The first Game Boy could run for a staggering 30 hours on only two AA batteries!
100 Mind-Blowing Staggering Facts
Mount Everest isn’t the tallest mountain on Earth. Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa in Hawaii, the twin volcanoes, are taller than Mount Everest due to 4.2km of their heights being submerged underwater. The twin volcanoes measure a staggering 10.2km in total, compared to Everest’s paltry 4.6km.
Sean Wrona, a left-handed typist, set the record for the fastest typing speed on a keyboard, typing at a staggering 256 words per minute.
Antarctica is home to the largest ice sheet on Earth. More than six times as large as Greenland, Antarctica is the southernmost continent and is the coldest and windiest place on Earth – with temperatures that can drop as low as -89.2°C and winds that can exceed 320 km per hour. Antarctica is home to the largest ice sheet on Earth, containing a staggering 30 million cubic kilometres of ice. This represents an incredible 70% of Earth’s freshwater and 90% of its ice. As a result, changes to the Antarctic ice sheet can have significant implications for global sea levels and ocean currents. Monitoring the Antarctic ice sheet is therefore of paramount importance and satellite data plays a crucial role in this effort. Data from satellites such as CryoSat, ESA’s ice mission, allow scientists to track changes in the thickness and movement of the ice sheet over time, providing insights into how it is responding to a changing climate. ESA has recently teamed up with NASA and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) to carry out an ambitious campaign in Antarctica which involved taking simultaneous measurements of sea ice from ESA’s CryoSat and NASA’s ICESat-2 satellites. This research is essential for informing policy decisions on issues such as climate change and sea level rise, and for developing strategies to mitigate their impact on coastal communities around the world.
Europe is the second smallest continent in size but the third largest in population. Europe is known for its diverse cultures, rich history and stunning landmarks. Despite being the second smallest continent in size (after Australia), Europe is home to a staggering population of over 746 million people, making it the third largest continent in terms of population (after Asia and Africa). Europe has one of the highest levels of urbanisation in the world, with over 75% of its population living in urban areas. With the world’s population expected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050, we must increase efforts to understand and mitigate the challenges brought by rapid and unplanned urbanisation, air pollution, as well as issues related to the management of water and energy. ESA and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), in collaboration with the Google Earth Engine team, have developed the World Settlement Footprint – the world’s most comprehensive dataset on human settlement. Featuring data from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions, this unprecedented collection of data on human settlement will advance our understanding of urbanisation on a global scale.
Cybercrime has Increased by 600% Since Covid-19. According to a Cybersecurity Ventures report, there has been a staggering 600% increase in cyberattacks since the commencement of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some possible reasons include the rise in remote working, the rise in malware, and the rise in online activity.
BitDefender Ranks as the Most Popular Free Antivirus, Accruing a 10.17% Share of the Industry. Statistics show that BitDefender ranks as the number one best free antivirus, having a staggering market share of 10.17%. While BitDefender ranks marginally ahead of its contemporaries, its major contender, Malwarebytes, declined to 7.29% in market share.
Linux Market Share: Linux has gained ground as the third most popular desktop operating system, with a 2.92% market share as of October 2023, according to Statcounter. Beyond desktops, Linux’s reach extends further, serving as the backbone for a staggering 90% of the world’s cloud infrastructure. Its versatility, open-source nature, and robust performance have made it a prominent player both on personal computers and in the vast network of servers powering the digital services we rely on daily.
The Rivalry Between Microsoft and Linux: Microsoft waged war against Linux in the early 2000s seeking to stop its spread and usage. It incurred a staggering $421 million in the process. Nowadays, the two operating systems are no longer locked in battle, and in fact, there’s been more collaboration between the two in recent years.
Incidents aimed at cryptocurrency firms surged by a staggering 600% in the first quarter of 2023, coinciding with a notable 15% upswing in HTTP DDoS attacks. (Cloudflare)