Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the Great Pyramid
We tend to picture Cleopatra and the pyramids side by side, but the pyramids were already ancient when she ruled. Her life sits nearer to the Moon landing on the…
The point on Earth closest to space is not Mount Everest
Everest is the highest mountain above sea level, but measure from the centre of the Earth and a volcano in Ecuador wins by more than two kilometres.
Tardigrades survived 12 days exposed to open space
They are barely a millimetre long, yet water bears have survived a trip outside a spacecraft. An experiment in 2007 showed the vacuum of space was no problem for them.
Honeybees give directions to food with a dance
Inside a dark hive, a forager bee can tell her sisters which way to fly and how far to go. The code she uses earned a share of a Nobel…
Octopuses have three hearts and blue blood
Two hearts for the gills, one for everything else, and blood that runs blue. Here is how an octopus keeps oxygen moving, and why that design comes with a weakness.
The first computer bug was a real moth
Engineers had called glitches bugs since the 1870s. In 1947 a team at Harvard found a literal one inside their computer, and the logbook page is now in the Smithsonian.
Lake Baikal holds about a fifth of Earth’s unfrozen fresh surface water
One lake in Siberia is older, deeper and fuller than any other on Earth. Its age has also turned it into a laboratory of evolution, with life found nowhere else.
The solar system’s largest volcano stands on Mars
Olympus Mons on Mars is the largest known volcano in the solar system.
Saturn is less dense than water on average
Saturn's average density is lower than that of liquid water, making it the least dense planet in our solar system.
The Moon is slowly moving away from Earth
The Moon is receding from Earth by about 3.8 centimetres per year, largely because of tidal interactions.
The General Sherman Tree is the world’s largest by trunk volume
The General Sherman giant sequoia is considered the world's largest living single-stem tree by trunk volume, although it is not the tallest tree.
Hummingbirds can hover and fly backward
Hummingbirds are capable of sustained hovering and can fly backward as well as forward.
Earth’s longest mountain range is hidden beneath the ocean
The mid-ocean ridge is the longest mountain range on Earth, stretching roughly 65,000 kilometres across the planet.
Corals are animals, not underwater plants
Corals are invertebrate animals, and many reefs are built by colonies of tiny creatures called polyps.
On Venus, one rotation takes longer than a year
Venus takes about 243 Earth days to rotate once, but about 225 Earth days to orbit the Sun.
Dung beetles use the Milky Way to steer at night
On dark, moonless nights African dung beetles keep their dung balls rolling in a straight line by following the band of light from the Milky Way overhead.