Interesting Facts - Page 196

976
The Tree of Ténéré was once considered to be the most remote tree in the world. In the middle of the Sahara desert in Niger, it was hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest other tree. Somehow, a drunk truck driver managed to hit it and knock it down in 1973.
977
In Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, the temperature almost never falls below 70°F (21°C).
978
Bhutan has diplomatic relations with only 54 other countries. Andorra and Eswatini are among the 54. The United States, China, and France are not.
81 Comments
+4
Level ∞
May 6, 2024
Credit @j3n for #978.
+6
Level 45
May 6, 2024
yay :)
+2
Level 59
May 6, 2024
Would be good to add that theres a metal statue where it once was
+5
Level 64
May 6, 2024
wow we're closing in on 1000....
+2
Level 61
May 7, 2024
Only gonna take a year
+9
Level 18
May 7, 2024
QM, we commend you for your efforts to fight NFAD
+1
Level 58
May 7, 2024
What's NFAD?
+10
Level 61
May 7, 2024
"New Fact Absence Disorder (NFAD) or Fact Anxiety is the disorder caused by the absence of new facts. The first case was diagnosed in 2023 by a frequent user of jetpunk.com.

Common symptoms include anxiety, stress, lack of sleep, and spam messaging the Quizmaster for new facts. Symptoms can become more severe if no new facts are added after a prolonged period of time and may require emergency treatment.

Due to NFAD being only a recent phenomenon, very little research has been made. One known treatment is to touch grass, but the treatment is only temporary as once they go back inside, the patient will immediately go on their device and check if there are new facts."

+8
Level 18
May 7, 2024
Furthermore:

“Once NFAD has manifested in a patient, cure is impossible. The addition of new facts to JetPunk has been shown to be an effective treatment for mere minutes, as the patient will simply read all the new facts immediately and go back to desiring more. NFAD can be combatted with dopamine and serotonin, meaning the acceptance of users’ own facts has a more prolonged treatment. The CDC recommends to all NFAD-positive patients healthy doses of socialization and exercise, although it admits that both are likely impossible for JetPunk users to accomplish.”

+5
Level 59
May 7, 2024
The WHAT has found it to be slightly contagious, as some patients spread the disease by spreading JetPunk. Furthermore, quizzes act as a carrier for NFAD as they show facts at the bottom of the screen.
+4
Level 64
May 8, 2024
I love this
+9
Level 18
May 8, 2024
Item number: SCP-8933

Object class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: The website JetPunk.com is to be monitored by Foundation webcrawlers at all times and contained to prevent more users from discovering the "Interesting Facts" pages. SCP-8933-1 are to be contained at Site-49 and regularly given new pieces of trivia and facts. Anyone else infected by SCP-8933 is to be brought in for containment at Site-49.

Description: SCP-8933 is an anomalous disease known as "New Fact Absence Disorder" or NFAD. It manifests in users of the popular quiz website "JetPunk.com" who visit its "Interesting Facts" pages. SCP-8933 symptoms will rapidly progress from constantly checking for new facts to insane babbling about Nobel Prizes and the flag of Mozambique. Those infected with SCP-8933 are designated SCP-8933-1, and must be removed from society to prevent the spread of SCP-8933.

+4
Level 59
May 8, 2024
Mozambique flag the ak flag 7 4 flag the mozzam flag the nobel flag the alfred prized kalashniflag mozambique ak
+1
Level 69
May 11, 2024
true!
+6
Level 74
May 7, 2024
If you want another tree fact, the oldest living organism in the world is a bristlecone pine tree east of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. It has an estimated age of 4,854 years as of today
+1
Level 73
May 8, 2024
There is a tree named Thimmamma Marrimanu that's canopy covers 19,107 square miles. It is revered in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism.
+4
Level 68
May 8, 2024
Square meters. Unless there's a tree as big as Costa Rica. ;)
+1
Level 73
May 8, 2024
oopsies I didn't think about that
+2
Level 59
May 11, 2024
why cant my tree cover costa rica
+4
Level 60
May 11, 2024
Tree facts are always a treet to read.
+3
Level 18
May 8, 2024
In China, the Tiananmen Square Massacre is referred to as May 35th, or 五月三十五日。
+4
Level 18
May 8, 2024
Chewing gum is illegal in Singapore.
+3
Level 18
May 9, 2024
to clarify, I mean "chewing gum" as a noun here and not an action. gum is not allowed in Singapore at all.
+1
Level 61
May 8, 2024
Louisiana is the only state bordering Texas that doesn't have a portmanteau city name (Texico, Texhoma, Texarkana)
+1
Level 61
May 8, 2024
Mississippi State University is located in a city called "Mississippi State"
+1
Level 61
May 8, 2024
That's a lot stranger than Houston being in Houston
+1
Level 51
May 9, 2024
Texarkana does include Louisiana though even though its not in Louisiana

