For more fascinating science facts, check out our science books.
How About This!
- When someone sneezes, they send over 100,000 bacteria through the air at 100 miles per hour. Researchers think the manner in which one sneezes can reveal a great deal about their personality. If a sneeze is large, loud, and powerful, the person is usually talkative, outgoing, charismatic, social and inquisitive. If a sneeze is muffled, restrained, quiet, and polite, then the person is typically warm, friendly, and works hard to avoid conflict.
- The earliest grass fossils were discovered by scientists to be about 55 million years old. Scientists have found fossilized dung which revealed that grass was part of plant eating dinosaurs' diet approximately 70 million years ago. This is shocking because not only did scientists not believe that grass existed until after the dinosaur era, but most scientists have assumed that dinosaurs did not have the proper teeth to grind and digest grass.
- In 2005, a French woman whose face was deformed following a dog attack, underwent a face transplant to restore her features. Instead of undergoing four or five conventional reconstructive surgeries, the woman's face was restored in just one face transplant surgery.
During the surgery, doctors took the lips, nose, and chin of a donor and attached the blood vessels in the woman's face to the blood vessels of the donor tissue. The nerves were then attached to the muscles, and the lining of the mouth was sewn into the skin. The skin from the nose to the chin was also sewn into the face. This operations took around 15 hours in Lyon, France. - The next time you look at a grasshopper, look closely at its knees. Unlike most other animals that have their eyes, nose, mouth, and ears on the heads, a grasshopper has its ears on its knees. In fact, they are actually modified ear drums that can sense movement in the air.
- The living part of a tree is a thin layer of cells beneath the bark. As the tree grows outward, new cells replace the old and the dead inner cells eventually become the wood that supports the tree.
