15 Science Factlets You Don’t Know

Now that we are fully settled into the New Year, it is time to refresh our brains with another list of fascinating factlets. These mini-facts are all science based and, for the most part, should be news to most readers. Let’s get the New Year off to a good start with some learning!

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Factlets 1 – 5

1. Raindrops are not shaped like a teardrop (as they are almost always depicted in drawings) – they are actually spherical.
2. When something “sublimes” it turns directly into a gas from a solid – bypassing the liquid state. This is what would happen if you throw dry-ice into a fire.
3. Gorillas sleep in nests (pictured above) – they weave together soft foliage and bent branches from trees. Males tend to like sleeping on the ground while females like to have their nests in trees.
4. Champagne doesn’t fizz because of carbon dioxide – it fizzes because of dirt or dust. In a completely smooth glass with no dust molecules in it, champagne would be completely still.
5. Most digestion occurs, not in the stomach, but in the small intestine. This may be the reason that a person can be bulimic whilst still staying fat.

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Factlets 6 – 10

6. The red juice that comes out of rare steak is not blood – it is myoglobin a close relative of blood. Almost all the blood has been removed from a steak by the time it hits the market.
7. Plastic bags are better than paper bags for the environment. The manufacturing process that makes paper bags requires far more energy than that which produces plastic. Recycling paper bags takes more energy than recycling plastic, and paper bags take up more space in a landfill. Because landfills are usually airtight beneath the surface, paper and plastic are equally bad at biodegrading.
8. Polar bears are fascinating creatures. Their fur is transparent (not white), their skin is black (not white), and when kept in warm humid environments, their fur can turn green from algae.
9. Pet allergies are usually not allergies to fur but allergies to the animal’s dead skin, saliva, or waste matter. Regularly cleaning pets can dramatically reduce allergies.
10. The tongue map is a lie – you can taste all tastes on all parts of the tongue. The tongue map is derived from a discredited German paper from 1901.

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Factlets 11 – 15

11. When you hold a shell to your ear to hear the sea, the sound you hear is actually your own blood rushing through your veins! You can use any cup shaped object to hear this effect.
12. When you are alive, your brain is pink. When you die, it turns grey. While we describe the brain as “gray matter” and “white matter”, this is not a true description of its color.
13. Mercury, the fascinating liquid metal is not the only liquid metal. Gallium (Ga – pictured above) is solid at room temperature but will melt if held in your hand, caesium (Cs), and francium (Fr) – the second rarest naturally occurring element, can also be liquid at or near room temperature.
14. Dolphins don’t drink water – if they drank sea water it would make them ill and potentially kill them. They get all of their liquid needs through the foods they eat.
15. The Soviet Union was the first country to have a spacecraft on the moon – not the Unites States. In 1959, Luna 2 was the first craft to crash-land on the moon. In February, 1966, Luna 9 was the first soft-landed craft on the moon which relayed back pictures. Four months later, the United States landed its first craft on the moon (Surveyor I).

Top 15 Misconceptions about Evolution

Biological evolution is descent with modification. This definition encompasses small-scale evolution (changes in gene frequency in a population from one generation to the next) and large-scale evolution (the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations). Evolution helps us to understand the history of life. While evolution is very widely accepted, many people hold to misconceptions about it. This list should help to dispel some of those myths.

15. Evolution is a theory about the origin of life
The theory of evolution primarily deals with the manner in which life has changed after its origin. While science is interested in the origins of life (for example the composition of the primeval sludge from which life might have come) but these are not issues covered in the area of evolution. What is known is that regardless of the start, at some point life began to branch off. Evolution is, therefore, dedicated to the study of those processes.
14. Organisms are always getting better

While it is a fact that natural selection weeds out unhealthy genes from the gene pool, there are many cases where an imperfect organism has survived. Some examples of this are fungi, sharks, crayfish, and mosses – these have all remained essentially the same over a great period of time. These organisms are all sufficiently adapted to their environment to survive without improvement.
Other taxa have changed a lot, but not necessarily for the better. Some creatures have had their environments changed and their adaptations may not be as well suited to their new situation. Fitness is linked to their environment, not to progress.
13. Evolution means that life changed ‘by chance’
In fact, natural selection is not random. Many aquatic animals need speed to survive and reproduce – the creatures with that ability are more suited to their environment and are more likely to survive natural selection. In turn, they will produce more offspring with the same traits and the cycle continues. The idea that evolution occurs by chance does not take the entire picture in to account.
12. Natural selection involves organisms ‘trying’ to adapt

Organisms do not “try” to adapt – it is natural selection that enables various members of a group to survive and reproduce. Genetic adaptation is entirely outside of the power of the developing organism.
11. Natural selection gives organisms what they ‘need.’
Natural selection has no “intelligence” – it can not tell what a species needs. If a population has genetic variants that are more suited to their environment, they will reproduce more in the next generation and the population will evolve. If a genetic variant is not present, the population will most likely do – or it will survive with little evolutionary change.
10. Evolution is ‘just’ a theory

Scientifically speaking, a theory is a well substantiated idea that explains aspects of the natural world. Unfortunately other definitions of theory (such as a “guess” or a “hunch”) cause a great deal of confusion in the non-scientific world when dealing with the sciences. They are, in fact, two very different concepts.
9. Evolution is a Theory in Crisis
There is no debate in science as to whether or not evolution occurred – there is, however, debate over how it happened. The minutiae of the process is vigorously debated which can cause anti-evolutionists to believe that the theory is in crisis. Evolution is sound science and is treated as such by scientists worldwide.

