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Warm and Sunny Facts

2007-11-03T17:51:00.000-07:00

The Sun is our nearest star in the universe. Nearest, however is a very relative term because the Sun is a whopping 93 million miles away from us. In fact Sciensational reader Demandude from Missouri, United States had this Astronomy fact for us:

The sun is about 149 million kms (93 million miles) from earth, yet it's 270,000 times closer than the next nearest star, which is 4.3 light years away.

That nearest star, the star that is closest to us after the Sun, is a faint star known as Proxima Centauri. This star, in fact, to our naked eye, is part of a group of stars called the Alpha Centauri, which appear to us a single star (a more detailed post on this later.)

Let's see how big our Sun is then, shall we. Another sciensational astronomy fact tells us

The Sun contains over 99.8 percent of the total material (mass) in our solar system, while Jupiter contains most of the rest.

Now that's cool (or hot?), but how do we know what this means in relation to our Earth? Well, another astronomy fact comes to our rescue and helps us put things in perspective:

About 1000 Earths would fit inside Jupiter - and the Sun could hold about 1000 Jupiters.

How's that for an idea of the cosmic magnitude, eh? To put it even more precisely, take another astronomy facts tidbit:

The Sun is 330,330 times larger than Earth.

That in essence means that one hundred Earths would have to be placed side by side to equal the width of the Sun! In terms of volume, the Sun could comfortably hold about one million Earths inside its sphere!

That takes care of the size. How about the Sun's age? It's computed after various considerations to be about 4.57 billion years. This means it is much, much older and existed much, much before us modern humans have existed for only about 200,000 years or so.

Here's another juicy fact: Just as planets travel around it, the Sun also travels around the Milky Way galaxy, with its entire family of planets! In fact, another astronomy fact reveals to us that

The Sun travels at a speed of 250km (155 miles) per second, but it still takes 230 million years for it to complete a single revolution of the galaxy.

And just as our Earth has its year when it finishes a revolution around the Sun, the Sun also has a year: a Cosmic Year. What is it? Thanks again to our astronomy facts, we know that

A cosmic year is the amount of time it takes the Sun to revolve around the center of the Milky Way, about 230 million years.

Apart from giving us its heat, the Sun also dumps huge amounts of material as it burns. Yup, consider the following fact:

Every second, the Sun pumps more than a million tons of material into the space through the solar wind (electrically charged particles.)

Although we are nowhere near the beginning of discussing our fascinating star, and will definitely continue to discuss more things Sunny, let us conclude this post by a humbling fact that despite its great magnitude to us Earth dwellers, the Sun is considered nothing but a dwarf star: just an average low luminosity star amongst the community of stars!

Picking your brain facts

2007-10-31T10:26:00.000-07:00

Where would we be without our brains, eh? Let's take a quick look at this wonderful organ.

Thanks to Sciensational reader Sidd posting on our biology facts page, we know that

The number of neuron cells in our brain is more than the total number of stars in our galaxy.

That number is about 100 billion! What are neurons? Neurons are electrically charged little cells in our brain to make use of all the information we get from our senses, like eyes, ears, touch, etc. Without them, we wouldn't be able to make sense of anything at all!

The brain is divided into several parts for study, but for now, let's take the three major parts of the brain: The Cerebrum, the Cerebellum, and the Brain Stem.

The Cerebrum, also called the forebrain, is responsible for our language, memory, movement and all. As you're reading this and trying to understand it, you're using your Cerebrum.

Next, we have the Cerebellum which controls how we understand or 'perceive' things through our senses. It is also responsible for our motor controls, which means using our bones and muscles. You are enjoying reading this post while sitting comfortably, with your balance intact, right? That's thanks to the Cerebellum! To understand the importance of Cerebellum, consider the fact that this brain part's Latin name actually means "little brain."

Then we have the lower part of the brain, The Brain Stem. This is where our brain connects to our spinal cord. What does it do? Well, there are many parts of our body that need to work without us being too worried about controlling them deliberately, like the heart pumping and our stomach digesting our food, etc. That's part of what the Brain Stem is good for! It really keeps our body under control!

