The most interesting facts in nature, science and technology. Interesting scientific facts

Interesting scientific facts and simply interesting discoveries - a small selection of amazing facts that pleasantly surprise.

1. It takes a person about 12 hours to completely digest food.
2. Brain cells are the longest-living cells among living cells in our body; they can continue to exist throughout life.
3. The human brain comes in different sizes, and the largest human brain weighed 2.3 kg.
4. Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system with a surface temperature above 450°C.
5. According to scientists, there are about 50000000000 galaxies.
6. Sound travels 4 times faster in air than in water.
7. One of the most accidental discoveries was the invention of the microwave oven. This discovery occurred after a researcher walked past a ray tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
8. More germs are transmitted through a handshake than through a kiss.
9. The moon is very dry, it is a million times drier than the well-known Gobi Desert.
10. The highest temperature on Earth, measured in Libya in 1922, was 58°C.
11. The lowest recorded temperature on our planet was -89.6°C. This temperature was measured in Antarctica in 1983.
12. Not all animals on our planet have brains, for example, starfish do not have a brain.
13. Kangaroos don’t know how to walk in the opposite direction, you mean “backwards”.
14. Eyes always remain the same size from the moment you are born until the moment you die, unlike our ears and nose, which constantly grow throughout our lives.
15. Only people have the opportunity to sleep on their backs.
16. 80% of our brain consists of water.
17. For normal functioning, the brain needs about a quarter of the total oxygen used by our body.
18. Crocodiles not only swallow their unfortunate victims, but also stones in order to dive deeper.
19. Sharks are completely protected from cancer since this disease has never been recorded.
20. Ants are so hardworking that they don’t even sleep.
21. From two rats in a year it can increase to 1 million descendants.
22. Fingernails grow much faster than our toenails, about 4 times faster.
23. The highest temperature produced in a laboratory was recorded at about 920,000,000 F (511,000,000 C) during testing of the tokamak fusion reactor in Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
24. A hurricane produces energy equivalent to up to 8,000 kilojoules, which is equal to one megaton bomb.
25. Polar bears may look slow due to their fat, but in real life they are anything but, as they can run 25 miles per hour and jump 6 feet in the air.
26. Mosquitoes like women more than men because they smell very similar to estrogen.
29. Have you ever wondered why giraffes are such quiet animals? It's because they don't have vocal cords to make noise.
30. Interestingly, Earth is the only planet in our solar system that was not named after some Roman or Greek god.
31. Our Sun may be gigantic, but it still continues to lose 360 million tons of material every day.
32. Have you ever wondered how much a liter of water weighs, the answer is 8.34 pounds (3.8 kg).
33. Hot water freezes faster than cold water.
34. Albert Einstein had speech problems at an early age.
35. Scientists have discovered more than 20 planets outside our solar system.
36. Spacecraft move very quickly, reaching up to 40,000 mph.
37. Can you live without your head? Well, if you are a cockroach you can control it for somewhere around 9 days.
38. The average male brain is larger than the average female brain (1.4 kg to 1.25 kg).
39. Left-handers are indeed in the minority, since 88% of all people are right-handed.
40. Gravitational lenses were predicted by Einstein before they were discovered.

Some parents tell their child: “You are the light of my life.” But did you know that if you were light, you would fly around the entire globe 7.5 times per second! If you became sound, you could fly around the Earth in 4 hours! If we lived on Jupiter, our day would consist of only 9 hours. It’s good that on Earth a day lasts 24 hours, because we have so much to do during the day! These are just a few fun scientific facts that may interest both an inquisitive child and an adult.

What is science?

Science is an organized and sequential study that includes observation, collection of scientific facts, experimentation, testing of results, and explanation of natural and man-made phenomena. This is an area that gives us the opportunity to better understand the world around us and create good things for the benefit of man and all living beings.

Ordinary scientific facts

Now that you know what we're talking about, here are some fun scientific facts:

If you stretch a human DNA chain, its length will be the distance from Pluto to the Sun and back.
When a person sneezes, the speed of the air they exhale is about 160 km/h.
A flea can jump to a height that is 130 times its own height. If the flea were a 1.80 m tall person, it could jump 230 m.
The electric eel produces an electrical current of 650 volts. Touching it is the most powerful shock a person can experience.
Light particles called photons take 40,000 years to travel from the Sun's core to its surface, but only 8 minutes to reach Earth.

