Facts that sound false but are true — Page 12
Our highest surprise rating: the facts people most often refuse to believe until they read the explanation. Every one of them is documented.
1017 facts
A submerged tropical island the size of Iceland was discovered in the Atlantic.
The island would have existed about 80 million years ago, driven by a mantle plume. The remains were found about…
The Hjortspring boat, 2,400 years old, was sacrificed in a Danish lake.
Denmark's oldest warship was deliberately sunk in a lake as an offering to the gods. Excavated in the 1920s, the…
Humans mastered fire 400,000 years ago.
Recent studies indicate that humans mastered fire about 400,000 years ago, not 1 million years ago as previously…
There are plants that appear to die completely in drought and come back to life with rain.
Known as resurrection plants, these species lose almost all their water and look dead. When rain returns, they…
In 2025, scientists discovered a material with impossible thermal behaviour in a meteorite.
Inside a meteorite kept for 300 years, researchers found a material that defies traditional physics theories. The…
Astronomers discovered an object that is a mix of black hole and star.
The object, nicknamed a black hole star, emits 100 billion times more energy than any star known to produce by…
Exoplanet PSR J2322-2650b is shaped like a lemon.
The exoplanet's unusual shape results from the intense gravitational pull of its host star, which distorts it. The…
Comet 3I/ATLAS is the third known interstellar object to cross the Solar System.
Discovered in July 2025, 3I/ATLAS exhibits unusual characteristics and may originate from a planetary system older…
Researchers created electronic circuits made from mushrooms.
Scientists cultivated and dehydrated mushrooms to create circuits that switch between electrical states more than…
Scientists filmed a live goblin shark at nearly 700 metres deep in the Pacific.
In 2025, rare footage showed a goblin shark swimming freely at about 700 metres in the central Pacific, near Jarvis…
A tiny blue octopus the size of a golf ball was discovered at 1,800 metres deep in the Galapagos.
The animal, found during a deep-sea expedition, has an intense blue colour and a shape that surprised scientists. The…
About 74 percent of people may have a type of giant DNA hiding in their mouth.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo discovered Inocles, extrachromosomal DNA elements with an average of 350…
King Gustav III of Sweden used prisoners to test whether coffee was poisonous.
In the 18th century, the king ordered two condemned twins to drink coffee daily to prove whether it was harmful. The…
Point Nemo, in the Pacific, is the most isolated place on Earth and is 2,688 kilometres from any land.
Point Nemo is the oceanic pole of inaccessibility, identified in the 1990s through computer simulations. Ocean…
A 2,500-year-old statue was found buried face down under a Roman road in Turkey.
The statue, over 2.13 metres tall, was discovered in Sardis, the ancient capital of the Lydian Empire, during…
A 1,600-year-old Egyptian mummy contained a scroll with Homer's Iliad.
Archaeologists discovered in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, a papyrus scroll with excerpts from Homer's epic poem placed on the…
The Amazon zombie fungus also lives inside mosses without causing harm.
The Ophiocordyceps fungus, known for infecting ants and altering their behaviour, was found living inside mosses at…
A new plant that does not photosynthesise was discovered in Malaysia.
Thismia aliasii, nicknamed the fairy lantern, obtains nutrients by parasitising fungi instead of photosynthesising…
Scientists discovered new rules about how planarians regenerate body parts.
Researchers at the Stowers Institute found that planarian stem cells follow precise rules to rebuild a head or an…
The ANKLE1 protein is the first human enzyme capable of detecting physical tension in DNA.
Researchers at the University of Hong Kong identified ANKLE1 as the first nuclease in mammals that responds to…
Exoplanet PSR J2322-2650b is shaped like a lemon and may contain diamonds inside.
The object, with the mass of Jupiter, orbits a pulsar and has an atmosphere dominated by helium and carbon, something…
A new technology allows the production of flexible, ultra-pure diamond films at scale.
The technique, developed by Chinese scientists, enables the creation of flexible diamond films with applications in…
Stanford researchers invented the first self-powered mechanical circuits that learn.
The circuits use a mechanism called Adaptive Directed Springs (ADS), which work like mechanical neurons capable of…
Electronic circuits made from living mushrooms can detect heat and have self-healing capacity.
Researchers bioprinted networks of living fungal mycelium onto stretchable electronics to create a self-sustaining…