Our brain uses quite a lot of energy that we have in our body. In fact, Sciensational reader Anchal Srivastava from Gorakhpur, India sent us this brainy biology facts bit:

The normal energy used by our brain is 0.1 calories per minute, and could go up to 1.5 during activities such as puzzle-solving.

Since our brain is one of the most important organs, it has a king's share of our body's resources. Consider the following brain fact:

While only 2% in weight, the human brain requires 15% of the body's heart work, 20% of oxygen and 25% of all glucose.

How big is it? An average adult human brain weighs around 1300 grams or about 3 pounds. The appearance of the brain is pinkish, but if you looked at it closely, it would seem to contain both white and grey matter. The almost-white matter of the brain is the one that covers nerve fibres and is called myelin. The nerve cells that remain uncovered make for the appearance of the famous 'grey matter.'

So let's work our brains, nerves and grey matter for good!

100% Pure Honey Facts!

2007-10-03T09:20:00.000-07:00

Honey is one of the oldest food sources we know. This fascinating fluid is created by honey bees from the nectar of flowers. Let's see what sciensational stuff we have for honey and the great honey bees.

Thanks to sciensational reader Ashalaya from Racine in Wisconsin, USA, we found out a really interesting chemistry fact:

Honey does not spoil.

This is perhaps one of the greatest properties of honey. You could place it anywhere for thousands of years and it will not spoil. In fact, edible honey was found in ancient Egyptian Pharaoh King Tut's tomb!

Honey contains large amounts of fructose and glucose. Naturally this makes it an ideal sweetener - much sweeter - almost 20 to 60 per cent more - than sugar itself!

You would think that such a sweet thing would be so bad for your health. Not so at all! Honey does not have any fats or cholesterol. It does not contain any sodium either. You could actually live off a just-honey diet because it is considered to be the only kind of food that has all necessary substances to sustain a normal human life, though it would be quite boring to have nothing but honey, eh?

Let's take a look at the wonderful source of honey - the fantastic creature called the Honey Bee. Sciensational reader Jieian tells us an amazing biology fact:

Honeybees have remained unchanged in form or structure for 20 million years.

Yup, now there's one specie we could trust with almost anything that it does, couldn't we? Surely they must know what they're doing! And they're not looking at retirement anytime soon either, because honey bees are not only one of the oldest species, they are also one of the most hardworking.

A honey bee could visit around 2000 flowers in a day, flying around 25 kilometers per hour! That's not all. It would take about 2 million flowers for these little creatures to visit to make just half a kilogram of honey! Not only that, just one single honey bee colony can produce between 30 to 40 kilograms of honey in a year. Can anyone beat that?

So, let's remember how much hard work goes into a single spoonful of honey that we so yummily use as part of our food.

Here's a big Cheers to our friends, the honey bees!

Some Diamond Facts are Forever!

2007-09-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

Diamonds are really the most fascinating gemstones in the world. They have adorned the crowns of kings and queens throughout our history. A diamond is considered the most precious of all gemstones, and is surely justified in this role.

As often claimed by people selling them, Diamonds are indeed truly timeless, because they were created by immense temperature and pressure billions of years ago, deep inside the earth and can indeed last and last. As a matter of fact, diamonds have been carbon dated to be at least 3.4 billion years old. Now that's old enough to be called 'ageless', eh?

Let's shine some light on a few diamond facts and take this first sciensational physics fact about diamonds:

Diamonds are the hardest known substance.

A diamond's hardness has been known to be recognized since antiquity, and that's probably why the name diamond itself comes from the ancient Greek word adamas, which means 'invincible.'

However, the fact about the hardness of diamonds is true only for all naturally occurring materials, because a structurally different form of carbon (an allotrope) called Aggregated Diamond Nanorods, is even harder than Diamond. But that should not take a single carat of credit away from the diamond at all, because it is still all pure, natural carbon. So naturally carbon, in fact, that we have another sciensational fact dedicated to it:

Most gemstones contain several elements, except diamond which is all carbon.

Yup, that's the popular crystalline gemstone shape and form of carbon we know as the great diamond.

There are, however, other less perfect forms of diamonds, too. These lesser diamonds are used mainly for industrial purposes. One is called Bort, which is not a Star Trek alien but a dark crystal and is used mostly in drilling-bits for crushing other material. Another imperfect diamond is a mass of many tiny diamonds called Ballas. Then there is Carbonado, and no, it is not a fizzy energy soda drink. Carbonado is sometimes referred to as 'black diamond' because it can be dark opaque or grayish in colour.

