27 Weird Facts About Something You Do Every Single Day

We all need to sleep. If we didn’t sleep, we’d die. The number of hours we need per night is always up in the air, but the fact of the matter is that those who don’t get enough sleep are usually pretty miserable.

While it seems like a pretty simple activity, so many things happen while we sleep. Don’t believe me? Check these out.

1. Humans spend an average of 25 years sleeping over the course of a lifetime.

2. Parents of newborn babies miss out on roughly 6 months of sleep during the baby’s first 2 years of life.

3. The record for the longest period without sleep is 11 days.

4. Sleeping less than 7 hours each night reduces life expectancy.

5. Some deaf people sign in their sleep.

6. Lack of sleep can cause people to gain about 2 pounds a week.

7. It’s impossible to sneeze in your sleep.

8. Work hours are so insane in Japan that it’s normal for people to fall asleep on the job.

9. If you have trouble getting out of bed every morning, you’re suffering from something called dysania.

10. People sleep differently depending on the moon’s phases. We tend to sleep best under a new moon, and worst under a full moon.

11. Tibetan monks have been known to sleep standing up.

12. Pilots surveyed in the U.K. have admitted to falling asleep while flying passenger planes.

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13. Believing that you’ve slept well improves performance, even if you didn’t get that much sleep.

14. Memories take hold better during sleep.

15. John Lennon used to sleep in an old coffin from time to time.

16. Studies show that students at schools with later start times perform better.

17. You burn more calories while sleeping than you do while watching television.

18. Sleep deprivation can impair judgment and slow reaction time.

19. Neuroscientists believe that babies don’t dream for the first few years of their lives.

20. Women experience more nightmares than men.

21. When in complete darkness, most people adjust to a 48-hour cycle: 12 hours of sleep, and 36 hours of activity.

22. Contrary to popular belief, the likelihood of eating even one spider in your lifetime while sleeping is slim to none.

23. About 8% of Americans sleep naked.

24. The average person in France sleeps 8.83 hours a night — the most in the developed world.

25. Morphine got its name from Morpheus, the God of Sleep, because morphine has a tendency to make people lethargic.

26. A baby’s brain can use up to 50% of its glucose in a day, which explains why they need so much sleep.

27. People who suffer from migraines, heart conditions, and sleep deprivation often experience nightmares.

(via Fact Slides)

I bet you didn’t know all of that! Now you’ll have a better appreciation for what’s going on while you’re sleeping.

Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/weird-sleep-facts/

10 Confessions That Show Just How Heartbreaking Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Can Be

Approximately two percent of people over the age of 18 in the United States suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

And we all have that one picky friend who constantly says they have OCD because they can’t mix green M&Ms with red ones or handle the thought of peas touching mashed potatoes on their plate. What real sufferers deal with, however, has nothing to do with an odd desire to eat red M&Ms first, although strict organization can certainly be one of many crushing symptoms.

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The fact of the matter is that your friend would be able to go about their day if they accidentally ate a green candy first. People dealing with OCD do not have the luxury of messing up a ritual and moving on.

News of a teenager named Alicia Falconer recently broke on Metro’s website. The young woman, who struggles with OCD, feels compelled to tap on surfaces 100 times to ensure that her family stays alive.

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Although that might sound bizarre to most of us, the fact of the matter is that these fears are very real to people dealing with the condition.

In many cases, people struggling with OCD find themselves confined to their homes because their compulsions and rituals take over their lives. You can imagine the emotional and psychological toll that would take on a person. To better understand what it feels like to be trapped by such a serious mental illness, take a look at these real-life confessions.

1. “Someone who I admired and respected passed away some years ago, and I feel like it’s my fault. We never met, and I didn’t know them personally at all.”

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(via Reddit / ComputerLoadUpCelery)

“I keep thinking that through my actions, like buying tomato soup instead of spinach soup on a certain day or whatever trivial nonsense, I caused his demise.”

2. “I started to think I was going to veer off the road and hit some pedestrian, so for about a year, driving got really tedious. A trip that normally took me about 20 minutes started to take me around an hour because of the constant checking and re-checking.”

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(via Reddit / otherdudename)

While he was out driving one day, the Redditor used everything in his power to pass a woman on the sidewalk without circling back to check on her. When he got home, he was consumed by guilt. In his words, “I had put it out of my mind for months until one day it hit me. ‘What if I’d hit that woman? What if she was dead and I did it?’ Ever since then, this has been haunting me. The guilt I feel gets really bad sometimes. I know in my head I didn’t actually hit someone, but since I can’t prove it, the guilt remains.”

3. “I generally refuse to discuss my obsessions in depth because of concern that they are somehow contagious.”

