there is beauty in the breakdown

• A Naked Tiger Still Has Stripes

If a tiger loses all his hair, he’ll still be striped. Tiger stripes are like fingerprints, each individual cat’s markings are unique. And they’re not just hair, the stripes are in their skin. Seems to be a thing with cats, since your house cat’s fur markings are also skin deep!

• Most Of Your Body’s Cells Aren’t Yours

Strange but true. There are more microbial cells in your body than cells that have your own DNA. As NPR’s Robert Krulwich reported in 2006, the human body has 20 times more microbes than cells! I guess that pretty well justifies the “Imperial We.”

• Insects Outnumber Us

Perhaps that’s not so surprising since our own body’s microbes outnumber us too, but the scale is pretty humbling. There are more insects in just one square mile of fertile soil than there are human beings on the entire planet! Quite the delicacy in Asia…

• Space Resources We Could Put To Good Use

The interstellar gas cloud that comprises Sagittarius B contains a billion billion billion (yes, that’s three orders of billion) liters of alcohol. This factoid is bound to be a big hit at the pub!

• If Only We Could Plug Into It!

A cloud to ground bolt of lightning carries between 100 million and 1 billion volts. It can reach 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit - 3-4 times hotter than the surface of the sun!

• What Did He Say?

Radio waves travel so much faster than sound waves that a person listening to a campaign speech by radio broadcast can hear the words 18,000 kilometers away before a person sitting at the back of the convention hall where the politician is speaking!

• Good Old Dihydrogen Monoxide

The human body is about 60% water, which is 2/3 hydrogen. All the hydrogen - in our bodies and everywhere else in the universe - was created ~12 billion years ago in the Big Bang.

• No Burped Compliments to the Chef on the ISS

Astronauts in space cannot belch - without gravity, gas cannot separate from liquids in their stomachs.

• They’re Just Creatively Falling Down

Actually, there IS gravity in space. It’s just that astronauts in orbit are in a continual state of falling - gravity being equivalent to acceleration. There are no regions of space entirely without gravitational forces, just as there is no true vacuum in space - there are lots of loose atoms and particles out there.

• My, That’s a Funny-Looking Chicken

If the brain stem is left intact after beheading a chicken, it can continue to live (with some care in feeding). There is one documented case of a headless chicken living on for 18 months after he was supposed to have become Sunday dinner!

• Plants Have Family Values Too

Researchers from Canada found that plants can have complex social interactions despite being… um, vegetative. Plants will grow more aggressively near unrelated plants than when they grow near relatives from the same maternal family.

• The World’s Most Dangerous Animal

The not-so humble mosquito wins this award hands down. Mosquitoes transmitting countless diseases kill more animals - including humans - than any other animal (or plant) on Earth.

taken from:www.sciencenewsreview.com/50-weird-science-tidbits-you-probably-didnt-know