16 Interesting Facts That Make Us Go, “Neat!”
![16 Interesting Facts That Make Us Go, “Neat!”](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/5/7/795857_320x180.jpg)
Everyone loves a good fact, especially when it's something that they can share with their friends to make them sound smart. But did you know that some of the most popular facts out there are actually false? For example, the idea that we use only 10% of our brainpower is a myth that has been debunked by science. The notion that we have five senses is also wrong - humans actually have upwards of 20 different types of sensors, including those for pain, temperature, and balance. So the next time you're regaling your friends with some fascinating trivia, make sure you double-check your sources! Who knows, you might just be the one spreading false information.
If you see a woman dancing frantically in the streets, don't join in, or you might start a boogie-pandemic that decimates the countryside. A 16th-century town in France found this out the hard way. This and many more stories are below:
![The overworld in Minecraft is 9 million times larger than Earth. The procedurally generated world of Minecraft populates a little at a time, following the POV of your character. If you were to fly from one end of the overworld to as far as it can go, going as fast as the game allows, it would take you 25 years to reach the end. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/3/6/795836.jpg)
Source: Wired
![Pangolins' tongues are longer than their bodies. When fully extended, the tongue of the pangolin reaches out more than a foot. This may not seem too impressive, until you realize the tongue connects not to the back of their mouth, but all the way down into their pelvis. The toothless pangolin uses this extremity to snag ants and termites to swallow whole. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/3/9/795839.jpg)
Source: Discover Wildlife
![The Dancing Plague of 1518 affected 400 people in a month long groove-fest. In the summer of 1518, in what is now modern-day France, a woman began to dance in the street. Other women joined in, and eventually between 50 and 400 people were mysteriously affected with a mania that caused them to dance to exhaustion until that September. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/9/795849.jpg)
Source: History
![A woman's mouth was impregnated by a dead squid. The partially cooked squid that one 63 year old woman bit into in 2012 still had organs intact, and shot a pod of spermatophores into the soft membranes of her mouth. After she felt a pricking and foreign-body sensation, doctors removed the dozen small, white, bug-like organisms that the squid left behind. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/8/795848.jpg)
Source: Huffington Post
![There is a tabletop roleplaying game where you roll dice to determine the circumference of your character's butthole. F.A.T.A.L.. which stands for Fantasy Adventure to Adult Lechery, was released in 2002 as a sexually graphic roleplaying game similar to Dungeons & Dragons. The widely panned game gives players several physical attributes for their characters that they can roll dice for, including genital and anus size. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/7/795847.jpg)
Source: Vice
![Women marched in revealing clothing to test a claim that their immodesty caused earthquakes. Inspired by blogger Jey McCreight, the aptly named Boobquake rally took place on April 26, 2010 in protest of an Iranian cleric's controversial beliefs blaming women who dress immodestly for causing earthquakes. McCreight wrote, I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/5/795845.jpg)
Source: ABC
![Playing video games helps you make quick decisions. should 14 People who were given questions that required quick solutions could answer them faster if they had just played action video games prior. Not only did their reaction time increase, but they were as accurate as their slower peers. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/6/795846.jpg)
Source: Medicalxpress
![A fever dream of James Cameron's lead to iconic Terminator imagery. The image of the chrome skeleton of a Terminator rising from a fiery Hellscape came to Cameron in a dream when sick with a fever. When he woke up, he sketched a metal skeleton, torn in half, crawling towards a terrified woman, which would become the finale of The Terminator. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/4/795844.jpg)
Source: BFI
![One man successfully traded a paperclip for progressively larger items, until he had a house. Kuta-Not CIN Ricky Over the course of 14 up-trades, which included a fish pen, a snowmobile, and a recording contract, Canadian blogger Kyle MacDonald was able to trade one paid, credited, speaking role in a film by Public Media Works for a house. The Town of Kipling, Saskatchewan offered the final trade, and welcomed him by making him Honorary Mayor of Kipling for One Day. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/3/795843.jpg)
Source: BBC
![A mass extinction 252 million years ago killed most of life on Earth, and we have no idea why. Over the course of a few million years (basically nothing in geological time), 96% of marine life and 70% of land-based species vanished in The Great Permian Extinction, otherwise known as The Great Dying. This is the only mass-extinction event to have affected insects, possibly caused by an asteroid, volcanoes, or a stagnant ocean spurred on by the supercontinent Pangea. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/1/795841.jpg)
Source: CBS
![Toast really does land butter-side down more often than not. Toast always lands with the butter-side down isn't just a pessimistic worldview, it's a fact. A study by Robert Matthews confirmed that, when pushed from a table, toast will land butter-side down the majority of times, more than just the law of chance would predict. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/2/795842.jpg)
Source: European Journal of Physics
![Tom Hanks almost starred in the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie. The live action Super Mario movie was an unmitigated disaster, but it could have been way different. Tom Hanks was cast in the lead role, but coming off of a string of box office bombs, the role of Mario went instead to Bob Hoskins. Arnold Schwarzenegger was looked at for the corporate lizard-person Bowser, but he turned it down. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/3/7/795837.jpg)
Source: IGN
![Alcohol turns the friggin' flys gay. Fruit flies are notorious breeders that multiply quickly if you aren't careful disposing of food scrape in your home. But a group from Pennsylvania State University found that when exposed to ethanol, the usually butch male fruit flies began exhibiting homosexual courtship activities. Not that there's anything wrong with that. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/0/795840.jpg)
Source: Null Hypothesis
![A World of Warcraft player reached level 120 by only picking flowers. WoW player Doubleagent plays as a Pandaren, a panda-like race that either chooses to fight for the Horde or the Alliance. Doubleagent never chose a side, and in fact never left The Wandering Isle (a beginner area most players leave by level 10), choosing instead to level all the way to 120 with only the small XP gained from harvesting flowers. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/3/4/795834.jpg)
Source: PC Gamer
![Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter was played by a 36 year old woman. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), the ghostly figure Moaning Myrtle slain by the Basilisk when she was just 15, haunts ONE of Hogwarts' bathrooms. She was played by 36 year old Shirley Henderson, which makes the scene where she sexually harasses the teenage Harry super uncomfortable. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/3/8/795838.jpg)
Source: Mental Floss
![Grocery stores use narrow checkout lanes to make it harder to change your mind. If you've ever had to maneuver your shopping cart through the narrow checkout lane of a supermarket and found yourself stuck, unable to backout, just know you can place the blame squarely on the store itself. These lanes are made purposefully just-too-narrow so it's difficult to put back products you decide you don't need. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/3/5/795835.jpg)
Source: Reader's Digest