The Unseen Side Of Everyday Things
In a single day, we use several objects. From toothbrushes and hair combs to phones and credit cards, the list of items we use daily is basically endless. Since we use these objects so often, we don’t really pay attention to their details anymore. At this point, it feels like we know everything there is to know about these items. But what if we told you there’s a lot you’ve never noticed about your everyday objects?
NASA astronaut’s Thanksgiving meal on the International Space Station.
Back in 2013, NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins took this picture to show the world his Thanksgiving meal during the 38th expedition to the International Space Station. In the picture, we can see that all the food comes in pouches that get attached to the food tray with velcro to keep it from floating around.
Money recovered from the wreck of the Titanic.
Who knew money could survive so much time underwater? These century-old bills were recovered from the wreck of the Titanic decades after the ship sunk. Between 1987 and 2004, seven complex dives were conducted to retrieve artifacts such as fine china, jewelry, and even perfume bottles from the sunken ship.
The interior of a garbage truck.
We’ve all seen what the exterior of a garbage truck looks like. But have you ever seen the interior of a front-load garbage truck that can haul around 23,000 pounds of trash? Apparently, the little screen on the far right is a tablet that shows the driver their route and helps them perform their pre-trip and post-trip inspections. Pretty cool if you ask us.
This is what the sunset looks like from space.
We all know what the sunset looks like: red, orange, sometimes pink. But have you ever wondered what the setting sun looks like from space? This picture captured by ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst shows just how beautiful the sunset looks from the International Space Station.
Cyclist’s leg after a race.
This photo of cyclist Janez Brajkovic’s leg after a race made us feel glad we didn’t choose that career path. Due to severe dehydration and lack of fatty tissue, his muscles look like they’re about to burst out of his skin after a long race. We wonder how long it takes for his leg to feel normal again after a competition…
Magnesium shoe cover worn by gold stackers at the Federal Reserve Bank to protect their feet from dropped bars.
Moving gold bars all day is a lot harder than it sounds. At the Federal Reserve Bank, gold stackers are required to wear these magnesium shoe covers to protect their feet from dropped bars. It might seem like an unnecessary measure, but each gold bar weighs 27 pounds!
Five pounds of fat compared to five pounds of muscle.
Although five pounds of fat and five pounds of muscle weigh the same, they don’t take up the same volume. As this picture illustrates, muscle takes up much less space than fat, which is why two people might weigh the same but have very different body types.
Aircraft black boxes are actually orange.
Flight recorders, also known as black boxes, are devices placed inside airplanes to facilitate any future investigations in case of any kind of accident or incident. Although they are referred to as black boxes, these devices are actually required to be painted bright orange for easy identification.
This is how transmission towers are installed.
You have probably wondered how those huge transmission towers end up where they are. Are they built from scratch on the exact spot where they are meant to be placed? It turns out they are built in a separate area and transported with the help of a heavy-lift helicopter to the place where they will be installed.
Background crowds in movies aren’t always real people.
Someone who works on film sets took this picture and knew they needed to share it with the world. When we are watching movies and background crowds, we just assume they are real people that were hired to sit there for a few hours. It turns out that if the scene only requires a static audience, it’s a lot easier to just get inflatable crowds.
Cars with electric keys have a hidden key slot in their door handle.
Unless your electric car key has died at some point or you’ve decided to read your vehicle’s manual out of boredom, you probably had no idea there is a hidden key slot in the front door handle. This picture shows how you can find it if you ever need it. You’re more than welcome.
Scars don’t get dirty.
As it turns out, deep scars don’t sweat. Since dirt sticks to sweat, it only sticks to the parts of the body where sweat glands can reproduce. This means that dirt and dust will not stick to scar tissue because the surface of the skin stays constantly dry.
Restoring a 200-year-old painting.
Most of the artwork we see in museums has a yellow or brown hue. This isn’t because yellow or brown were popular colors back in the day, but because the varnish used by painters to preserve their art slowly changes color over time. This picture shows the difference between the original colors of a painting and the way it looks after two hundred years.
Space Mountain with the lights on.