Scientific facts about the Earth

Earth is our home. To take care of her, we need to know important information about her:

The age of the Earth is from 5 to 6 billion years. The Moon and the Sun are about the same age.
Our planet is composed mainly of iron, silicon and relatively small amounts of magnesium.
Earth is the only planet in the solar system with water on its surface, and its atmosphere is 21% oxygen.
The Earth's surface is made up of tectonic plates located on the mantle, a layer located between the Earth's core and the surface. This structure of the earth's surface explains earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
There are about 8.7 million species of living organisms living on Earth. Of these, 2.2 million species live in the ocean, and the rest live on land.
¾ of the Earth's surface is covered with water. When astronauts first saw Earth from space, they saw mostly water. This is where the name “blue planet” comes from.

Environmental Facts

Why do the seasons change? What happens to garbage after we throw it away? What causes the weather to be hot or cool? Children learn this and much more in natural history lessons at school. Let's look at some facts that convince us of what a beautiful planet we live on.

Plastic completely decomposes in the ground in 450 years, and glass in 4,000 years.
Every day around the world, 27,000 trees are used to make toilet paper alone.
97% of all water on Earth is salty and unsuitable for consumption. 2% of the water is in glaciers. Therefore, only 1% of water is suitable for consumption.
The meat processing industry is the biggest contributor to global warming. In second place among global problems is deforestation. About 68% of existing plant species are likely to become extinct in the near future.
The population of the Earth is more than 7 billion people. This figure is expected to reach 8 billion by 2025.
Unfortunately, 99% of existing species of living organisms, according to scientists, will become extinct.

Interesting facts about animals

The animal kingdom is beautiful and amazing. It contains tame otters, powerful eels, singing whales, giggling rats, oysters that change gender, and many other equally amazing representatives. Here are a few facts about animals that your child will undoubtedly enjoy:

Octopuses have three hearts. An even weirder fact: lobsters have a urinary tract on their face, while turtles breathe through their anus.
In seahorses, males give birth, not females.
The kakapo parrot has a strong, pungent odor that attracts predators. That is why kakapo are in danger of extinction.
A squirrel plants more trees than the average person in a lifetime. How can this be? The fact is that squirrels hide acorns and nuts underground, and then forget where exactly they hid them.
It is mainly lionesses who hunt among lions. Leos only intervene when necessary.

Interesting facts about plants

Plants green our planet, produce oxygen, and make the Earth habitable. Trees and plants are probably the most useful among the living inhabitants of the Earth. Here are some interesting facts about plants:

Like humans, plants recognize other plants of their own species.
In total, there are more than 80,000 edible plants on Earth. Of these, we eat about 30.
Humanity is rapidly destroying forests. About 80% of all forests have already been destroyed.
The oldest tree in the world (sequoia) is located in the USA, in the state of California. His age is 4,843 years.
The height of the tallest tree in the world is 113 m. It is also located in California.
The largest tree in the world is aspen, growing in the USA, in the state of Utah. Its weight is 6,000 tons.

Facts about space

The sun, stars, planets, the Milky Way, constellations and everything that is in the Universe is located in vacuum space. We call it space. Here are some interesting facts about him:

The Earth is tiny compared to the Sun, which is 300,000 times larger.
The entire space is absolutely silent, because sound does not travel in a vacuum.
Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system. The temperature on the surface of Venus is 450°C.
The force of gravity changes a person's weight on different planets. For example, the force of gravity on Mars is lower than on Earth, so a person weighing 80 kg on Mars would weigh only 31 kg.
Since the Moon has neither atmosphere nor water, nothing can erase the traces of astronauts who set foot on its surface. Therefore, the traces will probably remain here for another hundred million years.
The temperature of the Sun's core, the closest star to Earth, is 15 million degrees Celsius.

Facts about famous scientists

For a long time, people thought that the Earth was flat, that the change of seasons depended on the mood of the gods, and that illness was caused by evil spirits. This continued until great scientists proved the opposite. Without them, we would still be living in ignorance.

Albert Einstein was a genius, but his talents were discovered quite late. After the scientist's death, his brain was the subject of numerous studies.
Nicolaus Copernicus disproved the theory that the Earth is the center of the Universe. He developed a model of the solar system with the Sun at the center.
Leonardo da Vinci was not only an artist. He was also an outstanding mathematician, scientist, writer and even musician.
Archimedes invented the law of fluid displacement while taking a bath. The funny thing is that, according to legend, he jumped out of the bathtub shouting “Eureka!” He was so excited that he forgot that he had no clothes on.
Marie Curie, the female chemist who discovered radium, was the first person in the world to win the Nobel Prize twice.

