Most grownups think they’ve got it all figured out.
Life experiences may have made them more street-savvy, but when it comes to science, it turns out we all still have plenty to learn.
We never stop learning, and isn’t that a wonderful thing?
Redditors were intellectually stimulated when Redditor jdgiabajwbdidb asked:
“What is a science fact that not many people know that will change the way they look at life?”
How well do we know the species with whom we share our planet?
The Thing About Elephants
“Elephants are known to bury their dead under foliage and remain with the bodies for some time afterwards, exhibiting behaviour not dissimilar to human mourning.”
“Indeed, it is the association of apparent grief or mourning that is considered to indicate a ‘burial’, as opposed to simply covering up or disposing of a body.”
“I also read somewhere that they have buried humans.” – ErrorCodeTaken
The Thing About Spiders
“Not a single Tarantula species is able to kill you with venom, so if you see a big hairy boi just know, it can’t kill you, not yet, also link to a picture of my escaped Tarantula” – MeGaPP-_-
The Thing About Mosquitos
“Most people know that the mosquito is the deadliest animal when it comes to total human deaths ever. Next to humans of course.”
“And this is due to the malaria parasite spread by mosquitoes. It is estimated that four to five per cent of all humans that have ever lived died from malaria (rather than half as some sources state).”
“The treatment for malaria is quinine, which was known since the 1700’s. This is often contained in tonic water, which is bitter and not that palatable.”
“The anecdotal story is that during the days of British colonization of India, the British East India Company had of course problems with malaria.”
“Drinking tonic water was not popular with the British, so what’d they do? add booze, i.e. gin. And this is where you get gin and tonic.”
“Of course modern research has shown that the amounts of tonic water you’d need is quite large (~1 liter for a minimal effect) to make that story apocryphal at best (although I know some people who probably managed to meet the necessary quota to ward of malaria).”
“But it is interesting to think that we managed to make the treatment for one of the worst disease humanity has known into a cocktail.”
“What is real though is that malaria can be used to treat syphilis. Malaria causes a high fever which kills the syphilis bacteria.”
“In fact, Dr Julius Wagner-Jauregg received the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1927 for this discovery (but he later became a hardcore Nazi and eugenisist. Of course we no longer use this because the mortality rate was 15%, but this was much lower than the death rate for syphilis.”
“Unfortunately, many parts of the world still suffer from malaria, where it is still a major killer.” – monkeypie1234
We have lived on one planet our entire lives and yet there are many facts about our home that elude us.
The Thing About H20
“Water does not innately conduct electricity, it is all the dissolved stuff that allow electricity to pass through it.”
“Water is fascinating stuff.” – Nicholi417
The Thing About Tremors
“Earthquakes can happen literally everywhere on Earth, however humans rarely feel anything below a 2.5 in magnitude.” – botchman
The Thing About Our Atmosphere
“The Amazon Rainforest isn’t actually the lungs of Earth.”
“Almost all the Oxygen generated by the Amazon is used by the life found in the Amazon.”
“40% of Earth’s oxygen is actually produced by tiny Organisms called Diatoms.”
“These organisms can replicate at an incredible rate and trillions of them spread throughout the Oceans and create Oxygen through photosynthesis.”
“When the Diotoms die they transform into underwater snowflakes that remain on the sea floor.”
“When these seas dry up, the dead Diatoms create a salt desert, like the one in Northern Africa.”
“Huge sandstorms pick the Diotoms up and carry them across the Oceans and drop them down on the Amazon and are used as a fertilizer for the rainforest.”
“Where are Diatoms born? The rainforest, they spread to the sea, create Oxygen through photosynthesis, die, create salt deserts, get taken back to the rain forest and help create the rainforest that creates them.”
“That’s the circle of life right there.” – LordTopley
The Thing About Our Celestial Neighbor
“On average, Mercury is the nearest planet to every planet in our solar system.” – MoguoTheMoogle
We already know we are very complex organisms.
But just how complex is our species?
Keep reading.
The Thing About Our Ancestry
“Everyone on earth is at least 50th cousin with everyone else on earth.”
“And if you are currently dating or married to somebody who is from your own country and is of your own ethnicity, there’s a one in five chance that the two of you share a common family member fewer than 10 generations ago.”
“Happy investing!” – ArmstrongBillie
The Thing About Our Flesh
“That the human skin Is quite heavy Its around 16% of your body weight.” – Idontknowtbhsss
“The first cellular life derived from highly complicated chemical reactions in inert matter. Thus, you could say, that all matter tends towards complication: and once a level of complexity is reached it is then ‘considered alive’.”
“This being true would indicate over time that most atoms in the world, including the ones that make you up, have transitioned through of living systems and inert matter, and if not bound by time, complex information tends towards constructing life, thereby, all matter in the universe could have been potentially alive during its existence before being broken down again—simplified—returning to non life, in a cycle that repeats infinitely.”
“We got stuff from stars in us. And you won’t be remembered but the matter you give life to will exist for unknowable trillions of years, potentially becoming the same matter in another being.” – jert3
The Thing About Our View Of The World
“The retinas of our eyes capture things ‘upside down’. Our brains correct for it and turns the image ‘the right way up’.” – lardill
One fascinating factoid I learned was that we had more bones when we were born.
We basically had 300 bones with cartilage between them, making us flexible enough to pass through the birth canal.
As we grow older, our skeletal bodies end up with 206 bones, as many of them fuse together through our early rapid development.
When you think about it, our mere existence is, in itself, a true miracle.