Saturday, October 17, 2026 · Played it? Here's how rare each one really was.
US study of 6,909 adults, BMJ 2016.
1 in 1.7 people 60.2%
4,161 of 6,909 people (60%) couldn't smell the odor in their urine after eating asparagus: 58.0% of men and 61.5% of women.
Fun fact: Most people never notice it at all. At a dinner for 10, expect about 6 people who don't. Women were slightly more likely to miss it than men.
Source: Markt et al., BMJ (2016)
Worldwide, 2025.
1 in 3.9 people 26.0%
The ITU estimates 74% of the world's population was online in 2025, leaving about 26%, more than a quarter, offline.
Fun fact: It depends hugely on where you live: 94% of people in high-income countries are online, but only 23% in low-income ones.
Source: ITU Facts and Figures 2025
Classic 108-card deck with 4 Wild Draw Fours.
1 in 4.2 hands 23.8%
The chance of no Wild Draw Four is C(104,7) ÷ C(108,7) = 76.2%, so at least one shows up 23.8% of the time.
Fun fact: Only 4 of the 108 cards are Wild Draw Fours, yet nearly 1 in 4 opening hands has one.
Source: Math: 1 − C(104,7) ÷ C(108,7)
A 5-card poker hand, no draws.
1 in 509 hands 0.2%
5,108 of the 2,598,960 possible hands are plain flushes.
Fun fact: This is why a flush beats a straight. A plain straight comes up about 1 in 255 hands, twice as often.
Source: Wikipedia: Poker probability
Estimated for the US and Europe.
1 in 10,000 people 0.01%
Psychologist Diana Deutsch's work cites an estimated prevalence of less than 1 in 10,000 people in the US and Europe.
Fun fact: Language may matter: about 60% of Mandarin-speaking Beijing conservatory students who began music at 4 to 5 had it, versus about 14% of comparable US students.