You're more likely to die on your way to buy a lottery ticket than you are to actually win the lottery.
We’ve all heard the adage “you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than to win the lottery.” Sounds grim. Apparently, it’s also more likely that you will die on the way to buying your lottery ticket than actually win the lottery.Of course this all depends on your mode of transportation to buy the ticket and the characteristics of the area where you buy it and even your demographics. It is true that you are more likely to die in a car accident than win though. The gist is that it’s very unlikely that you will win the lottery.Some other things that are more likely than winning the lottery? Dying from flesh-eating bacteria, dying from a bee sting, becoming a movie star, dying in a bathtub and having identical quadruplets.
Jellyfish evaporate in the sun. They're 98% water!
When jellyfish are in the water, they can be a bit intimidating. Their tentacles can pack a painful electrical shock. However, once they wash up on shore, they are anything but intimidating.It turns out that jellyfish are 98% water. Most are transparent and bell-shaped. If they end up on the beach, they will most likely evaporate in a few hours and mostly disappear.Jellyfish also don’t have brains, bones or a heart. They do have rudimentary sensory nerves though.
When you laugh while being tickled, what you are experiencing is actually a form of panic.
If you’re ticklish, you know the automatic laugh response that occurs when you are tickled. This can range from giggling to uncontrollable shrieks of laughter. However, your body is actually responding with panic and anxiety.This is actually the body’s defense mechanism. It is believed that the response is meant to protect you from dangerous things on your skin, such as poisonous insects. The body needs to react quickly to this unanticipated touch and does so with a panic response.
Yawning is contagious. Even thinking about yawning is enough. In fact, there's a 50% that you're about to, or just did, yawn.
Yawning is a reflex of simultaneous inhalation of air and stretching the ear drums followed by an exhalation of breath. It is linked to tiredness, boredom, overwork, stress and lack of stimulation. In humans, yawning is often triggered by others yawning around you.In this way, it is contagious. Interestingly enough, this contagiousness has also been observed in chimpanzees and dogs. So why is that when we see those around us yawning, we too want to yawn?Some studies have suggested that infectious yawning developed to keep groups of animals alert. The increase of oxygen to their brain will help ready them for action. Other studies have suggested that yawning is associated with the cooling of the brain.
Those stars and colours you see when you rub your eyes are called phosphenes.
Have you ever closed your eyes, rubbed them and seen stars? Or at least little pops of light? It turns out that those pops of light have a name: phosphenes.They are a phenomenon characterized by seeing light without light actually entering the eye. This rubbing mechanically stimulates the cells of the retina causing this effect. Sometimes, these phosphenes can still be seen for moments after you open your eyes.Meditators have also reported experiencing phosphenes, and they have actually been known since antiquity. Ancient Greeks described them. Other reasons people ‘see stars’ are because of sneezing, coughing, blowing your nose or receiving a blow to the head.
An elephant can die from a broken heart.
It turns out that elephants are highly emotional animals. They form close-knit relationships with one another and mourn the loss of loved ones. At times, if a fellow elephant dies, the others in the herd will gather around and pay their respects as if at a funeral.If a baby elephant loses its mother, it will grieve. The elephant will often become withdrawn and emaciated. Other members of the herd will gather around and nurse the orphan back to life. Elephants can form deep attachments with humans too.In one case, an elephant handler raised a baby elephant. She had to go away for a brief time to attend her daughter’s wedding. When she returned, she found that the baby elephant had died of a broken heart at her absence.
In Japan they have square watermelons.
They get square watermelons by growing them inside of square glass cases. That way they can fit easily into an overcrowded refrigerator, and you can stack things on them.Square watermelons are expensive though (10,000 yen or about $82). Compare that to regular round watermelons which cost about $15-20 in Japan.The square boxes they're grown in are the exact dimensions of Japanese refrigerators, which means they fit perfectly. At $82 each, these square watermelons probably wouldn't be too popular in the United States. Our solution for a lack of refrigerator space? Smaller, seedless watermelons.
A Rubik's cube has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible configurations.
With 6 colored sides, 21 pieces and 54 outer surfaces, there's a combined total of over 43quintillion different possible configurations. To put that into perspective: if you turned the Rubik's cube once every second it would take you1400 trillion yearsto finish to go through all the configurations.If you had started this project during the Big Bang, you still wouldn't be done yet.Another way to think about this is, if a person had as many Rubik's cubes as there were possible configurations, they could cover the surface of the Earth 275 times. And if one considers the number of configurations you could reach by disassembling and reassembling the cube, the number would be nearly 12 times that many.
Grapes EXPLODE when you put them in the microwave!
You may have heard of frozen grapes as a tasty snack, but what about heating grapes in the microwave? You probably shouldn't try this one. It turns out that grapes react very oddly when they're microwaved.Since grapes are full of moisture, when they are microwaved, that moisture turns to steam. If the stem is still attached to the grape and there is nowhere for the steam to escape, it will explode slightly and rupture the skin.If you place two grapes close together with their stem holes facing each other, some arcing and sparking will occur. If there is just a single grape with its stem hole open, it will let out a stream of steam. Good thing we don't serve grapes warm.
The total weight of all the ants on Earth is about the same as the weight of all the humans on earth.
Unless you leave food out and attract them, humans rarely have a need to think about ants. They're tiny, not poisonous and not particularly terrifying, like say, spiders. However, they far outnumber humans on earth--by one million to one!Funnily enough, they are also roughly a millionth of a human in size too. Do the math--the total weight of all the ants on earth matches the total weight of the entire human population.There are 10,000 different types of ants and they've been around for a long time. Ancients ants have been discovered in fossilized sap from 100 million years ago!Over time, ants have changed very little. Their way of life and survival is successful. Some scientists attribute this to their unselfish ways. Ants live in colonies and bring their prey back to their many relatives to share.
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