1.A Pride of lions saved a girl.
- A 12-year-old girl was snatched by four men on her way home from school early in June.
- A week later, kidnappers were moving her with police in pursuit when three lions encountered the group and chased the men off, local police said.
- The lions stayed with the girl without harming her, before departing as police searching for her came near.
2. Indian man claims 800-square-mile strip of land between Egypt and Sudan as his own country.
- Bir Tawil, meaning 'deep well' in Arabic, is situated south of the border between Egypt and Sudan, but neither country wants to lay claim to it.
- It is said to be the the only known land on earth where humans can live and survive but is not a part of any state or country.
- Suyash Dixit 'founded' the Kingdom of Dixit on the unclaimed land of Bir Tawil, an 800-square-mile strip of land south of the Egyptian border.
- Mr Dixit travelled from his hometown of Indore, India, to Bir Tawil to declare himself the 'first king of Dixit'.
3. There are more atoms in a single glass of water, than glasses of water in all the oceans of the Earth.
4. Think the hole in the lid keeps the ballpoint from drying out?
- A lot of people think the hole in the cap of a ballpoint pen is there to keep the pen from drying out, or that it's there to keep a pressure balance that prevents the pen from leaking.
- The real reason it's there is much more straightforward:
- It's there to lower the risk of suffocation.
- If a small child was chewing on the cap and choked on it, the hole keeps their airway from closing up entirely
5. Ever notice the little hole at the end of a tape measure? Ever wonder what it's for?
- It's there to hook onto nails or screws so you can measure safely without the tape measure slipping.
6. That hole in the handle of your pot is useful for more than one reason.
- Sure, the main reason that hole is there is for hanging up your pot, but next time you need to set down a messy cooking spoon you'll know exactly where to look.
7. What about this thick bit found on many cables?
- Those little cylinder-shaped lumps are ferrite cores or chokes, and they're essentially just chunks of magnetic iron oxide that are there to suppress high-frequency electromagnetic interference.
- Have you ever heard weird interference when your cell phone goes off too close to a speaker?
- Well, ferrite cores are there to keep that from happening to your monitors, power supplies, and everything else.
8. And the little bumps on the "F" and "J" keys on a keyboard?
- Most trained typists will already know what they're there for. In 10-finger typing, the "F" and "J" keys are the home keys, where your index fingers rest.
- The little bumps let you find your way back to the home position without looking down at your keyboard.
9. Have you been eating Tic Tacs wrong this whole time?
- Maybe you've noticed the little indentation on the lid of a package of Tic Tacs before and figured it was there to tightly seal the container, right?
- Well, it also serves as a dispenser that gives you one Tic Tac at a time.
10. And the little disc under the lid of a plastic bottle?
- Have you ever pried one of them out and found that your bottle still closes fine? What purpose could they possibly serve then?
- They're there to create a seal that keeps EVERYTHING in that bottle, both liquid and carbonation.
- Without it, that soda would go flat in no time.
11. Stickers on fruit.
- Stickers on fruit mark the country and the producer, but few know what the numbers on the stickers mean.
- If there are 4 digits and the first is 4, it means that the fruit has been sprayed with pesticides.
- If there are 5 digits and the first is 9, the fruit has been grown organically.
- If there are 5 digits and the first is 8, the fruit has been genetically modified.
12. Notebook margins.
- Originally, margins were not made to provide space for teachers’ outraged notes.
- The truth is that books in the past often fell victim to mice and rats who liked to gnaw on paper.
- In order not to let the rodents eat parts of information along with the paper, people started to leave empty spaces at the edges, where damage was most likely to occur.
13. Stripes on headphone jacks.
- You surely have noticed that all headphone jacks have 2 or 3 stripes on them.
- They aren’t made just for decoration: there are wires going to both headphones from every stripe, and if they weren’t there, you would only hear sound coming from one of the headphones.
14. R-symbol.
- If you were wondering why there is an R with a circle around it next to some trademarks, the answer is quite simple.
- It just means that the preceding trademark is officially registered with the US Patent & Trademark Office.
- Basically, this registration gives the trademark owner not just the right to use ®on their products but also to sue anybody who tries to infringe on the trademark.
15. Most plastic containers have symbols on them.
- The symbols represent what type of 7 plastics the containers are, and also act as recycling symbols.
- The other symbol found on the bottom of plastic packages also tells you whether the plastic is safe to use in the microwave or the dishwasher.
Sources:
Indian claims land between Egypt and Sudan as his own country
Kidnapped girl 'rescued' by lions
There's a Reason For Holes on The Tops of Pen Caps, And It's Surprisingly Awesome