Interesting Facts About Gold

• As pure gold is very soft, it is often combined with other things when making jewelry.
• Gold has been recycled ever since it was first discovered. Some of the gold in today’s jewelry is recycled from ancient artifacts and coins!
• Some cars use gold for heat dissipation.
• Pure gold is non-toxic to human and does not cause any irritation when ingested. In fact, some alcoholic drinks contain metallic gold. Compounds of gold, such as gold chloride, are toxic to humans.
• Gold can cause allergies on the skin. This allergy affects more women than men.
• Great achievements are often rewarded with gold- such as gold medals in the Summer and Winter Olympic Games.
• In 1968, gold was made the official state mineral of Alaska.
• Throughout history, gold coins were often used as money. These have largely been replaced by paper money.
• India is the largest consumer of gold.
• There is some gold in the world’s oceans. However, there is only a small amount making it impractical to extract it from the oceans. It would cost more to extract it than you would make from selling the gold!
• The first discovery of gold in the United States was at the Reed Gold Mine near Georgeville, North Carolina in 1803.
• There is only one stable isotope of gold. Over thirty-five other radioactive isotopes of gold have been artificially produced.
• Gold is perfect for use in coins and jewelry as it does not react with air or water like many other metals.

Interesting Knowledge about the Moon

Think you know everything there is to know about the Moon? Think again! Here are 10 interesting facts about the Moon. Some you might already know, and some will be totally new to you. Enjoy!
1. The Moon formed out of the Earth
Scientists now think that the Moon was formed when a Mars-sized object crashed into our planet about 4.5 billion years ago. The collision was so large that a huge spray of material was ejected into space. The orbiting ring of debris gathered itself into a sphere, and formed the Moon. How do we know that this is how the Moon probably formed? The Moon seems to be much less dense than the Earth and lacks a lot of iron in its core. Scientists think that the Moon is made up of the upper crust material, which has mostly lower density, than the composition of the Earth.
2. The Moon only shows one face to the Earth
Although the Moon used to rotate in the sky compared to our point of view, it has been slowing down billions of years. And at some point in the distant past it just stopped turning from our perspective. The Earth’s gravity holds the Moon in orbit, but it pulls differently at various parts of the Moon. Over a long period, gravity slowed down the Moon’s rotation so that it finally stopped, and always displayed one face to the Earth. A similar situation has happened with most of the large moons in the Solar System. In fact, in the case of Pluto and Charon, but objects are tidally locked to each other, so they present only one face to the other.
3. The Moon is slowly drifting away
Although the orbit of the Moon seems nice and stable, our only natural satellite is actually drifting away from us at a rate of 4 centimeters a year. This is happening because of the conservation of momentum in the orbit of the Earth. In about 50 billion years from now, the Moon will stop moving away from us. It will settle into a stable orbit, taking about 47 days to go around the Earth (it takes 27.3 days today). At that point, the Earth and the Moon will be tidally locked to each other. It will look like the Moon is always in the same spot in the sky. Of course, the Sun is expected to consume the Earth in about 5 billion years, so this event may not happen.
4. The Moon looks the same size as the Sun
This is an amazing coincidence. From our perspective here on Earth, but the Moon and the Sun look approximately the same size in the sky. Of course, the Sun is much much bigger than the Moon. The Sun happens to be 400 times larger than the Moon, but it’s also 400 times further away. This wasn’t always the case. Billions of years ago, the Moon was much closer than the Sun, and would have looked larger in the sky. And the Moon is moving away from us, so in the distant future, the Moon will look much smaller than the Sun.

5. The Moon causes most of the tides… but not all
You might know that the tides on Earth are caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon. But it’s not the only thing pulling at the Earth’s water, the Sun is helping out too. This is why we get very high and low tides from time to time. When the gravity of the Moon and the Sun line up, we get the biggest and smallest tides. Did you know that the Moon is also pulling at the crust of the Earth causing it to bulge up? You actually move a few meters every time the Moon is overhead, but you just don’t notice.
6. Gravity on the Moon is only 17% of the Earth
Want an easy way to lose some weight? Take a trip to the Moon and stand on its surface. Since the pull of gravity on the Moon is only 17% the pull of gravity on the Earth, you’ll feel much lighter. Just imagine, if you weighed 100 kg on the Earth, you would feel like you only weighed 17 kg on Earth. You would be able to jump 6 times further and carry objects 6 times as heavy. In fact, you had wings attached to your arms, you could even fly around inside a dome on the Moon under just your own muscle power.
7. The official name for the Moon is… the Moon
I know it’s kind of confusing, but the only real name for the Earth’s Moon is “the Moon”. When the Moon was given its name, astronomers didn’t know that there were moons orbiting other planets. And so they just called it the Moon. Now that we know there are other moons, it all comes down to the capitalization. The Earth’s moon is referred as “the Moon”, with a capital “M”. Other moons are given a lowercase “m” to show the difference.
8. The Moon is the 5th largest natural satellite in the Solar System
You might think that the Moon is the largest satellite in the Solar System. I mean look at it, it’s huge! But there are actually larger moons in the Solar System. The largest moon is Jupiter’s Ganymede (5,262 km), followed by Saturn’s Titan, Jupiter’s Callisto, Jupiter’s Io, and finally, the Earth’s Moon with a mean diameter of 3475 km.
9. Only 12 people have ever stepped onto the surface of the Moon
Only a tiny group of astronauts have ever set foot on the surface of the Moon. These were the astronauts on board the Apollo missions going from 1969 to 1972. The first person to ever walk on the Moon was Neil Armstrong. And the last person on the Moon was Gene Cernan, who followed his partner Jack Schmitt into the lunar lander on December 14, 1972.
10. And we’re going back to the Moon
NASA has been given the mission to return humans to the Moon, and set up a permanent research station. At the time of this writing, astronauts are expected to set foot on the surface of the Moon again in 2019.

Interesting knowledge Ocean Facts

Area: about 140 million square miles (362 million sq km), or nearly 71% of the Earth's surface.
Average Depth: 12,200 feet (3,720 m).
Deepest point: 36,198 feet (11,033 m) in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific.
Mountains: The ocean ridges form a great mountain range, almost 40,000 miles (64,000 km) long, that weaves its way through all the major oceans. It is the largest single feature on Earth.
Highest Mountain: Mauna Kea, Hawaii, rises 33,474 feet (10,203 m) from its base on the ocean floor; only 13,680 feet (4,170 m) are above sea level.

48 more facts about our oceans...

