All facts — Page 77
The complete ONAURE library, newest first. Every fact has an explanation and a source you can check.
2056 facts
Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backwards.
Their wings can rotate in a full circle and beat up to 80 times per second, granting them incredible aerial agility…
Koalas have fingerprints that are almost identical to humans.
Their prints are so similar that even under an electron microscope, experts struggle to tell them apart, causing…
Lobsters taste with their legs and chew with their stomachs.
They have tiny sensory hairs on their legs to taste the water. They also have 'gastric mills' in their stomachs to…
A bear has 42 teeth.
Their teeth are highly specialized for their omnivorous diet, including long canine teeth for tearing meat and flat…
Sea otters hold hands when they sleep so they don't drift apart.
They often wrap themselves in giant kelp to anchor themselves, forming a 'raft' with other otters while resting…
Bamboo can grow up to 91 cm in a single day.
Certain species grow so fast you can literally watch them. They achieve this by using a unique rhizome system that…
The human brain feels absolutely no pain.
The brain has no pain receptors. This allows doctors to perform complex brain surgery while the patient is fully…
Your tongue print is completely unique, just like a fingerprint.
The shape, texture, and patterns on the surface of every person's tongue are different, which researchers are…
The first credit card was created in 1950.
The Diners Club, the first general-purpose credit card, was created in 1950 by Frank McNamara, who forgot his wallet…
A group of owls is called a 'parliament'.
This term dates back to C.S. Lewis's 'The Chronicles of Narnia', but it became widely adopted because owls are…
A black hole can 'burp' after devouring a star.
Astronomers observed a black hole emitting a jet of matter years after it destroyed a star. This phenomenon is…
The town of Hell, Norway, freezes over every winter.
It's a popular tourist joke that 'Hell freezes over'. The small village gets so cold that tourists frequently take…
The border between Brazil and France passes through a bridge over a river.
The border between Brazil and France, in French Guiana, is one of the most curious in the world: it passes through a…
Lake Hillier in Australia is naturally bright pink.
The bubblegum pink color is caused by the presence of Dunaliella salina algae and halophilic bacteria in the…
Abraham Lincoln is in the Wrestling Hall of Fame.
Before becoming president, Lincoln was an elite wrestler. He was incredibly strong, lost only one match out of about…
The scorpion glows under ultraviolet light.
The exoskeleton of scorpions contains compounds that fluoresce when exposed to ultraviolet light, causing them to…
Ancient Egyptians shaved their eyebrows when their cats died.
Cats were considered sacred and closely linked to the goddess Bastet. Shaving off their eyebrows was the ultimate…
A jellyfish is considered biologically immortal.
The Turritopsis dohrnii, a small jellyfish, can reverse its life cycle to the polyp stage when stressed or injured…
The Great Fire of London helped end the Bubonic plague.
The massive fire of 1666 destroyed the cramped, rat-infested wooden slums that were breeding grounds for the fleas…
The original London Bridge is now in Arizona, USA.
In 1968, the 19th-century stone bridge was dismantled, shipped brick-by-brick across the ocean, and rebuilt in Lake…
The first computer to sing was the IBM 7094 in 1961.
The IBM 7094, at Bell Labs, was programmed to sing 'Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two)'. The feat inspired Arthur…
The first Apple computer was sold for $666.66.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak priced the Apple I at this number because Wozniak liked repeating digits, and $666.66…
Hashima Island in Japan was abandoned and became a tourist attraction.
Hashima, also known as Gunkanjima (Battleship Island), was a thriving coal mining community that became uninhabited…
The '@' symbol is officially called the 'commercial at'.
Historically, it was used in commerce to mean 'at the rate of'. It only became popular for email addresses in 1971 by…