And its one of the only cities in the US that has a corresponding city across the state border. I think the only other is Big Foot Prairie, IL-WI

+5
Level 61
May 9, 2024
Kansas City?
+6
Level 51
May 9, 2024
i may be stupid
+3
Level 18
May 8, 2024
The capital of the Republic of Texas was originally Houston, named after Sam Houston, who was both the first and third president of Texas. However, the second president, Mirabeau Lamar, disliked Sam Houston, so he moved the capital to Austin in 1839 basically out of spite.
+6
Level 18
May 8, 2024
The Berlin Wall fell basically by accident. The East German government member who was announcing some basically pointless alterations to border policy had poor TV skills. He accidentally proclaimed that all East Germans would be able to cross the Berlin Wall. He was supposed to say "...at any checkpoints, and only with the right documentation." A stunned reporter then asked him for clarification, to which he basically confirmed that, yes, the wall was open! Within minutes, East Berliners were flocking to border crossings. Stunned, angry, and confused border guards called the government for help, saying they had never received orders declaring the opening of the wall. They were told to take the loudest voices from the crowd and stamp their passports, revoking their citizenship and expelling them from East Germany. Everyone immediately began lining up to be expelled from the country, with wide grins on their faces.
+1
Level 73
May 8, 2024
I just learned about that this year. We just finished the Cold War stuff.
+1
Level 18
May 8, 2024
AP World History?
+4
Level 64
May 9, 2024
This is true. The guard didn't actually know many specifics, had poor TV skill, was stressed, it was late, he was tired, and the lights were bright, etc. Once the wall was thought to be open, it was nearly impossible to reverse it, as indeed history shows.
+1
Level 73
May 9, 2024
not AP but I think the course is similar
+1
Level 18
May 9, 2024
Furthermore, Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev slept through all of this. He was never notified. However, he later said that had he been told this was happening in East Germany, he wouldn't have done anything about it.
+6
Level 59
May 8, 2024
Did humans domesticate wheat or did wheat domesticate us? We have stopped moving and settled because of it, we genetically modify it to be more resistant, we kill its pests and give it fertilizer, and grow 800,000,000 metric tons of it per year.
+1
Level 64
May 9, 2024
Nice to mention that wheat can also no longer grow without humans. We have modified it so it no longer spreads its own seeds, so if humans vanished, wheat probably would not survive.
+4
Level 59
May 9, 2024
some wild species might be able
+2
Level 59
May 11, 2024
If wheat vanished, we'd be pretttty harmed too. and if any pest touched wheat, you know the agribiz would fight back

oh, and we spread it to new continents :)

+5
Level 18
May 8, 2024
The gene that allows humans to process starch actually came from viruses. This is one of a number of viral genes that humans have accidentally snagged and evolved with over the millennia.
+1
Level 61
May 9, 2024
With 569 people, Institute, WV is the smallest city home to an NCAA football team

(West Virginia State, a DII Team)

+1
Level 61
May 9, 2024
And there are NO college football teams in San Francisco
+1
Level 61
May 9, 2024
And with 4,696 people, University, Mississippi is the smallest city with a DI School, home to OLE MISS
+1
Level 51
May 10, 2024
In the Sammarinese National Finals and Semi-Finals for the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, there were 10 AI-generated songs that participated. Thankfully none of the AI songs made it into the ESC Semifinals.
+1
Level 18
May 10, 2024
Monty Python’s Flying Circus isn’t funny.
+4
Level 18
May 11, 2024
This is insane: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sknyliv_air_show_disaster

(Using the a tag wasn’t working for some reason)

+1
Level 64
May 11, 2024
+1
Level 18
May 12, 2024
Thanks
+1
Level 64
May 13, 2024
Nw
+1
Level 73
May 13, 2024
It's blocked for me
+5
Level 65
May 13, 2024
In 1857, legislators voted in a bill to move the Minnesota state capital from St. Paul to St. Peter (a small town in Southern Minnesota). This move would attract people and investment into St. Peter.