1. The oceans occupy nearly 71% of our planet's surface
2. More than 97% of all our planet's water is contained in the ocean
3. The top ten feet of the ocean hold as much heat as our entire atmosphere
4. The average depth of the ocean is more than 2.5 miles
5. The oceans provide 99 percent of the Earth's living space- the largest space in our universe known to be inhabited by living organisms
6. More than 90% of this habitat exists in the deep sea known as the abyss
7. Less than 10% of this living space has been explored by humans
8. Mount Everest (the highest point on the Earth's surface 5.49 miles) is more than 1 mile shorter than the Challenger Deep (the deepest point in the ocean at 6.86 miles)
9. The longest continuous mountain chain known to exist in the Universe resides in the ocean at more than 40,000 miles long
10. The Monterey Bay Submarine Canyon is deeper and larger in volume than the Grand Canyon
11. The Antarctic ice sheet that forms and melts over the ocean each year is nearly twice the size of the United States
12. The average temperature of the oceans is 2ºC, about 39ºF
13. Water pressure at the deepest point in the ocean is more than 8 tons per square inch, the equivalent of one person trying to hold 50 jumbo jets.
14. The Gulf Stream off the Atlantic seaboard of the United States flows at a rate nearly 300 times faster than the typical flow of the Amazon river, the world's largest river
15. The worlds oceans contain nearly 20 million tons of gold
16. The color blue is least absorbed by seawater; the same shade of blue is most absorbed by microscopic plants, called phytoplankton, drifting in seawater
17. A new form of life, based on chemical energy rather than light energy, resides in deep-sea hydrothermal vents along mid-ocean ridges
18. A swallow of seawater may contain millions of bacterial cells, hundreds of thousands of phytoplankton and tens of thousands of zooplankton
19. The blue whale, the largest animal on our planet ever (exceeding the size of the greatest dinosaurs) still lives in the ocean; it's heart is the size of a Volkswagen
20. The gray whale migrates more than 10,000 miles each year, the longest migration of any mammal
21. The Great Barrier Reef, measuring 1,243 miles, is the largest living structure on Earth. It can be seen from the Moon.
22. More than 90 percent of the trade between countries is carried by ships and about half the communications between nations use underwater cables
23. More oil reaches the oceans each year as a result of leaking automobiles and other non-point sources than was spilled in Prince William Sound by the Exxon Valdez
24. Fish supply the greatest percentage of the world's protein consumed by humans
25. Most of the world's major fisheries are being fished at levels above their maximum sustainable yield; some regions are severely overfished
26. The Grand Banks, the pride of New England fishing for centuries, are closed due to overfishing
27. Eighty per cent of all pollution in seas and oceans comes from land-based activities.
28. Three-quarters of the world's mega-cities are by the sea.
29. By 2010, 80 per cent of people will live within 60 miles of the coast.
30. Death and disease caused by polluted coastal waters costs the global economy US$12.8 billion a year. The annual economic impact of hepatitis from tainted seafood alone is US$7.2 billion.
31. Plastic waste kills up to 1 million sea birds, 100,000 sea mammals and countless fish each year. Plastic remains in our ecosystem for years harming thousands of sea creatures everyday.
32. Over the past decade, an average of 600,000 barrels of oil a year has been accidentally spilled from ships, the equivalent of 12 disasters the size of the sinking of the oil tanker Prestige in 2002.
33. Tropical coral reefs border the shores of 109 countries, the majority of which are among the world's least developed. Significant reef degradation has occurred in 93 countries.
34. Although coral reefs comprise less than 0.5 per cent of the ocean floor, it is estimated that more than 90 per cent of marine species are directly or indirectly dependent on them.
35. There are about 4,000 coral reef fish species worldwide, accounting for approximately a quarter of all marine fish species.
36. Nearly 60 per cent of the world's remaining reefs are at significant risk of being lost in the next three decades.
37. The major causes of coral reef decline are coastal development, sedimentation, destructive fishing practices, pollution, tourism and global warming.
38. Less than one half a per cent of marine habitats are protected -- compared with 11.5 per cent of global land area.
39. The High Seas -- areas of the ocean beyond national jurisdiction -- cover almost 50 per cent of the Earth's surface. They are the least protected part of the world.
40. Although there are some treaties that protect ocean-going species such as whales, as well as some fisheries agreements, there are no protected areas in the High Seas.
41. Studies show that protecting critical marine habitats -- such as warm-and cold-water coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangroves -- can dramatically increase fish size and quantity.
42. More than 3.5 billion people depend on the ocean for their primary source of food. In 20 years, this number could double to 7 billion.
43. Populations of commercially attractive large fish, such as tuna, cod, swordfish and marlin have declined by as much as 90 per cent in the past century.
44. Each year, illegal longline fishing, which involves lines up to 80 miles long, with thousands of baited hooks, kills over 300,000 seabirds, including 100,000 albatrosses.
45. As many as 100 million sharks are killed each year for their meat and fins, which are used for shark fin soup. Hunters typically catch the sharks, de-fin them while alive and throw them back into the ocean where they either drown or bleed to death.
46. Global by-catch -- unintended destruction caused by the use of non-selective fishing gear, such as trawl nets, longlines and gillnets -- amounts to 20 million tons a year.
47. The annual global by-catch mortality of small whales, dolphins and porpoises alone is estimated to be more than 300,000 individuals.
48. Fishing for wild shrimp represents 2 per cent of global seafood but one-third of total by-catch. The ratio of by-catch from shrimp fishing ranges from 5:1 in temperate zones to 10:1 and more in the tropics.

Facts and figures about China's progress in human rights

BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China's State Council Information Office on Sunday issued a white paper titled Progress in China's Human Rights in 2009.
The following are some figures and facts:
-- In 2009 the Chinese government promulgated and implemented the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2009-2010). This was the first national action plan in China with human rights as the theme.
-- In 2009 the per capita net income of rural residents was 5,153 yuan (769.1 U.S. dollars), and the per capita disposable income of urban residents was 17,175 yuan, an increase of 8.5 percent and 9.8 percent respectively over the previous year.
-- In 2009 the China's input of money for poverty reduction programs in rural areas increased by 3 billion yuan over the previous year to 19.73 billion yuan.
-- In 2009 the total health care expenditure in China reached 1.72 trillion yuan, making up 4.96 percent of China's GDP, and the per capita health care expenditure was 1,192 yuan.
-- From January 2009 to March 2010 the National People' s Congress (NPC) and its Standing Committee examined 25 laws and draft decisions concerning laws, and adopted 18 of them. They amended eight laws, including the Electoral Law and the Postal Law, and further guaranteed human rights through legislation.
-- In China there are over a million bulletin board services (BBS) and some 220 million bloggers. According to a sample survey, each day people post over three million messages via BBS, news commentary sites, blogs, etc., and over 66 percent of Chinese netizens frequently place postings to discuss various topics, and to fully express their opinions and represent their interests.
-- In 2009 the number of letters from and visits of the people for petition dropped by 2.7 percent over the previous year, a decrease for the fifth consecutive year.
-- By the end of 2009 some 3,274 legal aid organizations and 58,031 legal aid service centers had been set up at the provincial, city and county levels nationwide, providing convenient access to legal aid services.
-- In 2009 China appropriated 42 billion yuan for the increase of job opportunities, a rise of 66.7 percent over the previous year.
-- In 2009 the number of people participating in basic medical insurance topped 1.2 billion, a national coverage rate of over 90 percent.
-- By the end of 2009 some 99.7 percent of the school-age population had access to nine-year compulsory education, and 99.5 percent of counties in China had provided nine-year compulsory education.
-- In 2009 China invested 1.24 billion yuan for the socioeconomic development of the areas inhabited by ethnic-minority people.
-- By 2009 there were 3,474 homes for people with disabilities in China, where 110,000 disabled people were taken care of.

Itresting Knowledge About K2

• K2, located on the Pakistan-Chinese border, is the 2nd highest mountain in the world; Pakistan's highest mountain; and the world's 22nd most prominent mountain.
  
• The name K2 was given in 1852 by British surveyor T.G. Montgomerie with "K" designating the Karakoram Range and "2" since it was the 2nd peak listed. During his survey, Montgomerie, standing on Mt. Haramukh 125 miles to the south, noted two prominent peaks to the north, calling them K1 and K2. While he kept native names, he found that K2 did not have a known name. Later the peak was named Mount Godwin-Austen for an early explorer but it was never recognized.
  
• A name for K2 is Chogori, derived from Balti words chhogo ri, meaning "large mountain." The Chinese call the mountain Qogir meaning "Great Mountain," while Balti locals call it Kechu.
  
• K2 is nicknamed the "Savage Mountain" for its severe weather. It is typically climbed in June, July, or August. K2 has never been climbed in winter.
  
• British climbers Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), an occultist and hedonist, and Oscar Eckenstein (1859-1921) led an expedition of six climbers that made the first attempt to climb K2, from March to June, 1902. The party spent 68 days on the mountain, with only 8 clear days, attempting the northeast ridge. Spending two months at high altitude, the party made 5 summit attempts. The last one began on June 8 but 8 days of bad weather defeated them and they retreated after a high point of 21,407 feet (6,525 meters). Scraps of expedition clothing were later found below K2 and are displayed at Neptune Mountaineering in Boulder, Colorado.
  
• Italian climber Prince Luigi Amedeo (1873-1933), the Duke of Abruzzi, led an expedition to K2 in 1909. His party attempted the southeast ridge, the Abruzzi Spur, reaching an elevation of 20,505 feet (6,250 meters) before deciding that the climb was too difficult. The ridge is now the usual way that most climbers ascend K2. Before departing, the Duke said that the mountain would never be climbed.
  
• Fritz Wiessner, a great German climber transplanted to the US, led a 1939 American expedition that set a new world altitude record by reaching 27,500 feet on the Abruzzi Spur. The party was 656 feet from the summit before turning around. Four team members were killed.
  
• One of the most famous events in American climbing history occurred during a 1953 expedition led by Charles Houston. A 10-day storm trapped the team at 25,592 feet. Abandoning a summit attempt, the climbers attempted to save 27-year-old Art Gilkey, who had developed altitude sickness, by descending to a lower altitude. At one point during their desperate descent, Pete Schoening saved five falling climbers by arresting their fall with the rope and his ice axe plunged behind a boulder. The axe is displayed at the Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum in Golden, Colorado.
  
• The peak's 2nd ascent came on August 9, 1977, 23 years after K2's first ascent, by a Japanese team led by Ichiro Yoshizawa. The team also included Ashraf Aman, the first Pakistani climber to summit K2.
  
• The first American ascent was in 1978. A strong team led by James Whittaker ascended a new route up the peak's Northeast Ridge.
  
• K2 is one of the most difficult 8,000ers with technical climbing, severe weather conditions, and high avalanche danger. As of early 2009, 305 climbers have reached K2's summit, while at least 76 have died.
  
• 1986 was a tragic year on K2 with 13 climbers dying. Five climbers died in a severe storm between August 6 and August 10. Eight other climbers died in the preceding 6 weeks. Deaths were by avalanche, falling, and rockfall. The climbers killed by the storm were part of a group cobbled together from several failed expeditions. Three of the climbers reached the top on August 4. During the descent they met up with 4 other climbers and stayed at 26,000 feet where they were trapped in a storm. Five climbers died while only two survived.
  