One of the most popular attractions at Disney World, Space Moutain is a space-themed roller coaster ride in the dark. Even if you have been to the park several times, chances are you’ve never seen what Space Mountain’s tracks look like – so here’s a picture that will ruin the magic for you…
Old copper crayons turned green over time.
Made of bronze powder, Crayola’s old copper and gold crayons used to oxidize over time – turning them green. This was the same process that turned the Statue of Liberty green. To prevent this from happening, Crayola now uses paraffin wax, stearic acid and color pigment to make their crayons.
Photocopy machines can’t copy money.
Photocopy machines are a lot smarter than we would have imagined. If you’ve ever tried to copy money to see what happens, you know this just doesn’t work. Modern printing and scanning devices can detect it when you are trying to scan a not and will print out a warning, color your entire page, or shut down completely.
This is how they move aisles at the grocery store.
It turns out grocery store shelves are not always bolted to the floor. Since sometimes it’s quicker to move an entire aisle than to manually replace all the products on the shelves, many grocery stores use these jacks to lift up their displays and move them around. This is especially useful when stores want to change their layout to make customers walk around a little bit longer and end up buying more products than they actually need.
…And this is what it looks like after aisles are moved.
Although we just learned that moving a whole grocery store shelf is a lot easier than we thought, it doesn’t mean it’s completely effortless. Since it’s basically impossible to clean underneath these aisles without moving them, a lot of dirt accumulates in the area. It’s only when they are lifted up that all the dust can be mopped up.
Flames don’t cast shadows.
The more we look at this picture, the more we wonder how we’ve never noticed this before. It turns out that whenever fire is the only light source in a room, it doesn’t cast a shadow because it’s not blocking any light. But whenever there is another light source brighter than the flame, it does cast a shadow.
The lighting grid of a television studio.
The more we look at this picture, the less we know what we see. As chaotic as this may look, this is actually a pretty well-organized television studio with several sets. The reason why there are so many wires is simple: each light needs a power cable and a data cable in order to be controlled from the gallery, so there’s no way around it.
This is what the inside of a telephone wire looks like.
It turns out telephone wires are actually bundles of thin wires. These wires are used in pairs for each phone line and are color-coded to make things easier for repairmen. Generally, a regular home will have telephone cables with four wires. The one pictured here, though, has about a hundred pairs of 26-gauge wire.
US bank notes are slightly color-coded.
Although the color difference in dollar bills is not usually clearly visible, this highly saturated picture allows us to see the obvious difference in color between each bank note. It turns out that between 2004 and 2013, all notes except for $1 and $2 were changed to have different hues in order to make them easily distinguishable from each other.
Human heart stripped of all fat and muscle.
Even if you’ve never opened a Biology textbook, you probably know what a human heart looks like. But something you might not know is that our hearts would look very different without fat and muscle. This picture shows a human heart with just the coronary arteries and cardiac veins exposed.
Tigers have striped skin under their striped fur.
If someone had told us tiger skin is striped just like its fur, we wouldn’t have believed it. But this picture proves that their skin does have markings too. It turns out the purpose of the stripes is to conceal these animals when they’re hunting, so it makes sense that their skin would also be marked.
Close-up of a firefly.
Also known as lightning bugs, fireflies are beetles that emit light to attract mates. These adorable little bugs are easily found in temperate and tropical climates, but are hard to see up close. This picture shows just how impressive their bioluminescence process truly is.
The top of Mount Everest is filled with flags and trash from previous climbers.
The world’s highest mountain above sea level, Mount Everest is a big challenge even for the most experienced of climbers. What these adventure-seekers don’t expect when reaching the top of the mountain, though, is finding out it is filled with colorful flags and trash left behind by previous climbers.
Traffic lights are a lot bigger than they seem.
This picture really puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? Although we knew that traffic lights looked smaller because of the distance, we never expected them to be this large. It turns out these things are so big they can weigh up to 50 pounds!
CR-Vs come with picnic tables.
