Interesting Facts

More interesting (at least to me) and random facts (From Scientific American Magazine).

If all the bacteria in your body were put into a jar, they would measure about ½ gallon by volume. There are ten times more bacteria in and on your body than there are human cells.

Sound waves between 40 and 50 hertz can put out a fire.

Identical twins do not necessarily have the same genetic makeup. Although most regions in the genome carry two sets of genes (father and mother), some carry up to 14 sets, any one of which may be the active set.

Superfluid helium (liquid helium cooled to within a few degrees of absolute zero), flows without friction, and thus can climb the sides of the container it is in. If you set the fluid in motion inside the container and maintained the temperature, theoretically, in 10 years it would still be in motion.

The Indonesian earthquake of 2004 increased the speed of the rotation of the earth by 2.68 microseconds. The cause was the movement of so much water in the tsunami that followed.

Coal ash, the material left over from burning coal in power plants, is more radioactive than most nuclear waste due to the concentration of uranium and thorium in the ash.

Some infinities are larger than other infinities. This was shown true mathematically by German mathematician Georg Cantor in the late 19th century. For example, he showed mathematically that there are more real numbers between the integers 0 and 1 than there are integers in the real number system.

Doctors have performed over 100 brain hemispherectomys (removal of half of the brain) in the last 30 years. Remarkably, other than use of one eye and one arm, much functioning otherwise remains intact or can be instilled through training. The procedure is performed as a “last resort” for conditions such as multiple seizures.

The largest organism in the world is thought to be a fungus in Oregon, an Armillaria ostoya fungus that occupies well over 2,3900 acres and is thought to be anywhere from 2,400 to 8,650 years old.