Useless trivia and facts

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You can actually die laughing. And a number of people have, typically due to intense laughter causing a heart attack or suffocation. Comedy shows should come with a warning.

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Chainsaws were first invented for childbirth. It was developed in Scotland in the late 18th Century to help aid and speed up the process of symphysiotomy (widening the pubic cartilage) and removal of disease-laden bone during childbirth. It wasn’t until the start of the 20th Century that we started using chainsaws for woodchopping.

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Ants don’t have lungs. They instead breathe through spiracles, nine or ten tiny openings, depending on the species.

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You don’t actually lose most of your heat through your head. Your face, head and chest are more sensitive to temperature changes, but this myth isn’t entirely true. In reality, covering any part of the body helps prevent heat loss in the same way.

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The T.rex likely had feathers. Scientists in China discovered Early Cretaceous period tyrannosaur skeletons that were covered in feathers. If the ancestors of the T. rex had feathers, the T. rex probably did, too.

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Football teams wearing red kits play better. The colour of your clothes can affect how you’re perceived by others and change how you feel. A review of football matches in the last 55 years, for example, showed that teams wearing a red kit consistently played better in home matches than teams in any other colour.

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When you cut a worm in two, it regenerates. That said, this only works if it’s cut widthways – and not all will. Earthworms can regrow their tails, and the planarian flatworm can regrow its whole body from a tiny sliver of tissue.

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Wind turbines kill between 10,000 and 100,000 birds each year in the UK. Interestingly, painting one of the blades of a wind turbine black can reduce bird deaths by 70 per cent.

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Snails have teeth. Between 1,000 and 12,000 teeth, to be precise. They aren’t like ours, though, so don’t be thinking about snails with ridiculous toothy grins. You’ll find the snail's tiny 'teeth' all over its file-like tongue.

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Sound can be minus decibels. The quietest place on Earth is Microsoft’s anechoic chamber in Redmond, WA, USA, at -20.6 decibels. These anechoic chambers are built out of heavy concrete and brick and are mounted on springs to stop vibrations from getting in through the floor.