Nature — Page 9

Lightning strikes the Earth about 100 times every second.

Satellites monitor storms across the globe and calculate that about 8 million electrical discharges occur per day…

There are fungi capable of breaking down and consuming polyurethane plastic.

Students at Yale University discovered a species of fungus in the Amazon rainforest that can survive by feeding…

The oceans contain about twenty million tons of dissolved gold.

Gold is present in seawater in very low concentrations, about parts per trillion. Although the total amount is…

From a genetic point of view, fungi are closer to animals than to plants.

Fungi share with animals characteristics such as chitin in their cell walls and glycogen as an energy reserve…

The largest known living organism is a fungus that covers nearly nine square kilometres in Oregon.

The fungus Armillaria ostoyae, known as the honey mushroom, spreads through the Malheur National Forest via an…

There is a species of jellyfish that can reverse its life cycle and become biologically immortal.

Turritopsis dohrnii can transform its adult cells into young cells when sick or injured, returning to the polyp…

A lightning bolt can be five times hotter than the surface of the Sun.

The temperature in a lightning channel can reach about 30000 degrees Celsius, while the surface of the Sun is around…

Lightning strikes the Earth's surface about one hundred times per second.

This equals approximately eight million electrical discharges per day across the planet. Most of these lightning…

A single teaspoon of soil contains more microorganisms than people on Earth.

Soil is one of the most densely populated ecosystems on the planet. In a small sample, there can be billions of…

The characteristic smell of rain on dry soil has a scientific name called petrichor.

This aroma is mainly produced by a molecule called geosmin, released by soil bacteria called actinobacteria when…

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…

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…