From 1997 to 2006, all Honda CR-Vs would come with a little surprise. Tucked away under the cargo area was a fold-up picnic table! Although they did not come with fold-up chairs as well, they were still pretty useful. They could not only be used for impromptu picnics but also for any situation when an extra table was necessary.
Implants made of different materials
There are several materials that plastic surgeons use to create breast implants, but the two main types are saline and silicone. Typically, people report that silicone implants have a more “natural” feel and appearance. However, their size limit is smaller than what can be achieved with saline.
What’s at the root of Barbie’s hair
One of the fabulous things about being Barbie is that she never has to worry about touching up her roots. However, if you ever make a mistake styling your doll’s hair, you obviously can’t just wait for it to grow back. Doll makers “root” her hair through tiny holes in the doll’s head and when restorers want to bring a broken Barbie back to her former glory, they “reroot” new hair through these holes.
The Concorde’s complex cockpit.
The Concorde was a supersonic airliner that could fly at twice the speed of sound. While it would take a regular plane seven hours to fly from New York to London, the Concorde would do it in in less than three hours. Such a complex aircraft also had a complex cockpit: besides the pilot and co-pilot, a flight engineer was also required to fly the plane.
X-ray of a cat pregnant with six kittens.
We have all seen x-rays of pregnant women with one baby in their bellies, but this image looks nothing like that. We all know cats can give birth to as many as a dozen kittens at once, but we had never thought about how crowded it was inside a pregnant cat’s belly.
This is what a Walmart looks like after it’s been gutted.
It’s amazing how much our perspective can change. Looking at this empty Walmart, we have a feeling this is such a tiny store. But if we pay attention to the dirty areas where the aisles used to be, we can see this was a reasonably-sized store. Our guess is that the more there is in a room, the larger it appears sometimes.
Scotch tape turns frosted glass clear.
To understand how scotch tape makes frosted glass clear, you need to understand how frosted glass works. Basically, frosted glass is a rough surface, so it scatters light. The adhesive in the tape fills in the tiny scratches in the glass, leaving a smooth surface for the light to travel through it without refracting in all directions, making it transparent.
Hair transplants happen follicle by follicle
Getty Images / AFP / SAJJAD HuSSAIN
Nowadays, hair transplants are becoming more and more common for people that want to regrow or reshape their hairlines. However, few people see what happens between the consultation and the big reveal. A technician takes hair follicles from one area of the head and inserts them, one by one, into the area of the scalp where the patient wants their new hairline to be.
Tonic water glows in blacklight.
Quinine is the name of the ingredient that makes tonic water glow under ultraviolet light. Made from the bark of the cinchona tree, quinine is not only extremely fluorescent under blacklight, but it is also the reason why tonic water has its characteristic slightly bitter flavor.
Pizza “makelines” help speed up the fast food process
Getty Images / The Washington Post / The Washington Post
Unlike other types of fast food, pizzas are a relatively time-intensive dish to cook. In order for chains like Dominos Pizza to speed up the process, they have specialized kitchens that make pizza-making more efficient. These “makelines” include topping dishes arranged like an assembly line and grates that catch any spills.
These stairs in a radio drama studio are covered with different materials to record the sound of different footsteps.
Have you ever wondered how sound effects for radio shows are recorded? It turns out they have props that allow them to create basically any kind of sound. When it comes to the sound of footsteps, they have stairs made of different materials to recreate the different sounds made by people going up concrete, wood, and carpeted stairs.
Prosthetic companies make realistic false nipples
Whether they are for costume or for personal aesthetics, there is a range of reasons why someone might purchase a prosthetic nipple. Oftentimes, these are made for people who have undergone a mastectomy and use prosthetic nipples to restore their confidence in their bodies.
A comparison picture of a healthy set of lungs versus what lungs look like if you’ve been heavily smoking for decades.
We all know smoking is bad for you, but it’s one thing to hear it and another to see the hard evidence in front of you. It turns out, heavy smoking has such severe effects on your body you can see if in the difference between healthy lungs and a smoker’s lungs. The smoker’s lung is stained black, but also looks kind of cracked and dried out. Let’s just say, not a set of lungs we’d like.
