Interesting science facts for kids. The most interesting facts in nature, science and technology

Newborns typically have about 270 bones, most of which are very small. This makes the skeleton more flexible and helps the baby pass through the birth canal and grow quickly. As we grow older, many of these bones fuse together. The adult human skeleton consists on average of 200–213 bones.

2. The Eiffel Tower grows 15 centimeters in summer

The huge structure is built with temperature expansion joints, allowing the steel to expand and contract without any damage.

When steel heats up, it begins to expand and takes up more volume. This is called thermal expansion. Conversely, a drop in temperature leads to a decrease in volume. For this reason, large structures, such as bridges, are built with expansion joints that allow them to change in size without damage.

3. 20% of oxygen comes from the Amazon rainforest

The Amazon rainforest covers 5.5 million square kilometers. The Amazon jungle produces a significant portion of the oxygen on Earth, absorbing huge amounts of carbon dioxide, which is why they are often called the lungs of the planet.

4. Some metals are so reactive that they explode even when in contact with water.

Some metals and compounds - potassium, sodium, lithium, rubidium and cesium - exhibit increased chemical activity, so they can ignite with lightning speed when in contact with air, and if they are placed in water, they can even explode.

5. A teaspoon of a neutron star would weigh 6 billion tons.

Neutron stars are the remains of massive stars, consisting mainly of a neutron core covered with a relatively thin (about 1 km) crust of matter in the form of heavy atomic nuclei and electrons. The cores of stars that died during a supernova explosion were compressed under the influence of gravity. This is how super-dense neutron stars were formed. Astronomers have found that the mass of neutron stars can be comparable to the mass of the Sun, although their radius does not exceed 10–20 kilometers.

6. Every year, Hawaii gets 7.5 cm closer to Alaska.

The earth's crust consists of several huge parts - tectonic plates. These plates are constantly moving along with the upper layer of the mantle. Hawaii is located in the middle part of the Pacific Plate, which is slowly drifting northwest toward the North American Plate, on which Alaska is located. Tectonic plates move at the same speed as human fingernails grow.

7. In 2.3 billion years, Earth will be too hot to support life.

Our planet will eventually become an endless desert, similar to today's Mars. Over hundreds of millions of years, the Sun has warmed up, become brighter and hotter, and will continue to do so. In more than two billion years, temperatures will be so high that the oceans that make Earth habitable will evaporate. The entire planet will turn into an endless desert. As scientists predict, in the next few billion years the Sun will turn into a red giant and completely engulf the Earth - the planet will definitely come to an end.

Thermal imagers are able to identify an object by the heat it emits. And polar bears are experts at staying warm. Thanks to the thick layer subcutaneous fat and a warm fur coat, bears are able to withstand even the coldest days in the Arctic.

9. Light will take 8 minutes 19 seconds to travel from the Sun to the Earth

It is known that the speed of light is 300,000 kilometers per second. But even at such breakneck speed, it will take time to cover the distance between the Sun and Earth. And 8 minutes is not so much on a cosmic scale. To reach Pluto sunlight it will take 5.5 hours.

10. If you remove all the interatomic space, humanity will fit in a sugar cube

In fact, more than 99.9999% of an atom is empty space. An atom consists of a tiny, dense nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons, which occupy proportionately more space. This is because electrons move in waves. They can only exist where the crests and troughs of the waves are formed in a certain way. Electrons do not remain at one point; their location can be anywhere within the orbit. And therefore they take up a lot of space.

11. Stomach juice can dissolve razor blades

The stomach digests food thanks to the caustic hydrochloric acid with a high pH (hydrogen index) content - from two to three. But at the same time, the acid also affects the gastric mucosa, which, however, can quickly recover. The lining of your stomach is completely renewed every four days.

Scientists have many versions of why this happens. The most likely: due to huge asteroids that influenced its course in the past, or due to strong circulation of air currents in upper layers atmosphere.

13. A flea can accelerate faster than the space shuttle

Flea jumps reach mind-boggling heights - 8 centimeters per millisecond. Each jump gives the flea an acceleration 50 times greater than the acceleration of the spacecraft.

What interesting facts do you know?

