All facts — Page 12

Jupiter shrinks by about two centimetres every year.

The planet's huge mass generates strong gravitational compression, and the slow loss of internal heat causes the gas…

A large part of the Apollo missions code was written by women.

Teams of female programmers at MIT, led by Margaret Hamilton, developed the flight software that allowed the…

Crows understand water displacement to get food.

Studies prove that crows drop stones into tubes with water to raise the level and reach a floating treat, just like…

The mantis shrimp has sixteen colour receptors in its eyes.

While humans only have three, this crustacean possesses sixteen, allowing it to see polarised and ultraviolet colours…

Nutmeg is extremely toxic to dogs and can cause fatal seizures.

The myristicin and elemicin present in the spice severely affect the central nervous system of canines, potentially…

Lesotho is the only independent state located entirely above one thousand metres in elevation.

This landlocked country in South Africa has its lowest point at one thousand four hundred metres, giving it the title…

Russia spans eleven different time zones.

Due to its enormous territorial extension from east to west, the country covers almost half the globe, requiring the…

Nintendo was founded in the same year the Eiffel Tower was completed.

The Japanese company opened its doors in eighteen eighty-nine as a manufacturer of traditional playing cards, long…

The first mechanical alarm clock could only ring at 4 AM.

Invented in Ancient Greece and later improved, the primitive mechanism did not allow adjusting the alarm time…

The Great Emu War was a real military operation in Australia.

In nineteen thirty-two, the Australian army sent soldiers armed with machine guns to control the emu population that…

Venus is hotter than Mercury, even though it is further from the Sun.

The dense atmosphere of Venus is composed mostly of carbon dioxide, creating an extreme greenhouse effect that traps…

The first Apple logo featured Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree.

Designed by one of the founders, the complex illustration showed the scientist reading, with a poetic quote around…

The word CAPTCHA is actually a complex acronym.

It stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, used to prevent bots from…

The barcode was inspired by Morse code drawn in the sand.

The inventors scribbled thin and thick lines on the beach to adapt the dots and dashes of Morse code into a format…

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its own brain.

The ostrich has the largest eye of any land animal, giving it excellent vision to detect predators at great distances…

Tigers have striped skin and not just striped fur.

If you shaved a tiger, you would see that the dark stripes are pigmented directly into its skin, and each pattern is…

Sea otters have a pouch in their skin to store their favourite rock.

This small pouch, located under the forearm, is used to store a specific rock that the otter uses as a tool to break…

A woodpecker's tongue wraps around its brain to protect it.

The tongue is extremely long and forks, wrapping around the skull and acting as a seatbelt and shock absorber to…

The human femur is stronger than concrete.

The thigh bone is incredibly dense and structured to support body weight, able to withstand a compressive pressure…

Sleep deprivation causes the brain to start consuming itself.

Chronic lack of sleep causes glial cells to go into overdrive, starting to devour unnecessary synapses and neural…

Ripe cranberries bounce like rubber balls when dropped on the floor.

Farmers use this physical property to test the ripeness and quality of the fruit. If the cranberry does not bounce…

The English "pound cake" gets its name from the original eighteenth-century recipe.

The original recipe called for exactly one pound, or about four hundred and fifty grams, of each of the four main…

Pringles potato chips are not made from real potato slices.

They are made from a dehydrated dough of potato, corn, and wheat, which is pressed into a metal mould to create the…

There is not a single bridge crossing the Amazon River.

Despite being one of the largest rivers in the world, the extreme width of the river in the rainy season and the…