More Fascinating Scientific Facts

Every once in awhile I regale you with things I find that are unusual, weird, or just plain fantastic.  So it is today.  There are several facts of a scientific nature below that I’ve found (on the Internet, of course).  Enjoy.

1. There are 62,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body – laid end to end they would circle the earth 2.5 times.

2. At over 2000 kilometers long, The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on Earth.

3. The risk of being struck by a falling meteorite for a human is one occurrence every 9,300 years.

4. A thimbleful of a neutron star would weigh over 100 million tons.

5. A typical hurricane produces the energy equivalent of 8,000 one megaton bombs.

6.  The highest speed ever achieved on a bicycle is 166.94 mph, by Fred Rompelberg.

7. We can produce laser light a million times brighter than sunshine.

8. The combined length of the roots of a Finnish pine tree is over 30 miles.

9. The oceans contain enough salt to cover all the continents to a depth of nearly 500 feet.

10. The interstellar gas cloud Sagittarius B contains a billion, billion, billion liters of alcohol.

11. Polar Bears can run at 25 miles an hour and jump over 6 feet in the air.

12. Polar bears are nearly undetectable by infrared cameras, due to their white fur with great insulating capacities..

13. The average person accidentally eats 430 bugs each year of their life.

14. A single rye plant can spread up to 400 miles of roots underground.

15. The temperature on the surface of Mercury exceeds 430 degrees C during the day, and, at night, plummets to minus 180 degrees centigrade.

16. The evaporation from a large oak or beech tree is from ten to twenty-five gallons in twenty-four hours.

17. Butterflies taste with their hind feet, and their taste sensation works on touch – this allows them to determine whether a leaf is edible.