The chairman of the Territorial Council's Enrolled Bills Committee, Joseph Rolette (whom the bill had to pass through to be accepted), took a physical copy of the bill and hid it (supposedly in a hotel in St. Paul, where he drunk and played poker with some friends). He didn't come back until the end of the legislative session (which meant the bill was too late to be signed).

Today, the state capital is still St. Paul (one of the largest cities in Minnesota) whilst St. Peter still remains a relatively small town.

Source

+2
Level 18
May 13, 2024
Remember planking? If you don't watch The Office, you probably don't. This fad was considered dangerous, and several people did sustain injuries planking. One man did die planking in 2011: Acton Beale, a 20-year-old Australian man in Brisbane who decided that planking on the railing of his seventh-floor apartment was a good idea. I'm sure you can guess what happened next.
+1
Level 64
May 14, 2024
huh i had no clue it turned out to be so dangerous
+2
Level 18
May 14, 2024
people are dumb
+3
Level 18
May 15, 2024
(not you, McKenzie, I meant the people who plank)
+1
Level 64
May 15, 2024
aaaahahahaha
+2
Level 64
May 15, 2024
thanks
+5
Level 61
May 15, 2024
3 days since a comment qm really fell off
+2
Level 18
May 15, 2024
Yeah, I keep checking this looking for someone else to post something
+5
Level 68
May 15, 2024
A 2009 referendum in New Zealand asked if "a smack as part of good parental correction should be a criminal offence in New Zealand." The result was 88% no.
+2
Level 64
May 15, 2024
Weirdly enough, huh? The government still made it a criminal offence I think.
+2
Level 18
May 16, 2024
People we gotta post more, this is getting sad
+1
Level 59
May 17, 2024
quaratining from jetpunk to prevent the spreading of NFAD
+2
Level 18
May 17, 2024
Haha sir I regret to inform you that you too are infected
+4
Level 59
May 16, 2024
0.5% of Uzbekistan is Korean due to a historical forced migration. The country is 5,000km (3,000 miles) from the Koreas.
+1
Level 64
May 17, 2024
how long ago?
+1
Level 59
May 17, 2024
soviet union times
+1
Level 59
May 18, 2024
37
+1
Level 59
May 16, 2024
If the world had a per capita energy usage equal to the USA, world energy production would need to increase by over 2.5x.
+2
Level 18
May 16, 2024
In 2015, there was a massive snowstorm pileup in Michigan involving over 100 vehicles. Several vehicles caught fire. Oh, and if I remember right, there was a semi truck full of fireworks involved. 😬
+4
Level 64
May 17, 2024
Charles III has just unveiled his first official portrait since his coronation. It's very....red.
+3
Level 59
May 17, 2024
imagine a color blind guy wondering why they portrayed him so environmentally friendly and green, butterfly and all
+2
Level 64
May 18, 2024
Lol that's a good one.

I had thought maybe if you looked at it through a pair of red goggles you might see a hidden message in blue underneath, like this.

+1
Level 73
May 17, 2024
I was under the impression New Caledonia was chill until today
+1
Level 18
May 17, 2024
define "chill"
+3
Level 73
May 17, 2024
not rioting
+1
Level 59
May 17, 2024
its cuz they wanted to allow ppl that have residing there for 10 years to vote, which would allow more european french immigrants, rather than what was agreed on in 1998 (voting resitricted to pre 1998 residents and their descendants)
+1
Level 64
May 17, 2024
Chill = no shooting, fires, explosions, or just angry mobs in general
+1
Level 18
May 18, 2024
The New Caledonia Wikipedia page just got updated 15 minutes ago apparently
+1
Level 18
May 18, 2024
The Norden bombsight was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the U.S. military during WWII. Invented by Carl Norden, it was a mechanical analog computer made up of gyros, motors, gears, mirrors, levels, and a telescope. It was used to determine the exact moment bombs had to be dropped to hit the target accurately. On later versions of the B-17G, the Norden bombsight would actually fly the plane through the bomb run while coupled to the airplane's controls. It was claimed to be accurate enough to hit a 100 foot circle from an altitude of 21,000 feet. In actual combat conditions, though, its accuracy was usually less than that.