Did You Know? Cool Facts is a new series bringing you 10 incredibly fascinating facts every episode to blow your mind and give you a whole new perspective on the world you occupy.
10 Awesome Science Facts!
1. There's no crying in space!
Astronauts cannot cry in space. There is no gravity so the tears don't flow, they just ball up and stay on the eye, a stinging and rather unpleasant experience.
2. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
The first lighters were devices converted from flintlock pistols in the 16th century. In 1823 German chemist Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner created the first lighter not converted from a pistol. But it did not have much success so cue Carl Auer Von Welsback who, in 1903, breezed in and patented the flint lighter as we know today.
John Walker of England invented the first match in 1826.
3. There are more bacteria cells in your body than human cells.
The oldest life form on Earth, bacteria have been around for at least 3.5 billion years. But we didn't discover them until 1674 when Dutch scientist Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek stumbled upon them while messing around with the just invented microscope. He was comparing pond water with cells scraped from his mouth.
Ick...I wonder if this discovery led to the invention of the toothbrush...
4. An average human walks an amount equal to five times around the Earth in their lifetime.
The moderately average person walks about 7,500 steps per day. Maintaining this at an average stride until the age of 80, they will have taken 216,262,500 steps. This comes out to about 110,000 miles, equalling 5 times around the Earths equator.
5. If you drilled a hole through the Earth and jumped in, it would take you exactly 42 minutes and 12 seconds to get to the other side.
You'd have to get away from the exit hole immediately after flying out of it, though, otherwise you'll drop right back in again, hurtling back and forth inside this gravity tunnel like a human pendulum.
6. Lazers get trapped in waterfalls.
The phenomena is called Total Internal Reflection, (it's also how fiber optic cables guide light flow) when the beam of light hits a medium that is more dense-the edge of the water- and approaching a less dense medium- the air. It happens over and over as the light hits each boundary, therefore becomes trapped in the waterfall.
7. Clear vision without glasses is possible.
If you broke your glasses simply make a pinhole with your hand. Light coming through into your retina will be forced into focus. This won't give you 20/20 eyesight, but it's good in a pinch if you need to read directions or check out that hottie strutting by.
8. Make a ball fly by spinning it as you drop it.
The Magnus Effect occurs when the air on the front side of object that is spinning, in this case the ball, is going in the same direction as its spin and dragging the air around with it at the same time the air on the other side is moving in the opposite direction.
Here's a 3 minute video explaining the Magnus Effect totally worth the watch!
9. An average of 100 people worldwide choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
Americans, however, are more prone to choking on toothpicks.
10. A 10 year old mattress is double the weight than it was when new.
This is due to all the squatters who took up permanent residence over the years: dust, millions of dead skin cells, lint, soil, decaying dust mite bodies and droppings, mold, dandruff, pet and human hair, bodily secretions, pollen, and sweat (the average human perspires about a quart a day). Sweet dreams!
Isn't our world absolutely fascinating? Science is fun :)
Never stop learning!
Don't miss an episode of Did You Know? Cool Facts! Follow @ArbitraryKitten for more ever impressive things they probably didn't teach you in school!
Sources: NASA, The Atlantic, Popular Science, PhysicsForum.com, Giphy, Creative Commons, & LiveScience.
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Learning new stuffs daily has turned into my addiction. I love the way you coupled these findings, so brief and the gifs made it so attractive to read through.
You just got your blog a new follower. Well done.
I love learning too! I'm wanting this as a daily series :) Short, sweet, to the point, but most importantly entertaining while educating!
Lovely to meet you!
Interesting! Now I know why I'm paranoid about my kids using pointy objects in their mouth. There is verifiable proof of a great deal of accidents from everyday objects like ballpoint pens. Pretty girls fact about the mattress. I remember that always being a big selling point for the Kirby vacuum cleaners
Right. A parents instinct tends to be right on the money!
After learning that fact I pondered spraying Envirocide on our mattresses! Lol
The Magnus effect was used on bombs since WWII. If they spun the bomb properly, it would skip across the water and hit targets floating on that water. Or, it could be "scheduled" to submerge at a given point. (Based on the spin speed and altitude at release)
It's a horrible use of cool physics, but apparently it was quite effective.
https://newatlas.com/barnes-wallis-bouncing-bomb-70/27554/
Oh wow, that is insane. But super cool, yes. Thank you so much for the share!
Very interesting. Now I know why they say you have to vacuum your mattress regularly and renew every 10 years!!
And i would never stand where the guy is standing with the ball!!!
It's crazy that it's so much heavier!!! That is a lot of debris!!!
lol!
Wow, those were cool to read. Except the mattress, lol. Now I really want to replace mine. I used to chew on toothpicks when trucking. They do that to help stay awake. Glad I never choked on one.