8. Gaps in the Fossil Record Disprove Evolution

Actually, many transitional fossils do exist – for example, there are fossils of transitional organisms between modern birds and their dinosaur ancestors, as well as whales and their land mammal ancestors. There are many transitional forms that have not been preserved, but that is simply because some organisms do not fossilize well or exist in conditions that do not allow for the process of fossilization. Science predicts that there will be gaps in the record for many evolutionary changes. This does not disprove the theory.
7. Evolutionary Theory is Incomplete
Evolutionary science is a work in progress. Science is constantly making new discoveries with regard to it and explanations are always adjusted if necessary. Evolutionary theory is like all of the other sciences in this respect. Science is always trying to improve our knowledge. At present, evolution is the only well-supported explanation for all of life’s diversity.
6. The Theory is Flawed

Science is an extremely competitive field – if any flaws were discovered in evolutionary theory they would be quickly corrected. All of the alleged flaws that creationists put forth have been investigated careful by scientists and they simply do not hold water. They are usually based on misunderstandings of the theory or misrepresentation of the evidence.
5. Evolution is not science because it is not observable
Evolution is observable and testable. The confusion here is that people think science is limited to experiments in laboratories by white-coated technicians. In fact, a large amount of scientific information is gathered from the real world. Astronomers can obviously not physically touch the objects they study (for example stars and galaxies), yet a great deal of knowledge can be gained through multiple lines of study. This is true also of evolution. It is also true that there are many mechanisms of evolution that can be, and are studied through direct experimentation as with other sciences.
4. Most Biologists have rejected Darwinism

Scientists do not reject Darwin’s theories, they have modified it over time as more knowledge has been discovered. Darwin considered that evolution proceeds at a deliberate, slow pace – but in fact it has now been discovered that it can proceed at a rapid pace under some circumstances. There has not been, so far, a credible challenge to the basic principles of Darwin’s theory. Scientists have improved and expanded on Darwin’s original theory of natural selection – it has not been rejected, it has been added to.
3. Evolution Leads to Immoral Behavior
All animal species have a set of behaviors that they share with other members of their species. Slugs act like slugs, dogs act like dogs, and humans act like humans. It is preposterous to presume that a child will begin to behave like another creature when they discover that they are related to them. It is nonsensical to link evolution to immoral or inappropriate behavior.
2. Evolution Supports “Might Makes Right”

In the 19th and early 20th century, a philosophy called “Social Darwinism” sprung up from misguided attempts to apply biological evolution to society. This philosophy said that society should allow the weak to fail and die, and that not only is this an ideal situation, but a morally right one. This enabled prejudices to be rationalized and ideas such as the poor deserved their situation due to being less fit were very popular. This was a misappropriation of science. Social Darwinism has, thankfully, been repudiated. Biological evolution has not.
1. Teachers Should Teach Both Sides
There are tens of thousands of different religious views concerning creation. It is simply impossible for all of these views to be presented. Furthermore, none of the theories are based in science and therefore have no place in a science classroom. In a science class, students can debate where a creature branched off in the tree of life, but it is not right to argue a religious belief in a science class. The “fairness” argument is often used by groups attempting to inject their religious dogmas in to the scientific curricula.

Top 20 Amazing Science Facts

Another trivia list! This list explores a variety of fascinating scientific facts that you probably are unaware of. Science is still a very mysterious subject so there are millions of trivial facts about it – this will be the first of many scientific fact lists in the future.
Facts 1 – 5

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
Facts 6 – 10

6. Blood sucking hookworms inhabit 700 million people worldwide
7. The highest speed ever achieved on a bicycle is 166.94 mph, by Fred Rompelberg
8. We can produce laser light a million times brighter than sunshine
9. 65% of those with autism are left handed
10. The combined length of the roots of a Finnish pine tree is over 30 miles
Facts 11 – 15

11. The oceans contain enough salt to cover all the continents to a depth of nearly 500 feet
12. The interstellar gas cloud Sagittarius B contains a billion, billion, billion liters of alcohol [JFrater is planning to move there in the near future]
13. Polar Bears can run at 25 miles an hour and jump over 6 feet in the air
14. 60-65 million years ago dolphins and humans shared a common ancestor
15. Polar Bears are nearly undetectable by infrared cameras, due to their transparent fur
Facts 16 – 20

16. The average person accidentally eats 430 bugs each year of their life
17. A single rye plant can spread up to 400 miles of roots underground
18. The temperature on the surface of Mercury exceeds 430 degrees C during the day, and, at night, plummets to minus 180 degrees centigrade
19. The evaporation from a large oak or beech tree is from ten to twenty-five gallons in twenty-four hours
20. Butterflies taste with their hind feet, and their taste sensation works on touch – this allows them to determine whether a leaf is edible