We Can Explain

Factoids

These cool facts were listed in Science World’s 2008/2009 Annual Report but here are the explanations as to why they are true. Want more? Check out our award-winning ads from Rethink Communications.

Your eye muscles move 100,000 times a day.
Your eye muscles are the busiest muscles in your body, moving more than 100,000 times every day, according to a research paper called "Portable Eyetracking: A Study of Natural Eye Movements." Find it hard to believe? Try counting how many times your eyes move just to read this paragraph-boggling, isn't it?

You get taller in space.
NASA verifies that astronauts increase 7.5 cm due to microgravity. To some degree, a similar stretching of the spine happens to you every night. When you lie down, gravity isn't pushing down on your vertebrae. You can do your own experiments with a metre stick. Measure your height carefully as soon as you get up or while you are still lying down. You will find that you're about a centimetre or two taller. That's not as much as astronauts change in space. The idea, however, is the same. As the day passes, your vertebrae compress through normal activities, and you'll lose those few centimetres you "grew" overnight.

You lose 10,000 brain cells a day.
"The human brain is by far the greatest user of energy in the body. It consumes a whopping one-fifth of the energy produced by what we eat and drink. The brain works at quite an accelerated pace too, firing electrical impulses at 250 miles per hour. Unfortunately, ten thousand of the brain's one trillion cells naturally die in the course of 24 hours. There is new evidence that some of these brain cells may be replaced."

There are more chickens than humans on earth.
According to the World Resources Institute, in 1998 there were close to 13,500,000,000 chickens scratching out a living on planet Earth. Other sources put the chicken population between 8 and 12 billion. Either way, it far surpasses the Earth's population of 6 billion people.

A sneeze can travel at 65 km/h.
The reason why sneezes are so powerful is because not just the nose is involved. It is a
reflex response that involves the sudden contraction of muscles of the abdomen, chest, diaphragm, throat and face. Have you ever noticed that you have to close your eyes when you sneeze? This is because the muscles that close your eyes are part of the reflex response as well.

Want to know more? A common question is "Can you really hurt yourself by holding in a sneeze?" Not likely, for details check out: www.straightdope.com/columns/010427.html
Science World connections: For more about snot, there's the Grossology School Workshop

Spider silk is stronger than steel.
Spider silk is made up of chains of amino acids. The two primary amino acids are Glycine and Alanine. In other words, spider silk is simply a protein.

But it is an extremely strong protein - it is about five times stronger than steel and twice as strong as Kevlar of the same weight. Spider silk also has the ability to stretch about 30 per cent longer than its original length without breaking, which makes it very resilient.

Mosquitoes love the colour blue.
Mosquitoes, like other insects, see in the blue, ultraviolet spectrum. So they're attracted to blue lights and clothing, but not to reds and yellows. That's why bug zappers have blue lights and why some people use yellow lights on porches.

Not all snowflakes are unique.

When water freezes, the H2O molecules join together in hexagonal shapes. The most intricate snowflakes are dendrite flakes, with six points and many detailed arms. There are more ways to grow a snowflake than there are atoms in the universe, so odds are good that no two dendrite flakes are alike. Depending on the temperature and humidity, though, snowflakes may take the shape of simple needles or hexagons – these are not unique!