Scientific facts from the world of technology

Technology is the engine of progress. We are so dependent on technology in everyday life that it is even scary. Here are some interesting facts about the technical devices we come across every day:

The first computer game appeared in 1967. It was called “brown box” (translated from English as “brown box”) because that’s exactly what it looked like.
The world's first computer, ENIAC, weighed more than 27 tons and took up an entire room.
The Internet and the World Wide Web are not the same thing.
Robotics is one of the most relevant scientific fields today. However, back in 1495, Leonardo da Vinci drew the world's first diagram of a robot.
“Camera Obscura” is a prototype of a camera that influenced the development of photography. It was used in Ancient Greece and China to project images onto a screen.
There is an interesting technology that uses plant waste to produce methane, which in turn can be used to generate electricity.

Scientific facts from the engineering industry

Engineering helps create beautiful things - from houses and cars to electronic gadgets.

The tallest bridge in the world is the Millau Viaduct in France. It is located at an altitude of 245 m, supported by beams suspended on cables.
The Palm Islands in Dubai can be called a modern wonder of the world. These are man-made islands floating on the water.
The world's largest particle accelerator is located in Geneva. It was built to support the research of over 10,000 scientists and is located in an underground tunnel.
The Chandra Space Observatory is the world's largest X-ray telescope. It is also the largest satellite launched into space.
Today the most ambitious project in the world is the New Valley in Egypt. Engineers are trying to turn millions of hectares of desert into farmland. Imagine what would happen if we could green the Earth in the same way! Our planet would regain its pristine purity!

Science is a wonderful field of study that inspires many people. All you need is to get your child interested in it. And who knows, maybe your child will grow up to be the next Einstein.

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Newborns typically have about 270 bones, most of which are very small. This makes the skeleton more flexible and helps the baby pass through the birth canal and grow quickly. As we grow older, many of these bones fuse together. The adult human skeleton consists on average of 200–213 bones.

2. The Eiffel Tower grows 15 centimeters in summer

The huge structure is built with temperature expansion joints, allowing the steel to expand and contract without any damage.

When steel heats up, it begins to expand and takes up more volume. This is called thermal expansion. Conversely, a drop in temperature leads to a decrease in volume. For this reason, large structures, such as bridges, are built with expansion joints that allow them to change in size without damage.

3. 20% of oxygen comes from the Amazon rainforest

flickr.com/thiagomarra

The Amazon rainforest covers 5.5 million square kilometers. The Amazon jungle produces a significant portion of the oxygen on Earth, absorbing huge amounts of carbon dioxide, which is why it is often called the lungs of the planet.

4. Some metals are so reactive that they explode even when in contact with water.

Some metals and compounds - potassium, sodium, lithium, rubidium and cesium - exhibit increased chemical activity, so they can ignite with lightning speed when in contact with air, and if they are placed in water, they can even explode.

5. A teaspoon of a neutron star would weigh 6 billion tons.

Neutron stars are the remains of massive stars, consisting mainly of a neutron core covered with a relatively thin (about 1 km) crust of matter in the form of heavy atomic nuclei and electrons. The cores of stars that died during a supernova explosion were compressed under the influence of gravity. This is how super-dense neutron stars were formed. Astronomers have found that the mass of neutron stars can be comparable to the mass of the Sun, although their radius does not exceed 10–20 kilometers.

6. Every year, Hawaii gets 7.5 cm closer to Alaska.

The earth's crust consists of several huge parts - tectonic plates. These plates are constantly moving along with the upper layer of the mantle. Hawaii is located in the middle part of the Pacific Plate, which is slowly drifting northwest toward the North American Plate, on which Alaska is located. Tectonic plates move at the same speed as human fingernails grow.

7. In 2.3 billion years, Earth will be too hot to support life.

Our planet will eventually become an endless desert, similar to today's Mars. Over hundreds of millions of years, the Sun has warmed up, become brighter and hotter, and will continue to do so. In more than two billion years, temperatures will be so high that the oceans that make Earth habitable will evaporate. The entire planet will turn into an endless desert. As scientists predict, in the next few billion years the Sun will turn into a red giant and completely engulf the Earth - the planet will definitely come to an end.

Flickr.com/andy999

Thermal imagers are able to identify an object by the heat it emits. And polar bears are experts at staying warm. Thanks to a thick layer of subcutaneous fat and a warm fur coat, bears are able to withstand even the coldest days in the Arctic.

