Mind-blowing facts about the world that most people do not know.
1. How many times does your heart beat in an average lifetime?
💡 Your heart beats approximately 2.5 billion times in an average 70-year lifetime! It beats about 100,000 times per day pumping around 7,600 liters of blood. The heart never takes a day off!
2. Which country consumes the most tea per person in the world?
💡 Turkey is the world's biggest tea consumer per capita, drinking about 3.5 kg per person per year! The UK only ranks around 5th. Turkish black tea called cay is a central part of daily culture.
3. How many hearts does an octopus have?
💡 Octopuses have 3 hearts! Two branchial hearts pump blood through the gills and one systemic heart circulates it through the body. Their blood is also blue due to copper-based hemocyanin.
4. If you remove a starfish arm what happens?
💡 Starfish have incredible regenerative powers! Not only can they regrow a lost arm but the severed arm itself can regenerate an entire new body and become a complete new starfish given enough time.
5. How old is the oldest known living tree in the world?
💡 A Bristlecone pine named Methuselah in California is over 5,000 years old — the oldest known living tree. It was already 3,000 years old when the Egyptian pyramids were being built! Its exact location is kept secret to protect it.
6. What is the shortest war in recorded history and how long did it last?
💡 The Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 lasted only 38 to 45 minutes! It began at 9am when British ships opened fire on the Sultan's palace. Zanzibar surrendered before 10am making it history's shortest war.
7. How long is a day on Venus compared to a year on Venus?
💡 A day on Venus (243 Earth days to rotate once) is actually longer than a year on Venus (225 Earth days to orbit the Sun). This means on Venus the Sun rises only once every Venusian year!
8. What color is a polar bear's skin under its white fur?
💡 Polar bears have black skin under their apparently white fur. The fur is actually transparent and hollow reflecting light to appear white. The black skin absorbs warmth from sunlight efficiently.
9. What common word did we get from the Arabic word for "sky"?
💡 The word "azure" (meaning bright blue) comes from the Arabic "lazaward" referring to lapis lazuli stone and the sky. Many English words came from Arabic during the medieval period including algebra, alcohol, and cotton.
10. What percentage of all species that have ever existed on Earth are now extinct?
💡 Scientists estimate that over 99% of all species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct! Earth has experienced 5 mass extinction events. The current biodiversity crisis is sometimes called the 6th mass extinction.