Take a deep breath, and remember this moment. This is the moment before you knew how truly disturbing the world can be. Enjoy!
Thanks to everyone who contributed. If you would like to read more stories like these, be sure to check out the source link at the end of this article. Comments have been edited for clarity.
The entire Universe outside our galaxy could have completely disappeared over 20,000 years ago and we still wouldn’t know it yet. Our view of the Universe is actually what it looked like anywhere from thousands to Billions of years ago, with no way to see what it actually looks like “right now”. Imagine if you looked out your front window and saw your yard as it was 6 months ago, neighbors house across the street a year ago, and houses a block or two away as they were several years ago. Also, off in the distance you see the glaciers from the last ice age. That’s what it’s like when you look out at the Universe.
rclatter
The 1961 atomic bombing accident of North Carolina. “The US Air Force came dramatically close to detonating an atom bomb over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima.
Two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on the 23rd of January 1961. The bombs fell to earth after a B-52 bomber broke up in mid-air, and one of the devices behaved precisely as a nuclear weapon was designed to behave in warfare: its parachute opened, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only ONE low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage.
Of the four safety mechanisms designed to prevent unintended detonation, three failed to operate properly. When the bomb hit the ground, a firing signal was sent to the nuclear core of the device, and it was only that final, highly vulnerable switch that averted calamity.”
I get goosebumps every time I read about it.
grapefuitonmyshaft
There are at least 8 nuclear weapons that are known to be missing.
seanprefect
Your bones are wet.
[deleted]
60% of the UK population feels like no one really loves them.
Saminoglycan
In 1983, the world came closest to a full scale nuclear war between Russia and the US.
Back then, Russia’s nuclear early-warning system reported that a missile had been launched from the United States, followed by up to five more. Stanislav Petrov, the duty officer at the command center at that time, was tasked with observing the satellite early warning network and notifying his superiors of any impending nuclear missile attack against the Soviet Union. If notification was received from the early warning systems that inbound missiles had been detected, the Soviet Union’s strategy was an immediate and compulsory nuclear counter-attack against the United States.
Petrov dismissed the warning as a false alarm. He deduced that a first-strike nuclear attack by the United States was likely to involve hundreds of simultaneous missile launches in order to disable any Soviet means of a counterattack. His suspicion was confirmed when no missiles arrived at the proposed time of impact.
Later, it was determined that the false alarms were caused by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds and the satellites’ Molniya orbits, an error later corrected by cross-referencing a geostationary satellite.
So the only reason why civilization as we know it didn’t cease to exist in 1983 was the level-headed behavior of a single man.
Tastypies
Resistance to antibiotics is growing at such an alarming rate, that they risk losing effectiveness entirely, meaning medical procedures such as caesarean sections, joint replacements and chemotherapy could soon become too dangerous to perform. Unless urgent action is taken, drug resistant infections will kill 10 million people a year by 2050, more than cancer kills currently.
ZunaCorpLX
Brain aneurysms can happen whenever, wherever.
ion_force
According to WhatCulture:
“The cluster of bananas sitting in your local grocery store has the ability to set off a Geiger counter. Bananas, among many other foods, have a natural half-life resulting from the high levels of potassium. So relax, just because they are radioactive doesn’t mean they are deadly or can cause you to mutate. However, knowing that bananas are naturally radioactive didn’t stop Japanese authorities from banning them after the tsunami in 2011, which caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Even if they had been more supportive of the banana, the terrified people weren’t willing to take any chances on food that was even remotely radioactive; let alone, food that came that way naturally.”
Source
According to a recent Furtwangen study, your kitchen sponge is as clean as turd.
KissyKillerKitty
If you are a certain distance from a nuclear explosion, you won’t be killed immediately. Instead, you’ll get third degree burns throughout your entire body. This kills your nerves so fast that it’s completely painless.
geogoose
20% of office mugs contain faecal matter.