9. Light will take 8 minutes 19 seconds to travel from the Sun to the Earth

It is known that the speed of light is 300,000 kilometers per second. But even at such breakneck speed, it will take time to cover the distance between the Sun and Earth. And 8 minutes is not so much on a cosmic scale. It takes sunlight 5.5 hours to reach Pluto.

10. If you remove all the interatomic space, humanity will fit in a sugar cube

In fact, more than 99.9999% of an atom is empty space. An atom consists of a tiny, dense nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons, which occupy proportionately more space. This is because electrons move in waves. They can only exist where the crests and troughs of the waves are formed in a certain way. Electrons do not remain at one point; their location can be anywhere within the orbit. And therefore they take up a lot of space.

11. Stomach juice can dissolve razor blades

The stomach digests food thanks to caustic hydrochloric acid with a high pH (hydrogen index) - from two to three. But at the same time, the acid also affects the gastric mucosa, which, however, can quickly recover. The lining of your stomach is completely renewed every four days.

Scientists have many versions of why this happens. The most likely: due to huge asteroids that influenced its course in the past, or due to strong circulation of air currents in the upper atmosphere.

13. A flea can accelerate faster than the space shuttle

Flea jumps reach mind-boggling heights - 8 centimeters per millisecond. Each jump gives the flea an acceleration 50 times greater than the acceleration of the spacecraft.

What interesting facts do you know?

Most of the knowledge acquired at school will never be useful to us. Most of this we will never even remember. And yet some crumbs of “useless” information will remain in memory. Paradoxically, it is thanks to them that we feel like educated people. The luxury of keeping in mind not only vital information, but also “information surplus” increases self-esteem and gives a feeling of intellectual competence.

And “unnecessary information” surprisingly turns out to be the most interesting. This interest can become for children a magic key to the vast world of science, which is often hidden behind boring formulas and incomprehensible definitions.

In this article, we have collected nine scientific facts that can be used in mathematics, physics, geography, chemistry and biology lessons to clearly show: science is not something abstract from real life, but situations that we encounter every day.

Fact No. 1. On average, an ordinary person travels a distance equal to three Earth equators in his life

The length of the equator is approximately 40,075 km. Multiplying this figure by three, we get 120,225 km. With an average life expectancy of 70 years, we get about 1,717 km per year, which is a little more than five kilometers per day. Not that much, but it adds up to a lifetime.

On the one hand, this information has no practical application. On the other hand, it is much more interesting to measure the distance traveled not in meters, steps or calories, but in equators. And calculating the percentage of the length of the equator will attract attention not only to geography, but also to mathematics.

The following two facts may also be useful in mathematics lessons. Using the first, you can calculate the number of children in a parallel or even in an entire school born on the same day.

Fact #2: If there are 23 random people in a room, then the probability that two of them will have the same birthday is more than 50%.

And if you bring 75 people together, then this probability reaches 99%. There can be a 100% chance of a match in a group of 367 people. The probability of a match is determined by the number of pairs that can be made from all the people in the group. Since the order of the people in the pairs does not matter, the total number of such pairs is equal to the number of combinations of 23 by 2, that is, (23 × 22)/2 = 253 pairs. Thus, the number of couples exceeds the number of days in a year. The same formula calculates the probability of coincidences for any number of people. This way you can estimate the number of children born on the same day in a parallel school or even in the entire school.

Fact No. 3. The number of living organisms in a teaspoon of soil is greater than the entire population of our planet.

One square centimeter of soil contains billions of bacteria, fungi, algae and other organisms. About 60 million bacteria live in just one gram of dry soil. There are significantly fewer nematodes, or roundworms (the most famous of which are roundworms and pinworms) in the same amount of soil - only 10 thousand. A figure incommensurate with the human population, but no less unpleasant for that.

Practical application of information: Wash your hands thoroughly after taking care of your indoor plants, as well as after working in the garden. An area of increased bacterial danger is the sandbox on any playground.

Fact #4: The average toilet seat is much cleaner than the average toothbrush.

The bacteria on your teeth live at a density of about 10 million per square centimeter. The amount of bacteria on the skin varies depending on the part of the body, but in any case it is much less than in the mouth.

But there are no bacteria on the skin of frogs at all. The reason for this is the mucus secreted by the frog and containing strong antibiotics. This is how frogs protect themselves from the aggressive bacterial environment of the swamps in which they live.

A person is much less adapted in this regard, so it is recommended to change toothbrushes every couple of months.