The only difference between these tanks is that the one on the right has oysters.
You know oysters make pearls but did you know that adult oysters can also filter up to 50 gallons of water a day? This impressive picture illustrates how powerful they really are when it comes to filtering water – and it’s making us wonder if there’s anything these mollusks can’t do.
This is what’s underneath Spider-Man’s fabric costume.
This is one of those things we never really think about but totally make sense when we see them. We can definitely see why actors would need some extra breathing room and protection underneath their fabric Spider-Man costume – besides, the plastic helmet keeps the superhero’s head the same shape regardless of who’s wearing the outfit.
Bag of chips on the ground and during a flight.
If you are one of those people that get really upset when you buy a bag of chips and find that it has more air than chips inside, you do not want to bring them with you on your next flight. It turns out the bags inflate even more as the plane reaches higher altitudes, which means there will seem like there is even more air inside your chip bag when you open it.
In Canada, exams are taken on hockey rinks.
We would have never expected this, but apparently, Canada has a very interesting tradition when it comes to university exams. Instead of regular classrooms or lecture rooms, students take their exams on hockey rinks. We would love to know who came up with this concept and why…
Melted glass after a fire.
If you had ever wondered what would happen to glass in case of a building fire, this picture perfectly illustrates your answer. With a melting point of about 2,900 degrees Fahrenheit, there is something almost artistic about the way this glass melted over this metal railing.
This is how Brussels sprouts grow.
How fascinating is this?! If you thought Brussels sprouts grew like tiny cabbages, you are not alone, but it turns out this is not the case. Apparently, Brussels sprouts grow on stalks – and can even be bought this way in some grocery stores. The more you know…
A 50 pound ovarian cyst taken out of a woman after surgery.
A woman from Alabama started gaining weight for months at a shocking rate and with no explanation, despite efforts to stay healthy. It was finally when she went to the emergency room that doctors discovered this watermelon-sized cyst in her body and immediately wheeled her into surgery to take it out. She made a full recovery, but that has to be terrifying to have something like that just start growing in you.
Goldfish can grow to be 16 inches in length.
The tiny goldfish we used to get from the pet store can actually become a lot larger than we expected. It turns out these fish can grow as much as their resources allow them to. That is, if they live in a small tank, they will remain small, but if they are given a bigger home, they can grow to be as large as 16 inches. In the wild, these animals reach 5 lbs.
Body fluids need to be drained after surgery
A Jackson-Pratt drain, also known as a JP drain, is a medical device used to remove fluid that accumulates in a surgical site or wound. The device consists of a bulb connected to a flexible tube that is inserted into the surgical site. The bulb creates suction that draws excess fluid out of the wound, which can help reduce swelling and promote healing. A JP drain may be necessary following surgeries such as breast reconstruction, mastectomy, or abdominal surgery, where fluid buildup is common.
Six-hour traffic jam to get out of Burning Man.
While you might have seen pictures of all the cool things that happen at Burning Man, you probably had no idea this is what people have to go through to go home. Even with 14 lanes, it took Burning Man attendees six whole hours to leave the festival grounds in 2022.
Some U.S. Navy submarines come equipped with XBOX 360 controllers.
If someone told us that some Navy submarines use Xbox controllers for their external cameras, we would not believe them. Thankfully, there is a picture to prove it. Apparently, they use video game controllers because they are cheap and most sailors already know how to use them.
Woman’s body riddled with parasitic worms and cysts as a result of eating raw pork for 10 years.
As you probably know, undercooked and raw pork are extremely unsafe to eat. The reason why this is so dangerous is that meat sometimes has bacteria and parasites that can make you sick as you can see in this image. Cooking meat throughout will ensure all germs are killed before you ingest it.
This baby evacuation vest is meant to be used by nurses in case of a fire.
As part of their fire safety training, hospital staff needs to practice using this evacuation vest. It fits six babies in its pockets and is meant to be used in case of emergencies in order to quickly and safely evacuate young children from hazardous situations.
This machine lays out brick roads like carpets.
