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The 19 Best Facts

2021-05-21 · list · Hank · 3:56 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature (also: Personal life, Pop culture, History & curiosities) · mode: Curiosity & trivia · tags: community lore

Too overwhelmed by John's emotional video to say something profound, Hank shares his favourite answers to his tweet asking for people's best fact, from sharks being older than trees to the neurological cause of pruney fingers.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Hank can't follow John's emotional video, so he asked Twitter for people's best facts

  • ★★ Hank spent a lot of time this week (week of 17 May 2021) trying to follow John's very good, very emotional video with something deep and profound, but is too overwhelmed for it right now. — 00:00:00 · John Green
  • ★★ Because he likes to share knowledge and learn things, Hank tweeted asking for people's best fact, read over 900 replies, and selected the best facts by his own judgement. — 00:00:14 · Twitter
  • ★★ Sharks have been around for longer than trees. — 00:00:24

00:00:29 — Sharks older than trees; trees are not a taxonomic group

  • ★★ As Dr. Steve points out, trees aren't really a thing: they are a strategy for survival, not a taxonomic group. — 00:00:31
  • ★ Honorable mention: some individual sharks alive today were born before the United States existed. — 00:00:38 · United States
  • ★★ Hank's best music fact: Dolly Parton wrote Jolene and I Will Always Love You on the same car trip, alone in the car; extra good because many don't know she wrote I Will Always Love You. — 00:00:44

00:00:51 — Music and movie facts: Dolly Parton, the Beatles' Yesterday, Viggo's foot

  • ★★ Runner-up music fact: the Beatles' Yesterday originally had silly placeholder lyrics about scrambled eggs, which Hank sings; it is as if they wrote the Weird Al version of their own song first. — 00:00:58
  • ★ Hank's best movie fact, which he admits everyone knows: Viggo broke his foot. — 00:01:13
  • ★★ The majority of the bones in the human body are in the hands and feet, a fact that blew Hank's mind. — 00:01:20

00:01:38 — Bones, true-but-seemingly-false facts, Disney's explosives, the Moon's fate, Charlemagne's tablecloth

  • ★★ Unless the person is pregnant: then most of the bones in the body are in the uterus, because babies have more bones than adults. (playful) — 00:01:38
  • ★★ Hank likes facts that are definitely true though they seem untrue: the average person has an above-average number of legs, you were once the youngest person on Earth, and every day someone has the biggest poo without knowing it. — 00:01:47 · Earth
  • ★★ The second-largest purchaser of explosives in the US is the happiest place on Earth. — 00:02:04 · United States, Earth
  • ★★ If the Earth-Moon system survives the Sun's expansion into a red giant, which it might not, then some 60 billion years later the Moon will crash into Earth; space is dangerous on long timescales. (hedged) — 00:02:10 · Earth
  • ★★ Hank's history fact: Charlemagne may have been killed by his beloved asbestos tablecloth, which he cleaned by throwing it into a fire. (hedged) — 00:02:28

00:02:36 — The most-liked fact: Arctic means near the bear, and why

  • ★★ The fact most liked on the tweet: Arctic comes from the Greek for near the bear, so Antarctic roughly means not near the bear, and indeed the Arctic has bears and Antarctica has none. — 00:02:38 · Twitter
  • ★★ Hank adds that the bears are a coincidence: the Arctic is near the bear because of the constellation Ursa Major in the sky above it. — 00:02:54

00:03:05 — Number one fact: pruney fingers are neurological; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank's number one fact, which he never knew: fingers don't get pruney because water absorbs their oils; if the nerves to the fingers are cut they no longer prune, so it is a neurological reaction, not a physical one. — 00:03:08
  • ★★ Our bodies intentionally make our fingers wrinkly, probably so that we don't slip in water. (hedged) — 00:03:30

In the description and comments

  • ★★ In a channel comment Hank explains that trees are not all descended from one original species that figured out tree stuff, unlike mammals: anything that looks like a tree is a tree, a useful label, not a group of organisms. — creator comment
  • ★ The description says the thread got a further 900 replies with more facts he would have listed: spacewalking astronauts often lose their fingernails for unknown reasons, sharks predate Saturn's rings, and Abraham Lincoln is in the wrestling hall of fame. — video description · Twitter

Humor (significant)

  • Hank sings the Beatles' silly original placeholder lyrics for Yesterday. — 00:00:58

    “It's like they wrote the Weird Al version of their own song first.”

  • Most of the bones in a pregnant person's body are in the uterus, since babies have more bones than adults. — 00:01:38

    “Look, I don't like it either.”

  • Among facts that are true but seem untrue. — 00:01:47

    “every day there is a person who has the biggest poo, but they will never know it was them”

  • The Arctic is named for being near the constellation Ursa Major, not for real bears. — 00:03:05

    “The bear that the Arctic is near is barely a bear at all. It's a dipper.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Arctic · water-immersion wrinkling

Also: People: Charlemagne · Dolly Parton · Viggo Mortensen · Weird Al Yankovic

Works: I Will Always Love You · Jolene · Yesterday

Organizations: Twitter

Groups: The Beatles

Concepts: asbestos · human skeleton · red giant · shark · Taxonomy (biology) · tree

Places: Antarctica · Disneyland · Earth · Moon · Sun (star) · United States · Ursa Major

Only in the description or credits: Abraham Lincoln · Saturn

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