And you thought diamonds only looked good in glass cases!

Some Prime Quality Facts!

2007-09-21T09:53:00.000-07:00

Time for some prime facts roundup, or prime numbers round up to be arithmetically exact. Take the following sciensational mathematics fact:

The largest prime number is 9,808,358 digits long; more than the number of atoms in the universe.

The basics first. What is a prime number? It's when a number can be divided only by itself, with no remainder, and by the number 1. You know, 1, 3, 5, 7, 11… The list literally goes on.

What makes discovering a new, long prime so sciensational? Well, you have to prove that a new big Prime Suspect number is indeed a prime, by doing the simple formula of "divided only by itself and 1" which means showing the world that when divided by all the previous primes, you didn't get a whole number as a remainder. That's quite a task to prove a prime number, but thanks to computers and all, we are discovering new, long primes frequently. The largest prime above was confirmed to be a new big prime as late as September, 2006.

The fact above has another fascinating fact in itself: the number of atoms in the universe. Though it is a discussion for a different post altogether, let's just know that the number of atoms in the universe can be written in just 80 digits. That makes our biggest prime find even greater.

Another sciensational maths fact says:

2 and 5 are the only primes that end in 2 or 5.

That is true for all decimal numbers for all known primes!

Over the Moon facts

2007-09-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

The moon is our nearest universal neighbour. Some say the Moon does not deserve to be called just a satellite of the Earth at all, and should be paid more respect as a minor or sub-planet because it is the fifth largest moon in our entire solar system.

So, how big is the moon? It's about 1/50th the volume of the Earth and has a diameter of 3,474 km (see a previous post to get more ideas about diameters and stuff!). So in terms of overall size, this is what our astronomy science facts says:

The moon is 27% the size of the Earth.

Let's look at the moon. The surface of the moon looks dark and bright, doesn't it. The darker areas on the moon are called Maria. Nope, they're not named after Maria Sharapova but it is the plural for mare, meaning sea - though there are no seas there at all. The brighter moon areas, however, are rather unimaginatively known as Lunar Highlands. The moon has no water or any wetlands, of course. In fact, another sciensational astronomy fact tells us that:

The moon is one million times drier than the Gobi Desert.

Since the Moon is a huge body in space, and also because it is so close to our planet, it can have direct affect on the Earth, simply because it's there! For example, take this fact:

There is a high and low tide because of our moon and the Sun.

That is because the Moon has great gravitational pull and it tries to pull the water out of our oceans whenever it is right above it! Though it only succeeds in creating great waves, that's it. One of the reasons why Moon has such direct affects on the Earth is also because it is quite big for being a moon to a planet. In fact, so big that it makes another crazy science fact for us:

The Earth-Moon size ratio is the largest in our solar system, excepting Pluto-Charon.

We've got a great planet! And a great moon to match!

We all have some bones to pick

2007-09-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

We are all made of flesh and bones. Our bodies are held together by the skeleton, which is a piece of wonder in itself. Let's talk about them fascinating bones, shall we. There are quite a few biology facts on human body at sciensational.

Let's begin with this one:

The smallest bone in the human body is the stapes or stirrup bone located in the middle ear. It is approximately .11 inches (.28 cm) long.

We may owe all our hearing to this wonderful little bone shaped like a stirrup, because it transmits sound vibrations through our hearing system!

There are about 206 bones in a grown-up's body. But more than half of them are located just in our hands and feet! In fact, one quarter of our bones are in the feet alone. It's hardly surprising, isn't it, since most of our lives are spent using these body parts more often than any other.

Another remarkable thing is that when we're born, we have somewhere around 300 to 350 bones to begin our little lives with. So where do the rest go as we grow up? Well, they don't go anywhere, except that sometime around the age between 12 and 14, some of our smaller bones, kind of, get together and blend into larger, big and stronger bones!

Speaking of stronger bones, here's another sciensational biology fact:

Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.

Yup, that's the thigh bone, or the Femur bone as it is called - the biggest and strongest bone in our body. It is easily capable of lifting or supporting 30 times its own volume and weight! Now that's got to be stronger than concrete, eh?

