Fun Science Facts

Did you know that there are 206 bones in the adult human body and there are 300 in children (as they grow some of the bones fuse together).

Flea's can jump 130 times higher than their own height. In human terms this is equal to a 6ft. person jumping 780 ft. into the air.

The most dangerous animal in the world is the common housefly. Because of their habits of visiting animal waste, they transmit more diseases than any other animal.

Snakes are true carnivorous because they eat nothing but other animals. They do not eat any type of plant material.

The world's largest amphibian is the giant salamander. It can grow up to 5 ft. in length.

100 years ago: The first virus was found in both plants and animals.

90 years ago: The Grand Canyon became a national monument & Cellophane is invented.

80 years ago: The food mixer and the domestic refrigerator were invented.

70 years ago: The teletype and PVC (polyvinyl-chloride) were invented.

60 years ago: Otto Hahn discovered nuclear fission by splitting uranium, Teflon was invented.

50 years ago: Velcro was invented.

40 years ago: An all-female population of lizards was discovered in Armenia.

30 years ago: The computer mouse was invented.

20 years ago: First test-tube baby born in England, Pluto’s moon, Charon, discovered.

10 years ago: First patent for a genetically-engineered mouse was issued to Harvard Medical School.
5 years ago: The first successful cloning of human embryo

The smallest bone in the human body is the stapes or stirrup bone located in the middle ear. It is approximately .11 inches (.28 cm) long.

The longest cells in the human body are the motor neurons. They can be up to 4.5 feet (1.37 meters) long and run from the lower spinal cord to the big toe.

There are no poisonous snakes in Maine.

The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels. This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.

The largest man-made lake in the U.S. is Lake Mead, created by Hoover Dam.

The poison arrow frogs of South and Central America are the most poisonous animals in the world.

A new born blue whale measures 20-26 feet (6.0 - 7.9 meters) long and weighs up to 6,614 pounds (3003 kg).

The first coast-to-coast telephone line was established in 1914.

The Virginia opossum has a gestation period of only 12-13 days.

The Stegosaurus dinosaur measured up to 30 feet (9.1 meters) long but had a brain the size of a walnut.

The largest meteorite crater in the world is in Winslow, Arizona. It is 4,150 feet across and 150 feet deep.

The human eye blinks an average of 4,200,000 times a year.

Skylab, the first American space station, fell to the earth in thousands of pieces in 1979. Thankfully most over the ocean.

It takes approximately 12 hours for food to entirely digest.

Human jaw muscles can generate a force of 200 pounds (90.8 kilograms) on the molars.

The Skylab astronauts grew 1.5 - 2.25 inches (3.8 - 5.7 centimeters) due to spinal lengthening and straightening as a result of zero gravity.

An inch (2.5 centimeters) of rain water is equivalent to 15 inches (38.1 centimeters) of dry, powdery snow.

Tremendous erosion at the base of Niagara Falls (USA) undermines the shale cliffs and as a result the falls have receded approximately 7 miles over the last 10,000 years.

40 to 50 percent of body heat can be lost through the head (no hat) as a result of its extensive circulatory network.

A large swarm of desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria) can consume 20,000 tons (18,160,000 kilograms) of vegetation a day.

The largest telescope in the world is currently being constructed in northern Chile. The telescope will utilize four - 26 ft. 8 in. (8.13 meters) mirrors which will gather as much light as a single 52 ft. 6 in. (16 meters) mirror.

The Hubble Space Telescope weighs 12 tons (10,896 kilograms), is 43 feet (13.1 meters) long, and cost $2.1 billion to originally build.

The longest living cells in the body are brain cells which can live an entire lifetime.

The largest flying animal was the pterosaur which lived 70 million years ago. This reptile had a wing span of 36-39 feet (11-11.9 meters) and weighed 190-250 pounds (86-113.5 kilograms).

The Atlantic Giant Squid's eye can be as large as 15.75 inches (40 centimeters) wide.

Armadillos, opossums, and sloth's spend about 80% of their lives sleeping.

The starfish species, Porcellanaster ivanovi, has been found to live in water as deep as 24,881 feet (7,584 meters).

The tentacles of the giant Arctic jellyfish can reach 120 feet (36.6 meters) in length.

The greatest tide change on earth occurs in the Bay of Fundy. The difference between low tide and high tide can be as great as 54 ft. 6 in. (16.6 meters).

The highest temperature produced in a laboratory was 920,000,000 F (511,000,000 C) at the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor in Princeton, NJ, USA.

