The beautiful rings of Saturn are not solid bands. The rings are comprised of individual dust and ice particles that range in size from microscopic to many feet long.
Contrary to what you learned in grade school, there are four states of matter, not three. Solid, liquid, gas, and plasma are the four states of matter you see every day.
Searing meat does not keep it moist. Searing will create a nice brown crust that is rich in flavor and can actually remove moisture.
The Hollywood Blockbuster "The Core" would have you believe that Earth's center is molten liquid. In fact, Earth's core is a dense sphere of nickel and iron with a diameter of about 700 miles.
Surprise: Killer whales are more closely related to dolphins than other whales.
Although most of us have experienced gravity only in the downward direction, gravity is not a downward force. Simply put, gravity sucks! And it sucks in all directions and dimensions.
Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a flavor enhancer in many foods and is safe to ingest. MSG is often associated with Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, which describes a series of undesirable side effects like numbness at the back of the neck and a general sense of weakness. Eating to excess is more likely to cause these symptoms than consuming MSG.
Though the futuristic Pixar film "Wall-E" implies it, Twinkies do not have an infinite shelf life. It's actually about 45 days.
Back in the day, sailors used the north star, Polaris, for navigation not because of its brightness but because it is the only star that does not appear to move over night. Polaris is not a single star, but is a triple-star system. None of these stars are even in the top 10 of the brightest stars in our night sky.
Contrary to popular belief, house flies do not have a life span of 24 hours. So, if you think it's better to wait for your uninvited house mate to die instead of chasing it down, think again. The common house fly can live for up to a month!
One dog year is not equivalent to seven human years. Dogs age most quickly during the first two years and after that it depends on the dog's breed. For some dog breeds, one year is equivalent to a 14-year-old human.
Not all tequila should come with a worm at the bottom. Only certain types of mezcals, another type of alcohol made from the agave plant, contain the worm — and it's actually an indication of low-quality alcohol or a marketing trick. The worm is a moth larva, and its presence indicates infestation.
Gun silencers cannot muffle the sound of an exploding weapon to a whisper. While it does work to muffle the weapon, the result is about as loud as a police siren, which is still one hundred times less loud than the gunfire without a silencer.
Dropping a penny from the Empire State building won't kill someone. The penny will top out at 50 miles per hour, which isn't fast enough to kill.
Black holes are not actually the color black. They look black when we observe them because they emit no form of visible light. One of the only ways we know black holes exist is because of the gravitational pull they have on stars that otherwise appear to be orbiting empty space.
The idea that T-Rex dinosaurs never used their baby forearms for anything isn't true. Research suggests that the males used their arms to pin down a fellow female during mating.
Although it is the closest planet to our sun, Mercury is not the hottest planet in the solar system. With an average surface temperature of 864 degrees Fahrenheit, Venus can melt lead and is the hottest planet in our solar system.
There's a common misconception that Albert Einstein was a terrible student in grade school and even failed mathematics. On the contrary, Einstein once said, "Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus."
Don't hesitate to wake sleepwalkers. They'll be fine, and you might even save them from injury by tripping over something while sleepwalking.
Ostriches do not stick their heads in the sand when threatened. Actually they don't bury their heads at all. When threatened, ostriches flop on the ground and play dead.
Contrary to countless sci-fi movie endings, there is no fire in outer space. Fire needs oxygen to exist, and there is no oxygen in space. Below is a scene from Star Trek III.
Blondes and redheads are not "going extinct." Genes do not go extinct. Recessive genes, like the gene for red or blonde hair color, can be carried from generation to generation without emerging as a hair color.
Car tires do not protect you from getting electrocuted if your car is struck by lightning. It's actually your car's metal frame that conducts the electricity straight to the ground.
Unless you're one of the 1% of Americans who suffer from Celiac disease, gluten probably won't have a negative effect on you. So go ahead and eat that bagel, because studies show that you're going to get bloating and gas regardless of your gluten-free diet.
When our Sun reaches the end of its life in about four billion years, it will not explode, contrary to popular belief. It will slowly expand, eventually swallowing Earth in the process.
There's a myth that sunflower heads track the Sun as it moves across the sky throughout the day. Although sunflower heads are fixed, their buds do indeed track the sun before they bloom, and the resulting direction the heads face is a result of this behavior.