• As of 2009, 11 women have summitted K2, but four died on the descent.
  
• In August 2008, 11 climbers died on the upper slopes of K2 after an avalanche caused by a fallen ice serac either killed them outright or isolated them above The Bottleneck, a steep ice couloir.
  
• The fatality rate on K2 is 27%. If you attempt K2 you have a 1 in 4 chance of dying. Prior to the 2008 tragedy, of the 198 climbers who summitted the peak, 53 died on K2. That is three times the 9% fatality rate on Mount Everest. K2 is, next to Annapurna, the second most dangerous 8,000-meter peak.

Itresting knowledge about trees

Trees are the longest living organisms on the planet and one of the earth's greatest natural resources. They keep our air supply clean, reduce noise pollution, improve water quality, help prevent erosion, provide food and building materials, create shade, and help make our landscapes look beautiful. Here are some more thought-provoking facts and figures about our oldest citizens and living treasures...trees!

• The shade and wind buffering provided by trees reduces annual heating and cooling costs by 2.1 billion dollars.
• Each average-sized tree provides an estimated $7 savings in annual environmental benefits, including energy conservation and reduced pollution.
• A single tree produces approximately 260 pounds of oxygen per year. That means two mature trees can supply enough oxygen annually to support a family of four!
• Water originating in our national forests provide drinking water for over 3400 communities, and approximately 60 million individuals.
• One tree can absorb as much carbon in a year as a car produces while driving 26,000 miles.
• Over the course its life, a single tree can absorb one ton of carbon dioxide.
• An average American uses about 750 pounds of paper every year, and 95% of homes are built using wood. That means each person uses the equivalent of one 100 foot tall, 16 inch diameter, tree every year for their paper and wood product needs.
• About one third of the United States of America is covered by forests.
• According to the last forest inventory, there are almost 247 billion trees over 1 inch in diameter in the U.S.
• The average tree in an urban/city area has a life expectancy of only 8 years.
• The tallest tree in the country is a Coast Redwood growing in northern California's Redwood National Park. It is 369 feet tall and over 2000 years old!

50 Interesting Science Facts

1 – The speed of light is generally rounded down to 186,000 miles per second. In exact terms it is 299,792,458 m/s (equal to 186,287.49 miles per second).

2 – It takes 8 minutes 17 seconds for light to travel from the Sun’s surface to the Earth.

3 – 10 percent of all human beings ever born are alive at this very moment.

4 – The Earth spins at 1,000 mph but it travels through space at an incredible 67,000 mph.

5 – Every year, over one million earthquakes shake the Earth.

6 – When Krakatoa erupted in 1883, its force was so great it could be heard 4,800 kilometers away in Australia.

7 – Every second around 100 lightning bolts strike the Earth.

8 – Every year lightning kills 1000 people.

9 – In October 1999 an Iceberg the size of London broke free from the Antarctic ice shelf .

10 – If you could drive your car straight up you would arrive in space in just over an hour.

11 – Human tapeworms can grow up to 22.9m.

12 – The Earth is 4.56 billion years old…the same age as the Moon and the Sun.

13 – The dinosaurs became extinct before the Rockies or the Alps were formed.

14 – Female black widow spiders eat their males after mating.

15 – When a flea jumps, the rate of acceleration is 20 times that of the space shuttle during launch.

16 – If our Sun were just inch in diameter, the nearest star would be 445 miles away.

17 – Astronauts cannot belch – there is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.

18 – The air at the summit of Mount Everest, 29,029 feet is only a third as thick as the air at sea level.

19 – One million, million, million, million, millionth of a second after the Big Bang the Universe was the size of a …pea.

20 – DNA was first discovered in 1869 by Swiss Friedrich Mieschler.

21 – The molecular structure of DNA was first determined by Watson and Crick in 1953.

22 – The first synthetic human chromosome was constructed by US scientists in 1997.

23 – The thermometer was invented in 1607 by Galileo.

24 – Alfred Nobel invented dynamite in 1866.

25 – Wilhelm Rontgen won the first Nobel Prize for physics for discovering X-rays in 1895.

26 – The tallest tree ever was an Australian eucalyptus – In 1872 it was measured at 435 feet tall.

27 – Christian Barnard performed the first heart transplant in 1967 – the patient lived for 18 days.

28 – An electric eel can produce a shock of up to 650 volts.

29 – ‘Wireless’ communications took a giant leap forward in 1962 with the launch of Telstar, the first satellite capable of relaying telephone and satellite TV signals.

30 – The Ebola virus kills 4 out of every 5 humans it infects.

31 – In 5 billion years the Sun will run out of fuel and turn into a Red Giant.

32 – Giraffes often sleep for only 20 minutes in any 24 hours. They may sleep up to 2 hours (in spurts – not all at once), but this is rare. They never lie down.

33 – There are 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body.

34 – An individual blood cell takes about 60 seconds to make a complete circuit of the body.

35 – On the day that Alexander Graham Bell was buried the entire US telephone system was shut down for 1 minute in tribute.

36 – The low frequency call of the humpback whale is the loudest noise made by a living creature.

37 – A quarter of the world’s plants are threatened with extinction by the year 2010.

38 – Each person sheds 40lbs of skin in his or her lifetime.

39 – At 15 inches the eyes of giant squids are the largest on the planet.

40 – The Universe contains over 100 billion galaxies.

41 – Wounds infested with maggots heal quickly and without spread of gangrene or other infection.

42 – More germs are transferred shaking hands than kissing.

43 – The fastest speed a falling raindrop can hit you is 18mph.

44 – It would take over an hour for a heavy object to sink 6.7 miles down to the deepest part of the ocean.

45 – Around a million, billion neutrinos from the Sun will pass through your body while you read this sentence.

46 – The deepest part of any ocean in the world is the Mariana trench in the Pacific with a depth of 35,797 feet.

47 – Every hour the Universe expands by a billion miles in all directions.

48 – Somewhere in the flicker of a badly tuned TV set is the background radiation from the Big Bang.

49 – Even traveling at the speed of light it would take 2 million years to reach the nearest large galaxy, Andromeda.

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

Intresting Information about Moon

1. The Moon formed out of the Earth
Scientists now think that the Moon was formed when a Mars-sized object crashed into our planet about 4.5 billion years ago. The collision was so large that a huge spray of material was ejected into space. The orbiting ring of debris gathered itself into a sphere, and formed the Moon. How do we know that this is how the Moon probably formed? The Moon seems to be much less dense than the Earth and lacks a lot of iron in its core. Scientists think that the Moon is made up of the upper crust material, which has mostly lower density, than the composition of the Earth.
2. The Moon only shows one face to the Earth
Although the Moon used to rotate in the sky compared to our point of view, it has been slowing down billions of years. And at some point in the distant past it just stopped turning from our perspective. The Earth’s gravity holds the Moon in orbit, but it pulls differently at various parts of the Moon. Over a long period, gravity slowed down the Moon’s rotation so that it finally stopped, and always displayed one face to the Earth. A similar situation has happened with most of the large moons in the Solar System. In fact, in the case of Pluto and Charon, but objects are tidally locked to each other, so they present only one face to the other.
3. The Moon is slowly drifting away
Although the orbit of the Moon seems nice and stable, our only natural satellite is actually drifting away from us at a rate of 4 centimeters a year. This is happening because of the conservation of momentum in the orbit of the Earth. In about 50 billion years from now, the Moon will stop moving away from us. It will settle into a stable orbit, taking about 47 days to go around the Earth (it takes 27.3 days today). At that point, the Earth and the Moon will be tidally locked to each other. It will look like the Moon is always in the same spot in the sky. Of course, the Sun is expected to consume the Earth in about 5 billion years, so this event may not happen.
4. The Moon looks the same size as the Sun
This is an amazing coincidence. From our perspective here on Earth, but the Moon and the Sun look approximately the same size in the sky. Of course, the Sun is much much bigger than the Moon. The Sun happens to be 400 times larger than the Moon, but it’s also 400 times further away. This wasn’t always the case. Billions of years ago, the Moon was much closer than the Sun, and would have looked larger in the sky. And the Moon is moving away from us, so in the distant future, the Moon will look much smaller than the Sun.

