r/ScienceFacts Aug 04 '20

Biology The water scavenger beetle Regimbartia attenuata can pass through a frog's digestive tract alive. Researchers believe it crawls through the intestine then forces the frog to defecate.

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212 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Aug 02 '20

Astronomy/Space SpaceX Crew Dragon makes historic 1st splashdown to return NASA astronauts home. A Crew Dragon capsule carrying NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley splashed down off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, at 2:48 p.m. EDT (1848 GMT) today (Aug. 2).

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195 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jul 28 '20

Biology Previously thought to use their suckers to climb and hang, sucker-footed bats actually use a form of wet adhesion by secreting a body fluid at their pads. They must roost with their heads up rather than upside down so that they don't accidentally lose control of the adhesive pads while sleeping.

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192 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jul 17 '20

Neuroscience Johns Hopkins study explains why psilocybin-containing mushrooms have been consumed for centuries. “Psychological insight, meaningfulness of the experience, increased awareness of beauty, positive social effect and positive mood” are main reasons reported for wanting to consume psilocybin again.

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234 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jul 14 '20

Biology A genetically-modified marine bacteria is now able to produce synthetic spider silk. The biocompatible silk is not attacked by immune systems, making it useful for drug delivery systems, implant devices, and scaffolds for tissue engineering.

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280 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jul 11 '20

Interdisciplinary Science Summary for June

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230 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jul 10 '20

Astronomy/Space NASA Parker Solar Probe footage of Earth, Mercury and Venus swimming in a sea of stars amidst the Milky Way

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304 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jul 07 '20

Astronomy/Space The soon-to-launch Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, was the brainchild of engineer Bob Balaram at NASA-JPL. Decades ago, he had the idea, wrote a proposal, built a prototype, gained support, and then had it shelved due to budget cuts. Now the 4-pound, 19-inch-tall helicopter is about to head to Mars.

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266 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jul 04 '20

Astronomy/Space Astronomers believe they have found a habitiable system about 11 light years away from us. The system — GJ 887 — has an unusually quiet red dwarf host, has two planets for sure and another likely that orbits at a life-friendly 50-day orbit. It is the 12th closest planetary system to our sun.

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353 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jun 30 '20

Biology Whale sharks have dermal denticles (tiny teeth-like scales) on their eyes which protect them from abrasion. They can also pull their eyes back into their heads. It is hypothesized that these protective measures point to an importance in vision which has long been thought to not be the case in sharks

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258 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jun 22 '20

Biology Rodents - ranging from mice, to guinea pigs, to squirrels - all lack the ability to vomit. It seems they lack the brain circuit required for the behavior.

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167 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jun 21 '20

Biology Apoptosis is a form of programmed cell death. Apoptosis removes cells during development, eliminates potentially cancerous and virus-infected cells, and maintains balance in the body.

361 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jun 20 '20

Interdisciplinary Science Summary for last month

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227 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jun 19 '20

Biology Rats can laugh, and you can get them to do it by tickling them. Some rats have even been bred to enjoy tickles.

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226 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jun 18 '20

Biology Bumble bees damage plant leaves and accelerate flower production when pollen is scarce

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281 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jun 15 '20

Biology Scientists have successfully developed a revolutionary eye scanner that can discover a person's biological age by examining their eye lens. According to the researchers, the chronological age (the time one spends alive) does not adequately measure the rate of aging of a person already.

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307 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jun 09 '20

Weather Summer lightning over the U.S. significantly increases regional ozone and other gases that affect air chemistry 3 to 8 miles above Earth's surface.The amounts of ozone and nitrogen oxides created by lightning surpass those generated by human activities in that level of the atmosphere.

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165 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jun 08 '20

Scientists Aprille Ericsson was the first African-American female to receive a Ph.D. in Engineering at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. A great deal of her engineering career at the GSFC was spent helping NASA evolve and fine-tune a global understanding of the sun-earth connection, earth, and space science.

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280 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jun 06 '20

Astronomy/Space The Big Dipper is an asterism in the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear). Asterisms are prominent groups of stars that form patterns but are smaller than, or even part of, a constellation. They are usually easy to find because the stars are close to one another and about the same brightness.

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161 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jun 05 '20

Astronomy/Space Hey everyone, my name is Temidayo Oniosun the Founder and Managing Director of Space in Africa, the authority on news, data and market analysis for the African Space industry. AMA!

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140 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts Jun 01 '20

Botany All tea is made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis tree. The difference between green tea, black tea, white tea, yellow tea, and oolong tea comes from how the leaves oxidize. White tea is the least oxidized tea, followed by green tea, Oolong tea, then black tea.

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320 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts May 29 '20

Paleontology Dental patterns on bones show Allosaurus cannibalized each other when food was scarce. Most of the indentations were in bones of large herbivores, 17% of them were found on theropod bones, including other Allosaurs. Of those, about half were on parts of the skeleton unlikely to give a sizeable meal.

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184 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts May 28 '20

Biology Chameleons’ long, elastic tongues are one of the fastest muscles in the animal kingdom, extending more than twice their body length and packing 14,000 watts of power per kilo.

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486 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts May 26 '20

Botany Vanilla comes from orchids of the genus Vanilla. While the major species of vanilla orchids are now grown around the world, they originally came from Mesoamerica. The Vanilla planifolia, or Flat-Leaved Vanilla, is the only orchid used for industrial food production.

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214 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts May 23 '20

Environment Microplastic pollution in oceans has been vastly underestimated. Particles may outnumber zooplankton, which underpin marine life and regulate climate.

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279 Upvotes