Although some brick roads are made of bricks that are individually and manually placed on the ground, machines like this one can make this process a lot easier. This machine allows bricklayers to pre-arrange bricks and lays them out in a beautiful continuous carpet-like layer.
Sagittal sections of patients who are slim and obese.
This is such an interesting picture. If you have ever wondered what your body looks like inside, this will answer some of your questions. While the body on the left belonged to a slimmer person, the one on the right belonged to an obese patient.
How graffiti ends up on bridges.
If you are anything like us, you have definitely asked yourself how people manage to graffiti those high bridges in the middle of nowhere. As it turns out, they actually climb to the side of the bridges and spray paint just like they would anywhere else. This is what we call dedication.
The true length of fire hydrants.
If you’ve ever wondered how long fire hydrants actually are, this picture is for you. These are known as dry hydrants and they go very deep in order to halt the water below the frost layer in the winter. Their length allows firefighters to access water even in areas that freeze over.
One million dollars in 10-dollar bills.
One million dollars is such a large amount of cash that it’s almost too difficult to fully understand what it looks like in real life. If this picture was not enough to put things in perspective for you, maybe the weight of these bills will: considering a single 10-dollar bill weighs around 0.035 oz, a hundred thousand 10-dollar bills weigh approximately 220 lb.
Honey changes colors with the seasons.
The reason honey changes colors with the seasons is simple: it depends on the flowering plants the bees collect their nectar from and the minerals found in those flower sources. In the summer, for example, they collect nectar from chestnut, linden, wild blackberry, and other flowering plants – which makes their honey yellow and light flavored. In the winter, bees roam around plants like asters and goldenrod, making their honey darker and richer in flavor.
This is what Skittles look like without their color coating.
Have you ever wondered what Skittles look like inside their coating? Apparently, they are just plain white candies coated in colorful hard sugar shells. The candy you are looking at is a mixture of sugar, corn syrup, hydrogenated palm kernel oil, as well as fruit juice, citric acid, and flavoring.
Play-Doh crystalizes as it dries out.
Mostly made of water, salt, and flour, Play-Doh is a popular modeling compound for kids. If you leave your can of Play-Doh untouched for a while, the product eventually dries out. As a result, salt crystals start to appear around it – which we think looks cooler than anything we could possibly create with a modeling compound.
The design on the British coins can be pieced together to form the Royal Shield.
If you are ever in the UK, pay attention to the coins you get. Back in 2008, new coins were introduced in the country. Since then, the tail-side of their 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, and 50p coins can be put together to form the Royal Shield, which is also the design on the £1.00 coin. How cool is this idea?!
This is what it looks like when an oil platform is being towed out to sea.
This intriguing picture shows the Bullwinkle Oil Platform being towed out to sea near Port Aransas back in 1988. The 1,736-ft tall oil platform weighed 77,000 tons and, at the time of its construction, was the tallest structure in the United States and the third tallest structure ever built in the world.
Giant air conditioners at the Lusail Stadium installed for the 2022 World Cup.
Getty Images / AFP / MUSTAFA ABUMUNES
As you probably heard, the 2022 World Cup was moved to the winter because of the weather conditions in Qatar. However, even in November, temperatures in Qatar’s capital Doha can reach 86°F. For this reason, massive air conditioning units were installed at the Lusail Stadium.
Parking tower at the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg.
This glass and steel parking tower is where Volkswagen cars in Wolfsburg, Germany, are stored before being collected by customers. Connected to an identical parking tower by an underground tunnel, it is 196 feet tall and houses 400 vehicles. When a customer purchases a vehicle from the Autostadt factory, it is picked from the tower and transported to the ground in less than two minutes.
This is what bat embryos look like.
Have you ever wondered what bat embryos look like? Well, us neither. But now that we know we can’t stop thinking about them. These are so cute they almost look like cartoon characters! It’s almost like they are wearing a mask over their faces and a cape over their backs. Adorable!
An award-winning French bulldog vs. a French bulldog bred to be healthy.
