The world is a mysterious place that gives Living Science a lot of food for our popular Little mysteries of life series that airs every weekend. We've been writing mysteries since 2004, and we still haven't run out of weird things to uncover. Each riddle is accompanied by many facts, such as Which animals develop the fastest? And Why are there so many poisonous animals in Australia?. Honestly, we could go on, but we would have to resort to thousands of our riddles. So, for your entertaining pleasure, we have collected here 50 of the most impressive facts.
1. Until the 1960s, researchers believed that people mostly dreamed in black and white.
3. Having a bowel movement stimulates the vagus nerve, which can lower blood pressure and heart rate. no wonder it feels so good to poop.
12. slowest land animal It is most likely a banana slug, which moves at an extremely slow speed of 0.006 miles per hour (0.0096 km/h) or a tenth of an inch per second (2.7 millimeters per second). By comparison, the common garden snail glides at 0.03 miles per hour (0.048 km/h), or half an inch per second (1.3 centimeters per second).
13. Although rare, under certain circumstances women were allowed to compete as gladiators in ancient Rome, but there are there are no records of any of them dying in battle.
14. The sound of supermassive black holes expelling gas in the Perseus cluster would hit a low B-flatapproximately 57 octaves below middle C.
15. All newts are salamanders, but not all salamanders are newts.
16. Even though the Colorado River toad secretes the chemical 5-MeO-DMT—one of the most powerful psychedelics in the world—from venom glands in its head, you can't get high by licking it.
17. The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 is often considered loudest sound in historywhen the explosion was heard by people 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) away.
18. The oldest known individual of the genus Homo lived in Africa about 2.8 million years ago, but we are not sure what species it was.
19. largest known prime number contains 41,024,320 digits.
20. Frogs breathe and drink through your skin.
21. A bullet fired from a .223 Remington leaves the weapon. at speeds up to 2,727 mph (4,390 km/h) – fast enough to cover 11 football fields in one second.
22. The turtle shell is made from 50 bones.
23. Despite what you may have seen in movies, The Ancient Egyptians Didn't Booby Trap the Pyramids.
24. the world's longest underwater tunnel section belongs to the Channel Tunnel, a 23.5-mile (37.9 km) underwater section connecting England and France.
25. Despite evidence to the contrary, Christopher Columbus continued to lay claim to the lands he had “discovered.” were part of Asiamost likely so he will be paid.
26. Main mirror on James Webb Space Telescope is 21.3 feet (6.5 meters) in diameter, giving a total collection area of over 270 square feet (25 square meters).
27. As of March 2025 there were There are 953 known natural satellites of the Solar System. (depending on your definition of moon).
28. There are approximately 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms in the observable universe.
29. The body lies in the coffin for five to ten years. completely decompose right down to the skeleton.
30. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is a network of ocean currents that move across the Atlantic Ocean, moving 600 million cubic feet (17 million cubic meters) of water per second and 1.2 petawatts of heat—approximately the same amount of heat generated by a million power plants operating simultaneously.
31. The deepest place on Earth is the bottom Mariana Trenchwhich lies about 35,876 feet (10,935 meters) below the surface. This makes it about 7,000 feet (2,100 m) deeper than the height of Everest.
32. Researchers have shown that octopuses can be tricked using a version of the “rubber hand illusion”.” while stroking the real octopus hand, hidden from view, and the visible artificial octopus hand at the same time. When the artificial arm was pinched, the octopus reacted as if its own arm was being attacked—by changing color or jerking away.
33. The asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs crashed into Earth at 27,000 mph (43,000 km/h).
34. Approximately half of all eukaryotic species on Earth insects.
35. Mount Everest is the highest mountain in altitude, standing at 29,031.69 feet (8,848.86 m) above sea level. If you Peoplean extinct volcano in Hawaii, from base to summit it is actually taller at 33,497 feet (10,211 m).
36. You are more likely to cry when chop the onion with a dull knife than with spicy.
37. Antarctica became a continent around 34 million years agohaving lost land connections with Australia and South America.
38. Jellyfish, sea anemones and hydras no brainshowever, they are capable of surprisingly advanced behavior.
39. Kangaroos have three vaginas.
40. Many shark species will be temporarily paralyzed if you turn them upside down.
41. The human heart has incredible endurancedelivering an average of about 100,000 blows and pumping approximately 2,500 gallons (9,500 liters) of blood per day.
42. Dragonflies are one of the nature's most efficient hunterscatching prey up to 97% of the time. By comparison, tigers have only a 10% success rate.
43. Yes, some figs they actually have wasps in them.
44. OpenAI GPT-4 training used about 50 gigawatt-hours of energy – enough to power San Francisco for three days.
45. The oldest DNA sequenced in animals and plants comes from 2.4 million years ago.
46. The average person produces 30 to 91 cubic inches (500 to 1,500 cubic centimeters) of gas every day, regardless of their diet. Fortunately, more than 99% of these gases are odorless.
47. The female puff viper holds the record for greatest number of offspring born in one live birth – as many as 156 fully developed snakes.
48. Record for most often a sheet of paper is folded in half – 12. If folded 42 times, its height would be more than 273,280 miles (439,800 kilometers) – greater than the average distance between the Earth and the Moon.
49. Another element can be turned into gold, just not that much.
50. The most commonly cited number of organs in the human body is 78. the heaviest organ is the skin.
Looking for more mysteries?
Here are some more incredible stories from Little mysteries of life:
—Do humans and chimpanzees really share almost 99% of their DNA?
—Why do European cities have milder winters than North America, despite being at the same latitude?
—Why are there bubbles in boiling water except in the microwave?
