Life is full of curiosities and learning weird and wonderful facts about the world we live in is a little hobby of mine. So here are some of my favourite scientifically proven facts that will literally blow your mind and wow any dinnertime conversation:
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1. Did you know that cashews grow on apples? In this case the apples grow especially on the plant as an accessory fruit for the cashews to grow on top of it.
2. Did you know that trees actually grow out of the air, not the ground? Though they recieve some minerals from the soil, the carbon dioxide from air goes into the tree and with the help of the sun removes the oxygen. This carbon is left with water to create the substance of the tree.
3. There are more stars in the visible universe, than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the Earth.
4. Your body is constantly replacing its cells, so much so, that every 10 years your entire body has replaced itself. Every atom in your body will then be different to a decade ago, meaning you have no more in common with your previous self than any other human being that has lived or will ever live.
5. If you’ve made it to age 18, you have on average 3200 – 3500 weekends left in your lifetime. More importantly, you only have about 57 summers left.
6. And did you know while dragonfly’s have legs? They cannot walk, they can only land.
7. In a population of clown fish, if the female dies or is removed the most dominant male will become a female.
8. Alcoholic beverages contain all 13 minerals necessary to sustain human life
and that approximately one percent of the world’s population is drunk at any given moment.
9. How about the fact that a single sperm has the equivalent of thirty seven point five megabytes DNA information in it this means that a normal ejaculation equates to a data transfer of over 1500 terabytes.
10. Iguana, Koalas and Komodo dragons all have two penises and a female kangaroo actually has three vaginas.
11. The male octopus on the other hand tears off his mating arm places it inside the female and then swims off somewhere to die, talk about being romantic.
12. The average person walks the equivalent of three times around the world in a lifetime.
13. If the population of China walked past you in single file, it would take about 30 years considering the rate of reproduction, for them all to pass.
14. In only two weeks a pair of pants will have grown 1000 bacteria on the front 2500 on the back in 10,000 on the crotch.
15. When a pregnant woman suffers organ damage such as a heart attack the foetus sends stem cells to the damaged organ to help repair it.
16. Before the eraser was invented, bread was used to remove pencil marks.
17. And peanut butter under extremely high pressure can be turned in diamonds, I bet that diamond wouldn’t cost peanuts!
18. If you are travelling to buy a lottery ticket and your chance of dying on the way is actually higher than winning the lottery.
19. The Rubik’s Cube which actually has forty-three quintillion 252 quadrillion three trillion 274 billion 489 million 856 thousand possible configurations. ( That number looks like this 43,252,003,274,489,856,000).
20. Hopefully that made you smile because even faking a smile stimulates the same part of the brain as a real one, which in return can trigger endorphins, so to make yourself feel happy, you can always just fake it!