[AnnonUSA]

1. Octopus Beats Grinch, Heart for Heart

The Grinch (that green fuzzy guy who stole Christmas) became an official good-guy when his heart grew three sizes one day. The octopus does even better - he has three hearts!
[Further facts: The blue-ringed octopus pictured here is the most poisonous octopus, with venom that can kill an adult human in minutes. There is no known antidote. h/t trust_in_tux at Fark.com].



2. A Naked Tiger Still Has Stripes

If a tiger loses all his hair, he’ll still be striped. Tiger stripes are like fingerprints, each individual cat’s markings are unique. And they’re not just hair, the stripes are in their skin. Seems to be a thing with cats, since your house cat’s fur markings are also skin deep!


3. Most Of Your Body’s Cells Aren’t Yours

Strange but true. There are more microbial cells in your body than cells that have your own DNA. As NPR’s Robert Krulwich reported in 2006, the human body has 20 times more microbes than cells! I guess that pretty well justifies the “Imperial We.”


4. Insects Outnumber Us

Perhaps that’s not so surprising since our own body’s microbes outnumber us too, but the scale is pretty humbling. There are more insects in just one square mile of fertile soil than there are human beings on the entire planet! Quite the delicacy in Asia…


5. And We’re All Eating Them…

The average person manages to consume about 430 insects every year of their lives, whether they intended to or not! And no, not all “average” people ride motorcycles.


6. Alligators Never Need Dentures

While both humans and alligators depend on their teeth in order to chew food, humans only get two sets of natural teeth to last them a lifetime. Alligators get from 2,000 to 3,000 teeth during the course of their lifetime! Which is no doubt why we never hear about grumpy ‘gators gumming anybody to death.


7. “Salt of the Earth” Is More Than A Title

There is enough salt in the world’s oceans to cover all the land on all the continents to a depth of nearly 500 feet! I’m cutting down on salt anyway, hope you are too.


8. When It Rains, It Croaks

Despite the common weather report that “it’s raining cats and dogs out there,” frogs and fish are the most likely animals to fall from the sky in rain. The most recent rain of frogs occurred in 2005 in Serbia, and it rained frogs in London in 1998. In 2006 it rained fish in India, while Wales got the fish-drop in 2004.
[Update New Info: “Spindle” at Fark.com informs that the term “raining cats and dogs” originated in London. The houses were so close together that dogs and cats hunted from the rooftops. In a heavy rain they would be washed off, thus “raining cats and dogs”].


9. Space Resources We Could Put To Good Use

The interstellar gas cloud that comprises Sagittarius B contains a billion billion billion (yes, that’s three orders of billion) liters of alcohol. This factoid is bound to be a big hit at the pub!

11. If Only We Could Plug Into It!

A cloud to ground bolt of lightning carries between 100 million and 1 billion volts. It can reach 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit - 3-4 times hotter than the surface of the sun!


12. Patching That Ever-Growing Hole

There are lightning strikes somewhere on earth 100 times a second. And every time lightning strikes, it generates Ozone gas. This strengthens the Ozone Layer in the upper atmosphere - you know, the one with the big hole that heightens our need for sunscreen.



13. If It Floats, It Must Be a Witch

The density of the planet Saturn is lower than water, so if you could put it in the ocean it would float!


14. Yet Despite All That Water…

Our own planet Earth is the densest in our entire solar system. It would definitely sink.


15. How Not to Build a Wooden Ship

The Black Ironwood tree (Olea laurifolia) has wood so dense that it can’t float on water.


16. How to Build a Ship of Rock

So, instead of black ironwood, how about volcanic pumice? It’s less dense than water, so it can float.


17. That’s Heavy, Man!

If a piece of a neutron star the size of a dime landed on earth, it would weigh about 100 million tons.

[AnnonUSA]

21. Did Tom Sawyer know these were under the raft?

These 7-foot, 220-pound Mississippi paddlefish are among the world’s biggest freshwater animals. Kin to sturgeon, they’re popular sources of meat and roe for caviar.