Apart from having more bones as infants, another interesting baby fact is that the little small ones don't have kneecaps! Well, actually they do but their kneecaps have not yet turned into hard bones, and are still soft cartilage (remember a previous post about that?). These softie kneecaps gradually harden into bones (the process is called ossification.)

So, as we fill our brains with these bone facts, let's remember that our brain is so generously protected by our skull, which itself is made of no less than 30 bones! So much for calling someone a bone-head!

Let's Dig Some Gold Facts

2007-09-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

A sciensational chemistry fact on Gold, undoubtedly the most sought after precious metal throughout our history:

An ounce of gold can be stretched into a wire 80 kms (50 miles) long.

Gold is not only precious, but pure gold is also very, very soft. So soft, in fact, that a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of one square meter! If you ever get some pure gold to play with (you wish, eh?), remember the following sciensational fact:

Absolutely pure gold is so soft that it can be moulded with the hands.

So why does it feel hard as a rock? Well, that is because the Gold we're used to seeing as jewellery and gold bars and coins and what not, is usually not pure at all! Yup, to make gold stay in a particular shape, jewellers mix Gold with other hard metals. Metal mixtures of this kind are also called alloys.

You know that Gold is always referred with carats, don't you: 18 carats, 24 carats, etc. The term carat (also called karat) is a hint for us to know exactly how much pure Gold was used in that hard shiny Gold bar we're ogling over. Twenty-four carats is fine pure Gold. Now if a Gold coin says 18 carats, it means that it was made with 18 parts of pure Gold, and remaining six parts of another metal to make it more solid and durable. The other metal that they use is usually a mixture (alloy, remember) of platinum or silver - which is another precious metal, so don't think your jeweller is fibbing ya!

Another fascinating thing about Gold is the fact that this shiny metal and Copper are the only two non-white metals! So let's give Copper a shiny tip of our hat, too.

Speaking of the golden shine, did you know that the chemical symbol for Gold in the periodic table of elements - Au - is derived from the Latin word 'aurum'? And what is aurum? It means 'glowing dawn'. It is often suggested that the word aurum has a connection with the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora.

One wonders how much Gold is there in the Earth really, don't you think?

First, Gold comes from our Earth's crust (a post about the Crust later, we promise.) And there's plenty of it for everyone to have big sackfuls of it! Consider this sciensational fact:

There's enough gold in the Earth's crust to cover the entire land surface knee-deep.

How about that. So, let's not lose our sleep over it any more than it deserves!

Relax, there's no pressure now!

2007-09-05T07:14:00.000-07:00

Science trivia hunters loved this sciensational physics fact:

At the ocean's deepest point, due to immense pressure, an iron ball would take more than an hour to sink to the ocean floor.

This is because of pressure (hydrostatic pressure in this case.) Let's see, or rather, feel what it is.

Look around. Feel anything? No? You're wrong! There is pressure! It's all about pressure. Pressure is all around us, even right now as you read this post. Our bodies, on a normal sea level ground, constantly fight a pressure of about 1 kilogram per square inch! But we don't even feel it, do we?

If you've ever been on an airplane, you must have noticed how your ears pop when the plane reaches a certain altitude. That's pressure playing tricks on us, as the airplane makes it comfortable for us by adjusting its cabin pressure, because the pressure outside would simply suck us right out of the plane!

And it's all the same with a heavy iron ball deep near the ocean floor, where the ball has to fight water pressure. You see, water is heavy - much heavier than air, so naturally it exerts more pressure. The deeper we go into the sea, the more water above us, meaning more weight above us - more pressure! We can feel a little sample of this pressure when we're right at the bottom of a swimming pool and feel our ear drums being pinched -- kind of ears popping on an airplane above.

Say we're at the deepest point of the ocean, which we know is the Mariana Trench, thanks to Sciensational reader Apurv from Gaya, India who submitted this fact.

The deepest location on Earth is Mariana Trench, about 11km deep in the North Pacific ocean.

Now the pressure at the Mariana Trench is an amazing 8 tons per square inch! Compare that to a measly 1 kg right now to most of us on sea level, ha!