Fact No. 5. In the evening, a person becomes 1% shorter compared to his “daytime” height

Under load, our joints tend to compress. With a normal lifestyle, by the evening a person’s height decreases by 1-2 cm, which is approximately 1%. The decrease is short-lived.

The maximum reduction in height occurs after weightlifting. Changes in height can be three or more centimeters. This is due to compaction of the vertebrae.

Fact #6: Diamonds can be produced from peanut butter using very high pressure.

Scientists from the Bavarian Research Institute of Geophysics and Geochemistry tried to simulate in the laboratory the conditions of the Earth's lower mantle, where at a depth of 2,900 kilometers the pressure is 1.3 million times higher than atmospheric pressure. During the experiment, some innovative ways of producing diamonds were discovered. According to one hypothesis, diamonds are formed from carbon under very high pressure. Carbon is found in almost all foods. And since the researchers only had peanut butter on hand, they tried it. Unfortunately, hydrogen, which is bound to carbon in peanut butter, slows down the process significantly, taking several weeks to produce even a small diamond. Thus, scientific thought proves that the most incredible transformations are quite possible.

Fact No. 7. The height of the Eiffel Tower can change by 12 centimeters depending on the air temperature

An iron rod 300 meters long elongates by 3 mm when the ambient temperature increases by one degree.

This is exactly what happens with the Eiffel Tower, which is approximately 324 meters high.

In hot sunny weather, the iron material of the tower can heat up to +40 degrees, and in winter in Paris it cools down to approximately 0 degrees (severe frosts are rare there).

Thus, the height of the Eiffel Tower can fluctuate by 12 centimeters (3 mm * 40 = 120 mm).

Fact #8: A typical microwave oven uses much more energy to keep its built-in clock running than it does to reheat food.

While in standby mode, a modern microwave uses approximately 3 watts per hour. Already 72 W per day comes out, and if we multiply this number by thirty days, we get an energy consumption of 2160 W per month.

If we assume that we use the microwave every day for 5 minutes, we get 150 minutes or 2.5 hours per month. Modern stoves consume about 0.8 kW/hour in heating mode. It turns out that with this use, the energy consumption directly for heating food is 2000 W. If you purchase a more economical model that consumes only 0.7 kW/hour, we get only 1.75 kW per month.

Fact No. 9. The first computer mouse was made of wood

Sometimes we are just curious to know the fate of the objects that we use every day.

A computer mouse in our usual design was introduced to the world in 1984 by Apple. Largely thanks to her, Macintosh computers became incredibly popular. But this small but such a necessary device begins its true history 20 years earlier.

In 1964, engineer Douglas Engelbart from Stanford developed a manipulator to work with the oN-Line System (NLS) operating system. Initially, the device was a handmade wooden box with two wheels inside and a button on the body. After some time, the device appears with a third button, and a couple of years later Engelbart receives a patent for his invention.

Then Xerox comes into play, but its modification of the computer mouse costs about $700, which does not at all contribute to its mass distribution. And only Steve Jobs’ company is able to develop a similar device with a cost of 20-30 dollars, which has become part of the everyday life of billions of people.

Interesting scientific facts

1. Pseudo-blindness is a phenomenon in which blind people have a physiological response to visual stimuli (for example, an angry face), despite the fact that they are unable to see them.

2. If a thimble was filled with matter from a neutron star, it would weigh almost 100 million tons.

3. If people used Newton's formulas instead of Einstein's theory of relativity, GPS calculations would be off by several kilometers.

4. The coldest place in the known universe is on Earth in a laboratory. Scientists have managed to freeze atoms using laser cooling. This resulted in temperatures in the billionth degree of absolute zero.

5. The human brain has more synapses than stars in the Milky Way.

6. If it were possible to remove all the empty space in atoms, then Everest could be placed in a glass.

7. The compound that gives raspberries its flavor is found throughout our Galaxy. You heard that right, the Milky Way tastes like raspberries.

8. According to the Hafele-Keating experiment, time runs faster when flying in a western direction than in an eastern direction (relative to the center of the Earth).

New interesting facts

9. All the cells in your body have been dividing since life began on Earth. And all this division will end with your death, with the exception of the cells that you pass on to your descendants (1 per child) and certain circumstances (for example, organ donation).

10. The only reason you are able to read this article is because hundreds of kilometers of fiberglass cables lie on the ocean floor.

11. The lubricant in your knees is one of the slipperiest substances known to man.

12. When you remember an event in the past, you are not remembering the event itself, but rather the last time you remembered it. In other words, you have a memory of memories. For this reason, people's memories are often inaccurate.