There’s enough gold inside Earth to coat the planet. Turns out, there’s quite a bit of gold on—or, really, in—our planet: 99 per cent of the precious metal can be found in the Earth’s core, Discover Magazine reports. How much is there? Enough to coat the entire surface of the Earth in 1.5 feet of gold.
100 Mind-Blowing Quite Facts
Artificial banana flavouring is based on an extinct banana. You may notice that your banana-flavoured food products don’t taste quite like the real thing. This is because the commercially used banana flavouring is based on a type of banana that was wiped out by a plague in the 1950s.
During the first 5 months of Pokémon Go, gaming-related accidents increased by 26.5%. People may joke about Pokemon Go bringing world peace, but the game was doing quite the opposite. Upon the first few months of its release, Pokemon Go-related casualties included 2 deaths and $25.5 million in property damages.
Penguins can jump as high as 9 feet in the air. These creatures may be known for their adorable waddling, but they’re quite the action stars. One of the fun facts about these fun creatures is that depending on their species, penguins can jump up to 9 feet. How do these boxy birds do it, you ask? The magic happens underwater – penguins wrap their bodies in air bubbles from their wings and use this to propel themselves up to the surface.
Sharks can “blink” and “wink”. Sharks are generally perceived as scary (Thanks, Jaws.) but they can wink quite a charm. The nictating membrane covers and protects a shark’s eyes and – in doing so – gives it a blinking or winking appearance.
Bats have very thin leg bones. Their legs are not very good for use in other tasks apart from hanging upside down. The bones in their legs are also quite fragile which means they are unable to walk. Apart from their weak legs, their knees also face backwards.
Most of the wasabi you eat isn’t wasabi. Because actual wasabi can be quite expensive, store-bought wasabi is often made out of horseradish.
The Milky Way smells of rum, raspberries and booze. In 2009, astronomers exploring a giant cloud of gas and dust at the centre of the Milky Way made a surprise discovery – the cloud was packed full of a chemical known as ethyl formate, which has a couple of intriguing properties: it is responsible for giving raspberries their flavour, and has the smell of rum. Another nearby region is also notable as it’s full of ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, the type we use to make alcoholic beverages. It contains enough alcohol to supply every person on the planet with 300,000 pints of beer per day for the next billion years! If bottled at the source, the proof for this beer would be very low, with an alcohol content of less than 1%, but as the cloud also contains plenty of other nasty chemicals, among them carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, it would still leave you with quite a headache the next morning.
Jupiter’s magnetic field is bigger than the Moon. The region of space in which a mass’s magnetic field dominates is known as its magnetosphere. These regions surround planets, pulsars and even our Galaxy. The planets in our Solar System have magnetospheres that interact with and are shaped by the charged particles in the wind streaming from our Sun. The largest magnetosphere in our Solar System surrounds Jupiter. Jupiter rotates very fast and has a very strong magnetic field, and its magnetosphere is filled with plasma from its volcanically active moon, Io. These features, coupled with the fact that the solar wind is slower and less dense at Jupiter than at Earth, lead to a very sizeable Jovian magnetosphere. It is easily big enough to contain a body the size of our Sun and, if visible, would be larger than the Moon in our night sky; quite an achievement considering that it is over 1,500 times farther away.
Velociraptors were feathered dinosaurs. If you know about velociraptors from Jurassic Park, then this may come as quite a surprise. While scientists have been able to figure out that these vicious hunters used to have feathers, the question of how feathered they were is still unanswered. It’s possible that they just had tufts of feathers on their arms, head, or possibly all over!
One of Fleetwood Mac’s founding guitarists disappeared just before a show and was found days later as a newly initiated cult member. Jeremy Spencer was with Fleetwood Mac from the very beginning, but during a tour to the US in the 70’s he became quite disillusioned with his career and life in general. He met members of Children of God, a religious cult in California, and decided to join them instead of continuing on the road to stardom. Jeremy Spencer is still affiliated with the cult, now known as Family International.
Sloths don’t fall out of trees when they sleep because of how their claws evolved. Fortunately for many a sleeping sloth, their claws evolved quite the opposite of how ours did. While our hands are naturally open, and it takes force to clench them, this isn’t the case for sloths. Instead, their claws’ “relaxed” position is a tight grip, and it takes quite a lot of force for them to unclench their claws.
Every year 22,000 tons of dust is blown from the Sahara Desert to the Amazon Rainforest. Long, long ago, the Sahara Desert used to be a lake, and the dust and sand left behind are rich in phosphorous. This is quite fortunate, as this phosphorous-rich dust is carried through the skies to the Amazon rainforest, which is surprisingly in need of fertilizer. The rainforest loses just about as much phosphorous as it gains because it all gets washed away through streams, creeks, and the Amazon River.
The US Army has its private herd of bison. Unfortunately, it’s not part of some sort of secret plan to create a mounted bison regiment. Instead, the US Army base of Camp Pendleton in California was gifted the bison back in the 70s. The San Diego Zoo entrusted the bison to the base for safekeeping, and they’ve done such a great job at it that the herd has grown from 14 to 90 or so! The herd is constantly monitored, not just to ensure they’re in good health but also because they’re quite dangerous wild animals!
The First Television Station. General Electric broadcast the first television station from a building in Schenectady, NY. Viewers watched W2XB, better known as WGY Television, in amazement. During each broadcast, various forms of content were played over the airwaves. The televisions and television stations of 1928 looked and worked quite differently than they do nowadays.
Top 5 best-selling video games of all time. Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time by a large margin. The game was released in November 2011 and has sold 200 million units. People of all ages love crafting and survival games. Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto V holds the number two spot with 140 million units sold. Quite a few people log on every week to partake in this regularly updated open-world title. Both titles include sales across multiple platforms. On the other hand, Tetris holds the number three spot in mobile sales alone. The classic game has amassed 100 million in sales since its release in 2006. Wii Sports lands at number four and features sales on one platform as well. Finally, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds hit 70 million in sales across multiple platforms to round out the top five best-selling games list. Every title on the list saw an initial release between 2006 and 2017.
Filipinos use social media more than Americans. Among adult users in the Philippines, 93% use social networking sites, which is quite higher than the 74% that use it in the U.S. They mostly use it to talk about music and movies, and slightly fewer use it to talk about sports.
You’ll find the most accurate clock at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. The clock keeps time by measuring the vibration of a single aluminium ion and should remain accurate for 33 billion years. The clock sitting on your bedside table isn’t quite as precise.
There is an annual cheese rolling competition: The unusual sport of cheese rolling was guaranteed to make this list of facts about England. A unique event, the annual cheese rolling takes place on Cooper’s Hill in Gloucester and has been done since 1826. The event involves a 9-lb, round Double Gloucester cheese rolled down a hill, with competitors chasing after it to the bottom. The first person to reach the finish line wins the cheese. Contestants are often locals from the area, however, the event attractions competitors from all over the world. If you’re up for a challenge, why not sign up for the race? Please keep in mind that due to the fast pace of the race, the event can be quite dangerous.
The South East of England is mostly flat: England’s topography is quite varied, with the Lake District National Park being a great example of the country’s high elevation. If you venture towards the South East, you’ll find the opposite. This part of the country is mostly low-lying, offering flat countryside with uninterrupted views. Some of the best places to experience these views are the Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, including the Cotswolds and Chiltern Hills. The glorious South Downs National Park offers a stunning mixture of coastal and countryside sights, including the Seven Sisters cliffs. It’s well worth checking out!