All facts — Page 4
The complete ONAURE library, newest first. Every fact has an explanation and a source you can check.
2056 facts
Fungi are genetically closer to animals than to plants.
Like animals, fungi breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, and do not produce their own food through…
Some neutron stars can spin six hundred times per second.
These ultra-dense bodies, known as pulsars, conserve the angular momentum of the original star. As they collapse to a…
There is a giant cloud of alcohol in the constellation Sagittarius.
The Sagittarius B2 gas cloud contains vinyl alcohol in astronomical quantities. Although the concentration is very…
The first computer mouse prototype was made of wood.
Invented by Douglas Engelbart in nineteen sixty-four, the device consisted of a wooden shell with two metal wheels…
Hoatzin chicks are born with claws on their wings.
The hoatzin is a unique Amazonian bird whose chicks have functional claws on two of their wing digits. They use them…
The Texas horned lizard squirts blood from its eyes for defence.
When threatened, this desert lizard increases blood pressure in its head and ruptures small vessels in the corners of…
The human cornea gets oxygen directly from the air.
Unlike most body tissues, the cornea has no blood vessels. It absorbs oxygen directly from the atmosphere and eye…
The human nose can distinguish over one trillion scents.
Recent studies have shown that the human olfactory system is much more sensitive than previously thought, capable of…
The human body contains about zero point two milligrams of gold.
Most of this gold is found in the blood and various tissues. It is not enough to make anyone rich, but it is a real…
The wasabi served in most restaurants is dyed horseradish.
Real wasabi is rare and expensive. Thus, the spicy green paste that usually accompanies sushi is made from…
Fresh cranberries bounce when they are ripe.
Farmers use machines that bounce the cranberries to separate the ripe fruits from the bad ones. Good cranberries have…
Mount Thor has the greatest vertical drop of any mountain on Earth.
Located in the Canadian Arctic archipelago, Mount Thor has a nearly perfectly vertical granite face of one thousand…
Lesotho is the only country in the world entirely above one thousand metres in elevation.
This small landlocked country in South Africa has its lowest point at one thousand four hundred metres, making it the…
The Sargasso Sea is the only sea without land boundaries.
Instead of being bordered by continents or islands, this sea in the Atlantic Ocean is defined by four ocean currents…
The longest mountain range on Earth is underwater.
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Pacific Ridge are part of a continuous system stretching over sixty-five thousand…
In fifteen eighteen, a dancing plague struck Strasbourg.
Hundreds of people began dancing uncontrollably for days or weeks. Many eventually died of exhaustion, heart attack…
George Washington did not have wooden teeth.
His famous dentures were made of ivory, gold, lead, and even animal or human teeth. The idea that they were wooden is…
The first photograph of a person took ten minutes to expose.
In the famous image of the Boulevard du Temple in Paris, the street looks empty because the traffic didn't stay still…
A baobab tree trunk can store up to one hundred and twenty thousand litres of water.
These gigantic trees have adapted to arid climates, swelling their spongy trunks during the rainy season to have…
There is enough gold in the Earth's core to coat the planet's surface.
It is estimated that the Earth's core contains so much gold that, if brought to the surface, it would form a layer…
Diamonds can burn if heated to a high enough temperature.
Since diamonds are made of pure carbon, they can combust in the presence of oxygen if the temperature reaches about…
The metal gallium melts in the palm of a human hand.
The melting point of gallium is about thirty degrees Celsius. Since the human body temperature is around thirty-seven…
An average summer cloud can weigh five hundred tonnes.
Although they look light and fluffy, the water droplets in a medium-sized cumulus cloud add up to a massive weight…
The Moon is drifting away from the Earth by almost four centimetres a year.
The friction of ocean tides slightly slows down the Earth's rotation, which transfers energy to the Moon, pushing it…