50 Amazing Science Facts

1. There are 62,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body – laid end to end they would circle the earth 2.5 times.
2. The largest organ in the body is the skin. In an adult man it covers about 1.9m2 (20sq ft). The skin constantly flakes away – in a lifetime each person sheds around 18kg (40 lb) of skin.
3. Each kidney contains 1 million individual filters. They filter an average of around 1.3 litres (2.2 pints) of blood per minute and expel up to 1.4 litres (2.5 pints) a day of urine.
4. The focusing muscles of the eyes move around 100,000 times a day. To give your leg muscles the same workout, you would need to walk 80km (50 miles) every day.
5. Brain is capable of having more ideas than the number of atoms in the known universe!
6. A single rye plant can spread up to 400 miles of roots underground.
7. The evaporation from a large oak or beech tree is from 10-25 gallons in 24 hours.
   
8. Plants cannot change their habitat.
9. Petals are usually colourful, and they attract insects and birds that help with pollination.
10. Onions contain a mild antibiotic that fights infections, soothes burns, tames bee stings and relieves the itch of athletes’ foot.
11. Shark’s need to swim, or they will sink!
12. All dogs are identical in anatomy - 321 bones and 42 permanent teeth
13. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than it’s brain.
14. A duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no one knows why.
15. Butterflies taste with their feet.
16. A plastic cup can take 50 - 80 years to decompose. About 14 billion pounds of plastic is dumped in the world’s oceans every year.
17. Sewage from boating can pollute. Untreated sewage is a significant risk to human health and wildlife.
18. The things we do every day contribute to over half the pollution in Puget Sound. Litter thrown on the ground can end up in our storm drains, ditches and streams.
19. More than 100 active pesticide ingredients are suspected of causing cancer, birth defects and gene mutation.
20. For every one of the 6 billion people on earth, nearly four tons of carbon dioxide is spewed into the air annually.
21. A Planet falls into two categories. It is either a Terrestrial Planet or a Gas Giant.
22. The temperature on the surface of Mercury exceeds 430° C during the day and at night, plummets to minus 180°C.
23. A hundred pound man would weight 38 pounds on Mars.
24. Jupiter is so big that it could fit all the other planets in the solar system inside it, having the great red spot which is a storm that has been going on for over 300 years.
25. The clouds of Venus is filled with sulfuric acid.
26. The Internet is the fastest-growing tool of communication ever. It took radio broadcasters 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million, television 13 years and the Internet just 4 years.
27. The United States generates more ewaste than any other nation.
28. The first e-mail was sent over the Internet in 1972.
29. The electric chair was invented by a dentist, Alfred Southwick.
30. As much as 80% of microwaves from mobile phones are absorbed by our head.
31. The oceans contain enough salt to cover all the continents to a depth of nearly 500 feet.
32. Honeybees have a type of hair on their eyes!
33. At over 2000 kilometers long The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on Earth.
34. Each rubber molecule is made of 65,000 individual atoms.
35. The fastest speed a falling raindrop can hit you is 18mph.
36. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
37. It takes approximately 12 hours for food to entirely digest.
38. The smile is the most frequently used facial expression. A smile can use anywhere from a pair of 5 to 53 facial muscles.
39. The average person accidentally eats 430 bugs each year of their life.
40. In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on watch is 10:10.
41. The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave them off!
42. The original name for the butterfly was ‘flutterby’!
43. There are no clocks in Las Vegas casinos.
44. In Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes!
45. The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows!
46. Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air.
47. A chicken loses its feathers when it becomes stressed.
48. Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.
49. Snakes have no eyelids and are completely deaf.
50. Flamingoes are the some of the only creatures designed to survive in the caustic environment of a volcanic lake.