All facts — Page 55
The complete ONAURE library, newest first. Every fact has an explanation and a source you can check.
2056 facts
Giant sequoias have bark rich in tannins that helps them resist fire.
The thick, resin-poor bark protects the trunk from moderate forest fires. Fire also helps open the cones and release…
Noctilucent clouds are the highest clouds in Earth's atmosphere.
They form in the mesosphere, about 80 kilometres up, where water vapour freezes into ice crystals on meteor dust…
A vacuum can change the way light travels when subjected to extreme magnetic fields.
An international team used observations of a magnetar, a neutron star with a magnetic field billions of times…
Water can boil and freeze at the same time when it reaches the triple point.
The triple point of water occurs at a specific temperature and pressure, about 0.01 degrees Celsius and 611 pascals…
A modern atomic clock would lose less than a second in 15 billion years.
Atomic clocks use transitions between energy levels of atoms, such as caesium, to measure time with enormous…
The Wow signal was a radio signal detected in 1977 that has never been explained.
The Wow signal was a narrow-band radio signal detected on August 15, 1977, by the Big Ear radio telescope. It lasted…
Trans-Neptunian objects can contain carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide ices.
Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope detected carbon dioxide in 56 trans-Neptunian objects and carbon…
Venus has a day longer than its year.
Venus takes about 243 Earth days to complete one rotation on its axis, but only about 225 Earth days to orbit the…
The Moon is moving away from Earth by about 3.8 centimetres per year.
The gravitational interaction between Earth and the Moon transfers angular momentum to the lunar orbit. Measurements…
Physicists created the world's smallest QR code, measuring just 50 by 50 nanometers.
Using a scanning tunneling microscope, researchers positioned silver atoms one by one to form a QR code that is more…
The first commercial mobile phone weighed about 1 kilogram and had about 30 minutes of battery.
The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X was launched in 1983. Its battery allowed about 30 minutes of talk time and took several…
The first email message used the @ symbol to separate the user from the machine.
In 1971, Ray Tomlinson chose the @ symbol because it was rarely used in names and could indicate the user's location…
Leafcutter ants do not eat the leaves they cut.
They carry pieces of leaves to the nest and use them to grow a fungus, which feeds the colony. The leaves are the…
The African lungfish can spend months inside a mucus cocoon in the soil.
When water disappears, it burrows into the ground and secretes a mucus layer that hardens, keeping it moist. In this…
Tardigrades were the first known animals to survive in space.
In 2007, tardigrades were sent to space and exposed to vacuum and solar radiation. Many survived and reproduced…
Tardigrades can survive decades without water by entering a state called cryptobiosis.
When water is scarce, the tardigrade curls into a dry ball called a tun. In this state, its metabolism slows…
The axolotl can regenerate limbs, parts of the heart, spinal cord and even the brain.
The axolotl is an amphibian that keeps juvenile features throughout its life. When it loses a limb, cells at the…
The interstitium was described as a new human organ in 2018.
The interstitium is a network of fluid-filled spaces beneath the skin and surrounding muscles and organs. It may…
The mesentery was reclassified as an organ in 2016.
The mesentery is a fold of tissue that connects the intestines to the abdominal wall. For centuries it was considered…
Dua's layer in the human eye was only discovered in 2013.
Dua's layer is a structure about 15 micrometres thick in the cornea. It is very strong and impervious to air…
Garum, a fermented fish sauce, helped date the eruption of Vesuvius.
Analysis of garum pots found in Pompeii revealed that the sauce was made with bogues, a fish abundant in the…
Milbenkase is a German cheese ripened with thousands of live mites.
Milbenkase is made with quark seasoned with salt and caraway, placed in wooden boxes with rye flour. The mites…
The Danakil Depression in Ethiopia is one of the hottest and lowest places on Earth.
The region sits at an average of 120 metres below sea level and annual temperatures often exceed 50 degrees Celsius…
In 1518, hundreds of people in Strasbourg danced uncontrollably for days.
The so-called dancing plague began with one woman, Frau Troffea, and spread rapidly. People danced until they…