10 Disgusting and Disturbing Facts That Will Leave You Agape

How often do you spend time surfing on the internet? 7-8 hours, Maybe! You read the news, blogs, play games, and do several things. But sometimes while stumbling upon the internet, you come up with facts that you haven’t heard or read in books.

For instance, do you know, according to researchers, right-handed people live nine years longer than left-handed people? Also, parts of Albert Einstein’s brain are on display in a museum? We have compiled a few disturbing facts that you would probably Google after reading. 

1. Horses Can’t Vomit

Source = Qph.fs.quoracdn

Yes, this is true. Horses can’t throw up. The humans can remove/throw out whatever toxic is inside their stomach. The muscles of the lower esophageal sphincter in horses are stronger than other animals. So, this makes it impossible for horses to open the valve under backward pressure from the stomach.

The horses have a weak vomiting reflex, or the neural pathways that control this activity are not properly developed in horses. When the horse’s stomach is full, the stomach wall pushes against the esophagus and closes the cardiac sphincter completely. Only a few cases of horse vomiting are reported.

2. Romans Used Mouse Brains as a Toothpaste

Source = 2.bp

This is one of the most disturbing facts you would read. While people in the 21st century use several popular brands toothpaste, the Romans, on the other hand, used crushed mouse brains as toothpaste. They paid special attention to their hygiene and particularly to their teeth. Several surprising ingredients were mixed to make toothpaste.

A natural philosopher & a Roman author, Pliny- the Elder, advised preparing a toothpaste that is a mix of donkey teeth with an extract of the mouse brain. To get flavoring: it was mixed with powdered charcoal and bicarbonate sodium. Some of the Romans brushed their teeth with urine. They mixed urine and goat milk to keep their teeth white. They were weird, but we can’t forget Roman’s contributions to the modern world.

Do you know that the Romans used urine to clean their clothes? This is because it contains ammonia. Also, Romans were superstitious and believed that people should cut hairs on the 17th and 29th of the month to prevent baldness and headaches. Is this true? 

3. Barcode Scanners Scan White and Not the Black Part

Source = Cdn.britannica

This is one of the most disturbing facts you would read. While people in the 21st century use several popular brands toothpaste, the Romans, on the other hand, used crushed mouse brains as toothpaste. They paid special attention to their hygiene and particularly to their teeth. Several surprising ingredients were mixed to make toothpaste.

A natural philosopher & a Roman author, Pliny- the Elder, advised preparing a toothpaste that is a mix of donkey teeth with an extract of the mouse brain. To get flavoring: it was mixed with powdered charcoal and bicarbonate sodium. Some of the Romans brushed their teeth with urine. They mixed urine and goat milk to keep their teeth white. They were weird, but we can’t forget Roman’s contributions to the modern world.

Do you know that the Romans used urine to clean their clothes? This is because it contains ammonia. Also, Romans were superstitious and believed that people should cut hairs on the 17th and 29th of the month to prevent baldness and headaches. Is this true? 

4. An Elephant Can Produce Over 300 Pounds of Poop in a Day

Source = Static.independent

Do you know elephants could feed for 16 hours a day? An adult elephant could eat 8kgs of grains a day. An elephant eats fibrous foods, plants, and trees.

Most of the food it eats is passed through the body undigested. Their daily intake is nearly 5% of their body weight, i.e., they could eat up to 150 kg of food a day. The food doesn’t digest properly, and it comes out in their dung.

You would be shocked to know that monkeys and beetles also eat elephant dung for their survival. Elephant dung is a natural mosquito repellant and also a great fertilizer.

A herd of elephants in Thailand is used to produce the world’s most expensive coffee. The brew is made from the beans eaten by elephants and is plucked from their dung.

5. La Isla De La Munecas (An Island in Mexico) is Filled with Horrifying Dolls

Source = Mas-mexico

Can you believe the beautiful islands that you plan to visit to relax can be a spooky one? La Isla De La Munecas, an island in Mexico, is filled with dolls hanging from buildings and trees. It is believed that the owner of the island, Don Julián Santana, used to hang dolls to protect from evil spirits.

The island has a horrifying history. People say that the owner once imagined a drowned girl on an island. From that day on, he devoted his life to honor this lost soul. While most people find this island a haunted place, he saw the dolls as the protectors of the island. He even charged a fee from the visitors to take the pictures. 

Not La Isla De La Munecas alone is known as the haunting island; these mysterious islands also have some haunting history and frightening stories.

6. A Deck of Cards Can be Arranged in More Ways Than There are Atoms on Earth

Source = Thoughtco

Can you count the number of games that can be played through a deck of cards? Probably No! Which is the last card game that you played? Whether you have played a rummy, blackjack, poker, or crazy eights, every time you shuffled the cards, you were organizing a sequence that would never exist in history. Imagine the number of card games played around the world since its existence.

Every time you shuffle the cards, you try your best to mix them in the best possible way. But it is found that there are 80,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ways to arrange the deck of cards. It is believed that this number is more than the atoms on the earth.

