The World Is Glitching: Weird Facts That Feel Like Bad Coding
Some days, reality feels less like “real life” and more like a beta version of a weird simulation held together by duct tape and vibes. Good news: it absolutely is that weird, and we have receipts.
Here are five deeply unnecessary, share-with-the-group-chat weird facts that will make you question everything from pigeons to peanuts to your own skeleton. Yes, your skeleton is involved. Sorry in advance.
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1. Your Bones Are Basically Covered in Tiny Permanent Dents
Your skeleton is not the smooth, pristine Halloween decoration you think it is. It’s covered in little bumps, ridges, grooves, and dents where your muscles and tendons attach. They even have names, like “greater trochanter,” “tibial tuberosity,” and “wow-that’s-on-my-ankle?”
Every time you move, those muscles tug on your bones, and over time your bones remodel and reinforce those attachment points. Which means your bones are literally shaped by your life choices. Skipped leg day for three years straight? Your femurs know. Played violin as a kid? Your shoulder and collarbone probably still show it.
Some athletes and musicians even develop visible bony changes from repetitive use, like a physical “you really committed to this bit” achievement badge. Your skeleton is just a long-term documentation of everything you’ve ever done… and also every time you did nothing.
So yes, when you say “I feel this in my bones,” that’s not just drama. That’s low-key anatomy.
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2. Pigeons Can Read… Kind Of… and They’re Judging Your Font Choices
Pigeons: publicly clowned birds, secretly overqualified.
Researchers taught pigeons to recognize written words. Not just “this one shape = food,” but to distinguish real English words from nonsense letter mashups. The birds learned dozens of actual words and were able to sort new words from fake ones based on spelling patterns—basically, bird-level spellcheck.
They don’t understand meaning, but they *do* recognize that “BIRD” looks more like a real word than “BDIR.” Which is more than your phone’s autocorrect manages half the time.
They’ve also been trained to spot cancerous cells in medical images with an accuracy that rivals human experts. So while we’re out here calling them “rats with wings,” they’re out here being:
- Amateur orthographers
- Medical imaging interns
- Feathered surveillance cameras with better pattern recognition than we deserve
Next time a pigeon side-eyes you on the sidewalk, understand: it might not respect your spelling OR your posture.
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3. Bananas Are Radioactive, and So Are You
Bananas contain potassium, including a tiny amount of a naturally radioactive form called potassium-40. It’s not dangerous; you’d have to eat thousands of bananas *at once* to even start making a Geiger counter nervous. At that point, your bigger issue is being 80% banana.
Radiation nerds actually joke about a “Banana Equivalent Dose” to explain how small some exposures are. Like: “This X-ray is worth about a few bananas.” That’s a real thing people say in labs instead of going to therapy.
But it’s not just bananas—your body is also naturally radioactive, again thanks to potassium inside your cells. You, right now, are gently glowing with extremely low-level radiation like a very tired superhero whose only power is “mildly statistically insignificant.”
So if anyone ever calls you toxic, just tell them:
“I’m not toxic. I’m *naturally radioactive,* actually. Get it right.”
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4. There’s a Whole Ocean Inside the Earth… Kind Of, But Also Yes
There’s a region deep inside the Earth called the transition zone, about 400–660 km down, where the rock is under insane pressure. Some of the minerals down there, like ringwoodite, can trap water inside their crystal structure—not puddles or lakes, but chemically bound water.
Scientists found evidence of ringwoodite from deep inside the planet that contained water, and their models suggest the mantle down there may hold *as much water as all the oceans on the surface combined*. Just locked up in rock, like the Earth’s emergency emotional support hydration.
That means:
- The phrase “we know more about space than the ocean” was already rude
- Now we also don’t fully know about the *secret* ocean *inside* the planet
- Technically you’re standing on top of ocean, above ocean, next to clouds (air ocean), next to data (Wi‑Fi ocean)
We are just nesting oceans like cosmic Matryoshka dolls and pretending that’s normal.
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5. The Smell of Rain Is Basically Plant Alarm Juice and Bacteria Perfume
That “fresh rain smell” everyone likes? Extremely misleading branding.
Part of it is *petrichor*—a scent caused when rain hits dry ground and releases oils made by plants. Those plant oils can build up during dry periods and then get yeeted into the air in tiny droplets when raindrops splat on the soil.
Another major part of the smell comes from bacteria in the soil, especially a group called *Streptomyces*. When they produce spores, they release a compound called *geosmin*, which smells intensely earthy. Humans can detect geosmin in insanely tiny amounts—like a few parts per trillion. Our noses are weirdly cracked-out good at “dirt smell.”
So that clean, magical “ahh, nature” vibe is actually:
- Plant byproduct
- Bacterial signature cologne
- Your brain going “mmm, wet ground, that’s the good stuff”
You are literally inhaling microbe mood lighting and calling it refreshing.
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Conclusion
Reality is basically a group project run by chaos:
- Your bones are personalized life logs.
- Pigeons can almost read and possibly outwork you.
- Bananas and your body are low-key radioactive.
- Earth is hoarding a hidden rock-ocean like a fantasy dragon with hydration issues.
- The smell of rain is bacterial and botanical fan fiction in your nostrils.
So next time life feels boring, remember: even standing still, you’re a radioactive skeleton sack, sniffing bacteria, on a rock full of secret water, being judged by literate pigeons.
You’re doing amazing.
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Sources
- [National Library of Medicine – Bone Remodeling Overview](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499993/) - Explains how bones change shape over time in response to stress and muscle forces
- [PNAS – Visual Word Recognition in Pigeons](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1512056112) - Study showing pigeons can distinguish real words from nonwords
- [U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission – Fact Sheet on Potassium Iodide and Natural Radiation](https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/around-us/calcu.html) - Discusses natural radioactivity, including bananas and human bodies
- [Nature – Dehydration Melting and Water in the Mantle Transition Zone](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13080) - Research suggesting large amounts of water stored in Earth’s mantle minerals
- [BBC Future – What Makes Rain Smell So Good?](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140227-why-does-rain-smell-so-good) - Explains petrichor, geosmin, and the science behind the scent of rain