The most powerful laser in the world, the Nova laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, CA, USA, generates a pulse of energy equal to 100,000,000,000,000 watts of power for .000000001 second to a target the size of a grain of sand.

The fastest computer in the world is the CRAY Y-MP C90 supercomputer. It has two gigabytes of central memory and 16 parallel central processor units.

The heaviest human brain ever recorded weighed 5 lb. 1.1 oz. (2.3 kg.).

The deepest part of the ocean is 35,813 feet (10,916 meters) deep and occurs in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. At that depth the pressure is 18,000 pounds (9172 kilograms) per square inch.

The largest cave in the world (the Sarawak Chamber in Malaysia) is 2,300 feet (701 meters) long, 980 feet (299 meters) wide, and more than 230 feet (70 meters) high.

The hottest planet in the solar system is Venus, with an estimated surface temperature of 864 F (462 C).

The ears of a cricket are located on the front legs, just below the knee.

The first electronic digital computer (called ENIAC - the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) was developed in 1946 and contained over 18,000 vacuum tubes.

The leg muscles of a locust are about 1000 times more powerful than an equal weight of human muscle.

The cosmos contains approximately 50,000,000,000 galaxies.

There are between 100,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,000 stars in a normal galaxy.

Sound travels about 4 times faster in water than in air.

Scientists have discovered that copper pollution of the atmosphere occurred about 2500 years ago. This was discovered by analyzing ice cores from Greenland. The pollution was attributed to the Romans who used copper for military purposes and to produce coins.

Hydrofluoric acid will dissolve glass.

In a full grown rye plant, the total length of roots may reach 380 miles (613 km).

In a full grown rye plant, the total length of fine root hairs may reach 6600 miles (10,645 km).

A large sunspot can last for about a week.

If you could throw a snowball fast enough, it would totally vaporize when it hit a brick wall.

Boron nitride (BN) is the second hardest substance known to man.

The female Tarantula Hawk wasp paralyzes a large spider with her sting. She then lays her eggs on the motionless body so that her developing young have a fresh supply of spider meat to feed on.

The seeds of an Indian Lotus tree remain viable for 300 to 400 years.

The only letter not appearing on the Periodic Table is the letter “J”.

Velcro was invented by a Swiss guy who was inspired by the way burrs attached to clothing.

Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.

October 10 is National Metric Day.

If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat it measures 87 feet long.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

Super Glue was invented by accident. The researcher was trying to make optical coating materials, and would test their properties by putting them between two prisms and shining light through them. When he tried the cyano-acrylate, he couldn't get the prisms apart.

No matter its size or thickness, no piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.

A car traveling at 80 km/h uses half its fuel to overcome wind resistance.

Knowledge is growing so fast that ninety per cent of what we will know in fifty years time, will be discovered in those fifty years.

According to an old English system of time units, a moment is one and a half minutes.

The typewriter was invented in 1829, and the automatic dishwasher in 1889.

The wristwatch was invented in 1904 by Louis Cartier.

When glass breaks, the cracks move at speeds of up to 3,000 miles per hour.

By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand.

Ten minutes of one hurricane contains enough energy to match the nuclear stockpiles of the world.

Most gemstones contain several elements. The exception? The diamond. It's all carbon.

Diamonds are the hardest substance known to man.


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DO YOU KNOW

Did you know

Did you know that the word “genome” is a combination of the words “gene” and “chromosome”?

Did you know that if the genome was a book, it would be the equivalent of 800 dictionaries?
It would take a person typing 60 words per minute, eight hours a day, around 50 years to type the human genome.You would need 3 gigabytes of storage space on a computer to hold all of this information, and yet, all of it is contained inside the microscopic nucleus of a cell so tiny that it could easily fit on the head of a pin!
(Source:NOVA’s Cracking the Code of Life PBS website; Dr. Henry Friesen, Chairman – Genome Canada – Nov. 6, 2000 – Toronto)

Did you know that our bodies are constantly producing, dividing and replicating genetic information?
In the next 60 seconds your body will produce enough new DNA that if it was linked together, would stretch 100,000 kilometres! (Source: Dr. Henry Friesen, Chairman - Genome Canada - Nov. 6, 2000 - Toronto)

Did you know that our genes are remarkably similar to those of other life forms?
For example, we share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees, 90% with mice, 21% with worms, and 7% with a simple bacterium such as E. coli - a striking demonstration of the continuum of life. (Source: Dr. Henry Friesen, Chairman – Genome Canada – Nov. 6, 2000 – Toronto)