Over the years, French Bulldogs have been bred to have short necks, noses, and nostril openings. As a result, they have a limited breathing system. On the left is Arnie, an award-winning French Bulldog with a short neck and snout. On the right, Flint is a French Bulldog from the Netherlands bred by Hawbucks French Bulldogs, who want to establish a new, healthier template for this breed.
Cinnamon sticks are rolled up pieces of bark.
Have you ever wondered how cinnamon sticks are made? It turns out they are just wood from cinnamon trees. The technique used to harvest cinnamon is pretty interesting, though: instead of chopping down trees to obtain their bark, a deep cut is made on the trunk and the bark is harvested directly from the tree.
This is what a fossilized dinosaur bone looks like inside.
How cool is this?! The way this bone was mineralized allowed it to preserve the structure of some internal soft tissue, giving scientists insights into dinosaur biology. Besides the soft tissue, this bone also preserved proteins and hemoglobin, a protein present in red blood cells that carries oxygen.
The end of the Great Wall of China.
Built from as early as the 7th century, the Great Wall of China is one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. The 13,170.70-mile-long wall was built not only for defense but also for border control purposes. Although we have all seen pictures of the Great Wall, not everyone has seen what its end looks like.
This is what Tokyo, the largest city on Earth, looks like from a plane.
Not only the capital but also the largest city in Japan and the largest urban economy in the world by gross domestic product. With an area of 847.14 sq miles and 37.468 million residents, Tokyo’s metropolitan area is the most populous in the world. This is what this massive city looks like from above.
Some large SD cards are just readers for micro SD cards.
Although this makes perfect sense, it’s so weird for us to think that this whole time we thought SD cards and micro SD cards were two different things. Obviously, though, it’s cheaper and faster to just make an interface for micro SD cards than to continue to make full-sized SD cards now that they are not as common as they used to be.
These are old escalators at Wynyard Railway Station in Sydney that now hang from the ceiling.
This unique display of artwork is located inside the Wynyard Railway Station in Sydney, Australia. Pretty cool how designers reconstructed old escalators and created this grand sculpture. It weighs five tons and measures 50 meters in length.
This is what Subway bread looks like before it’s baked.
We all know what Subway bread looks like – but have you ever seen what it looks like before it’s baked? As expected, it rises a lot in the oven, making it look completely different when it’s ready to be eaten. All we know is that looking at this picture is making us feel like getting a sandwich later…
A car crash survivor shows how wearing a seatbelt saved his life for a road safety campaign.
This powerful photograph shows the lifesaving effect of seatbelts. In the case of the man in the photograph, Liam, who was T boned by a truck while close to his home, wearing a seatbelt meant waking up from a coma just in time to see the birth of his daughter.
An ‘Existential Slap’ is the moment a person feels that death in near
Gettyimages/ EyeEm/ Dmitry Ageev
Medical staff that deal with patients near death, testify that there is a certain moment of realization, known as an ‘Existential Slap’ when a patient understands that he’s dying. This usually happens when the doctor discloses the news of a terminal illness, when a person sees how an illness has altered his appearance or when sharing the news with their loved ones.
Coke Zero and Fanta don’t mix.
The reason Coca-Cola Zero and Fanta don’t mix is that they have different densities. While Fanta uses high fructose corn syrup, Coke Zero uses an alternative sweetener – which means Fanta is denser than Coca-Cola Zero. Now, we should probably explain why we’re referring to this green liquid as Fanta: it’s because it is. The person who took this picture was using a blue glass, which is why the color of the soda looks funny.
This woman went through an amazing transformation and this is what she looks like after her skin removal surgery.
This is just amazing! As a result of her hard work, this woman lost over 220 pounds. Once she reached her weight goal, she underwent skin removal surgery where more than 5 pounds of loose skin were removed by professional health physicians. What an impressive transformation, right?!
This is what happens when tens of thousands of people bring road flares to a soccer stadium.
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Although it might look like this soccer stadium is on fire, this bright red smoke is actually just tens of thousands of people igniting road flares. Although this happens all around the world, this very interesting picture was taken in Greece during a match between PAOK Salonica and Olympiacos Piraeus.
