Science
Discover facts about science. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Science
The vacation expecting parents take before the baby arrives
A completely manufactured concept from the late 20th century, the babymoon is one last desperate attempt by expecting parents to remember what silence sounds…
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Spiders use hydraulic pressure to extend their legs
Spiders are essentially tiny, terrifying hydraulic machines. While humans use a system of opposing muscles to pull their bones back and forth, spiders only…
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Why isolating fluorine was a deadly challenge
Because fluorine is violently eager to react with almost everything, attempting to isolate it was a historical death trap. Multiple renowned chemists were…
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Our sun consists entirely of superheated glowing plasma
Forget solids, liquids, and gases; the sun operates entirely in the fourth state of matter. The intense heat completely strips electrons away from their…
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The viruses that hunt cholera bacteria
Even microscopic agents of lethal human misery have to deal with their own horrible pandemics. Vibriophages are specialized viruses that specifically hunt and…
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The giant storm Robert Hooke spotted on Jupiter
Robert Hooke pointed his lenses toward Jupiter and noticed a massive, bizarre blemish rotating aggressively across the atmosphere. He essentially cataloged a…
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Astrology claims the asteroid Pallas governs how you solve problems
Strategy is essentially just the ability to connect seemingly unrelated dots faster than anyone else. Named after the goddess of wisdom, this chunk of space…
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How elephants walk quietly despite their size
It makes zero sense that a multi-ton beast can sneak up on you, but it is absolutely true. Elephants have dense, shock-absorbing gel cushions inside their…
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The weak nuclear force drives radioactive decay by changing protons into neutrons
Subatomic stability is mostly a myth. The so-called weak force is responsible for the incredibly slow, steady, and entirely unavoidable process of radioactive…
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J. J. Thomson showed that atoms were not the smallest pieces of matter
For generations, academics stubbornly believed the atom was the absolute smallest indivisible chunk of matter. J.J. Thomson shattered that naive assumption by…
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Writing began with grain and taxes
Literature was not born from a burning desire to write beautiful poetry. The absolute oldest forms of written language emerged purely because early…
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Irrational numbers refuse to become simple fractions
An irrational number cannot be expressed as a simple ratio of two integers. Their decimal expansions never terminate and never become periodic. The ancient…
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Trying to hide something online can make it famous
Trying to aggressively hide information on the internet is basically handing it a megaphone. When individuals attempt to forcefully suppress an embarrassing…
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When cold air makes your skin break out in hives
Being allergic to winter sounds like a pathetic excuse, but cold urticaria is real. Dropping temperatures trigger mast cells to spontaneously dump massive…
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Free fall feels completely weightless inside a vacuum
Weightlessness isn't the absence of gravity; it is just the sensation of falling without anything stopping you. If you remove drag and sit inside a plummeting…
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The invisible dots tracking your website visits
Marketers are hiding tiny transparent dots all over your favorite sites. These single-pixel images are imperceptible to the eye but force your browser to…
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The dwarf planet that erupts icy vapor
Not content with being a dull rock in the asteroid belt, this dwarf planet occasionally erupts, blasting frozen vapor into the void. These bizarre…
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Fermat hid a theorem in a book's margin
Pierre de Fermat was the ultimate academic troll. He scribbled a brilliant mathematical theorem in the margin of a book, adding that he had a truly marvelous…
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Why one bad bounce can kill your trampoline jump
Jumping across a grid of connected trampolines makes you feel like an acrobat, but the physics are actively dampening your fun. When multiple people bounce on…
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Leeches can numb you before they bite
Bloodsucking worms have better bedside manners than most human dentists. To ensure they can feed without being noticed and violently removed, leeches inject a…
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Mount Vesuvius sits uncomfortably close to populated zones
Famous for rapidly completely annihilating ancient Roman settlements, this incredibly dangerous European volcano constantly threatens millions of oblivious…
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The sea cucumber that throws up its organs
When a sea cucumber feels threatened by a crab or a fish, it doesn't bother running away. It opts for the nuclear option: evisceration. It forcefully expels…
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Rain can carry traces of vitamin B12
Nature's LaCroix comes with a complimentary multivitamin. As rain falls through the atmosphere, it picks up microscopic airborne bacteria and particles of…
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Humans share about half their DNA with bananas
Before you get too arrogant about being the apex predator of the planet, remember that your genetic code is essentially a fruit smoothie. We share half of our…
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