1. Raindrops are usually depicted in the form of a tear, but this is not the case. They have a spherical shape.

2. During the process of sublimation, a solid substance turns directly into a gas, bypassing the liquid state. For example, this will happen if you throw dry ice into a fire.

3. Gorillas sleep in nests - they make them from soft foliage and curved branches. Males, as a rule, place their nests on the ground, and females - in trees.

4. Champagne fizzes not because of the carbon dioxide in it - it fizzes because of the contact of the gas with dirt and dust. In a completely smooth glass without a single molecule of dust, champagne would not fizz at all.

5. Most of The digestion process occurs not in the stomach, but in the small intestine. This is why a person can suffer from bulimia and remain overweight for some time.

6. The red juice that comes out of the steak is not blood. This is myoglobin - a close relative of blood. By the time the steak hits the counter, there's barely a drop of blood left in it.

7. For those who want to contribute to conservation environment, it is better to use plastic bags rather than paper bags. Manufacturing process The production and processing of paper bags requires significantly more energy than the production of plastic. And in a landfill, paper bags take up significantly more space.

8. Polar bears' fur is actually transparent and not white as it appears. And the skin is black, not white. And in a warm, humid environment, fur polar bear may turn greenish due to algae.

9. Allergies to pets, as a rule, are not caused by animal hair, as is commonly believed, but by particles of their dead skin or saliva. Regularly washing your pet thoroughly can help relieve allergy symptoms.

10. The map of the tongue, according to which sour, sweet, salty and bitter tastes are perceived by different zones of the tongue, is considered incorrect. This theory was debunked in 1901 by German scientists, who based their proof on the fact that any taste is recognized by any zone of the tongue, based on practical experiments.

11. Many people put a shell to their ear to hear the sea. The sound you hear is actually noise own blood in the veins! You can use any cup-shaped object to hear this effect.

12. While a person is alive, his brain is Pink colour. Only after the brain dies does it turn gray. Therefore, describing the brain as “gray matter” is a little misleading.

13. Mercury is not the only one liquid metal. Gallium, Cesium and Francium are metals that are in a solid state when room temperature, but even in the hand they begin to melt from the temperature of the human body.

14. Dolphins do not drink sea water. It can make them sick or even die. They satisfy all their drinking needs by consuming food containing liquid.

Why wasn't a Canadian study on the effects of watching pornography on your sex life completed?

In 2009, scientists from the University of Montreal attempted to conduct a study on the impact of watching pornography on the sex lives of men aged 20 to 30 years. As part of this, 20 men were interviewed. However, the goal was not achieved, since scientists could not find a single man who had never seen porn to make comparisons.

Physicists Ralph Alpher and Georgiy Gamow before the publication of their work on primordial nucleosynthesis - formation chemical elements during big bang- they invited Hans Bethe as a co-author only so that their surnames would form beautiful combination from the first three letters of the Greek alphabet. For the sake of brevity, the scientific community calls this article “αβγ paper.” Some calculations for the work were carried out on a computer by Ralph Herman, who was offered to change his last name to Delter and also be included in the list of authors, but he refused.

In which institution of besieged Leningrad did employees die of hunger, having access to bread and potatoes?

Founded by Nikolai Vavilov, the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing at the beginning of the Second World War had the world's most extensive collection of seeds of more than one hundred thousand plant samples. During the siege of Leningrad, the institute’s staff made heroic efforts to preserve the collection in the absence of electricity and interruptions in heating. In the winter of 1941-1942 alone, five Virov residents died of hunger because they refused to consider the reserves of cereals and potatoes as food. And in the summer, employees managed to sow the necessary samples under artillery fire. Rats got into some boxes, and there were thefts through broken windows, but overall these losses were insignificant for the collection.

Which concept promotes the absence of conflicts between faith and the theory of evolution?

Among followers of various faiths there are many adherents of theistic evolutionism. This concept recognizes the scientific view of the origin of the Universe, the origin of life on Earth and evolution, but driving force these processes are announced by God. Theistic evolutionists explain inconsistencies in religious texts (for example, the creation of the world by God in 6 days) by the fact that in the light of indisputable evidence of modern scientific theories religious texts must be interpreted not literally, but allegorically. Of all the faiths, theistic evolutionism received the most consistent and official support from the Catholic Church: back in the mid-20th century, Pope Pius XII stated that evolution should be considered a serious hypothesis, and in 1996 John Paul II said that it is more than a hypothesis, and that between There is no contradiction between the theory of evolution and the doctrine of faith.