5. The Moon causes most of the tides… but not all
You might know that the tides on Earth are caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon. But it’s not the only thing pulling at the Earth’s water, the Sun is helping out too. This is why we get very high and low tides from time to time. When the gravity of the Moon and the Sun line up, we get the biggest and smallest tides. Did you know that the Moon is also pulling at the crust of the Earth causing it to bulge up? You actually move a few meters every time the Moon is overhead, but you just don’t notice.
6. Gravity on the Moon is only 17% of the Earth
Want an easy way to lose some weight? Take a trip to the Moon and stand on its surface. Since the pull of gravity on the Moon is only 17% the pull of gravity on the Earth, you’ll feel much lighter. Just imagine, if you weighed 100 kg on the Earth, you would feel like you only weighed 17 kg on Earth. You would be able to jump 6 times further and carry objects 6 times as heavy. In fact, you had wings attached to your arms, you could even fly around inside a dome on the Moon under just your own muscle power.
7. The official name for the Moon is… the Moon
I know it’s kind of confusing, but the only real name for the Earth’s Moon is “the Moon”. When the Moon was given its name, astronomers didn’t know that there were moons orbiting other planets. And so they just called it the Moon. Now that we know there are other moons, it all comes down to the capitalization. The Earth’s moon is referred as “the Moon”, with a capital “M”. Other moons are given a lowercase “m” to show the difference.
8. The Moon is the 5th largest natural satellite in the Solar System
You might think that the Moon is the largest satellite in the Solar System. I mean look at it, it’s huge! But there are actually larger moons in the Solar System. The largest moon is Jupiter’s Ganymede (5,262 km), followed by Saturn’s Titan, Jupiter’s Callisto, Jupiter’s Io, and finally, the Earth’s Moon with a mean diameter of 3475 km.
9. Only 12 people have ever stepped onto the surface of the Moon
Only a tiny group of astronauts have ever set foot on the surface of the Moon. These were the astronauts on board the Apollo missions going from 1969 to 1972. The first person to ever walk on the Moon was Neil Armstrong. And the last person on the Moon was Gene Cernan, who followed his partner Jack Schmitt into the lunar lander on December 14, 1972.
10. And we’re going back to the Moon
NASA has been given the mission to return humans to the Moon, and set up a permanent research station. At the time of this writing, astronauts are expected to set foot on the surface of the Moon again in 2019.

Words

The English-language alphabet originally had only 24 letters. One missing letter was J, which was the last letter to be added to the alphabet. The other latecomer to the alphabet was U.
"Fan" is an abbreviation for the word "fanatic." Toward the turn of the 19th century, various media referred to football enthusiasts first as "football fanatics," and later as a "football fan."
The proper name of our sole natural satellite is "the Moon" and therefore...it should be capitalized. The 60-odd natural satellites of other planets, however are called "moons" (in lower case) because each has been given a proper name, such as Deimos, Amalthea, Hyperion, Miranda, Larissa, or Charon.
The word "snorkel" comes from the German word "schnoerkel", which was a tube used by German submarine crews in WW2. The subs used an electric battery when traveling underwater, which had to be recharged using diesel engines, which needed air to run. To avoid the hazard of surfacing to run the engines, the Germans used the schnoerkel to feed air from the surface into the engines.
The name "fez" is Turkish for "Hat".
The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful plough man strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
"The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
"Jerkwater" is a railroad term. Until about fifty years ago, most trains were pulled by thirsty steam engines that needed to refill their boilers from water towers next to the tracks. But some towns were so small and inconsequential that they lacked a water tower. When trains stopped in those places, the crew had to find a nearby stream or well and, bucket-brigade style, "jerk" the water to the train. Those little dots on the map became known as jerkwater towns.
Malcolm Lowry had pnigophobia—the fear of choking on fish bones.
Augustus Caesar had achluophobia—the fear of sitting in the dark.
Androphobia is a fear of men.
Caligynephobia is a fear of beautiful women.
Pentheraphobia is a fear of a mother-in-law.
Scopophobia is a fear of being looked at.
Phobophobia is a fear of fearing.
Mageiricophobia is the intense fear of having to cook.
Papaphobia is the fear of Popes.
Taphephobia is the fear of being buried alive.
Clinophobia is the fear of beds.
Incredible means not believable. Incredulous means not believing. When someone's story is truly incredible, you ought to be incredulous.
The terms "prime minister," "premier" and "chancellor" all refer to the leading minister of a government, and any differences from nation to nation stem from different systems of government, not from title definitions.
Tennis pro Evonne Goolagong's last name means "kangaroo's nose" in Australia's aboriginal language.
A "sysygy" occurs when all the planets of the our Solar System line up.
The most common letters in the English language are R S T L N E. Sound familiar? Watch an episode of "Wheel of Fortune"...
A "necropsy" is an autopsy on animals.
EEG stands for Electroencephalogram.
The English word pajamas has it's origin in Persian. It is a combination of the Persian words pa (leg) and jamah (garment).
The ZIP in zip code stands for "Zone Improvement Plan."
Yucatan, as in the peninsula, is from Maya "u" + "u" + "uthaan" meaning "listen how they speak," and is what the Maya said when they first heard the Spaniards.
Punctuation was not invented until the 1500's.

15 Fun-Surprising-Facts-About-The-Oceans

1. For starters, did you know that 94 percent of life on Earth is aquatic? That makes us land-dwellers a very small minority.
2. About 70 percent of the planet is ocean, with an average depth of more than 12,400 feet. Given that photons (light) can’t penetrate more than 330 feet below the water’s surface, most of our planet is in a perpetual state of darkness.
3. Fifty percent of the United States (in terms of our complete legal jurisdiction, which includes ocean territory) lies below the ocean.
4. The deep sea is the largest museum on Earth: There are more artifacts and remnants of history in the ocean than in all of the world’s museums, combined.
5. We have only explored less than 5 percent of the Earth’s oceans. In fact, we have better maps of Mars than we do of the ocean floor (even the submerged half of the United States). 
6. The longest mountain range in the world is under water. Called the Mid-Oceanic Ridge, this chain of mountains runs through the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and into the Indian and Pacific oceans. It runs more than 35,000 miles long, has peaks higher than those in the Alps and it comprises 23 percent of the Earth’s total surface.
7. We didn’t send divers down to explore the Mid-Ocean Ridge until 1973 — four years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon — when a French-American crew of seven entered the 9,000-foot-deep Great Rift in the French submersible Archimede.
8. The ocean boasts an array of unusual geographic features, such as pillars that reach several stories high and chimneys that send up sulphuric acid. In the ocean-floor neighborhood of the Gulf of Mexico, brine pools mark the floor, along with underwater volcanoes that spew mud and methane, rather than lava.
9. These wonderful formations aren’t barren, either. Underwater hot springs that shoot water that’s 650 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to melt lead — boast a profusion of life, from 10-foot tall tubeworms to giant clams that function without digestive systems.
10. Many of the rules that apply on land are turned upside down in the ocean, some literally. Beneath the surface, often not far from popular vacation beaches, are underwater lakes, waterfalls and even upside-down lakes! (You might have to see it to believe it. Check out Gallo’s video of Underwater Astonishments to see a wealth of underwater marvels.)
11. Much of the life in the oceans, as on land, is invisible to the naked eye. For instance, if you’ve ever swallowed a milliliter of ocean water, know that you also gulped 1 million bacteria and 10 million viruses — give or take a few. No need to worry though, swimmers around the world swallow some ocean water during their ventures into the water, without ill effects.
12. Also living on hydrothermal vents are 140- to 160-foot long jellies, which use a process called chemosynthesis (think photosynthesis, but adapted to zero sunlight) to convert the hydrothermal water into simple sugars for food. Most striking are the extremes in which the jellies live. Temperatures vary drastically near the vents, so while the tops of the jellies enjoy lows of 37 degrees, their bottoms (at the vent) bask in a toasty 392 degrees — happy as clams, or jellies, rather.
13. Extreme temperatures aren’t the only seeming barrier to life, but again, the laws below the surface differ from those above. The immense pressure of the water on a human diving to greater depths is one of the biggest hurdles to exploring the deepest parts of the oceans — yet, at depths that would crush the Titanic like a Coke can, crabs, octopuses and tubeworms go about their business.  
14. But even the more familiar ocean creatures have interesting and unexpected traits and habits. Did you know that an octopus’s speed of travel never exceeds that of the surrounding waves? That same octopus employs amazing camouflaging talents — changing color, shape, and even its texture, pattern and brightness — to blend in to its surroundings. 
15. Another example is the male squid, which turns a warm brown color to attract females, or white to warn away interloping males. Most intriguing is that the male never shows its white, aggressive side to the female. In a colorful show of marine multitasking, the male squid will turn the side facing his prospective mate the welcoming brown, while simultaneously turning sideways so that she can’t see he’s made his outward-facing flank white.

60 Interesting Facts of World & Earth

1- Earth is the only planet on which water can exist in liquid form on the surface.2- Antarctica is the highest, driest, and coldest continent on Earth.3- The dormant volcano Mauna Kea (on the Big Island of Hawaii) could be considered the tallest mountain in the world. If you measure it from its base in the Hawaiian Trough (3,300 fathoms deep) to its summit of 13,796 feet, it reaches a height of 33,476 feet.4- Earth is referred to as the BLUE PLANET. WHY? Because from space, the oceans combined with our atmosphere make our planet look blue.

5- The world’s deadliest recorded earthquake occurred in 1557 in central China, more than 830,000 people were killed.6- The World’s largest hot desert is the Sahara in North Africa, at over 9,000,000 km², it is almost as large as the United States.7- Earth travels through space at 66,700 miles per hour.8- Mount Everest 8850 meter (29035 ft) Nepal/China is the tallest mountain.
9- The sunrays reached at the earth in 8 minutes & 3 seconds.10- Only 11 percent of the earth's surface is used to grow food.

