15 Neat Facts That Deserve Their Day In The Sun
![15 Neat Facts That Deserve Their Day In The Sun](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/0/2/843702_320x180.jpg)
It's been three months since I left the city, and it feels like three years. Three days ago I was back in my apartment for the first time in forever. My mother and sister were gone to visit my grandfather and his new wife, who had moved from Chicago to Florida. They left me alone with Dad, and he's not much company these days—a lot of times we don't even speak to each other at all. He sits at his desk, staring into the middle distance, and I sit at mine on my sofa, reading.
He's not dead; that would be a shock. But when I see him sitting there so still... I think sometimes that he must know he will die soon, and is trying to find peace by withdrawing into himself.
One day, while reading on the sofa, I suddenly got up and walked over to Dad's desk, curious about the piece of paper he keeps there every day, reading it whenever he's not staring off into whenever. It was a list of fifteen facts, and it went:
Kubrick used NASA lenses to capture candle lit scenes.
![Stanley Kubrick used lenses commissioned by NASA for the Apollo moon landings for a film. CRACKED COM While filming 'Barry Lyndon,' the special lenses allowed him to capture scenes lit only by candlelight.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/1/7/843717.jpg)
Every language makes use of “huh?”
![Huh? is a universal word found in roughly the same form and function in spoken languages across the globe. GRACKED.COM Huh? is universal, it might be said, because it isn't a word - It isn't the sort of sound that needs to be learned, just like a sneeze or grunt.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/1/5/843715.jpg)
Urine is not sterile.
![Despite the popular myth, urine has bacteria and isn't actually sterile. CRACKED.COM The myth spread when epidemiologist Edward Kass set a cutoff in the 1950s for the number of bacteria in normal urine, and any number under that resulting in a negative test.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/1/6/843716.jpg)
Cartoon Network’s longest running series was Ed, Edd n Eddy.
![Ed, Edd n Eddy is Cartoon Network's longest-running series, running for almost 11 years. GRAGKED.COM The show attracted an audience of 31 million households, was broadcast in 120 countries, and was popular among both children and adults.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/1/4/843714.jpg)
The person teaching Johnny Cash to sing told him to stop taking lessons.
![Johnny Cash's voice teacher urged him to stop taking lessons. CRACKED.COM It took only 3 voice lessons in his childhood before his teacher, enthralled with Cash's unique singing style, advised him to never deviate from his natural voice.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/1/2/843712.jpg)
Old people smell a certain way because of biology.
![The Old People Smell is caused by a molecule called 2-Nonenal. CRACKED.COM The production of this molecule increases in your body as you age, until you're able to clear out a Cracker Barrel during the early bird special with one gust of wind.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/1/3/843713.jpg)
Bob’s Burgers was going to be way more dark.
![In the original pitch for Bob's Burgers, the family actually were cannibals that made burgers out of human flesh. WONDER HARF GRACKED.COM Creator Loren Bouchard says he was coming off of doing Lucy: Daughter Of The Devil and I had this kind of more occult-y, sort of darker edge to the way I was thinking then.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/0/8/843708.jpg)
Every wild condor was caught in order to save the species.
![In 1987, there were only 22 California Condors left on the planet. CRACKED.COM All of them were caught to help preserve the species, and as of December 2016, there were 446 condors living in the wild or in captivity.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/1/1/843711.jpg)
A blind woman wrote 26 pages of her book without knowing her pen ran out of ink.
![A blind woman wrote a book in 2012 by hand using rubber bands to indicate lines. CRACKED.COM One day she gave her son 26 blank pages to edit because she didn't know her pen had lost ink and continued writing.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/1/0/843710.jpg)
A mule won an endurance horse race in the ‘70s.
![In 1976, a 3500 mile horse race was set up to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the United States. CRACKED.COM Arabian horses were heavily favored to win the endurance race, but it was won by a teenaged mule named Steeplejack.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/0/9/843709.jpg)
Squirrels have to make decoy nut caches.
![Squirrels will steal nuts hidden by other squirrels. CRACKED.COM Squirrels can lose as much as 25% of their cached nuts from theft, so they create false nut caches to trick the thieves.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/0/7/843707.jpg)
Dark Souls almost had a vulgar title.
![The game 'Dark Souls' was originally going to be called 'Dark Ring.' CRACKED.COM The title had to be changed after the developers learned that, in Britain, ring is a slang for anus.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/0/6/843706.jpg)
Pilots in the ‘30s and ‘40s used Morse code to know what direction to head.
![Airline pilots in the 1930s and 40s would navigate by a stream of Morse codes when visibility was poor. CRACKED.COM They would turn the aircraft to the right when hearing an N stream, to the left on an A stream and fly straight ahead while hearing a steady tone.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/0/4/843704.jpg)
Trees can “sleep,” in a way.
![Trees actually sleep at night, relaxing their branches after dawn and perking them up before sunrise. CRACKED.COM Scientists discovered this by measuring two trees, one in Austria and one in Finland, with precise lasers, close to the solar equinox when daylight and nighttime are about equal.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/0/3/843703.jpg)
A penguin can out dive a killer whale twice over.
![The Emperor Penguin can dive deeper than the operational range of most naval submarines. CRACKED.COM The depth of 1,850 feet is deeper than any other bird can dive, and is more than twice that of the deepest dive by a killer whale.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/0/5/843705.jpg)