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Tom Howarth. Published: February 23, 2024 at 6:40 am. If you’re looking to impress your friends, kids and family with random fun facts, and weird and wonderful trivia, you've come to the right place. Below you can find 101 interesting facts that will reshape how you see our world – and far far beyond.
Oct 21, 2021 · Learn some cool science facts that are definitely the most interesting things you’ll read today. From the human stomach acid that can dissolve razor blades to the fact that Earth’s oxygen is produced by the ocean, discover 25 amazing facts that are weird, wild, and true.
- Elizabeth Yuko
- Fusion of The Future
- Pig-To-Human Kidney Transplant
- Death Stars
- Living Machines
- Brain Teaser
- Pluses Are Minuses
- Potty Training Cows
- Case of The Missing Genes
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
Hopes for making nuclear fusion the clean energy source of the future got a boost in August when a fusion experiment released 1.3 million joules of energy (SN: 9/11/21, p. 11). A big hurdle for fusion energy has been achieving ignition — the point when a fusion reaction produces more energy than required to trigger it. The test released about 70 pe...
In a first, a pig kidney was attached to a human, and the organ functioned normally during 54 hours of monitoring (SN: 11/20/21, p. 6). This successful surgical experiment marks a milestone toward true animal-to-human transplants, which would broaden the supply of lifesaving organs for people in need.
In a bone-chilling event, astronomers caught a star swallowing a nearby black hole, or perhaps a neutron star, and then getting eaten by its own meal. The resulting spectacular explosion left behind a black hole (SN: 10/9/21 & 10/23/21, p. 6). Astronomers had theorized that such a star-eat-star supernova was possible, but had never observed one.
Frog cells transformed themselves into tiny living robots (SN: 4/24/21, p. 8). Scientists removed skin stem cells from frog embryos and watched the cells organize into little blobs dubbed “xenobots” that could swim around and even repair themselves, plus move particles in the environment. Xenobots might someday serve a useful purpose, such as clean...
Scientists got an entirely new view of the brain when they took a tiny piece of a woman’s brain and mapped the varied shapes of 50,000 cells and their 100 million or so connections (SN: 7/3/21 & 7/17/21, p. 6). The vast dataset may help unravel the complexities of the brain.
People often add even when subtracting is the way to go, scientists found after asking volunteers to tackle a variety of puzzles and problems, including stabilizing a Lego structure and optimizing a travel itinerary (SN: 5/8/21 & 5/22/21, p. 8). The tendency to think in pluses instead of minuses could be at the root of modern-day excesses like clu...
Can farmers reduce pollution by sending cows to the loo? The answer might very well be yes. In a unique experiment, scientists trained cows to answer nature’s call by using a bathroom stall that gathers urine (SN: 10/9/21 & 10/23/21, p. 24). In the future, collected cow urine, which could otherwise pollute the environment, might be used to make fer...
A foul-smelling Southeast Asian plant named Sapria himalayana has lost about 44 percent of the genes found in most other flowering plants (SN: 3/13/21, p. 13). S. himalayana parasitizes other plants to get nutrients, so it’s not so surprising that it has entirely purged its chloroplast DNA. Chloroplasts are the structures where photosynthesis, or f...
From potty training cows to xenobots, from star-eat-star supernovas to quasicrystals, here are some of the most fascinating discoveries and events in science in 2021. Learn how scientists explored the brain, the environment, the cosmos and more with these stories.
- Human Bodies Glow — We Just Can’t See It. They tell you to shine bright like a diamond, but that’s challenging when the human body doesn’t actually shine — or does it?
- Your Stomach Can Dissolve Razor Blades. While we don’t condone the consumption of razor blades, the human body is capable of great feats. One study found that the acid in the human stomach is more than sufficient to dissolve a razor blade after a couple of hours.
- Clouds Are Heavy. Clouds look light and fluffy when you see them hovering in the air, but they’re anything but. The big cumulus clouds you might see on a sunny afternoon can weigh upwards of a million pounds.
- Your Eyes Are Better Than Any Camera. Pictures on the latest cellphones can capture 20 or 30 megapixels, but that’s nothing compared to what you can see with the human eye.
- Science Journalist
- There is enough DNA in the average person’s body to stretch from the sun to Pluto and back — 17 times. The human genome (the genetic code in each human cell) contains 23 DNA molecules (called chromosomes), each containing from 500,000 to 2.5 million nucleotide pairs.
- The average human body carries ten times more bacterial cells than human cells. It’s funny how we compulsively wash our hands, spray our countertops, or make a grimace when someone sneezes near us, when, in fact, each and every one of us is a walking petri dish!
- It takes a photon up to 40,000 years to travel from the core of the sun to its surface, but only 8 minutes to travel the rest of the way to Earth. A photon travels, on average, a particular distance before being briefly absorbed and released by an atom, which scatters it in a new random direction.
- At over 2,000 kilometers long, The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on Earth. Coral reefs consist of huge numbers of individual coral polyps (soft-bodied, invertebrate animals) that are linked together by tissue.
Sep 29, 2019 · Learn about the mysteries and wonders of the universe, from space and time to life and evolution. Discover how science reveals the secrets of the world and challenges our assumptions.
Apr 10, 2019 · Learn some fun and interesting science facts about whips, celery, sharks, pi, and more. Discover the speed of sound, the hardness of shark teeth, the periodic table, and other cool facts.
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