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(viaReddit / panrestrial)

“I worry that the things I obsess over are things that would disturb anyone who really thought about them, and I can’t bear the idea of anyone else feeling this way so I can’t discuss them for fear I’ll pass them on. Are any of you worried that if you talk in too much detail about your obsessions that listeners will become similarly obsessed?”

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4. “Nobody really understands. To be in this cage you can’t break free from. The misery. The things you get used to that would appall normal people.”

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(via Reddit / TurnTheValve)

“I can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t rest my arms on anything, and can’t sit down. I have to wait hours before I can sit down and longer before I can sleep. I’m depressed, dizzy, thirsty, and my body hurts. Once I go to sleep, I know that I’ll just wake up and do it all over again. I need out so badly.”

5. “I’ve recently had this awareness of swallowing due to a recent post-nasal drip and I can’t get rid of it. The more I think about it, the more saliva my body produces, the more times I swallow.”

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(via Reddit / daszeus1)

“It bothers me when I’m trying to sleep or when I wake up in the middle of the night, and sometimes I can’t go back to sleep due to the constant need to swallow. It causes me insomnia.”

6. “I’ve been having a problem as of late where I get stuck having an argument with myself in my head. That argument just repeats over and over and I can’t make it stop.”

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(via Reddit / Vethar)

“It’s an absolutely terrible feeling. I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve always had to deal with intrusive thoughts and obsessing over particular things, but this is some next-level stuff.”

7. “I have a big fear of schizophrenia and demonic possession, so I have this image of some human guy in my head and I constantly try to push it away and then accept it. Then a thought will say it’s a demon.”

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(via Reddit / SugarPupPups)

“So tired of all these intrusive thoughts of demonic possession. So tired of it. It’s so tiring trying to deal with all this. I’m stressed out.”

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8. “I have developed some fears about whether or not I’m losing my cognitive abilities, and as a result of that, I constantly check my intelligence by doing some incredible logic-based gymnastics in order to reassure myself that I’m not becoming stupid or worse, going crazy.”

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(via Reddit / Sirearthure)

“If I had to sum up this phenomenon in few words, I would say it’s some sort of fear of not understanding something. Because in my poor mind, I automatically associate this fear with stupidity, and stupidity means losing myself as a human being and facing rejection from others.”

9. “I count everything and add, multiply, and subtract until I get nine. Digital numbers, sides of things, everything.”

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(via Reddit / Ziasauruswrecks)

“Examples: It is currently 8:25 p.m. 8+2+5=15. 1+5=6. 6+3=9. Those arrows painted on the road…seven sides plus two equals nine. Stop sign, eight sides plus one equals nine. TV, four sides plus four outer edges, sometimes four more edges, equals 12. 1+2=3. 3 x 3=9. I do it all the damn time. It drives me absolutely crazy.”

10. “Since the third grade, I have had an irrational fear that I’m being watched or spied on with cameras.”

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(via Reddit / Disirai)

I’m 28 now and still have a fear of cameras watching me. Dressing rooms, public bathrooms, the rental house I’m living in. What if the landlords installed cameras?”

If you or someone you know is struggling with OCD, please reach out. Click here for more details about how you can find the support you and your loved ones need.

Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/ocd-confessions/

This Poor Cat…Only In Eastern Europe. This Is Definitely Animal Cruelty!

Not to stereotype, but let’s be honest, there are a lot of crazy videos that come out of Eastern Europe. Granted, I’m sure an equal number of crazy videos are created in America and Western Europe. However, they don’t often get as much media traction as the ones from Russia and other former Soviet countries. Which is why when I came across the video below of a guy smoking cigarettes with his cat, I was hardly surprised…

How does he even get the cat to sit still for this?!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzEy8z_IxxY?autoplay=0&start=83]

This is definitely a horrible case of animal cruelty. Animals can get lung cancer, too. And it’s not just from actually smoking themselves.

In fact, according to a study, cats who live in homes where someone smokes a pack of cigarettes or more every day are three times more likely to get cancer than cats in nonsmoking homes. Don’t ever subject your pets to this kind of cruelty.

Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/smoking-cat/

This Might Look Like A Piece Of Paper, But It Does Something Incredible

It seems like a new device comes out every week, and because visual social media is having a moment, many of those devices come in the form of seriously awesome (and seriously expensive) cameras. Beauty bloggers spend hundreds on the latest lenses, and Instagram photographers snap up just about every iPhone photo attachment that hits the market.

But what if you’re a more casual camera enthusiast? Well, this novelty device might be just what you need.

Universe, meet the item that’s clumsily translated into English as the “Paper Like a Digital Camera.”

