All facts — Page 62
The complete ONAURE library, newest first. Every fact has an explanation and a source you can check.
2056 facts
The dumbo octopus incubates its eggs for about four and a half years.
In 2005, MBARI researchers observed a dumbo octopus guarding its eggs on a rocky wall off California. The female…
The leatherback turtle keeps its body warmer than the water it swims in.
The leatherback turtle, the largest turtle in the world, has a layer of fat and a muscular system that generates…
Some crows store tools to use them again later.
New Caledonian crows hide the tools they make, such as sticks for extracting insects from logs, and come back for…
Humans are slightly taller in the morning than at night.
During the day, gravity compresses the spinal discs, which lose water and become thinner. When sleeping lying down…
The cornea of the human eye has no blood vessels.
The cornea is the transparent layer covering the front of the eye. Since it has no blood vessels, it gets oxygen…
The human heart pumps about 7,500 litres of blood per day.
At rest, the heart beats between 60 and 100 times per minute and pushes about 70 millilitres of blood with each beat…
Vanilla is the only widely used spice that comes from an orchid.
Vanilla is extracted from the pods of a climbing orchid of the genus Vanilla, native to Mexico. Natural pollination…
Decaffeinated coffee can still contain a small amount of caffeine.
The decaffeination process removes most of the caffeine, but not all. United States regulations require decaffeinated…
The first plant grown and eaten in space was lettuce.
In 2015, astronauts on the International Space Station grew romaine lettuce in a hydroponic system and ate it in…
La Rinconada, in Peru, is the highest permanent settlement in the world.
La Rinconada is at an altitude of about 5,100 metres, in the Peruvian Andes, near a gold mine. About 50,000 people…
In ancient Egypt, workers were paid with bread and beer.
Egyptians received rations of bread and beer as payment for work, including those who built the pyramids. Beer was a…
The shortest war in history lasted about 38 minutes.
The Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 began when the Sultan of Zanzibar refused to abdicate and lasted about 38 minutes. The…
The Vikings did not wear horned helmets.
The image of Vikings with horned helmets is a 19th-century invention, popularised in operas and romantic…
The last woolly mammoth was still alive when the Egyptian pyramids were being built.
An isolated population of woolly mammoths survived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic until around 1650 BC, centuries…
Antarctica is a desert, despite being covered in ice.
A desert is defined by the amount of precipitation, not by temperature. Antarctica receives less than 50 millimetres…
Lotus leaves repel water and always stay clean.
The surface of lotus leaves has a microscopic structure that makes water form droplets and slide off, taking dirt…
There are bacteria that breathe iron instead of oxygen.
Some bacteria use iron instead of oxygen to produce energy. These microorganisms live in oxygen-free environments…
Water can boil and freeze at the same time, at the triple point.
The triple point of water occurs at a temperature of about 0.01 degrees Celsius and at very low pressure. At that…
Atoms are almost entirely empty space.
If the nucleus of an atom were the size of a tennis ball, the electrons would be several kilometres away. Matter…
Sound travels faster in water than in air.
In air, sound travels at about 343 metres per second at room temperature. In water, the speed rises to about 1,480…
A solar day on Mercury lasts about 176 Earth days.
Mercury rotates very slowly on its axis and, at the same time, moves quickly around the Sun. As a result, a solar day…
The International Space Station completes one full orbit around Earth in about 90 minutes.
The ISS orbits Earth at an altitude of about 400 kilometres and at a speed of approximately 28,000 kilometres per…
There are planets that orbit two stars at the same time.
NASA s Kepler telescope confirmed the existence of planets that orbit two suns, such as Kepler-16b. These worlds…
The first email was sent in 1971 and used the at sign to separate the user name from the machine.
Ray Tomlinson, an ARPANET engineer, sent the first email in 1971. He chose the at sign because it was not used in…