11- The coldest temperature ever measured on Earth was -129 Fahrenheit (-89 Celsius) at Vostok, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.

12- About 70% of the world’s fresh water is stored as glacial ice.

13- Only 3% water of the earth is fresh, rest 97% salted. Of that 3%, over 2% is frozen in ice sheets and glaciers. Means less than 1% fresh water is found in lakes, rivers and underground.

14-The warmest sea in the world is the Red Sea, where temperatures range from 68 degrees to 87.8 degrees F depending upon which part you measure.

15- The hottest planet in the solar system is Venus, with an estimated surface temperature of 864 F (462 C)
16- Angel Falls in Venezuela is the worlds highest waterfall, The water of Falls drops 3,212 feet (979 meters).

17- Asia Continent is covered 30% of the total earth land area, but represent 60% of the world’s population.

18-The total surface area of the Earth is 197 million square miles.

19- El Azizia in Libya recorded a temperature of 136 degrees Fahrenheit (57.8 Celsius) on Sept. 13, 1922 - the hottest ever measured.

20- A 1960 Chilean earthquake was the strongest earthquake in recent times, which occurred off the coast, had a magnitude of 9.6 and broke a fault more than 1000 miles (1600 kilometers) long.

21- The lowest dry point on earth is the Dead Sea in the Middle East is about 1300 feet (400 meters) below sea level.22- The Largest Ocean of the World is the Pacific Ocean (155,557,000 sq km), It covers nearly one-third of the Earth's surface.23- The distance from the surface of Earth to the center is about 3,963 miles (6,378 kilometers).24- The saltiest sea in the world is the Red Sea with 41 parts of salt per 1,000 parts of water.25- The Angel Falls in Venezuela is the world's highest waterfall (979 meters / 3212 ft.), three times the size of the Eiffel Tower.26- The Earth is the densest major body in the solar system.27- The age of the earth is Loudly proclaimed by the scientific establishment of evolution believers and the mass media as being around 4.6 billion years old.28- Baikal Lake in Russian Fed. is the deepest lake (5315 ft) in the world.29- Lightning does not always create thunder. In April 1885, five lightning bolts struck the Washington Monument during a thunderstorm, yet no thunder was heard.30- The Sarawak Chamber in Malaysia is the largest cave in the world is 2300 feet (701 meters) long, 1300 feet (400 meters) wide, and more than 230 feet (70 meters) high.31- The Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii is the largest volcanoon on Earth. It rises more than 50,000 feet (9.5 miles or 15.2 kilometers) above its base, which sits under the surface of the sea.32- Due to gravitational effects, you weigh slightly less when the moon is directly overhead.33- One-tenth of the Earth's surface is always under the cover of ice. And almost 90 per cent of that ice is to be found in the continent of Antarctica.34- The coldest seas are found near the poles such as the Greenland, Barents, Beaufort, Kara, Laptev & East Siberian Seas found near the north pole & Weddell & Ross Seas found in the south poles. The Baltic Sea is also considered one of the coldest seas.35- The Nile River in Africa is the longest river (6,825 kilometers) of the earth.36-Caspian Sea, Asia-Europe is the major lake (371,000 sq km) in the world.37- Depending upon the amount of salt in the water, sea water freezes at about 28 degrees F.38- The most dangerous animal in the world is the common housefly. Because of their habits of visiting animal waste, they transmit more diseases than any other animal.39- The Peregrine Falcon around 200mph (320 km/h) is the fastest bird on the planet, the top speed recorded is 242.3mph (390 km/h).40- The largest eggs in the world are laid by a shark.41-The deepest hole ever made by humans is in Kola Peninsula in Russia, was completed in 1989, creating a hole 12,262 meters (7.6 miles) deep.42- Total fertility rate of the world is 2.59 children born/woman.43- An African woman's lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy related causes is one in 16, in Asia, its one in 65. In Europe, its one in 1,400.44- There are roughly 4,000 known minerals, although only about 200 are of major importance.45- About 400 billion gallons water is used worldwide each day.46- Aluminum cans take 500 years to break down.47- Total fertility rate of the world is 2.59 children born/woman. Niger is 7.46 (highest), India is 2.73, US is 2.09 & Hong Kong is 0.95 only (Lowest).48- Northern Mariana Islands is only the country where death rate (2.29/1000) is lowest in the world.49- Earth's oceans are an average of 2 Miles deep50- Shanghai, China is the largest city by population (13.3 million) in the world.51- English is the second most spoken language (Native speakers 512 million) & the first is Chinese Mandarin (more then 1 billion speakers).52- The flower with the world's largest bloom is the Rafflesia arnoldii. This rare flower is found in the rainforests of Indonesia. It can grow to be 3 feet across and weigh up to 15 pounds.53- At least 1,000 million grams, or roughly 1,000 tons of material (dust) enters the atmosphere every year and makes its way to Earths surface.54- The gravity on Mars is 38% of that found on Earth. So a 100 pounds person on Earth would weigh 38 pounds on Mars.55- The world’s population has been increased 3.1 billion in last 40 years.56- Global Positioning System (GPS) is the only system today that can show your exact position on the Earth anytime, in any weather, no matter where you are!57- The water that falls on a single acre of land during one inch of rainfall, it would weigh 113 tons that is 226,000 pounds.58- 180 million nos. of Valentine’s Day cards exchanged annually, making Valentine’s Day the second-most popular greeting-card-giving occasion.59- Plastics take 500 years to break down.60- Each year, more than 500,000 women (approximate 1 every minute) die from pregnancy related causes. The vast majority of these deaths occur in developing countries.

Information about volcanoes

There are more than 1500 active volcanoes on the Earth.
The name "volcano" has its origin from the name of Vulcan, a god of fire in Roman mythology.
The world's largest, active volcano is Mauna Loa in Hawaii, where famous coffee is grown in the rich volcanic soils.
Mauna Loa is 13,677 feet above sea level. From its base below sea level to its summit, Mauna Loa is taller than Mount Everest. Mauna Loa is about 36 m (120 ft) lower than its neighbour, Mauna Kea.
Mauna Loa's whole volume is about 80,000 cubic kilometres.
Volcanoes are like giant safety valves that release the pressure that builds up inside the Earth.
Lava cools slowly because lava is a poor conductor of heat. Lava flows slow down and thicken as they harden.
Hawaii was formed by 5 volcanoes. Mauna Loa, and Kilauea are the only active volcanoes.
Scientists have estimated that at least 200,000 persons have lost their lives as a result of volcanic eruptions during the last 500 years.
People set up homes on the slopes of volcanoes because of the rich, fertile soil produced.
There is evidence that there was volcanic activity on the moon, Mars, Venus and IO. The largest volcano on Mars is three times as high as the biggest Earth volcanoes. However they are extinct.
More than 80 percent of the earth's surface is volcanic in origin. The sea floor and some mountains were formed by countless volcanic eruptions. Gaseous emissions from volcano formed the earth's atmosphere.
The May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in the Cascade Range of Washington State happened after more than 100 years of dormancy (a time when the volcano was "asleep.") When the volcano erupted, it took the lives of 58 people and caused $1.2 billion in damage.
The rock debris carried by a lateral blast of Mount St. Helens traveled as fast as 250 miles per hour.
Crater Lake in Oregon formed from a high volcano that lost its top after a series of tremendous explosions about 6,600 years ago.
Sometimes lightning is seen in volcanic clouds. It's not clear why this happens but it could be to do with lots of hot particles bashing into each other, causing static charges.
One in 10 people in the world live within 'danger range' of an active volcano.

Information about K2

K2 or Mount Godwin-Austen is the secound highes peak in the world.
It is in the karakoram range on the Pakistan-China border.
The K of K2 is taken from the first letter of the Karakoram, and the number indicates that it was the second peak in the range to be measured.
It is 8,611 meters (28,250 feet) high.
An Italian team led by Ardito Desio reached the summit in 1954.
The local name of K2 is Chogori, which in Balti language means the king of mountains.

