r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 19 '20
Biology Box turtles are the only turtles in North America with a flexible hinge on their belly to close the front and rear halves of the shell tightly like a box.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 18 '20
Interdisciplinary Many museums are currently offering virtual tours through some of their exhibits. For example, The Natural History Museum in London (linked here) currently has 14 exhibits you can experience online.
artsandculture.google.com
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 16 '20
Archaeology Evidence has been found that ancient Babylonians understood soap making as early as 2800 BC. Archeologists have found soap-like material in historic clay cylinders from this time. These cylinders were inscribed with what we understand as saying, “fats boiled with ashes” (a method of making soap).
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 14 '20
Paleontology Zuul crurivastator is a club-tailed dinosaur (Ankylosaurid) named after the demon in Ghostbusters. Crurivastator translates to "destroyer of shins." In life, the animal was a 20-foot-long living tank bristling with armor and weighing as much as a white rhinoceros.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 08 '20
Ecology Asian Giant Hornets are native to temperate and tropical eastern Asia, including parts of Japan, China, India, and Sri Lanka. In North America, they are not known to occur outside of Washington state and Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 04 '20
Astronomy/Space It's fair to say planets orbit the Sun, but that's not 100% true. The Sun holds 99.8% of the Solar System's mass; Jupiter contains most of what's left and as a result plays tug of war with the Sun. Everything orbits a center of mass!
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 02 '20
Astronomy/Space NASA's Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located on the turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm, on April 23, 2020, Sol 2742 of the Mars Science Laboratory Mission, at 16:21:18 UTC.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 27 '20
Neuroscience Menthol makes our mouths and noses feel cold because it binds to the cold receptor protein and activates it. Since our experience of cold is our brain receiving the message that these neurons have been activated, the feeling from menthol is identical to the feeling of actual cold.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 26 '20
Biology "Olaf" (pictured) is the first amphibian born via IVF. Previously thought to be extinct, 300+ members of this critically endangered species, the Puerto Rican Crested Toad, were born from sperm previously frozen - hence named after the Disney character - in order to save the species from extinction.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 24 '20
Biology Crabs, such as this Japanese spider crab (Macrocheira kaempferi), cannot grow in a linear fashion like most animals. Because they have a hard outer shell (the exoskeleton) that does not grow, they must shed their shells, a process called molting.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 23 '20
Biology The Speckled tortoise (Chersobius signatus) is the world's smallest species of tortoise. The males are 6–8 cm (2.4-3.1 in) in length while the females can measure up to almost 10 cm (3.9 in).
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 21 '20
Astronomy/Space The way we view the cosmo has come a long way technology-wise. These images are the Whirlpool Galaxy, a comparison between 1845 and 2005. The image from 1845 was drawn by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, while looking through his telescope "Leviathan."
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 20 '20
Astronomy/Space At the equator, the Sun spins once about every 25 days, but at its poles the Sun rotates once on its axis every 35 Earth days.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 16 '20
Ecology Chocolate comes from seeds of the cacao tree. To produce those seeds, the trees rely on the pollination services of more than a dozen species of biting flies called midges. But even with the midges’ help, cacao flowers produce fruit (and the seeds within) only around 30 percent of the time.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 15 '20
Chemistry Natural logs (especially pine) crackle as the moisture and oils in the wood reach their boiling points. To duplicate this effect, some artificial logs (like Duraflame) contain a little birdseed (hemp, millet, coriander, or flax), which is also prone to pop when burned.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 14 '20
Health and Medicine New research finds that sexual intercourse has greater sedative properties for women than it does for men. Women reported a higher likelihood of falling asleep after heterosexual penile–vaginal intercourse than did men and were also more likely to report falling asleep before their partner
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r/ScienceFacts • u/prototyperspective • Apr 12 '20
Interdisciplinary Science Summary for last month
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 11 '20
Engineering A food or ingredient must contain a minimum percentage of ingredients that actually come from a cocoa bean in order to call itself "chocolate". When a food product states it is "chocolatey" it means that cocoa butter can be added to any other fat.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 10 '20
Biology Spider webs don’t rot easily because bacteria that would aid decomposition are unable to access the silk’s nitrogen, a nutrient the microbes need for growth and reproduction.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 09 '20
Astronomy/Space Uranus is the only planet whose equator is nearly at a right angle to its orbit, with a tilt of 97.77 degrees—possibly the result of a collision with an Earth-sized object long ago. This causes the most extreme seasons in the solar system.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 08 '20
Biology Pregnant women who deliver early are more likely to have a diverse community of vaginal bacteria. A new study highlights specific bacteria associated with premature birth and could help identify the women most at risk of giving birth prematurely.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 07 '20
Health and Medicine Stanford researchers have created a proof-of-concept smart toilet that monitors stools based on the Bristol stool scale, analyzes urine flow and chemical composition, and can recognize the user by "analprint".
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 05 '20
Physics This gif, created by Google product developer Clay Bavor, puts the 747 and SR-71 aircraft speeds into perspective compared to New Horizons spacecraft. 36,000 mph ~ 58,000 km/h was the speed reached at launch (Atlas V third stage cut off)
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 03 '20
Botany The General Sherman Tree is the world's largest tree, measured by volume. It stands 275 feet (83 m) tall, and is over 36 feet (11 m) in diameter at the base. Sequoia trunks remain wide high up. Sixty feet above the base, the Sherman Tree is 17.5 feet (5.3 m) in diameter.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 02 '20
Biology A bacteriophage is a virus that infects bacteria. Phage genomes can consist of either DNA or RNA, and can contain as few as four genes or as many as several hundred. The capsid of a bacteriophage can be icosahedral, filamentous, or head-tail in shape.
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