Did you know that humans have about 30,000 genes and that 99.9 per cent of them are identical?
That means that only one chemical letter in a thousand is different in the genome of say, your next-door neighbour and Albert Einstein. (Source: Dr. Henry Friesen, Chairman – Genome Canada – Nov. 6, 2000 – Toronto)
Did you know that if two different people started reciting their individual genetic code at a rate of one letter per second, it would take almost eight and a half minutes before they reached a difference? (Source: NOVA’s Cracking the Code of Life PBS website)

Did you know that the average amount of genetic difference between any two chimpanzees is four or five times more than the average difference between any two humans, which is 0.2 percent, or one in 500 letters?(Source: NOVA’s Cracking the Code of Life PBS website)

Did you know that our genes represent only 2% of the DNA in our chromosomes?
The other 98% is non-coded DNA.Scientists still don’t know the purpose of this non-coding DNA.(Source: Your World, Biotechnology & You (published by the U.S. Biotechnology Institute), Vol. 10, issue No. 2)

Did you know that if unwound and tied together, the strands of DNA would stretch almost six feet, but would be only 50 trillionths of an inch wide? (Source: NOVA’s Cracking the Code of Life PBS website)

Did you know that if all three billion letters in the human genome were stacked one millimeter apart, they would reach a height 7,000 times the height of the Empire State Building? (Source: NOVA’s Cracking the Code of Life PBS website)

Did you know that unless you are an identical twin, your genome is different from that of every other person on earth, in fact it is different from that of every other person who has ever lived? (What is a Genome, The Institute for Genomic Research, 2001)

Did you know that the concepts of “genes” only dates back to the 19th century and an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel?
Mendel used his garden for now famous series of breeding experiments with pea plants. He orchestrated various matings, placing pollen from one pea plant on the female flower parts of another to determine how different traits are inherited. (What is a Genome?, The Institute for Genomic Research, 2001)

Did you know that April 2003 marked the 50th anniversary of Dr. James Watson's and Dr. Francis Crick's discovery of the double helix?
In March of 1953, after many years of attempting to understand and elucidate the DNA structure they proposed the complementary double-helical configuration. Subsequently, Dr. Watson, Dr. Crick and Dr. Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in 1962 for "their discoveries of the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material". (The Nobel Prize, www.nobel.se)

Did you knowthat Canada has played a major role in developing treatments for diabetes?
In 1921 Dr. Banting, along with fellow researchers, discovered insulin the most widely used treatment for diabetes. In May 2000 a team of researchers from the University of Alberta announced they had successfully transplanted human pancreatic cells into people living with severe diabetes, called islet cell transplantation. This type of treatment for people with diabetes can lead to independence of insulin injections and no longer having to watch what they eat. Go Canada! (Canadian Diabetes Association, www.diabetes.ca)

Did you know that a team led by Dr. Lap-Chee Tsui from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto discovered the defective gene and molecular defect responsible for cystic fibrosis?
It is estimated that one in every 2,500 children born in Canada has cystic fibrosis. (Hospital for Sick Children, History of the Research Institute – Discoveries and Achievements, www.sickkids.on.ca & Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, www.cysticfibrosis.ca)

Did you know that in 1995, Dr. Peter St George-Hyslop member of the Canadian Genetic Diseases Network and Director of the Center for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Toronto, led an international team of scientists to the discovery of the gene for early onset Alzheimer's disease and found a second gene, which is responsible for the disease. A member of the team, Dr. Johanna Rommens, of Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, collaborated closely with Dr. St George-Hyslop and was instrumental in the discovery. (Canadian Genetic Diseases Network, www.cgdn.generes.ca)

Did you know that in 1998 an international research team led by Dr. Steve Scherer of The Hospital for Sick Children (HSC) and the University of Toronto, identified a gene responsible for one of the most severe forms of epilepsy: Progressive Myoclonus Epilepsy, Lafora type. Approximately 300,000 Canadians have epilepsy. (Canadian Genetic Diseases Network, www.cgdn.generes.ca & Epilepsy Canada, www.epilepsy.ca)

Did you know that Canadian scientists discovered a gene (AR) that protects women against breast cancer?
In 2001, a team of Quebec researchers, led by Dr. François Rousseau of the Human and Molecular Genetic Research Department (HMGRD), Hôpital Saint-François d'Assise Research Centre, Centre hospitalier universitaire de Québec (CHUQ), made the major breakthrough identifying certain variants of this gene which provide women with greater protection against breast cancer. (Canadian Genetic Diseases Network, www.cgdn.generes.ca)

Did you know that humans have one and a half more genes than a round worm and two times more than a fruit fly? (Source: Your World, Biotechnology & You, published by the U.S. Biotechnology Institute, vol.10, issues no 2)