way of life relocated to the Boquerón department in Paraguay. They established several communities and transformed the arid territory into farmland. Though these groups came from different places, most of them spoke Plautdietsch, or Low German, a language that they still use in daily life. The Mennonite population in Paraguay is estimated at around 40,000.

Image: Rafaela Biazi

Portuguese is widely spoken in many Asian countries due to colonization, but this is not the case. More than 100,000 Lebanese emigrated to Brazil in the 19th and 20th centuries, where there are now more than 7 million people of Lebanese descent. While many immigrants decided to permanently stay in South America, others returned home, carrying Portuguese with them. Today, around 10,000 people in the Beqaa Valley speak Portuguese daily.

Image: Roberta Guillen

Heritage languages in the U.S. tend to disappear after a few generations, but Texas German was once the exception. Spoken by thousands of descendants of German immigrants across Texas, and markedly distinct from Standard German, Texas German was at one point granted official recognition comparable to Spanish. Sadly, as a consequence of the First and Second World Wars, the language was suppressed, and its number of speakers has since declined.

Image: FlyD

The fact that the largest Japanese community outside Japan is in South America may come as a surprise, but it is true. Japanese immigrants settled in several South American countries, but especially in Brazil, where nearly two million people are of Japanese descent. Most of them reside in the state of São Paulo. While not all Brazilian Nikkei are fluent in Japanese, it is estimated that there are between 400,000 to 450,000 speakers.

Image: Mathieu Ramus

What are the odds of Thai being spoken by 10% of the population of an archipelago in the Arctic? Quite high, if we consider that those kinds of regions are not densely populated. But how did a Southeast Asian language manage to get there? In the 1970s, many Norwegian miners from Svalbard married Thai women, who in turn became the link for other Thais who migrated looking for work. While there are only about 200 Thai speakers, this represents a sizable portion of Svalbard’s population of roughly 2,500.