Daddy longlegs spiders (Pholcus phalangioides) can, in fact, pierce human skin with their small mouths. But don't worry, although they are the most venomous spider in the world, the small amount of venom they carry will cause only a mild burning sensation for a few seconds and nothing more.
Macintosh computers are not immune to viruses. You can find a list of "The Ten Most Dangerous Mac Viruses" on securitywatch.pcmag.com. About 80% of the computer industry is ruled by Windows, so hackers are merely attacking the majority.
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#2 Solid, Fluid (Gas & Liquid) and Plasma. That's what I was taught in school. Three.
#4 Outer core - made of liquid; Inner core - made of metal, through a cvasi-deposition process, the inner core is solid, even though it is much hotter than the outer core, due to gigantic pressure.
#21 One can argue that this is due to the oxygen inside the ship itself. One can, but should not.
Lastly, #6 is tough to debate. Let's just say it's not Gravity, it's the Centripetal Force.
can you explain me this so?--> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFFAcHQE8xg
Thanks for the laugh, and for many other "facts" here!
@jubyp0b,
not sure i agree with you on #6. gravity bends time and space as well as matter, as the quote said. AFAIK "centripetal" does not cover that full meaning.
Regarding #6, the Centripetal is actually the one that does the "pulling" or "sucking", depending how you wish to look at it. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centripetal_force#Sources_of_centripetal_force
Gravity in itself is a weak force. In relativity, a proven theory, Gravity does bend space and time on a macroscopic scale, but Quantum Mechanics and Particle Physics are also proven to be correct. Quantum Gravity is the missing link between the two.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gravity
It has not yet been proven due to the lack of Gravitons - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation been discovered.
Most other ofrces, if not all, have been attributed to their corresponding bosons - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boson.
It's quite a difficult read if you wish to fully understand the concepts and quite a handful, as well.
If you know more, or wish to correct me, be my guest.
Cheers.
re: 'weak force',
gravity is the weakest of the four elemental forces AFAIK. yet its net effects seem to pile up most spectacularly, it seems.
re: 'missing link',
oh, come on... you and i both know that it's an area still heavily and hotly debated, and is pretty much the holy grail of many fields at this point.
In regard to the Centripetal Force, Gravity is Centripetal Force - for objects in orbit. Gravitation acts upon a celestial body and gives said body the Centripetal Force necessary to have an elliptical movement around the center of gravity.
Gravity is the primary force that drives our Universe at a macroscopic scale - due to the lack of gravity affecting uneven numbers of protons and electrons (electromagnetic force) and due to the lack of waves and massless elementary particles, it is dominant at macroscopic scales. Not at a quantified level, though. That is, indeed, the holy grail of a "Theory of Everything" - a possible theory that would encompass both Particle / Quantum Physics and General or Special Relativity.
Speaking of Relativity - it has proven the flaws of Newton's Classical Gravity formula and discrepancies in the observed Universe. It may at times be a Field or Radiation - the fact is that Classical Gravity does not confer a good enough response for all the anomalies observed.
To put it short, we feel the Centripetal Force (or Gravity, if you wish) of Earth's orbit, otherwise, we'd be stuck in one point. Or take the Coriolis Effect. We can prove it easily, we see it in a lot of meteorological and thermodynamic events, yet it is the Centripetal Force that keeps the Centrifugal Force (a lack of Centripetal Force) at "bay".
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons
/2/23/Forces_in_a_Parabolic_Dish.svg
is a good example as well. On a parabolic type of object, if a ball is placed, it should not move, unless the Centripetal Force exerts upon it (Red = Gravity, Green = Normal, Blue = Centripetal - the resultant of the two vectors / forces). One would expect that due to Gravity and the angled space, the object would move towards a point of equilibrium. Yet, it is the Centripetal Force that does so.
I agree that Gravity "sucks" or "pulls" in all directions, until a stronger force comes along - limited to the "fabric" of space-time. In General Relativity, Gravity cannot pull from beyond the lower brane (or layer / fabric) of the space-time. As it bends space-time, it will exert a very strong attraction to things that come in contact with said curvature. It is Gravity that does said "pulling".
Cheers again.
P.S. I hope I made some sense in all of these phrases.
P.P.S. in regard to the caption of #6, we feel it downward because the centre of gravity is downward in regard to our frame (that of the Earth). The Earth is almost (more or less) spherical - that's why we feel it downward. That was what I was initially trying to say in regard to the Centripetal Force.
#27 is false, they don't even produce poison.