People say: ‘more people should know these scary facts about the world’

Sometimes I can completely lose myself in facts about the world. Because it continues to amaze me, this globe we live on. And secretly, I know so little about it. Well, I try to see as much as possible: just last week I was in Iceland, which is truly breathtaking. And there I spent an afternoon at the Blue Lagoon, or a geothermal (I had never used that word before this week) spa. Water full of minerals that cleanses itself every 48 hours, and is around 40 degrees. It is extracted from a depth of no less than 2000 meters. Remarkable, right? That is of course an incredibly beautiful thing about the earth, but unfortunately, there are also some scarier facts to be found. And yes, I have lined those up for you after I came across the topic ‘What’s a scary science fact that the public knows nothing about?’ on Reddit. Nightmares guaranteed.

1. ’50 percent of insects have disappeared since 1970. The insect population has also declined by 27 percent in the last thirty years, and that increases by one to four percent each year.’

2. ‘If you get lead poisoning, even if it’s due to circumstances beyond your control, you are immediately permanently damaged from that moment on. It can affect your brain, cause reduced intelligence — and there is no way to remedy that. Add to that the fact that lead is literally found everywhere, and it quickly becomes quite scary.’

3. A CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) is the most likely disaster that will happen and will wipe out humanity from space. The sun regularly emits these CMEs, and every few hundred years they hit the earth. The last one hit the earth in the 1890s, but society was not really affected at that time because we were not that developed yet. If one were to hit the earth now, it would essentially destroy all technical infrastructure on the side of the earth that is facing the sun at that moment. It will take decades to recover, and will forever change the powers in the world. It’s just a matter of time before this happens.’

4. ‘Researchers have found viruses in the Arctic permafrost that have been frozen for thousands of years. One of these viruses, the Pithovirus, was frozen for 30,000 years until the researchers found it and it infected the amoebas in their tank. That paints quite a scary scenario: what if the ice layer melts away and the viruses are released that we haven’t dealt with for tens of thousands of years?’

5. ‘When doctors perform an autopsy, they do not put the organs back where they belong: they are all placed in the abdomen.’

6. ‘Scientists do not know exactly how paracetamol works and why it reduces pain and fever. They have an idea but know nothing for sure. And yet it is the most used painkiller in the world.’

7. ‘About 60 percent of the world population has the parasite Toxoplasma gondii in their brains. For a long time, it was thought to be benign, but recent studies have shown that it can certainly influence traits like anger, and it was found more in people who have committed suicide.’

8. ‘The United States has lost at least six (!) nuclear weapons and never found them again.’

9. ‘Bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to medications, and they develop that resistance much faster than we can produce new medications. That means we will soon enter a time when antibiotics no longer help against very simple, but deadly, infections.’

10. ‘In the permafrost, there is about twice as much CO2 frozen as we currently have in our atmosphere. That’s why it is so important that the permafrost stops melting. Additionally, there is also a lot of sulfur, which is also dangerous when released.’

11. ‘An asteroid flew past the earth last September, which was 40 to 90mm in size, and we only knew about it a day after it happened.’

12. ‘Grapefruit is a very bad combination with many medications you get by prescription. It can also affect the effectiveness of contraception.’