What Catholic priests did scientific discoveries, contradictory religious dogmas?

Among Catholics there are many scientists who have made discoveries that directly contradict religious dogmas. Moreover, they were not just believers, but also served as priests. The most famous such person is Nicolaus Copernicus, he served as a canon in the diocese of Warmia and became famous for his theory of the heliocentric system of the universe. Catholic Church subsequently banned his teaching and censored his works. Another example from the 20th century is the Belgian Georges Lemaitre, who received the rank of abbot and worked at many universities. He became the author of the theory of the expanding universe, independently of the Soviet mathematician Friedman, and subsequently his reasoning formed the basis of the Big Bang theory.

What is being studied in the longest continuous laboratory experiment in history?

In 1927, Thomas Parnell, a professor at the Australian University of Queensland, conducted an experiment to demonstrate to students the liquid properties of bitumen tar, a substance that is solid in its normal state. After heating the resin, he poured it into a sealed glass funnel and closed the top, and three years later he cut off the bottom of the funnel, allowing droplets to form. The first drop fell in 1938, the next ones fell at approximately the same interval - a total of 9 drops have been recorded to date. This experience is considered the longest continuous laboratory experiment in history.

Who and how proved that described in Old Testament Is the exodus of Jews from Egypt theoretically possible?

American scientists at computer model proved the theoretical possibility of the exodus of Jews from Egypt. As described in the book of Exodus, Moses led his people to the place where they parted sea ​​waters. Computer calculations have shown that in one place in the Nile Delta a passage with walls of water on either side can form if the wind blows in a certain direction at a speed of 100 km/h for 12 hours.

How did Mendeleev discover the periodic law?

There is a widespread legend that the idea of ​​the periodic table of chemical elements came to Mendeleev in a dream. One day he was asked if this was true, to which the scientist replied: “I’ve been thinking about it for maybe twenty years, but you think: I sat there and suddenly... it’s ready.”

Why is spinach overrated for its iron content?

In terms of iron content - 2.7 mg per 100 grams - spinach is not a record holder among vegetables. However for a long time Spinach was believed to be exceptionally rich in iron. This misconception arose in the late 19th century from two sources. One American researcher came up with a figure of 2.9 mg, but forgot to put a decimal point, and the published study read 29 mg. Independently, a scientist from Switzerland announced an even higher figure - 35 mg, but he obtained this result based on an analysis of dry spinach. The error was discovered only half a century later.

What science is often called "the science of sophomores and white rats"?

Psychology is sometimes called "the science of sophomores and white rats" because many experiments are conducted on these two categories. Most research psychologists work in universities, so it is easiest for them to attract students for research.

Whose Nobel medals were hidden from the Nazis in dissolved form?

IN Nazi Germany adoption was prohibited Nobel Prize after the Peace Prize was awarded to the opponent of National Socialism, Karl von Ossietzky, in 1935. German physicists Max von Laue and James Frank entrusted the custody of their gold medals to Niels Bohr. When the Germans occupied Copenhagen in 1940, the chemist de Hevesy dissolved these medals in aqua regia. After the end of the war, de Hevesy extracted the gold hidden in the aqua regia and donated it to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. New medals were made there and re-presented to von Laue and Frank.

What are the dangers of using dihydrogen monoxide?

Since the 1990s, calls to ban the use of dihydrogen monoxide have frequently appeared on websites and in mailing lists. They list the numerous dangers that this substance causes: it is the main component of acid rain, accelerates the corrosion of metals, can cause short circuits, etc. Despite the danger, the substance is actively used as an industrial solvent, additive to food products, at nuclear power plants, and enterprises dump it into huge quantities into rivers and seas. This joke - after all, dihydrogen monoxide is nothing more than water - should teach critical perception of information. In 2007, a New Zealand MP bought into it. He received a similar letter from a constituent and forwarded it to the government, demanding that the dangerous chemical be banned.