Lol! I feel like I started a horror story playing on repeat in peoples heads with the mattress share!
Man, me too! I never would have thought chewing toothpicks helps keep you awake... What about gum? Is it not as good as toothpicks?
After awhile just chewing gum loses it's desire. Only a few times I had almost fallen asleep at the wheel, so I know first hand how hard it is for drivers. The receiving end of deliveries don't care about what it does, they just want their merchandise. Chewing toothpicks keeps you alert, especially when you get stabbed in the mouth.
As for the mattress, yeah I wonder how many will go buy new ones. Makes my skin crawl, lol. What is that stuff you mentioned spraying? Never heard of it.
Enviroside? It's a sanitizing spray hospitals use. Kills rabies, hiv, hep c. I'm not sure if it'll help, but that's where my mind went! Lol
Lol, yeah that stuff. But since I am a freak about chemicals, maybe I will concoct my own green clean stuff. My skin is still like (ewww) lol. Hope I sleep tonight, lol.
Lol my mind went to drastic measures!
Lol, I even looked in my healthy cleaning book but stopped looking at it. My ocd will go into overdrive if I so much as deep clean one item. I even tagged you in a comment to my short story. I will sleep no problem. Just cracks me up. But the tears thing was gross. Also wanted to thank you again for helping me become better with my stories :-). I even wait 10-15 minutes and then go over it before I post.
Wow those sure are some interesting facts. So no matter what happens in space at least no one will know you are a sissy girl. lol jk
How do you choke yourself on a pen? lol I mean why do people even do those things? Good thing I never did. How clumsy I am for anything besided basketball I would probably find out how they choked. lol
The mattress story is just gross. lool
I think at some point in those 42 minutes you would probably stop screaming and panicking and say come on already I lost my voice screaming here. lolol Let me die already.. lol
These sure are some interesting facts. Loved reading it. Thank you for the luagh. lol :)
How does anyone do any number of the dumb things they get themselves into?! Lol! I guess you can chalk it up to the brief misplacement of common sense?!
I'm happy you enjoyed it :)
We steam clean our mattresses once a year. Now, maybe I need to do it more often! lol I loved this post. I learned a few facts I didn't know. I love learning new things each day. It is what keeps us young and may prevents Alzhiemers!
I say the same thing! It's when you stop learning and stop being open to new ideas and perspectives that you begin to "grow old" !!
Very interesting stuff!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Scientifically interesting @arbitrarykitten We used that pinhole projection on the recent solar eclipse last year.
Yes! Me too! I totally forgot about it till you said this, lol
This article is interesting especially we can prevent those diseases thanks!
I'm all for preventing disease... but can you please elaborate as to what you are referring to?
Wacky stuff. ha ha
Lol, glad you liked it!
jajaja very funny and interesting many things I didn't know!!! It made me want to try to make a ball fly
Isn't that amazing! Please film it and share it with us when you do :)
I love science facts!
Me too!
@arbitrarykitten, I think I had an equal response of awe and yuck.
Thanks for sharing some great facts. The visuals really made the article over the top.
Glad to support other Steem Engine members.
Lol thanks for the feedback! It's quite interesting!
STEEM Engine- *fistpump" :) Appreciated
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Thank you!
I appreciate it :)
Interesting read! Had no idea about nunber 5! And the mattress doubling is just gross!
Lol! Glad you liked them!
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STOPScientific facts are so much fun!
Your one on falling through the earth - is that correct?
( I had this drunken conversation with a quantum physics scientist once - it was a very one sided conversation.. lol)
I seem to remember (if i remember this correctly), that you can't fall through o the other side - as once you pass through the center of the earth, gravity will be pulling you back towards the center...???
Inertia, velocity something something sciencey... something....?
Any physics people here to clarify this, before I google?
Who said science isn't fun?!
Yea, it's something like that. But if you could, that is how long it would take.
@arbitrarykitten I am not a Fan of NASA. I feel that they are a big part of the problems that we have on Earth. I will not go into detail here. I just intend to stay Positive...........
I agree with you. We should talk in chat sometime...
burns his mattress
Interesting stuff AK.
lol!
thanks :)
Really cool facts @arbitrarykitten!
Intrigued to try fact 6 for myself now.
Sweet! You should film it and share it with us!
Next time I see someone with a laser I'll be running for a bottle of water XD..
Lol YES! They may think you are losing it at first, but it'll be totally worth it!
Hahaha..
This is cool ! It's always very interesting and fun for me to learn new things. It is especially useful when i am facilitating a bunch of kids ! Love it when they face goes "WHOAAAAAA"
Right? I love making "magic" happen for the wee ones :)
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Thank you!
#3 though ...😩
And the mattress weighing twice as much... I’m so grossed out.
@jeejee
LOL