What this means is that a heavy iron ball to us now feels heavy because of such little pressure around us. But, when it meets its true pressure match under ocean, at mighty 8 tons, it would be like a breadcrumb floating inside your goldfish's bowl!

Speaking of Mariana Trench, Sciensational reader Nikhil gave us an idea of just how deep that is:

If Mount Everest were placed at the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean, its peak would still be a mile underwater.

Now that's deep!

We're not going to finish this Pi

2007-09-04T09:59:00.000-07:00

Consider the following mathematics fact on Sciensational about the value of Pi:

The digits to the right of the Pi's (3.141...) decimal point can keep going forever, and there is no pattern to these digits at all.

Pi, represented by π , the 16th letter of Greek alphabets, has been considered the most mysterious and fascinating number in mathematics for thousands of years!

But what on earth is it? It is a number of course, and a constant value. In the simplest terms, a circle's circumference divided by diameter always gives you the same number. That number, or ratio, is the value of Pi, ie 3.14159.

Yeah, but what does it do? You ask. What has Pi done to deserve this high and mighty position? So let's roughly get right through it (literally!).

Take a circle, say a tree trunk. Now put your arms around it. The area that your arms are covering is called the circumference. Now drill a hole right through the tree trunk. Well, of course it's not a very decent thing to do to a tree, but let's suppose that for now! The distance from one point of the hole to the next point is called the diameter. Now suppose the tree was too big for you to put your arms around, but someone nasty had already drilled a hole. What you have now is only one measurement, that is the diameter, and you must find the circumference. SO, thanks to the delicious Pi, we can find out what the circumference is! Here's the simple formula:

Circumference = Pi x Diameter

So if the length of the drilled hole was 5 meters (you checked by running your pet mouse with a string tied to its tail, for example), 5 multiplied by 3.14159 is...? You guessed it, a humongous tree only the giant King Kong could cover with his arms!

Who discovered this value of Pi? Well, to be sure, it's been known to us for thousands of years, at least 4000 years. The ancient Babylonians were using it, so it could date much before that.

But that's not the point. You see, the exact value of Pi is not known! That's a pretty strange thing for a number that is a constant, right? So the bigger the circle, the bigger the value without any pattern emerging after the 3.xxx value. That means it never ends! A number that doesn't end is called irrational.

Here's another whopper: Pi is supposedly a ratio between two values, right? But since its value never ends, it is an irrational number. Irrational numbers cannot be fractions! That's why sciensational visitor Tiff from Witherbee, USA sent this sciensational math fact:

Pi (3.14159...) is a number that cannot be written as a fraction.

To wrap it up, we paid our homage to the Great Pi by giving our sciensational math facts pages' symbol designed after it. Hail to the Pi!

Astronauts are taller upon return to Earth

2007-09-03T09:09:00.000-07:00

You must have read this little astronomy tidbit on one of our Astronomy facts pages:

An Astronaut can be up to 2 inches taller returning from space. The cartilage disks in the spine expand in the absence of gravity.

This is an effect of microgravity (when gravity is very little or none.) Gravity is what keeps us on the ground! Our spines, when not being compressed by gravity, are free to expand, thus making us taller. This is not only true for astronauts in space, but also us poor ordinary folks when we sleep! Why? Because the less pull there is by G forces, the happier our spine is to grow. So, it can be said that the more you sleep, the taller you may become!

All of us have experienced The G Force. Nope, it's neither a new Playstation game, nor a summer Hollywood blockbuster starring Lindsey Lohan! It's a great gravitational force present all around us. Notice how our stomach feels funny when we're on a roller coaster or even a regular fun ride? That's the G Force in action!

What is the cartilage disk, you may wonder, and how amazing that it can make one taller, eh? A cartilage disk is like a protecting cushion between bones where the bones meet each other. The cartilage disk we're talking about here is the one in our spine or what we generally know as our backbone. Our backbone is the one that is separated by spinal discs and holds the spinal cord in place.

But here's the catch: neither the Astronaut's, nor a sleeping beauty's spine continues to remain taller indefinitely. As soon as the astronaut returns to Earth, his or her height gradually returns to normal. The same is the case with us: When we wake up and stand upright or go about our daily business, our height comes down to earth, so to speak! :)

References: Microgravity et al.