Here are 25 amazing facts, starting from number 1:
- Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system, with temperatures reaching 900°F (475°C), even hotter than Mercury.
- Sharks have a special “sixth sense” that allows them to detect electromagnetic fields produced by other creatures’ movements in the water.
- The Earth’s magnetic field is shifting, and the magnetic North Pole is moving towards Russia at a rate of about 25 miles per year.
- Tardigrades (water bears) are the most resilient creatures known to man, surviving extreme heat, freezing cold, radiation, and even space.
- The longest recorded time without sleep was 11 days, but sleep deprivation can cause hallucinations and memory issues in just 24 hours.
- More people are killed by falling coconuts than by sharks every year.
- Honeybees can recognize human faces, which they associate with food sources.
- An octopus has three hearts, two pump blood to the gills, and one to the rest of the body.
- The shortest commercial flight in the world lasts just 47 seconds, between the islands of Westray and Papa Westray in Scotland.
- Sloths only defecate once a week, and they do so very slowly.
- There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the Earth’s beaches.
- A baby panda is smaller than a mouse at birth, weighing about 1/900th of its mother’s weight.
- The shortest war in history lasted between 38 and 45 minutes, fought between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896.
- Turtles can live without their heads for weeks—one famous example lived for 2 months without a head.
- Cleopatra’s reign was closer in time to the first moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
- The longest hiccuping spree lasted 68 years. A man named Charles Osborne held the record for this bizarre condition.
- Kangaroos can’t walk backwards due to their large, muscular tail and unique leg structure.
- The Eiffel Tower was originally intended to be temporary and was almost torn down after 20 years.
- It rains diamonds on Jupiter and Saturn because of extreme pressure and heat in their atmospheres.
- There are no two zebras with the same stripes—each one has a unique pattern, like human fingerprints.
- Shakespeare introduced over 1,700 new words to the English language, including words like “eyeball” and “lonely.”
- A group of crows is called a “murder,” and they are among the most intelligent animals on Earth.
- A snail can sleep for up to three years without eating, going into a hibernation-like state.
- There is a jellyfish that is biologically immortal, Turritopsis dohrnii, which can revert to an earlier stage of its life cycle.
- Mice can “sing” high-pitched songs that are inaudible to humans but can be heard by other mice.