If you didn’t sleep well last night, you can convince yourself that you did just by believing you aren’t tired.

It’s called ‘placebo sleep,’ it improves cognitive function, and it makes you perform better than when you spend the day thinking about being tired.

Source, Source 2, Source 3

Your lie will be more convincing if you have to pee when you tell it.

Because of a phenomenon called the ‘inhibitory spillover effect,’ the need to control your bladder also forces your brain to activate more self-control, which helps hide the tells you have when fibbing.

Source, Source 2

Your hair and fingernails don’t keep growing after you die.

Dead bodies dehydrate over time, which causes the skin to shrink away from the nails and hair follicles.

Because of this, they may appear to protrude more from the skin, but they haven’t actually grown.

Source, Source 2

Women of all ages are more likely to survive in times of crisis.

A study of the last 250 years shows that women have longer life spans during famine or disease epidemics, and female survival rates are especially higher during infancy. 

Source Source 2

Curiosity is fueled by what you already know.

You’re far more likely to be curious of the things you already know a little about than you are of something you know a lot about or know absolutely nothing about.

(Source, Source 2)

There are 10 times more bacteria in your body than there are human cells. 

(Source, Source 2)

Being forgetful is not only normal, it makes you smarter. The main function of memory is to improve decision making, and forgetting irrelevant details helps you to be more intelligent and make informed decisions. 

(Source, Source 2)

Humans have more empathy for dogs than they do for other humans.

(Source)

1 dog year isn’t equal to 7 human years.

Dogs don’t age parallel to people, they actually age more quickly at first, then slow down. Depending on their size and breed, a 1-year-old dog is about the same as a 15-year-old person, a 2-year-old dog is like a 24-year-old person, and every year after that is equal to about 4-6 human years.

(Source, Source 2, Source 3)

People who swear a lot are usually more honest than those who don’t.

Source Source 2

Lay your arm on a flat surface and push your thumb and pinky together.

If you don’t see a raised band across your wrist, you are a product of evolution. If you do, you’ve got a useless extra muscle in your arm that is slowly being erased from our genetic code.

Source

Taylor Muhl is her own twin. She has chimerism, which means her cells fused with her fraternal twin’s in the womb.

Her body has 2 sets of DNA, 2 immune systems, and 2 bloodstreams.

This has plagued her with autoimmune issues, as her immune system is constantly trying to fight off her twin sister’s cells.

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People with nerve damage in their hands don’t get wrinkly fingers when they’re soaked in water.

This discovery helped scientists learn how water causes skin wrinkles, which occur due to an involuntary nervous system reaction, but they still have no idea why it happens.

Source

Your hair and fingernails don’t keep growing after you die.

Dead bodies dehydrate over time, which causes the skin to shrink away from the nails and hair follicles.

Because of this, they may appear to protrude more from the skin, but they haven’t actually grown.

Source Source 2

One of the reasons paper cuts are so painful is that they usually cut just deep enough to hit the many nerve endings in your fingertips, but not deep enough to bleed, clot, and scab.

Source Source 2

In Brazil, the dolphins that team up with local fishermen have their own accent.

For over 160 years, wild dolphins have been helping humans catch more fish by signaling when they should cast their nets. Because they use their own unique whistles even around other dolphins, scientists think they may be trying to distinguish themselves as ‘the ones who help humans.’

(Source, Source 2, Source 3)

When a cat wants to be fed, it imitates a baby human.

Hungry cats emit a vocalized, high-frequency purr that’s in the same acoustic range as the cries of a hungry infant, and humans subconsciously recognize it as being more urgent than other purrs.

(Source, Source 2)