True thingsthat sound made up.
A small collection of facts that make the ordinary world feel briefly unrecognisable. One good wait, what? at a time, and a link to where it came from under every single one.
Ordinary things.
Unordinary truths.
Each one starts with something familiar, then turns it sideways. Every claim links to a source you can open and check.
A day on Venus lasts longer than its year
A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus.
An octopus has three hearts, and two of them quit when it swims
An octopus has three hearts, and swimming stops one of them.
You are glowing right now
Human bodies emit a faint visible glow, a thousand times too dim to see.
Cleopatra lived closer to the Moon landing than to the pyramids
Cleopatra lived nearer in time to the Moon landing than to the building of the pyramids.
That cloud weighs about a million pounds
An average cumulus cloud weighs about a million pounds.
Honey does not spoil, and we have 3,000-year-old proof
Sealed honey never spoils — 3,000-year-old Egyptian honey is still edible.
A day on Venus lasts longer than its year
Yes. Venus takes about 243 Earth days to spin once on its axis, but only about 225 Earth days to travel all the way around the Sun. A Venusian day is longer than a Venusian year.
See the sourceBrowse by rabbit hole
6 directions to get lost in. Or read all 6 at once.
Space
Planets behaving badly, and numbers that stop making sense.
Animals
Creatures quietly breaking rules you assumed were rules.
Your Body
Strange things happening inside you right now.
History
Timelines that fold in ways nobody warned you about.
Earth
The planet doing things it is technically allowed to do.
Everyday
Ordinary objects with unreasonable backstories.
Why you can trust this
The internet is full of facts that are almost true. Facts Magazine is the small, stubborn opposite of that.
Everything is cited
Every truth links to at least one primary or reputable source. No source, no entry. That rule is the entire editorial policy.
Nuance stays in
Where the popular version overstates things, we say so. A fact that needs a caveat gets its caveat rather than a better headline.
Safe for kids
Everything here is written for a general audience — no ads, no accounts, no comment pit, nothing that needs a grown-up nearby. Teachers and curious nine-year-olds are the target reader.
Corrections welcome
If something here is wrong, it gets fixed rather than quietly deleted. Following the evidence is the point.