This tiny device is only 6 millimeters thick, but it can take photos and record what are essentially cellphone-quality videos. Not bad for something that’s the same thickness as a piece of card stock.

Minuscule camera parts are stuffed between retro-style paper components. Each device comes with an LED light that indicates battery life and a microSD card that holds 16 GB of data.

All you have to do to transfer your photos to a different device is plug the built-in USB terminal into a drive. Easy as pie, kids.

And if you want one, you can head on over to this site.

To see it in action before you punch in your credit card number, check out the video below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOMcSJ4GXIk?autoplay=0]

(via PetaPixel)

I personally won’t be rushing to get my hands on one of these, but I guess it’s pretty cool that people who have always wanted retro-looking paper cameras that take questionable photos and videos can now have the device of their dreams.

Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/paper-pictures/

This Looks Like A Regular Bike, But It’s Actually One Of The Coolest Inventions Ever

                                                                                                                                                      <div class="content">                    <h3>The AHS Sikorsky Prize is awarded every year to the team that can build the biggest, baddest human-powered helicopter on the planet.</h3>  And this year's winner is absolutely stunning to watch. It may only be able to lift the operator 3.3 meters into the air for just over a minute, but its existence really is a feat of human engineering. The machine's range of motion isn't too extensive, but the size and scale of it make the viewing experience something you can't miss.</p> <div class="video-container">[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syJq10EQkog?autoplay=0]</div> <p>Participants in this competition always blow audiences away, but there's something really special about this team's creation. To see more of its record-breaking flight, check out AeroVelo's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaaBYl_LnxAecUOgfVTQHvg" target="_blank">Youtube channel</a>.</p>              </div><p>Read more: <a href="http://www.viralnova.com/human-powered-helicopter/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.viralnova.com/human-powered-helicopter/</a>

A Science Teacher Lit His Student On Fire — And It Was Totally Awesome

Even if you were a popular kid that had to pretend not to care, let’s face it: we all loved science class.

Even if the work was hard, on some level, it was great to spend an hour just messing around with beakers and graduated cylinders. In this classic science demonstration, the teacher filled soap bubbles with methane gas.

And then lit them on fire while a student was holding them.

This is both awesome…and probably dangerous.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rTF48uweHY?autoplay=0]

SCIENCE. IS. AWESOME.

Methane gas is lighter than air, so when it fills the soap bubbles, they rise straight up into the air (and don’t splash back down on the teacher or student). Since the student coated his hand in the soap solution, he was able to “hold” the fire without burning his hand (the methane bubbles adhere to the liquid, but don’t break).

Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/lights-student-on-fire/

A Dentist Once Wrote About A Condition That Caused People’s Teeth To Explode

We often associate sitting in the dentist’s chair with annoyance and pain, but dentists never get enough credit for making that experience much less painful than it actually could be.

Thomas Morris, a writer and avid researcher of medical history oddities, wrote a piece about the history of dental explosions that’ll make your skin crawl. (Yes, seriously.)

In the 19th century, a dentist by the name of W.H. Atkinson wrote about a bizarre condition that caused people’s teeth to explode in their mouths. (And you thought getting cavities filled was painful!)

In 1817, Atkinson recorded the case of a reverend in Springfield, Pennsylvania, who suffered from a painful toothache.

One morning, he heard a loud crack in his mouth that sounded “like a pistol shot.” After his tooth shattered into tiny pieces, the pain went away.

In 1871, a young woman’s tooth blew up from a similar affliction.

Some say the sound that came from her mouth was so loud that she went deaf for a few days after the fact.

No one is quite sure if this condition actually existed, but one of its causes could have been that severe tooth decay often leads to gas buildup at the root.

When the tooth is filled with too much gas, it explodes like a balloon.

Another theory is that two different metals used for fillings back then reacted to each other by producing hydrogen.

That could explain the bizarre explosions.

(via Thomas Morris on BBC | Unexplained Mysteries)

But these are only theories, of course. Most modern dentists have little faith that this syndrome was ever actually a thing. Did Atkinson really treat a man with an exploding tooth problem, or was this just part of a sophisticated ploy to get his patients to floss more? We may never know.

To read more about the weird history of medicine, follow Thomas Morris on Twitter.

Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/exploding-teeth/

This Is What An Upside-Down Iceberg Looks Like

                                            <b>Belly up!</b> Here&rsquo;s what the icy behemoths look like when they&rsquo;ve had a few too many.                                                           

1. On a recent excursion to Antarctica, San Francisco-based filmmaker and designer Alex Cornell, 30, caught a rare glimpse of an iceberg’s underside.