Don’t believe this? Try yourself. Shuffle the cards once and arrange the cards in the sequence. Shuffle again, and you will see a new combination of the cards. Try this until you are satisfied. I don’t have any other ideas. If you love playing card games and blackjack is your favorite then, try this easiest way to count card like a pro in BlackJack games.

7. Koala Babies Eat Their Mums’ Poop

Source = I.ytimg

This is another surprising and disturbing fact about the animal kingdom. Most people relate Koalas to bears, but they are no way similar to bears. Koalas resemble bears but are closely related to wombats and kangaroos. They are adorable but are born with some weaknesses. For instance, Koala’s main diet is eucalyptus leaves, which is harmful to many animals.

Koala babies (joey) eat their mother’s poop. It is not poop but is extra wet and creamy and is called as pap. Baby Koalas could not eat eucalyptus leaves; therefore, the mom passes special organisms from her intestine, which baby can properly digest. Pap is different from the regular poop that the mother produces during normal digestion. It is sticky and comes from the caecum. Joeys consume mothers’ poop and milk as their diet for 2-3 months.

Koala looks cuddly but has sharp teeth and claws. Koala baby stays five months in the mother's pouch and is born blind. They are lazy animals but could run as fast as a rabbit. Unfortunately, Koala’s population is decreasing, as people are cutting trees and are making their houses or farms.  

8. Moths Vibrate Their Genitals to Mislead the Bat from Their Location

Source = Nationalgeographic

The moth is a camouflaged animal and changes the color according to the place it rests on, trees or leaves. A moth can be noticed easily in the daylight; therefore, it changes the color to hide from predators. Bats eat many insects and moths are their favorite. Therefore, they defend themselves from the bats in several ways. In a study by Dr. Kawahara, he found that most moths have ears on their bodies, which they use to respond to bat predation.

The hawk-moths produce ultrasound. They do this by using their genitals. They produce a sound not to mimic toxicity but interfere with bat echolocation. As a bat comes near hawk moth, it produces ultrasound, which misleads the bat in locating the moth’s direction.

Another type of moth is silk moth. It doesn’t have ears and is not toxic, but still, they save themselves from the bat. Do you know how? Silkmoth is large, and thus bats can’t eat them. Also, the Moth is considered to be one of the most annoying insects in the world.

9. Miss Unsinkable or Violet Jessop is the Only One to Survive a Collision on the RMS Olympic- Sinking of the Titanic and Brittanic

Source = Thevintagenews

Violet Jessop, or popularly recognized as Miss Unsinkable, has survived not one but three ship-disasters of the 20th century. In her childhood, she suffered from a severe illness and then survived these catastrophic disasters. She had severe tuberculosis, which was supposed to kill her. Luckily, she survived.

In 1910, she joined a job on the RMS Olympic. Everything was going great until one day when the RMS crashed into a British warship, HMS Hawke. The ship didn’t sink, but it was a horrifying experience.

Later, she boarded as a stewardess on RMS Titanic on 10th April 1912. Four days later, the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank after the collision. Surprisingly, Violet Jessop and several other passengers were loaded into a lifeboat number 16 and survived. It was the rule that women and children should be saved first. Violet had someone’s baby in her arms, and she stepped into the boat first.

After surviving this tragic incident, she took a job on the HMHS Britannic. The ship was converted into a hospital ship during WWII. It is still a mystery how the explosion happened in 1916, but it killed over 30 people out of 1066 onboard. Some say that the ship hit the mine or struck by a torpedo.

Due to situations, Jessop jumped out of her lifeboat but got her head injured. She survived the injury and returned to work in 1920. I wonder how can anyone be so lucky! Read more haunted shipwreck stories that left a mark in history. 

10. Arsenic Killed Several Victorian Britishers Because They Didn’t Know It Was Poisonous

Source = Listverse

Arsenic was used as a medication to treat skin problems, cancer, asthma, and other diseases. It was tasteless and odorless and was confused with the flour and sugar. But most of the Victorian Britain people didn’t know that Arsenic is poisonous and accidentally used it in fabric dyes and wallpapers.

A popular textile designer Morris also used Arsenic in his wallpaper even after knowing its effects on humans. He avoided the hazards of the Arsenic and used it in wallpapers. The pigment was also mixed to create different hues of blue and yellow

Every Victorian had this powder at their home for rats and mice, yet, they ate meat dipped into it to keep away flies and wore dresses dyed with arsenic. If left untouched, the wallpapers could release the arsenic into the air when conditions are wet. It was reported that Arsenic was responsible for over 2-5% of the cases that involved poisoning in the 20th century.

Arsenic poisoning could also be the reason behind Alexander the Great's death. It is believed that his half-brother Ptolemy I Soter poisoned him with arsenic.

Final Words

Several strange things, animals, and more exists on the earth. While some facts about them surprise you, others make you scratch your head.

Do you know other disturbing facts that completely changed your thoughts about something? If so, then share them with us. We would love to post them for our readers in the next segment.