Information about glaciers

Presently, 10% of land area is covered with glaciers.
Glaciers store about 75% of the world's freshwater.
Glacierized areas cover over 15,000,000 square kilometers.
Antarctic ice is over 4,200 meters thick in some areas.
In the United States, glaciers cover over 75,000 square kilometers, with most of the glaciers located in Alaska.
During the last Ice Age, glaciers covered 32% of the total land area.
If all land ice melted, sea level would rise approximately 70 meters worldwide.
Glacier ice crystals can grow to be as large as baseballs.
The land underneath parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may be up to 2.5 kilometers below sea
level, due to the weight of the ice.
North America's longest glacier is the Bering Glacier in Alaska, measuring 204 kilometers long.
The Malaspina Glacier in Alaska is the world's largest piedmont glacier, covering over 8,000 square kilometers and measuring over 193 kilometers across at its widest point.
Glacial ice often appears blue because ice absorbs all other colors and reflects blue.
The Kutiah Glacier in Pakistan holds the record for the fastest glacial surge. In 1953, it raced more than 12 kilometers in three months, averaging about 112 meters per day.
In Washington state alone, glaciers provide 470 billion gallons of water each summer.
Antarctic ice shelves may calve icebergs that are over 80 kilometers long.
Almost 90% of an iceberg is below water--only about 10% shows above water.
The Antarctic ice sheet has been in existence for at least 40 million years.
From the 17th century to the late 19th century, the world experienced a "Little Ice Age", when temperatures were consistently cool enough for significant glacier advances.

100 Very Amazing Facts About The Human Body

The Brain
The human brain is the most complex and least understood part of the human anatomy. There may be a lot we don’t know, but here are a few interesting facts that we’ve got covered.

1. Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour. Ever wonder how you can react so fast to things around you or why that stubbed toe hurts right away? It’s due to the super-speedy movement of nerve impulses from your brain to the rest of your body and vice versa, bringing reactions at the speed of a high powered luxury sports car.
2. The brain operates on the same amount of power as 10-watt light bulb. The cartoon image of a light bulb over your head when a great thought occurs isn’t too far off the mark. Your brain generates as much energy as a small light bulb even when you’re sleeping.
3. The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the Encyclopedia Britannica. Or any other encyclopedia for that matter. Scientists have yet to settle on a definitive amount, but the storage capacity of the brain in electronic terms is thought to be between 3 or even 1,000 terabytes. The National Archives of Britain, containing over 900 years of history, only takes up 70 terabytes, making your brain’s memory power pretty darn impressive.
4. Your brain uses 20% of the oxygen that enters your bloodstream. The brain only makes up about 2% of our body mass, yet consumes more oxygen than any other organ in the body, making it extremely susceptible to damage related to oxygen deprivation. So breathe deep to keep your brain happy and swimming in oxygenated cells.
5. The brain is much more active at night than during the day. Logically, you would think that all the moving around, complicated calculations and tasks and general interaction we do on a daily basis during our working hours would take a lot more brain power than, say, lying in bed. Turns out, the opposite is true. When you turn off your brain turns on. Scientists don’t yet know why this is but you can thank the hard work of your brain while you sleep for all those pleasant dreams.
6. Scientists say the higher your I.Q. the more you dream. While this may be true, don’t take it as a sign you’re mentally lacking if you can’t recall your dreams. Most of us don’t remember many of our dreams and the average length of most dreams is only 2-3 seconds–barely long enough to register.
7. Neurons continue to grow throughout human life. For years scientists and doctors thought that brain and neural tissue couldn’t grow or regenerate. While it doesn’t act in the same manner as tissues in many other parts of the body, neurons can and do grow throughout your life, adding a whole new dimension to the study of the brain and the illnesses that affect it.
8. Information travels at different speeds within different types of neurons. Not all neurons are the same. There are a few different types within the body and transmission along these different kinds can be as slow as 0.5 meters/sec or as fast as 120 meters/sec.
9. The brain itself cannot feel pain. While the brain might be the pain center when you cut your finger or burn yourself, the brain itself does not have pain receptors and cannot feel pain. That doesn’t mean your head can’t hurt. The brain is surrounded by loads of tissues, nerves and blood vessels that are plenty receptive to pain and can give you a pounding headache.
10. 80% of the brain is water. Your brain isn’t the firm, gray mass you’ve seen on TV. Living brain tissue is a squishy, pink and jelly-like organ thanks to the loads of blood and high water content of the tissue. So the next time you’re feeling dehydrated get a drink to keep your brain hydrated.

Hair and Nails
While they’re not a living part of your body, most people spend a good amount of time caring for their hair and nails. The next time you’re heading in for a haircut or manicure, think of these facts.

11. Facial hair grows faster than any other hair on the body. If you’ve ever had a covering of stubble on your face as you’re clocking out at 5 o’clock you’re probably pretty familiar with this. In fact, if the average man never shaved his beard it would grow to over 30 feet during his lifetime, longer than a killer whale.
12. Every day the average person loses 60-100 strands of hair. Unless you’re already bald, chances are good that you’re shedding pretty heavily on a daily basis. Your hair loss will vary in accordance with the season, pregnancy, illness, diet and age.
13. Women’s hair is about half the diameter of men’s hair. While it might sound strange, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that men’s hair should be coarser than that of women. Hair diameter also varies on average between races, making hair plugs on some men look especially obvious.
14. One human hair can support 3.5 ounces. That’s about the weight of two full size candy bars, and with hundreds of thousands of hairs on the human head, makes the tale of Rapunzel much more plausible.
15. The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger. And the nail on the middle finger of your dominant hand will grow the fastest of all. Why is not entirely known, but nail growth is related to the length of the finger, with the longest fingers growing nails the fastest and shortest the slowest.
16. There are as many hairs per square inch on your body as a chimpanzee. Humans are not quite the naked apes that we’re made out to be. We have lots of hair, but on most of us it’s not obvious as a majority of the hairs are too fine or light to be seen.
17. Blondes have more hair. They’re said to have more fun, and they definitely have more hair. Hair color determines how dense the hair on your head is. The average human has 100,000 hair follicles, each of which is capable of producing 20 individual hairs during a person’s lifetime. Blondes average 146,000 follicles while people with black hair tend to have about 110,000 follicles. Those with brown hair fit the average with 100,000 follicles and redheads have the least dense hair, with about 86,000 follicles.
18. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails. If you notice that you’re trimming your fingernails much more frequently than your toenails you’re not just imagining it. The nails that get the most exposure and are used most frequently grow the fastest. On average, nails on both the toes and fingers grow about one-tenth of an inch each month.
19. The lifespan of a human hair is 3 to 7 years on average. While you quite a few hairs each day, your hairs actually have a pretty long life providing they aren’t subject to any trauma. Your hairs will likely get to see several different haircuts, styles, and even possibly decades before they fall out on their own.
20. You must lose over 50% of your scalp hairs before it is apparent to anyone. You lose hundreds of hairs a day but you’ll have to lose a lot more before you or anyone else will notice. Half of the hairs on your pretty little head will have to disappear before your impending baldness will become obvious to all those around you.
21. Human hair is virtually indestructible. Aside from it’s flammability, human hair decays at such a slow rate that it is practically non-disintegrative. If you’ve ever wondered how your how clogs up your pipes so quick consider this: hair cannot be destroyed by cold, change of climate, water, or other natural forces and it is resistant to many kinds of acids and corrosive chemicals.

Internal Organs
Though we may not give them much thought unless they’re bothering us, our internal organs are what allow us to go on eating, breathing and walking around. Here are some things to consider the next time you hear your stomach growl.

22. The largest internal organ is the small intestine. Despite being called the smaller of the two intestines, your small intestine is actually four times as long as the average adult is tall. If it weren’t looped back and forth upon itself it wouldn’t fit inside the abdominal cavity.
23. The human heart creates enough pressure to squirt blood 30 feet. No wonder you can feel your heartbeat so easily. Pumping blood through your body quickly and efficiently takes quite a bit of pressure resulting in the strong contractions of the heart and the thick walls of the ventricles which push blood to the body.
24. The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razorblades. While you certainly shouldn’t test the fortitude of your stomach by eating a razorblade or any other metal object for that matter, the acids that digest the food you eat aren’t to be taken lightly. Hydrochloric acid, the type found in your stomach, is not only good at dissolving the pizza you had for dinner but can also eat through many types of metal.
25. The human body is estimated to have 60,000 miles of blood vessels. To put that in perspective, the distance around the earth is about 25,000 miles, making the distance your blood vessels could travel if laid end to end more than two times around the earth.
26. You get a new stomach lining every three to four days. The mucus-like cells lining the walls of the stomach would soon dissolve due to the strong digestive acids in your stomach if they weren’t constantly replaced. Those with ulcers know how painful it can be when stomach acid takes its toll on the lining of your stomach.
27. The surface area of a human lung is equal to a tennis court. In order to more efficiently oxygenate the blood, the lungs are filled with thousands of branching bronchi and tiny, grape-like alveoli. These are filled with microscopic capillaries which oxygen and carbon dioxide. The large amount of surface area makes it easier for this exchange to take place, and makes sure you stay properly oxygenated at all times.
28. Women’s hearts beat faster than men’s.The main reason for this is simply that on average women tend to be smaller than men and have less mass to pump blood to. But women’s and men’s hearts can actually act quite differently, especially when experiencing trauma like a heart attack, and many treatments that work for men must be adjusted or changed entirely to work for women.
29. Scientists have counted over 500 different liver functions. You may not think much about your liver except after a long night of drinking, but the liver is one of the body’s hardest working, largest and busiest organs. Some of the functions your liver performs are: production of bile, decomposition of red blood cells, plasma protein synthesis, and detoxification.
30. The aorta is nearly the diameter of a garden hose. The average adult heart is about the size of two fists, making the size of the aorta quite impressive. The artery needs to be so large as it is the main supplier of rich, oxygenated blood to the rest of the body.
31. Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart. For most people, if they were asked to draw a picture of what the lungs look like they would draw both looking roughly the same size. While the lungs are fairly similar in size, the human heart, though located fairly centrally, is tilted slightly to the left making it take up more room on that side of the body and crowding out that poor left lung.
32. You could remove a large part of your internal organs and survive. The human body may appear fragile but it’s possible to survive even with the removal of the stomach, the spleen, 75 percent of the liver, 80 percent of the intestines, one kidney, one lung, and virtually every organ from the pelvic and groin area. You might not feel too great, but the missing organs wouldn’t kill you.
33. The adrenal glands change size throughout life. The adrenal glands, lying right above the kidneys, are responsible for releasing stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. In the seventh month of a fetus’ development, the glands are roughly the same size as the kidneys. At birth, the glands have shrunk slightly and will continue to do so throughout life. In fact, by the time a person reaches old age, the glands are so small they can hardly be seen.