Source
100,000,000 Micro Organisms Live Inside Your Mouth.
Source
Bullsharks can adapt to freshwater. According to What Culture:
“This may be the single most horrifying thing to be discovered about sharks in a very long time. Bull sharks are a force of nature, which we remain ignorant about at our own risk. These fierce sharks are some of the most strong and aggressive fish swimming in the deep blue, and they will eat people on purpose. Up until the point where we thought sharks could only survive in the ocean the worst thing about freshwater lakes and rivers were snakes and alligators. However, now, whether spending the day on the beach or at the lake, if the body of water you’re in is connected to the ocean in some way, a giant bull shark might be lurking beneath the murky surface. One of these days, a freshwater lake is going to face an infestation of bull sharks, and then it will be game over.”
Source
We are alive at what the overwhelmingly vast majority of the universe will know as the “extremely distant past” – 13 billion years into something that could very well make a trillion years look like the blink of an eye. If the Universe was a download, it would be another 80 billion years before we get to 1% of the amount of time it takes a very small star to go through its hydrogen.
Yep. You and I are alive at the beginning. Not the middle, not the end. We are the bacteria.
Wisdom_from_the_Ages
The first firefighter killed responding to the 9/11 attacks was struck dead in the courtyard by a falling body. Two people, killed simultaneously one on his way in, the other on their way out.
RecklessNotNegligen
Cockroaches can live up to nine days without their heads.
Source
There are a huge amount of illnesses that aren’t curable or even treatable. We have this idea that we go to a doctor, they find out what’s wrong with us and then fix us.
There are many illnesses that make doctors throw up their hands because they don’t even know what is causing us to be unwell, and people are often ill for years, or life.
JosephStash
There’s now a strain of gonorrhoea which is totally resistant to antibiotic treatment.
YarrahGoffincher
There are human remains at Disneyland. According to What Culture:
“People often scatter the ashes of deceased relatives over grounds they found endearing in life. The action is symbolic, meant to release the spirit in a place of peace. Kind of like a surfer who wants to return to the ocean in death so his friends scatter his ashes over the waves. An ashes-to-ashes; dust-to-dust sort of thing. The only problem is when people start dumping human remains over the park grounds of Disneyland. For years Disney has received countless requests for ash dumping permission and has denied all of them, but that hasn’t stopped people from executing the ritual while on a ride. Ever notice how dusty certain parts of the Haunted House ride look? Well, that’s because it happens to be the most popular point in Disneyland to deposit the remains of the dead. The employees do their best to clean it up, but they never get all of it. So the Haunted House ride really is filled with the angry ghosts of people whose ashes got scattered, only to be mostly scooped up and thrown in a trash can.”
Source
Hospitals in America sometimes charge over thirty dollars for a dose of Ibuprofen.
Beestorm
If you have clothes in your wardrobe and food in your fridge, you’re in the richest 20% of people in the world. Something so simple would categorize you above 80% of people in the world…
Soggy_Diaperz
Right now there are tiny little bugs living on your face, munching on your dead skin.
yeesh_kabab
A child dies of hunger every 15 seconds.
eccentricgoose
Aircraft toilets can suck out your rectum. Watch out! According to What Culture:
“Horror stories of vacuum commodes sucking the innards out of airplane passengers have been spreading around the Internet for years. These rumors terrified so many people that the popular show Mythbusters did a special about it. The result was the show host didn’t get his intestines unglued and the world rested easy again. Now if people mention this urban legend the comeback is always the same. “No, Mythbusters cracked that one. Boom, myth busted.” Oh really? Doctor’s journals would beg to differ. Although it defies belief there is a chance an airplane toilet can take more than just the waste with a flush. If a person’s cushion is cushy enough (they would have to be rather large) to form a perfect seal over the bowl, flushing could mean the end.”
Source
We breathe in around a litre of fart every day.
Source
Each human will shed around 40 pounds of skin in their lifetime.
Source