Alex Cornell / Via alexcornell.com

Most icebergs’ hefty bodies are submerged under water, but occasionally they roll over, according to ScienceNews. Compared to the comprehensively white Antarctic, from a distance on their fast bouncy boat, the iceberg just looked like a piece of rock, Cornell wrote in an email to BuzzFeed.

As we got closer, it became clear that it was a pure jade iceberg. We had a naturalist onboard the zodiac boat with us, and he explained what we were seeing and why it was so exciting. To us, everything we came across was exciting (penguins! icebergs!), but this certainly stood out as a rare sight — something I had never seen before in real life, or even subsequently in photos.

3. Where do icebergs come from, anyway?

Alex Cornell / Via alexcornell.com

The ice giants break off from glaciers or massive ice sheets and meander along with ocean currents, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center. So the flip occurs after the iceberg detaches from its parent, or when its ice melts unevenly and it keels over, oceanographer Louise Biddle told ScienceNews.

In a video he made about the shoot, Cornell said capturing images amid blindingly reflective surfaces is the biggest obstacle, especially because the mandatory sunglasses make it hard to review your work as you do on dry land. Of all of his projects, he never imagined a natural photo he took of ice in water would be so widely covered, he wrote on his company’s site.

4. Here’s another view of the spectacularly aquamarine ice, which steadily becomes coated with the flotsam of environmental elements.

Alex Cornell / Via alexcornell.com

“We were very lucky to come upon it during the short window of time before it blended back into white, after enough air, sun, and snow exposure,” said Cornell.

5. You can see even more footage of Cornell’s Antarctic shoot in his illustrative video.

Alex Cornell / Via alexcornell.com

Or catch more of his work (like this furry little guy) on his site or Instagram.

6. H/T ScienceNews

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/kasiagalazka/flipped-iceberg

23 Times Neil DeGrasse Tyson Was So Sassy It Hurt

                                            <b>Astrophysicist with attitude.</b>                                                            

1. On the end of the world:

2. On measuring the length of blood vessels:

3. On intelligent life:

4. On alternative medicine:

5. On professional athletes:

6. On middle fingers:

If we had twelve fingers, there’d be no middle finger to flip at people with whom you’ve run out of words to communicate.

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

7. On The Los Angeles Angels:

Does it disturb anyone else that “The Los Angeles Angels” baseball team translates directly to “The The Angels Angels”?

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

8. On “toxins”:

The likelihood that a person uses the word “toxin” correlates strongly with how much Chemistry the person does *not* know

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

9. On Snoop Dogg:

If @RealJeffreyRoss and other comedians honored @SnoopDogg, would that be a “Pot Roast”?

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

10. On July 4th:

July 4 – Happy Birthday USA. Celebrating the day we declared Independence, and not the day we actually achieved it.

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

11. On “total eclipses”:

Total Eclipses occur every couple of years or so. If anyone calls them “rare”, ask if they feel that way about the Olympics.

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

12. On the state of television:

America 2012: The Learning Channel has HoneyBooBoo, History Channel has PawnStars: and the Science Channel has PumpkinChunkin

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

13. On the “Super Moon”:

Moon Lunacy strikes again: The impending Supermoon is to an average full Moon what a 16″ Pizza is to a 15″ Pizza. So chillax.

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

14. On hip-hop:

I’m quite sure that Frogs were into Hip-Hop long before the music industry was.

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

15. On soccer players:

I wonder what Rugby players think every time they see a Soccer player crying in pain from being grazed by another player.

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

16. On psychics:

A news headline you hardly ever see: “Psychic Wins the Lottery Again”

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

17. On Spanish sportscasters:

Good thing Spanish fútbol sportscasters don’t announce basketball, they’d spend 1/3 of playing time saying “Goooooooooooool”

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

18. On plane cabins:

Flight Attendants say: “Cabin pressurized for your comfort & safety.” What they mean is: “otherwise you’d freeze & suffocate”

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

19. On “Miss Universe”:

Astrophysicists are monitors of extreme adjectives. Which is why “Miss Universe” to us is just “Miss Earth”.

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

20. On airport customs:

Had to wait in line to renew a Passport allowing me to visit members of my own species across artificially conceived borders.

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

21. On Olympic curling:

I occasionally wonder whether people who are good at Olympic Curling are also good at sweeping out the basement.

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

22. On Red Bull Stratos:

I’m told somebody’s jumping out of a perfectly good balloon from 23-miles up. The theory of gravity no longer needs to be tested in this way

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

23. And on his DJ name:

If I were ever to become a Hip-hop DJ,I think I’d choose the name “MC-squared”

— neiltyson (@Neil deGrasse Tyson)

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/astrophysicist-with-attitude