22. Designer Way to Help Endangered Tigers

Meet the Toyger! Breeding programs began in the 1980s to develop a breed of house cat that strongly resembles the mightiest of big cats. In 1993 Toygers were first registered with the International Cat Association [TICA], and now boasts grand champions. Must. Have. One…



23. Gorillas Do It People-Style

This pair of wild western lowland gorillas (nicknamed George and Leah) have the distinction of providing the proof that “people-style” is an alternative to “doggie-style” among our nearest animal relatives. Other than bonobos, whose notorious sexual procilivities may have served as inspiration for the Kama Sutra.


24. How Long Can a Germ Live?

The current championship crown belongs to an 8 million year old bacterium that was taken from the oldest known ice on planet Earth, and is now happily reproducing again in a laboratory petrie dish.


25. Where’d You Get Those Peepers?

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain. Is anyone surprised?


26. Those Notorious Killer Coconuts

It’s a fact. More humans are killed every year by falling coconuts than by shark attacks. When is Hollywood going to produce THAT blockbuster horror film?


27. Attack of the Zombie Roaches

Here’s another cool plot idea for Hollywood’s gaggle of horror movie producers - the tropical jewel wasp injects a venom into cockroaches that disables their insect version of free will, turning them into roach-zombies!


28. Mining for Golden Mushrooms

An Italian father and son - aided by their truffle-sniffing dog - unearthed a 3.3 pound truffle in Tuscany in 2007. Truffles are actually MORE valuable than gold, going for thousands of dollars an ounce. The Italian recordholder was expected to go for more than $200,000. [Late Note [comments]: The truffle in question went for $330,000 according to a source at Fark.com]


29. A Spice So Hot It Will Make a Ghost of You

The name of this chile pepper translates to “Ghost Chile” and it’s the world’s hottest chile thus discovered on the planet. The hottest jalapeno peppers rate 10,000 SHUs (Scoville Heat Units), and those bright orange habaneros can hit 100,000 SHU. The second hottest Red Savina is only half as hot as the ghosts - which weigh in at more than a million SHUs! Children, don’t try to eat these at home…


30. Accident as the Mother of Invention

The kitchen appliance staple known as the Microwave Oven was invented after a researcher happened to walk by a high-powered radar tube one day and a chocolate bar in his pocket melted.

[AnnonUSA]

31. How Crowded Are We, Really?

10% of all the humans who have ever lived are alive in the world right now.


32. And You Thought Stillness Was a Meditative Virtue…

The planet Earth travels through space in its journey around the sun at a stunning 67,000 miles per hour, and we’re all moving that fast along with it!



33. Good Old Dihydrogen Monoxide

The human body is about 60% water, which is 2/3 hydrogen. All the hydrogen - in our bodies and everywhere else in the universe - was created ~12 billion years ago in the Big Bang.


34. No Burped Compliments to the Chef on the ISS

Astronauts in space cannot belch - without gravity, gas cannot separate from liquids in their stomachs.


35. They’re Just Creatively Falling Down

Actually, there IS gravity in space. It’s just that astronauts in orbit are in a continual state of falling - gravity being equivalent to acceleration. There are no regions of space entirely without gravitational forces, just as there is no true vacuum in space - there are lots of loose atoms and particles out there.


36. And You Thought It Was Watson and Crick

DNA - the molecule of inheritance - was first discovered in 1869 by Swiss biologist Friedrich Mieschler, just a decade after Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution. Mieschler called the phosphate-rich chemical “nuclein.”


37. Mom Knows Whereof She Speaks

While Mom’s chicken soup won’t really “cure” your cold, it will make you feel much better. There are anti-inflammatory properties in the broth that have been shown to reduce congestion and ease fevers.


38. My, That’s a Funny-Looking Chicken

If the brain stem is left intact after beheading a chicken, it can continue to live (with some care in feeding). There is one documented case of a headless chicken living on for 18 months after he was supposed to have become Sunday dinner!


