The world of science has been capturing our imagination for ages. Especially in the current times, when a part of the public is skeptical about the things scientists tell us. While causing a divide, it reminds us just how much (and little) humans know about the world around us, whether it’s Earth, space, living beings and entities that live in them, or our own bodies.
So today we are diving into a mind-blowing science class where facts sound too crazy to be true. And thanks to Redditor analyzeTimes, who asked “What is a scientific fact that absolutely blows your mind?” on the Ask Reddit community, we have a whole lot to uncover. From a Voyager that has been traveling >30,000 mph for 43 years and is only 20 light hours away to our brains simultaneously creating stories and being genuinely shocked by plot twists as we dream, these are some of the best ones to mess with our brains.
Scroll down, upvote your favorites, and share a scientific fact you find hard to wrap your head around in the comments below!
#1
When you dream, one portion of your brain creates the story, while another part witnesses the events and is really shocked by the plot twists.
Image credits: Longjumping_Owl9929
#2
I spent some time with Gene Cernan, the Apollo 17 astronaut who was the last guy to walk on the Moon. He told me two things that I couldn’t stop telling people:
1. the Earth is round in space like a ball, not flat looking like the Moon is to us. He said while looking up from the lunar surface, the Earth just hung there, like a grapefruit that he could almost grab if he just jumped high enough. Could see the weather change too.
2. because of the smaller size of the Moon, not only is it’s curve very visible, the apparent horizon is also much closer so he said there were moments where if he ran too fast or jumped too high he felt like he was going to fall off.
#3
Trees can communicate and cooperate using a network of underground mycelium. They can store excess energy in it for later use, can trade different nutrients with neighbors so their needs are met, take care of their young when they’re unwell, and even warn others of a spreading disease or parasite.
#4
The time period in which dinosaurs lived is so vast, there were dinosaur fossils when dinosaurs were still alive.
Image credits: daric
#5
Whales will grow up singing a specific song based on where they were born, but they’ll learn verses of other songs from whales they encounter throughout their lives!
#6
Hippos sweat sunscreen. They produce “sweat” made of one red and one orange pigment. The red pigment contains an antibiotic, while the orange absorbs UV rays.
Image credits: MagicalMonarchOfMo
#7
Some forms of anaesthesia don’t numb you to pain- they make you forget that you felt it.
Image credits: zygomelonm
#8
I recently read about the Split-Brain experiments. There is a procedure for severe epilepsy that involves cutting the connecting nerves of the two brain hemispheres, resulting in the two hemispheres being unable to communicate with each other. The experiment shows that both halves can answer questions independently of each other, have seperate opinions/preferences, form memories independantly. Basically suggesting that there are two minds in the brain. That just blows my mind(s).
Image credits: Mlinch
#9
Caterpillars basically dissolve into liquid in the cocoon. The only thing left are the so called ‘imaginal discs’, groups of cells that contain all the information and the mechanism to turn that soup into the various body parts of a butterfly (the same applies for other insects).
#10
If the entirety of the Earth’s history were compressed down to a single day, humans of any sort wouldn’t appear until the last second before midnight.
Image credits: MagicalMonarchOfMo
#11
That there is a species of jellyfish called Turritopsis dohrnii, that can become young again when damaged or stressed. So they become young again. So they are immortal. Just an addition, the tardigrades. They can survive the vacuum of space.
Image credits: TheRealMonreal
#12
A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.
#13
When you lose weight it leaves on your breath.
So when people lose 100 lbs/ 50 kg, they have exhaled that much carbon.
Image credits: Long_Error_5153
#14
An object has every color except the one you think it has, because its the only color that doesn’t get absorbed.
Image credits: D4nSonY
#15
If you put 1 of every animal in a bag and then pick one out you have a 1/5 chance in picking a beetle.
Image credits: ItsStillNagy
#16
Voyager 1 has been traveling >30,000 mph for 43 years and it’s only 20 light hours away.
Image credits: ruined-on-the-day
#17
There are some Ice Age animals that are so perfectly preserved in permafrost that scientists have been able to find them still with all their soft tissue, hair, and organs. They even found a couple mammoths that still had liquid blood in them and I remember one scientist even tasting the mammoth meat.
Image credits: stitchmidda2
#18
Exponential power.
Fold a “big sheet” of paper – that is 0.1 mm thick – 50 times and the height of stack is over 20 times the distance earth to moon. Thank you.
Image credits: laidmajority
#19
There are no photos of the present.
Image credits: AccordingIce7627
#20
Slime molds don’t have brains or nervous systems but some how retain information and use it to make decisions. Even more crazy is that they can fuse with another individual and share the information.
Image credits: Emmarae21
#21
Dinosaurs lived on the other side of the galaxy from where we are now.
Image credits: nolesein
#22
You can fit all the planets (Pluto included) between the Earth & Moon.
Image credits: AnxiousIndicator
#23
The astronauts on the ISS aren’t floating around because of lack of gravity, far from it. They are in constant free fall, falling over the horizon of earth. Being pulled by gravity towards the earth.
Image credits: SwingDancerStrahd
#24
If all the DNA in the average person was stretched out in a single line, it could reach from Earth to the Sun and back 248 times.
Image credits: MagicalMonarchOfMo
#25
With the help of quantum tunneling, there is a 1 in 5.2^61 chance that the molecules in your hand and table would miss each other when slamming it, making your hand go through the table.
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Image credits: Macury
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