There are more twins today than ever. This is because the later you decide to givebirth, the higher your chances to get twins — and people today tend to create familieslater than ever before. There are more living things on and insideyour body than there are people on Earth. And not just twice or three times so — thenumbers are simply mind-blowing. Speaking of which, bacteria make up from 2to 9 pounds of your body weight. It’s hard to imagine how many of them thereare in your body. If you have a kid, be prepared for questionbombardment: an average four-year-old asks something over 400 times per day. There’s a chili pepper that you can’teat if you want to stay alive. It’s never used in cooking, though: it wasdesigned as a painkiller. Scientists believe Leonardo da Vinci couldwrite with one hand and draw pictures with the other at the same time. Talk about multitasking! Your outer skin gets totally replaced eachmonth. Overall, an average human sheds about 40 poundsof skin throughout their life. There’s a room in the Microsoft’s headquartersin Washington that holds a world record for being the quietest room in the world. Standing inside it, you can hear your heartbeating. In August 2010, Beijing witnessed the longesttraffic jam ever: it lasted 10 days and was 62 mi long. The Metric system is the most widely acceptedsystem of measurement in the world. Only three countries still use the imperialunits: Liberia, Myanmar, and the US. John D. Rockefeller still holds the recordas the richest man in the world: his net worth, adjusted for inflation, is 10 times more thanthat of Bill Gates. Starfish can not only regenerate their lostlimbs, but even a limb can regenerate the whole starfish. Thanks to the Montreal Protocol, signed in1987, scientists believe the Earth’s ozone layer will fully restore itself within halfa century. Yay! In 2011, Forbes decided to estimate the networth of Scrooge McDuck. They came to a conclusion that it was $44.1billion. If taken together, all ants in the world willweigh as much as the whole human population of the planet, and then some. Chicken are more than twice as numerous ashumans. In 2009, their overall number in the worldwas estimated to be 18.6 billion. Purple is the least popular color when itcomes to national flags. There are just two countries in the worldthat use it in theirs: Dominica and Nicaragua. If you’ve seen snow in your lifetime, consideryourself lucky: two-thirds of people on the planet can’t say the same about themselves. Domestic chicken is the closest relative ofdinosaurs. Yes, including the mighty T-Rex. Leaves on trees turn yellow and red come fallbecause they don’t have enough warmth and sunlight to produce the green pigment — chlorophyll. Cold nights and bright sunny days mean morevibrant colors. Bart Simpson should be older now than hismother was in the first season of the show. That is, if the yellow family aged normally. There’s a $20 coin made in 1933 that wassold 70 years later for more than $7 billion. Also, it was never actually used as currency. Don’t ever suppress a sneeze if you don’tabsolutely have to. The pressure can result in a rupture of ablood vessel in your head or neck, which can lead to injury. There’s a town in Honduras where every year,at around the same time of the year, it rains fish. Scientists don’t have an explanation tothis phenomenon yet. Although there are 24 hours in a day, thereare more than 24 time zones on the globe. Some of them are just 45 or even 30 minutesapart from their closest neighbors. Jeep is actually an abbreviation: originally,it was called a G.P., or a general purpose vehicle. The first Native American to greet the pilgrims,whose name was Samoset, could speak English even before he met them. Sweden is the largest island country in theworld. It has over 221,800 islands, only about athousand of which are inhabited. A jellyfish melts in the sun because it’s95% water. Talk about cucumbers. In 2012, twin girls Amy and Katie were born87 days apart. They’re now in the Guinness World Recordsfor the longest gap between the birth of twins. All pandas in the world’s zoos belong toChina. If you see a giant panda at a zoo, you canbe sure it’s just a guest there. If you were to watch every video on YouTube,you’d have to spend 1,000 years on that. And then about 1,000 times more because ofall the new videos that would appear by then. A mouse’s bones are so flexible it can fitinto a ballpoint pen-sized hole. If you cage one, make sure the grid is smallenough. The most popular language in the world isnot English, and by far. The title belongs to Mandarin Chinese, withover a billion speakers around the globe. The record for the longest-lasting hiccupsbelongs to a man named Charles Osborne. He had this condition for 69 years straight. Human fingers are extremely sensitive as anevolutionary perk. If your fingertips were the size of Earth,you’d feel the difference between a one-story house and a car. China is home to the most bicycles in theworld. However, the most bike-friendly city is Copenhagenin Denmark. A giraffe’s tongue is so long the animalcan clean its own ears with it. Which it does every so often. I am jealous. A hummingbird’s heart beats at the averagerate of 1,200 beats per minute. That’s 20 beats per second! Only about 86% of the world’s adult populationcan read, and it’s considered a huge leap forward compared to half a century ago. Lobsters, due to their cold-blooded nature,can come back to life after being frozen and thawed again. And they are delicious. Just sayin’. Prairie dogs kiss each other to say “hi.” Aww. Facebook can qualify as a country of its own:today, there are over 2 billion people using it, which is more than the population of theUS, China, and Brazil combined. Africa is a challenger, though: by 2050, it’sestimated to grow to 2.3 billion people living there. During a flight on an airplane, our senseof smell and taste is 20 to 50% lower than usual. That’s why the food on board doesn’t seemdelicious. Japan is home to the oldest hotel in the world. It’s been welcoming guests since 705 CE. French was the official language of Englandfor about 450 years. In 1066, William the Conqueror, who was ofthe French origin, brought the language to the country. Some of the first graffiti of the similarkind we have today appeared in Pompeii. They date back almost 2,000 years. The full name of Oz from the Wonderful Wizardof Oz by L. Frank Baum was actually Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel EmmannuelAmbroise Diggs. Yeah, I can see why he shortened it to Oz– less keystrokes. Cows are highly social creatures, and theyeven have best buddies they spend most of their time together with. They become upset if they get separated too. In case you didn’t notice, goats have rectangularpupils. And they’re the only animals with such aneye structure. There’s archeological evidence of an extinctpenguin species that was about 6-foot tall. Imagine a penguin looking you straight inthe eye. Hey, nice tux. You too, pal. It rains diamonds on Jupiter and Saturn. This happens because methane turns into carbon,which then hardens to become graphite and eventually diamond. High heels were originally men’s wear. In Ancient Egypt, butchers wore them to avoidblood on the floor. Dogs don’t see the world in shades of gray. In fact, they can see colors, just fewer ofthem than people. The name of the man who invented cotton candywas William Morrison. He was a dentist. There’s a thunderstorm in Venezuela thatoccurs every year and lasts for about 140-160 nights. It even has a name: Catatumbo. Michelangelo couldn’t stand painting theSistine Chapel’s ceiling so much that he even wrote a poem about it. Ever got chills from listening to your favoritetrack? It’s because your brain reacts to it byreleasing dopamine — the happiness hormone. Figures. You probably know that tomatoes are technicallyberries, right? Well, bananas, peppers, and eggplants are,too. John Cage, an avant-garde composer, wrotethe longest musical piece in history. It’s supposed to be played as slowly aspossible, and it’s estimated to take 639 years to play to the end. Does the orchestra get paid overtime for that? Black belt in martial arts, such as karate,translates from Japanese as “first step.” That’s because achieving the black beltis just literally the first stage of mastering the art, with much more to come yet. Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplinlookalike contest… and lost it! The same happened with Dolly Parton almosta hundred years later, in 2012. Mark Zuckerberg is red and green colorblind. That’s why he designed Facebook in shadesof blue — that’s the color he can see best. Horseshoe crabs have a total of 10 eyes, twoof which are located right on its hard shell. Well, what did you expect from a creaturethat’s called a living fossil?