All facts — Page 7
The complete ONAURE library, newest first. Every fact has an explanation and a source you can check.
1196 facts
Tristan da Cunha is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world.
Located in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, this British territory is over two thousand kilometers from the…
The Great Fire of London in 1666 helped stop the Great Plague of London.
The extreme flames destroyed most of the wooden houses and open sewers where rats and plague-carrying fleas thrived…
The first vending machine in the world was invented to dispense holy water.
In the first century, Greek engineer Hero of Alexandria created a device where people inserted a bronze coin. The…
Some fungi can create zombie ants by taking over their nervous system.
The Cordyceps fungus infects the insect, multiplies inside it, and releases chemicals that control the ant's muscles…
The Amazon rainforest relies heavily on dust blown from the Sahara desert for its nutrients.
Every year, winds carry millions of tons of phosphorus-rich dust across the Atlantic Ocean. When this dust falls in…
Water can boil and freeze at the same time under specific conditions.
At the so-called triple point, the exact temperature and pressure allow the three phases of matter (liquid, solid…
Neutron stars can spin at a rate of over 700 rotations per second.
When a massive star explodes and its core collapses, the conservation of angular momentum causes the resulting…
There is a massive water vapor cloud around a quasar that holds 140 trillion times the water in Earth's oceans.
Astronomers observed the quasar APM 08279+5255, over 10 billion light-years away, and discovered this massive cloud…
The first 1 GB hard drive weighed over 200 kilograms and was made by IBM.
The IBM 3380 model, released in 1980, was the size of two refrigerators and cost tens of thousands of dollars. It was…
GPS relies on Einstein's theory of relativity to stay accurate.
Since satellites move very fast and are in an area of weaker gravity, time passes differently for them compared to…
The total weight of all the gold ever mined in human history would fit into roughly three Olympic-sized swimming pools.
It is estimated that all mined gold would form a cube about twenty-two meters on each side, which corresponds to the…
The mantis shrimp can see circularly polarized light.
The vision of the mantis shrimp is the most complex in the animal kingdom, possessing twelve types of color receptors…
France has the most time zones of any country.
Due to its numerous overseas territories scattered across the globe, such as French Polynesia and French Guiana…
A teaspoon of soil contains more microorganisms than there are people on Earth.
Soil is one of the most complex ecosystems on the planet. A single teaspoon of healthy soil can contain billions of…
The QWERTY keyboard was originally designed to prevent key jamming.
In early typewriters, adjacent keys used together would jam frequently. The QWERTY layout separated the most common…
Bamboo is technically a type of grass and not a tree.
Bamboo belongs to the Poaceae family, the same family as wheat and corn. Some bamboo species are the fastest growing…
The jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii can reverse its life cycle and become biologically immortal.
When facing physical stress or aging, this jellyfish can transform its adult cells back into the polyp stage, its…
Babies are born without kneecaps, which are made of cartilage and ossify later.
At birth, babies have cartilage in the knee area instead of true bone. This cartilage begins to ossify and turn into…
Pineapple contains an enzyme that digests proteins and makes the mouth tingle.
Pineapple contains bromelain, an enzyme that breaks down proteins. When we eat fresh pineapple, this enzyme begins to…
Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as a medicine for diarrhea.
In 1834, a physician named John Cook Bennett declared that tomatoes could cure diarrhea, indigestion, and jaundice…
The first computer programmer in history was a woman in the 19th century.
Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine, Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, in…
Fungi are evolutionarily closer to animals than to plants.
Genetic analyses show that fungi and animals share a more recent common ancestor than either does with plants. Both…
Sound cannot travel through the vacuum of space.
Sound is a mechanical wave that needs a material medium, such as air, water, or metal, to propagate. In the vacuum of…
The kiwi fruit is native to China, not New Zealand.
Although New Zealand popularized the fruit and gave it its name, the plant originates from the Yangtze River valley…