Bodily Functions
We may not always like to talk about them, but everyone has to deal with bodily functions on a daily basis. These are a few facts about the involuntary and sometimes unpleasant actions of our bodies.

34. Sneezes regularly exceed 100 mph. There’s a good reason why you can’t keep your eyes open when you sneeze–that sneeze is rocketing out of your body at close to 100 mph. This is, of course, a good reason to cover your mouth when you sneeze.
35. Coughs clock in at about 60 mph. Viruses and colds get spread around the office and the classroom quickly during cold and flu season. With 60 mph coughs spraying germs far and wide, it’s no wonder.
36. Women blink twice as many times as men do. That’s a lot of blinking every day. The average person, man or woman, blinks about 13 times a minute.
37. A full bladder is roughly the size of a soft ball. No wonder you have to run to bathroom when you feel the call of the wild. The average bladder holds about 400-800 cc of fluid but most people will feel the urge to go long before that at 250 to 300 cc.
38. Approximately 75% of human waste is made of water. While we might typically think that urine is the liquid part of human waste products, the truth is that what we consider solid waste is actually mostly water as well. You should be thankful that most waste is fairly water-filled, as drier harder stools are what cause constipation and are much harder and sometimes painful to pass.
39. Feet have 500,000 sweat glands and can produce more than a pint of sweat a day. With that kind of sweat-producing power it’s no wonder that your gym shoes have a stench that can peel paint. Additionally, men usually have much more active sweat glands than women.
40. During your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools. Saliva plays an important part in beginning the digestive process and keeping the mouth lubricated, and your mouth produces quite a bit of it on a daily basis.
41. The average person expels flatulence 14 times each day. Even if you’d like to think you’re too dignified to pass gas, the reality is that almost everyone will at least a few times a day. Digestion causes the body to release gases which can be painful if trapped in the abdomen and not released.
42. Earwax production is necessary for good ear health. While many people find earwax to be disgusting, it’s actually a very important part of your ear’s defense system. It protects the delicate inner ear from bacteria, fungus, dirt and even insects. It also cleans and lubricates the ear canal.

Sex and Reproduction
As taboo as it may be in some places, sex is an important part of human life as a facet of relationships and the means to reproduce. Here are a few things you might not have known.

43. On any given day, sexual intercourse takes place 120 million times on earth. Humans are a quickly proliferating species, and with about 4% of the world’s population having sex on any given day, it’s no wonder that birth rates continue to increase in many places all over the world.
44. The largest cell in the human body is the female egg and the smallest is the male sperm. While you can’t see skin cells or muscle cells, the ovum is typically large enough to be seen with the naked eye with a diameter of about a millimeter. The sperm cell, on the other hand, is tiny, consisting of little more than nucleus.
45. The three things pregnant women dream most of during their first trimester are frogs, worms and potted plants. Pregnancy hormones can cause mood swings, cravings and many other unexpected changes. Oddly enough, hormones can often affect the types of dreams women have and their vividness. The most common are these three types, but many women also dream of water, giving birth or even have violent or sexually charged dreams.
46. Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born. While few babies are born with teeth in place, the teeth that will eventually push through the gums of young children are formed long before the child even leaves the womb. At 9 to 12 weeks the fetus starts to form the teeth buds that will turn into baby teeth.
47. Babies are always born with blue eyes. The color of your eyes depends on the genes you get from your parents, but at birth most babies appear to have blue eyes. The reason behind this is the pigment melanin. The melanin in a newborn’s eyes often needs time after birth to be fully deposited or to be darkened by exposure to ultraviolet light, later revealing the baby’s true eye color.
48. Babies are, pound for pound, stronger than an ox. While a baby certainly couldn’t pull a covered wagon at its present size, if the child were the size of an oxen it just might very well be able to. Babies have especially strong and powerful legs for such tiny creatures, so watch out for those kicks.
49. One out of every 2,000 newborn infants has a tooth when they are born. Nursing mothers may cringe at this fact. Sometimes the tooth is a regular baby tooth that has already erupted and sometimes it is an extra tooth that will fall out before the other set of choppers comes in.
50. A fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of three months. When only a small fraction of the way through its development, a fetus will have already developed one of the most unique human traits: fingerprints. At only 6-13 weeks of development, the whorls of what will be fingerprints have already developed. Oddly enough, those fingerprints will not change throughout the person’s life and will be one of the last things to disappear after death.
51. Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell. All life has to begin somewhere, and even the largest humans spent a short part of their lives as a single celled organism when sperm and egg cells first combine. Shortly afterward, the cells begin rapidly dividing and begin forming the components of a tiny embryo.
52. Most men have erections every hour to hour and a half during sleep. Most people’s bodies and minds are much more active when they’re sleeping than they think. The combination of blood circulation and testosterone production can cause erections during sleep and they’re often a normal and necessary part of REM sleep.

Senses
The primary means by which we interact with the world around us is through our senses. Here are some interesting facts about these five sensory abilities.

53. After eating too much, your hearing is less sharp. If you’re heading to a concert or a musical after a big meal you may be doing yourself a disservice. Try eating a smaller meal if you need to keep your hearing pitch perfect.
54. About one third of the human race has 20-20 vision. Glasses and contact wearers are hardly alone in a world where two thirds of the population have less than perfect vision. The amount of people with perfect vision decreases further as they age.
55. If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it. In order for foods, or anything else, to have a taste, chemicals from the substance must be dissolved by saliva. If you don’t believe it, try drying off your tongue before tasting something.
56. Women are born better smellers than men and remain better smellers over life. Studies have shown that women are more able to correctly pinpoint just what a smell is. Women were better able to identify citrus, vanilla, cinnamon and coffee smells. While women are overall better smellers, there is an unfortunate 2% of the population with no sense of smell at all.
57. Your nose can remember 50,000 different scents. While a bloodhound’s nose may be a million times more sensitive than a human’s, that doesn’t mean that the human sense of smell is useless. Humans can identify a wide variety of scents and many are strongly tied to memories.
58. Even small noises cause the pupils of the eyes to dilate. It is believed that this is why surgeons, watchmakers and others who perform delicate manual operations are so bothered by uninvited noise. The sound causes their pupils to change focus and blur their vision, making it harder to do their job well.
59. Everyone has a unique smell, except for identical twins. Newborns are able to recognize the smell of their mothers and many of us can pinpoint the smell of our significant others and those we are close to. Part of that smell is determined by genetics, but it’s also largely do to environment, diet and personal hygiene products that create a unique chemistry for each person.

Aging and Death
From the very young to the very old, aging is a necessary and unavoidable part of life. Learn about the process with these interesting, if somewhat strange facts.

60. The ashes of a cremated person average about 9 pounds. A big part of what gives the human body weight is the water trapped in our cells. Once cremated, that water and a majority of our tissues are destroyed, leaving little behind.
61. Nails and hair do not continue to grow after we die. They do appear longer when we die, however, as the skin dehydrates and pulls back from the nail beds and scalp.
62. By the age of 60, most people will have lost about half their taste buds. Perhaps you shouldn’t trust your grandma’s cooking as much as you do. Older individuals tend to lose their ability to taste, and many find that they need much more intense flavoring in order to be able to fully appreciate a dish.
63. Your eyes are always the same size from birth but your nose and ears never stop growing. When babies look up at you with those big eyes, they’re the same size that they’ll be carrying around in their bodies for the rest of their lives. Their ears and nose, however, will grow throughout their lives and research has shown that growth peaks in seven year cycles.
64. By 60 years of age, 60-percent of men and 40-percent of women will snore. If you’ve ever been kept awake by a snoring loved one you know the sound can be deafening. Normal snores average around 60 decibels, the noise level of normal speech, intense snores can reach more than 80 decibels, the approximate level caused by a jackhammer breaking up concrete.
65. A baby’s head is one-quarter of it’s total length, but by age 25 will only be one-eighth of its total length. As it turns out, our adorably oversized baby heads won’t change size as drastically as the rest of our body. The legs and torso will lengthen, but the head won’t get much longer.