39. Beware the Random Bagel Test!

You will test positive for opiates on a drug test if you eat just two poppy seed bagels (or muffins) for breakfast.


40. Facts Sometimes Come Later Than Fiction

In Jonathan Swift’s immortal Gulliver’s Travels [1726], the author described the exact size and speeds of rotation for two moons of Mars - Phobos and Deimos - more than 100 years before either were discovered!

[AnnonUSA]

41. Plants Have Family Values Too

Researchers from Canada found that plants can have complex social interactions despite being… um, vegetative. Plants will grow more aggressively near unrelated plants than when they grow near relatives from the same maternal family.


42. The World’s Most Dangerous Animal

The not-so humble mosquito wins this award hands down. Mosquitoes transmitting countless diseases kill more animals - including humans - than any other animal (or plant) on Earth.



43. Hot Bed [Bugs] of Sexual Deception

Both the males and females of the African bat bug, a relative of bed bugs, have evolved fake genitals in order to protect themselves from the species’ violent mating practices. Some females have fake genitals of both male and female variety! The species does manage to reproduce prolifically anyway.


44. One Species In Which Dad Does All The Work

In seahorses it’s the male who gets pregnant. He incubates the offspring for three weeks, spends about 72 hours in labor, then gives birth to up to 200 baby seahorses at a time.


45. Alternative Recycling of Humans

A Swedish company has developed a new, environmentally friendly means of dealing with the bodies of the dead. They freeze the bodies in liquid nitrogen, then use sound waves to smash them to powder. From which water is removed in a vacuum chamber and metals are screened out.


46. And Now for the Weather Report…

In the days when apothecaries kept leeches in jars, it was observed that when the weather was calm the leeches stayed at the bottom of the water jar. But when a change in the weather was coming, the leeches would rise to the top of the water. For storms the leeches would rise quickly, descending again when the storm passed.


47. Forecast: Sunny

A solar panel array covering an area of 100 by 100 miles in the US Mojave Desert would produce enough electricity to replace all the coal fired power plants in America.


48. Old Sol Is Expecting Visitors

A red dwarf star labeled Gliese 710 is traveling toward our sun at nearly 50 times the speed of sound. In a million years it will be within just over half a light year away. Our current closest neighbor is Alpha Centauri, just over 4 light years away. But don’t worry. In only 10,000 years a red dwarf called Barnard’s Star will be our closest neighbor.


49. Please Don’t Lick the Walls

The world’s only hotel made entirely of salt (including the dining tables and chairs) is the Hotel de Sal Playa in the Uyuni salt flats of Bolivia.


50. …And Don’t Drink the Water

97% of the water on earth is undrinkable. 20% of the fresh water supply is contained in Lake Baikal in southern Siberia (the world’s deepest lake at more than mile in depth).

[AnnonUSA]

Courtesy of 50 Weird Science Tidbits & Oddities*x*by*x*Science News Review

[Johnny Carson]

I did not know that...

[The_Egg]

I want one.

[katchafire]

^^ come to NZ we have them here, we have only two venomous creatures in NZ and these guys are one of them.

[AnnonUSA]

Copypasta!

[The_Egg]

Originally Posted by katchafire

^^ come to NZ we have them here, we have only two venomous creatures in NZ and these guys are one of them.

They look cool as hell. Like a floating brain with psychedelic colors.

[The_Egg]

How come all the cool things will kill you if you touch it?

[blazer07]

I don't know why? Sex can kill ya too ... if you do it with the WRONG person. lol

[AnnonUSA]

Originally Posted by blazer07

I don't know why? Sex can kill ya too ... if you do it with the WRONG person. lol

Come on Blaze, Let us touch it!

[Johnny Carson]

Originally Posted by AnnonUSA

Come on Blaze, Let us touch it!

That's some wacky and wild stuff.