i send out a weekly newsletter for my job and include a fun fact every week. i've been in charge of this for almost two years and haven't repeated a fun fact, which is getting increasingly more difficult to do. i'll update this list every week (unless it's a lame fact) and put the new fun fact at the top :)

here is a list of some fun facts:
 - rodents make up about 40% of all mammal species
 - minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time
 - 99.9% of all calico and tortoiseshell cats are females
 - the sky is technically violet, not blue
 - windsor castle is the largest & oldest occupied castle in the world
 - shopping carts were invented in 1937
 - reading reduces stress levels by 68%
 - trees communicate through an underground fungi network
 - this year, the monarch butterfly population increased by 64%
 - the first toy advertised on tv was mr. potato head
 - william shakespeare probably died on his birthday
 - the movie titanic cost more to make than the actual ship
 - dolphins sleep with half their brain at a time
 - astronauts experience less acute olfactory senses in space
 - there are ice volcanoes (cryovolcanoes)
 - the moon appears different in the northern and southern hemispheres
 - you can't pour water off the hoover dam
 - the longest continuous painting in the world is 35,597 feet 
 - february is the only month that can pass without a full moon
 - modern olympic gold medals are made mostly from silver, not gold
 - the largest gold nugget ever unearthed weighed 241 pounds
 - venus is the hottest planet in the solar system
 - the louvre is the most visited museum annually
 - gingerbread houses were inspired by hansel and gretel
 - squirrels plant two billion trees each year
 - 4x more people speak english as a second language than a native one
 - 1 in 3 people have astigmatism to some degree
 - turnips were originally used for jack-o’-lanterns, not pumpkins
 - a fully charged battery weighs more than an uncharged one
 - all planets in our solar system could fit between the earth & moon 
 - dolphins shed their skin every 2 to 3 hours
 - people believed the moon caused madness, hence the term 'lunatic'
 - mantis shrimp can detect ten times more color than humans
 - sapphires and rubies are the same mineral
 - the magnetic north and south poles will eventually swap places
 - 90% of the global population lives in the northern hemisphere
 - sunsets on mars are blue
 - the smell of fresh cut grass is a defense mechanism
 - earth is the only planet that isn’t named after a roman god
 - tomatoes and potatoes can be grown on the same plant
 - rabbit tails are lowkey long, the average length is 2 inches
 - pinball was initially used as a form of gambling
 - corn cobs (almost) always have an even number of rows
 - octopuses, and all other cephalopods, are colorblind
 - all pandas are owned by china and leased to zoos
 - giraffes are the only animals born with their horns
 - antidote plants often grown near poisonous ones
 - there is an apartment at the top of the eiffel tower
 - rats laugh when they're happy/playful, we just can't hear it
 - the color orange was named after the fruit
 - a jiffy is an actual unit of measurement
 - tulips continue to grow after being cut
 - lobsters can be bright blue
 - the oldest found message in a bottle was from 1886
 - brown glass blocks uv light
 - ecuador is the world’s largest producer and exporter of roses
 - the global diamond reserve is estimated to be 1.4 billion carats
 - the first flower grown in space was a zinnia
 - snowflakes always have six sides
 - aomori city, japan receives 312 inches of snow annually on average
 - wild turkeys sleep in trees
 - squirrels' brains get 15% larger in autumn to remember nuts
 - halloween has a full moon every 19 years
 - the highest-grossing horror movie worldwide is it
 - the fastest a pumpkin has been carved is 9.4 seconds
 - there are over 7,500 apple varieties
 - the heaviest pumpkin recorded weighed 2,749 pounds 
 - ancient sailors believed cats were good luck
 - peppercorns are dried berries
 - a day on venus is longer than a year on venus
 - cows have accents
 - the average speed of a sneeze 30-35 mph
 - honey never expires
 - smallpox is the only human disease that has been eradicated
 - peanut butter can be turned into a diamond
 - cats have more bones than humans do
 - caffeine makes sweet things taste less sweet