Disease and Injury
Most of us will get injured or sick at some point in our lives. Here are some facts on how the human body reacts to the stresses and dangers from the outside world.

66. Monday is the day of the week when the risk of heart attack is greatest. Yet another reason to loathe Mondays! A ten year study in Scotland found that 20% more people die of heart attacks on Mondays than any other day of the week. Researchers theorize that it’s a combination of too much fun over the weekend with the stress of going back to work that causes the increase.
67. Humans can make do longer without food than sleep. While you might feel better prepared to stay up all night partying than to give up eating, that feeling will be relatively short lived. Provided there is water, the average human could survive a month to two months without food depending on their body fat and other factors. Sleep deprived people, however, start experiencing radical personality and psychological changes after only a few sleepless days. The longest recorded time anyone has ever gone without sleep is 11 days, at the end of which the experimenter was awake, but stumbled over words, hallucinated and frequently forgot what he was doing.
68. A simple, moderately severe sunburn damages the blood vessels extensively. How extensively? Studies have shown that it can take four to fifteen months for them to return to their normal condition. Consider that the next time you’re feeling too lazy to apply sunscreen before heading outside.
69. Over 90% of diseases are caused or complicated by stress. That high stress job you have could be doing more than just wearing you down each day. It could also be increasing your chances of having a variety of serious medical conditions like depression, high blood pressure and heart disease.
70. A human head remains conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it is been decapitated. While it might be gross to think about, the blood in the head may be enough to keep someone alive and conscious for a few seconds after the head has been separated from the body, though reports as to the accuracy of this are widely varying.

Muscles and Bones
Muscles and Bones provide the framework for our bodies and allow us to jump, run or just lie on the couch. Here are a few facts to ponder the next time you’re lying around.

71. It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown. Unless you’re trying to give your face a bit of a workout, smiling is a much easier option for most of us. Anyone who’s ever scowled, squinted or frowned for a long period of time knows how it tires out the face which doesn’t do a thing to improve your mood.
72. Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood the number is reduced to 206. The reason for this is that many of the bones of children are composed of smaller component bones that are not yet fused like those in the skull. This makes it easier for the baby to pass through the birth canal. The bones harden and fuse as the children grow.
73. We are about 1 cm taller in the morning than in the evening. The cartilage between our bones gets compressed by standing, sitting and other daily activities as the day goes on, making us just a little shorter at the end of the day than at the beginning.
74. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. While you may not be able to bench press much with your tongue, it is in fact the strongest muscle in your body in proportion to its size. If you think about it, every time you eat, swallow or talk you use your tongue, ensuring it gets quite a workout throughout the day.
75. The hardest bone in the human body is the jawbone. The next time someone suggests you take it on the chin, you might be well advised to take their advice as the jawbone is one of the most durable and hard to break bones in the body.
76. You use 200 muscles to take one step. Depending on how you divide up muscle groups, just to take a single step you use somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 muscles. That’s a lot of work for the muscles considering most of us take about 10,000 steps a day.
77. The tooth is the only part of the human body that can’t repair itself. If you’ve ever chipped a tooth you know just how sadly true this one is. The outer layer of the tooth is enamel which is not a living tissue. Since it’s not alive, it can’t repair itself, leaving your dentist to do the work instead.
78. It takes twice as long to lose new muscle if you stop working out than it did to gain it. Lazy people out there shouldn’t use this as motivation to not work out, however. It’s relatively easy to build new muscle tissue and get your muscles in shape, so if anything, this fact should be motivation to get off the couch and get moving.
79. Bone is stronger than some steel. This doesn’t mean your bones can’t break of course, as they are much less dense than steel. Bone has been found to have a tensile strength of 20,000 psi while steel is much higher at 70,000 psi. Steel is much heavier than bone, however, and pound for pound bone is the stronger material.
80. The feet account for one quarter of all the human body’s bones. You may not give your feet much thought but they are home to more bones than any other part of your body. How many? Of the two hundred or so bones in the body, the feet contain a whopping 52 of them.

Microscopic Level
Much of what takes place in our bodies happens at a level that we simply can’t see with the naked eye. These facts will show you that sometimes that might be for the best.

81. About 32 million bacteria call every inch of your skin home. Germaphobes don’t need to worry however, as a majority of these are entirely harmless and some are even helpful in maintaining a healthy body.
82. Humans shed and regrow outer skin cells about every 27 days. Skin protects your delicate internal organs from the elements and as such, dries and flakes off completely about once a month so that it can maintain its strength. Chances are that last month’s skin is still hanging around your house in the form of the dust on your bookshelf or under the couch.
83. Three hundred million cells die in the human body every minute. While that sounds like a lot, it’s really just a small fraction of the cells that are in the human body. Estimates have placed the total number of cells in the body at 10-50 trillion so you can afford to lose a few hundred million without a hitch.
84. Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour. You may not think much about losing skin if yours isn’t dry or flaky or peeling from a sunburn, but your skin is constantly renewing itself and shedding dead cells.
85. Every day an adult body produces 300 billion new cells. Your body not only needs energy to keep your organs up and running but also to constantly repair and build new cells to form the building blocks of your body itself.
86. Every tongue print is unique. If you’re planning on committing a crime, don’t think you’ll get away with leaving a tongue print behind. Each tongue is different and yours could be unique enough to finger you as the culprit.
87. Your body has enough iron in it to make a nail 3 inches long. Anyone who has ever tasted blood knows that it has a slightly metallic taste. This is due to the high levels of iron in the blood. If you were to take all of this iron out of the body, you’d have enough to make a small nail and very severe anemia.
88. The most common blood type in the world is Type O. Blood banks find it valuable as it can be given to those with both type A and B blood. The rarest blood type, A-H or Bombay blood due to the location of its discovery, has been found in less than hundred people since it was discovered.
89. Human lips have a reddish color because of the great concentration of tiny capillaries just below the skin. The blood in these capillaries is normally highly oxygenated and therefore quite red. This explains why the lips appear pale when a person is anemic or has lost a great deal of blood. It also explains why the lips turn blue in very cold weather. Cold causes the capillaries to constrict, and the blood loses oxygen and changes to a darker color.

Miscellaneous
Here are a few things you might not have known about all different parts of your anatomy.

90. The colder the room you sleep in, the better the chances are that you’ll have a bad dream. It isn’t entirely clear to scientists why this is the case, but if you are opposed to having nightmares you might want to keep yourself a little toastier at night.
91. Tears and mucus contain an enzyme (lysozyme) that breaks down the cell wall of many bacteria. This is to your advantage, as the mucus that lines your nose and throat, as well as the tears that wet your eyes are helping to prevent bacteria from infecting those areas and making you sick.
92. Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon of water to a boil. If you’ve seen the Matrix you are aware of the energy potentially generated by the human body. Our bodies expend a large amount of calories keeping us at a steady 98.6 degrees, enough to boil water or even cook pasta.
93. Your ears secrete more earwax when you are afraid than when you aren’t. The chemicals and hormones released when you are afraid could be having unseen effects on your body in the form of earwax. Studies have suggested that fear causes the ears to produce more of the sticky substance, though the reasons are not yet clear.
94. It is not possible to tickle yourself. Even the most ticklish among us do not have the ability to tickle ourselves. The reason behind this is that your brain predicts the tickle from information it already has, like how your fingers are moving. Because it knows and can feel where the tickle is coming from, your brain doesn’t respond in the same way as it would if someone else was doing the tickling.
95. The width of your armspan stretched out is the length of your whole body. While not exact down to the last millimeter, your armspan is a pretty good estimator of your height.
96. Humans are the only animals to produce emotional tears. In the animal world, humans are the biggest crybabies, being the only animals who cry because they’ve had a bad day, lost a loved one, or just don’t feel good.
97. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do. This doesn’t have a genetic basis, but is largely due to the fact that a majority of the machines and tools we use on a daily basis are designed for those who are right handed, making them somewhat dangerous for lefties to use and resulting in thousands of accidents and deaths each year.
98. Women burn fat more slowly than men, by a rate of about 50 calories a day. Most men have a much easier time burning fat than women. Women, because of their reproductive role, generally require a higher basic body fat proportion than men, and as a result their bodies don’t get rid of excess fat at the same rate as men.
99. Koalas and primates are the only animals with unique fingerprints. Humans, apes and koalas are unique in the animal kingdom due to the tiny prints on the fingers of their hands. Studies on primates have suggested that even cloned individuals have unique fingerprints.
100. The indentation in the middle of the area between the nose and the upper lip has a name. It is called the philtrum. Scientists have yet to figure out what purpose this indentation serves, though the ancient Greeks thought it to be one of the most erogenous places on the body