Folks Wish These Science Facts Weren’t True, But They Are (18 Facts)

I didn’t pay great attention in my science classes, but I think I might have if my teacher had taught more scary science facts like these. Let’s face it, our planet is really terrifying, (unless this isn’t your planet, then welcome) but it’s that good kind of scary where we really just don’t know how a lot of things work yet. Give us another couple million years, we’ll get the hang of it.


1. That can’t be good.

Among the many other fascist horrors uncorked when a president declares a national state of emergency is that the law prohibiting medical experiments on unwilling human subjects is suspended.

So, you know, sleep tight… -DrColdReality

2. BRB, getting a degree in Marine Biology.

The fact that 80% of the ocean is unexplored.

All of that vast ocean… and we have no idea what’s in it. -[deleted]

3. Fine, I’ll adopt them.

Pandas often have twins, but usually the mother can only manage to care for one, so the other is abandoned.

Giant panda cubs can’t even open their eyes until they’re 6 weeks old, and can’t move around until they’re 3 months.

Poor little guys. -Back2Bach

4. This just broke me out of my Big Chill.

The universe was theorized to either slam back together after many more billions of years and possibly create a new Big Bang, or just die by expanding away from everything else and getting colder and colder until atoms basically stop moving.

I think it’s called the Big Chill. Guess which one sounds worse. You pick the Big Chill? Well, thats the one scientists believe is the one thats gonna happen. -Dudelyllama

5. This is why you need a lot of layers.

There are hundreds of corpses at various points along Mt Everest because it’s not worth the financial cost of retrieving them.  -Vixenti

 6. Very cute bellies though.

Otters are not as nice as they look.

Male otters sometimes hold pups ransom to force their mothers to give up some of their food

They kill for fun, like a bunch of sociopaths,

One of them grabbed a baby harbor seal (with their fangs) and raped it to death.

11 percent of sea otters found dead on the California coast from 1998 to 2001 were killed, at least in part, by trauma associated with mating.

Also, they are necrophiles. -anrai_97

7. God is not a woman.

Felines (and some other animals) have barbed penises which make intercourse extremely painful for females. Females will even try to escape because it causes so much pain.

Unfortunately, the spikes are necessary to stimulate ovulation, so it’s unavoidable for reproduction. -pea2480

8. Simple math I guess.

Bigger people, be it taller or fatter are more likely to develop cancer than someone smaller. If anyone doesn’t know what cancer actually is it’s what happens when a cell divides incorrectly and it begins to reproduce at very high speeds.

The more cells someone has the more likely they are to develop cancer. This is not taking any exposure to a substance that can cause cancer into consideration. -terririapro117

9. Fine, I’ll eat *one* green thing.

That you can get a blockage in your bowels and die crapping out of your mouth. -brandonisatwat

10. Don’t worry, we defunded NASA.

Nothing can go faster than the speed of light. It sucks because it makes space exploration like in SciFi impossible. Yes I know that there might be ways around it or stuff like wormholes, but right now they aren’t really possible.

There is tons of cool stuff we might be able to do in the future like send seed ships to another solar system. Make generation ship to closer ones. Colonize and terraforming the solar system. Make a drone exploration ship.

But actually go from system to system like in Star Wars, Star Trek, and a million other shows. Not an option and might very well never be. -christo334

11. Should I stop eating asbestos?

Materials that are really useful, but extremely harmful.

Asbestos is an amazing material, if it didn’t cause cancer then almost everything should be made of it. Lightweight, strong for its density, entirely fireproof, and extremely carcinogenic.

Lead paint and leaded gasoline are just plain better, real shame lead is so poisonous because otherwise, you’d never want to use the lead-free versions of those things.

Carbon nanotubes, while not something that currently has a practical application, probably never will because like asbestos they cause cancer. It is outstanding what that stuff is capable of, but breathing in broken material will absolutely give you cancer.

I’m sure there are some others I’m forgetting. -Catshit-Dogfart

12. Let’s get to managing.

Trauma stays with you for the rest of your life.

There are ways to help overcome it but it never truly leaves and will always keep affecting you to a degree. -DarkOneRT

13. I wish everyone had way more nipples.

Animals, like Hamsters, have more babies than their bodies (nipples) can feed.

In order to save the others from competing with each other, the mother will eat any additional young, alive. -Midnight_Amanic

14. Physics 101 (I didn’t take it).

Friction does not depend on the surface area but instead on normal force on that surface and friction coefficient.

Drives me mad. If I could ask God one thing it’d be to change this. -Vinzmann

15. It all comes down to luck.

Intelligence is highly heritable. As a teacher, it’s kind of heartbreaking. Sure, I know all about Growth Mindset, I understand that intelligence isn’t entirely fixed, and am aware that there are plenty of counter-examples. But research done with the progeny of sperm donors makes it pretty clear that the surest path to academic success is through genetics. -o_shrub

16. What else are they not telling us?

There have been only 3 people who died out of the earth.

They were the crew of the Soyuz 11. There have been recorded details about the mission, mostly graphic.

You know something was very serious when even the USSR doesn’t even bother covering it.

Yep, even the USA learned about it the second they heard about it. -MissSara101

17. I’m going to die, aren’t I?

Things that taste good are bad for you.

In 1948, the Framingham Heart Study enrolled more than 5,000 residents of Framingham, Massachusetts, to participate in a long-term study of risk factors for heart disease. (Very long term—the study is now enrolling the grandchildren of the original volunteers.)

It and subsequent ambitious and painstaking epidemiological studies have shown that one’s risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, certain kinds of cancer, and other health problems increases in a dose-dependent manner upon exposure to delicious food.

Steak, salty French fries, eggs Benedict, triple-fudge brownies with whipped cream—turns out they’re killers. Sure, some tasty things are healthy—blueberries, snow peas, nuts, and maybe even (oh, please) red wine.

But on balance, human taste preferences evolved during times of scarcity, when it made sense for our hunter-gatherer ancestors to gorge on as much salt and fat and sugar as possible. In the age of Hostess pies and sedentary lifestyles, those cravings aren’t so adaptive. -wokeeth

18. I’m starting to wish for this now.

That being blind is akin to trying to watch the back of your head, you simply can’t, blind people don’t see black, they literally see nothing.

It’s a terrifying thought. -BOI2812


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