The world is more interesting than you think.
Unexpected facts, big ideas, and little discoveries. Find something that sparks your curiosity today.
A little more wonder
Chinese National Highway 110 experienced a traffic jam in 2010 that lasted for 12 agonizing days and stretched for 62 miles, moving at a blistering pace of two miles per day.
Chinese National Highway 110 experienced a traffic jam in 2010 that lasted for 12 agonizing days and stretched for 62 miles, moving at a blistering pace of…
Discover more
Hydrochloric acid inside your stomach ranks between 1 and 2 on the acidity scale, making it corrosive enough to dissolve a single-edge razor blade in just two hours, as this…
Hydrochloric acid inside your stomach ranks between 1 and 2 on the acidity scale, making it corrosive enough to dissolve a single-edge razor blade in just two…
Discover more
Freemasons based their rituals on medieval guilds
People love to imagine Masons are worshipping ancient Egyptian demons, but their secret rituals are literally just cosplay based on medieval stone-cutting…
Discover more
Jim Carrey learned to speak backwards for Ace Ventura
Why use expensive editing techniques when you can just be completely unhinged? For a scene in 'Ace Ventura: Pet Detective' where his character supposedly…
Discover more
Toto earned more than the actors playing Munchkins
In 1939, Hollywood's pay scale was brutally clear: cute terriers outrank human background actors. Terry, the female Cairn Terrier who played Toto in 'The…
Discover more
Your retina has 256 identifying features
Your fingerprint is actually old news when it comes to biological security. While a human fingerprint only has about 40 unique characteristics, the complex…
Discover more
STACKY FOR IPHONEA bigger world.
One discovery
at a time.
Keep discovering with Stacky. Interesting facts in an app that is always within reach.
The credit-card experiment that dropped 60,000 cards
In 1958, Bank of America basically air-dropped 60,000 live, pre-approved credit cards into Fresno, California, just to see what would happen. The 'Fresno…
Discover more
Plato believed souls picked their next life
The foundational philosopher of Western thought literally wrote a myth claiming souls pull a lottery ticket to choose their next reincarnation. If you picked…
Discover more
Why tarantulas share their burrows with tiny frogs
Even giant nightmare spiders understand the value of a good guard dog. Certain large tarantulas willingly share their burrows with tiny microhylid frogs. In…
Discover more
Why Tarantino misspelled Inglourious Basterds
When you're an auteur director, you don't make typos; you make stylistic choices. Quentin Tarantino intentionally botched the spelling of his WW2 epic…
Discover more
Why a lab coat can improve your attention
Playing dress-up actually changes your brain chemistry. Enclothed cognition demonstrates that the clothes you wear heavily influence your psychological…
Discover more
The famous Tomb Raider nude code was never real
Pre-internet gamers were the most gullible creatures on earth. For years, a rumor circulated that inputting a specific button combo would strip Lara Croft…
Discover more
Linux began as a student's “just a hobby”
The operating system that currently runs massive corporate servers, supercomputers, and the entire Android ecosystem was literally just a college kid's side…
Discover more
Airline algorithms actively exploit your browser history
That sudden price jump on the flight you were just looking at isn't a coincidence; it is digital extortion. Travel booking sites notoriously utilize cookies…
Discover more
The US central bank sets rates independently
The entity controlling the US money supply is essentially an exclusive club that answers to nobody. While the President appoints its board, the Federal…
Discover more
Queen Victoria was prescribed cannabis for menstrual pain
The matriarch of the incredibly prudish and sexually repressed Victorian era was getting absolutely baked once a month. Her personal physician, Sir J. Russell…
Discover more
Internal Revenue Service tax code is currently over nine million words long, which makes it about eight times longer than the entire Harry Potter series combined.
Internal Revenue Service tax code is currently over nine million words long, which makes it about eight times longer than the entire Harry Potter series…
Discover more
Douglas Engelbart originally designed the computer mouse cursor to point straight up in 1981, but the Xerox PARC interface team tilted it forty-five degrees to the left because…
Douglas Engelbart originally designed the computer mouse cursor to point straight up in 1981, but the Xerox PARC interface team tilted it forty-five degrees…
Discover more
Human appendix is widely considered an evolutionary remnant with no real function other than randomly exploding and costing you thousands in medical bills, but recent studies…
Human appendix is widely considered an evolutionary remnant with no real function other than randomly exploding and costing you thousands in medical bills,…
Discover more
Cambridge University researchers invented the world's first webcam in 1991 for the sole purpose of monitoring a coffee pot in the Trojan Room computer lab.
Cambridge University researchers invented the world's first webcam in 1991 for the sole purpose of monitoring a coffee pot in the Trojan Room computer lab.…
Discover more
Cerebrospinal fluid literally washes your brain while you sleep to clear out toxic proteins that accumulate during your waking hours of agonizing over embarrassing things you did five years ago.
Cerebrospinal fluid literally washes your brain while you sleep to clear out toxic proteins that accumulate during your waking hours of agonizing over…
Discover more
Paris transit authorities attempted to revolutionize the moving walkway in 2003 by installing a high-speed conveyor belt designed to move commuters at blazing speeds.
Paris transit authorities attempted to revolutionize the moving walkway in 2003 by installing a high-speed conveyor belt designed to move commuters at blazing…
Discover more
Machu Picchu was never actually the lost city of the Incas that explorer Hiram Bingham claimed it was, but rather a relatively standard royal estate built for the Inca emperor Pachacuti in the fifteenth century.
Machu Picchu was never actually the lost city of the Incas that explorer Hiram Bingham claimed it was, but rather a relatively standard royal estate built for…
Discover more
Sao Paulo, Brazil, holds the record for some of the world's worst traffic jams, with a historic gridlock on November 15, 2013, stretching an apocalyptic 192 miles.
Sao Paulo, Brazil, holds the record for some of the world's worst traffic jams, with a historic gridlock on November 15, 2013, stretching an apocalyptic 192…
Discover more