Facts that sound false but are true — Page 15
Our highest surprise rating: the facts people most often refuse to believe until they read the explanation. Every one of them is documented.
1017 facts
AI has helped discover hidden human proteins and their functions.
A team of researchers used AI to identify human proteins that until now had no known function. Among them, TM184C…
Cockroach milk has three times more energy than cow's milk.
The cockroach Diploptera punctata produces a milk-like substance to nourish embryos inside the mother's body. The…
Scientists have created an edible biscuit from PET bottle waste.
The µBites project uses microorganisms to transform PET bottle components into proteins, vitamins and other…
Scientists have discovered two new hydrothermal vent fields in the Atlantic Ocean.
An expedition aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute s Falkor (too) found two new hydrothermal vent fields in the…
A new cave with a 70-metre-wide entrance has been discovered in Vietnam.
The cave, named Thang, was found in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park in Quang Tri Province. It is about 3 kilometres…
Ancient human DNA has been found on cave walls with rock art in Portugal.
A Portuguese team participated in the world's first discovery of ancient human DNA preserved on prehistoric cave…
A 2,500-year-old statue buried face down under a Roman road has been discovered in Sardis.
The statue, over 2.13 metres tall, depicts a man with long hair and an elaborate tunic. It was broken into two…
Stone tools made by fish have been found on the ocean floor.
Scientists discovered stone tools in the Pacific Ocean that would have been used by fish to crack shells and obtain…
A time crystal has been created using common screen materials.
Researchers created a classical time crystal using liquid crystals, the same type of material used in smartphone and…
The extinction rate of plants at the tops of European mountains is increasing.
A study from the University of Vienna analysed 62 European mountain peaks and concluded that while plant diversity…
A quantum spin liquid has been observed for the first time at the University of Oxford.
Physicists at Oxford developed a new approach to observe a quantum spin liquid, a state of quantum matter that never…
Scientists have created crystals where electrons behave as if they live in a fourth spatial dimension.
MIT researchers, working at the MagLab, discovered a new family of crystals stacked with a slight twist where…
The Chandra telescope has discovered 84 hypersoft X-ray sources in space.
NASA announced that the Chandra telescope found 84 hypersoft X-ray sources, a new class of cosmic objects that behave…
The oldest known black hole star has been discovered.
Using the James Webb telescope, astronomers from MIT and other institutions identified the oldest known black hole…
The Hubble telescope has found the first black holes in a star cluster.
The globular cluster Omega Centauri, the largest in the Milky Way, should be filled with black holes left behind by…
Dyson has created a toothbrush with a camera that sees inside the mouth.
Dyson s CameraJet is an electric toothbrush with a small camera that observes the inside of the mouth during…
An exoskeleton that helps you walk on any terrain has been created.
The Hypershell Halo is an exoskeleton for outdoor activities, weighing 2.6 kilograms with a range of 20 kilometres…
Collisions of oxygen and neon at CERN have recreated the matter of the early Universe.
Collisions of oxygen-16 and neon-20 at CERN produced quark-gluon plasma, the primordial matter of the Universe. The…
There are ants that explode to defend the colony.
The ant Colobopsis explodens, discovered in Southeast Asia, has glands full of a toxic substance. When threatened, it…
The mimic octopus can imitate more than 15 different animals, including the lionfish and the sea snake.
The mimic octopus, which lives in shallow waters of Southeast Asia, changes colour, shape and behaviour to imitate…
The cashew nut grows attached to a fruit, and the part we eat is the seed.
The cashew is a fruit that develops at the tip of a fleshy stalk called a pseudofruit. The nut, which is the seed…
The Sahara Desert was once green and had giant lakes about 10,000 years ago.
About 10,000 years ago, the Sahara was a savannah with lakes, rivers and abundant vegetation. The period, known as…
Volcanic eruptions can produce lightning, called dirty thunderstorms.
During eruptions, ash and rock fragments collide and generate electrical charges. The result is volcanic lightning…
A lightning bolt is about five times hotter than the surface of the Sun.
The temperature of a lightning bolt can reach 30,000 kelvin, while the Sun's surface is around 5,500 kelvin. The heat…