The world is a mysterious place, which gives Live Science enough fodder for our popular The little mysteries of life series which takes place every weekend. We’ve been writing crime novels since 2004 and we still haven’t run out of weird things to cover. Each mystery is accompanied by a multitude of facts, such as which animals evolve the fastest And why Australia has so many poisonous animals. Honestly, we could go on, but we would have to make the connection with our thousands of mysteries. So, for your viewing pleasure, we have collected 50 of the most impressive facts here.
1. Until the 1960s, researchers believed that people largely dreamed of in black and white.
3. Evacuating your bowels stimulates the vagus nerve, which can lower your blood pressure and heart rate. no wonder it feels so good to poop.
12. THE slowest land animal is likely the banana slug, which moves at an extremely slow rate of 0.006 mph (0.0096 km/h), or one tenth of an inch per second (2.7 millimeters per second). By comparison, the common garden snail glides at a relatively fast speed of 0.03 mph (0.048 km/h), or half an inch per second (1.3 centimeters per second).
13. Although rare, under certain circumstances women were allowed to compete as gladiators in ancient Rome. no trace of any of them dying in battle.
14. The sound of supermassive black holes in the Perseus cluster emitting gas I would reach a low B flatsome 57 octaves below middle C.
15. All newts are salamanders, but not all salamanders are newts.
16. Although the Colorado River toad releases the chemical 5-MeO-DMT — one of the most powerful psychedelics on the market — from poisonous glands located in its head, you can’t get high from licking it.
17. The 1883 eruption of Krakatau is often considered the the loudest sound in historywith people 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) away hearing the explosion.
18. The oldest known human of the genus Homo lived in Africa around 2.8 million years ago, but we don’t know what species it is.
19. THE largest known prime number contains 41,024,320 digits.
20. Frogs breathe and drink through their skin.
21. A bullet fired from a Remington 223 leaves the weapon up to 2,727 mph (4,390 km/h) – fast enough to cover 11 football fields in a single second.
22. The shell of a turtle is composed of 50 bones.
23. Despite what you may have seen in the movies, the ancient Egyptians did not trap the pyramids.
24. THE the longest underwater section of a tunnel in the world belongs to the Channel Tunnel, which includes a 37.9 kilometer underwater section connecting England and France.
25. Despite evidence to the contrary, Columbus continued to lay claim to the lands he had “discovered.” were part of Asiathis is probably the case he would be paid.
26. The main mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope is 21.3 feet (6.5 meters) in diameter, giving it a total collection area of over 270 square feet (25 m²).
27. In March 2025, there were 953 known natural satellites in the solar system (depending on your definition of a moon).
28. There are about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms in the observable universe.
29. It takes five to ten years to have a body in a coffin completely decompose down to a skeleton.
30. The Atlantic Southern Overturning Circulation is a network of ocean currents that travel across the Atlantic Ocean, moving 600 million cubic feet (17 million cubic meters) of water per second and 1.2 petawatts of heat, or about the same amount of heat emitted by a million power plants operating at the same time.
31. The deepest place on Earth is the bottom of the Mariana Trenchwhich lies approximately 35,876 feet (10,935 meters) below the surface. This makes it about 7,000 feet (2,100 m) deeper than Mount Everest is tall.
32. Researchers have shown that octopuses can be fooled by a version of the ‘rubber hand illusion’,” by stroking a hidden real octopus arm and a visible fake octopus arm at the same time. When the fake arm was pinched, the octopus reacted as if its own arm had been attacked – changing color or moving back.
33. The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs hit Earth at 27,000 mph (43,000 km/h).
34. About half of all eukaryotic species on Earth are insects.
35. Mount Everest is just the highest mountain in elevation, at 29,031.69 feet (8,848.86 m) above sea level. If you Le Peupleusio Le Peuple TottmAn inactive volcano in Hawaii, from base to summit it is actually higher, at 33,497 feet (10,211 m) above sea level.
36. You are more likely to cry when chop an onion with a dull knife than with a sharp point.
37. Antarctica became a continent around 34 million years agoafter losing its land links with Australia and South America.
38. Jellyfish, sea anemones and hydras I have no brainsyet they are capable of surprisingly advanced behavior.
39. Kangaroos have three vaginas.
40. Many shark species will be temporarily paralyzed if you return them.
41. The human heart has incredible endurancebeating about 100,000 times and pumping an average of about 2,500 gallons (9,500 liters) of blood per day.
42. Dragonflies are part nature’s most efficient hunterscatching prey up to 97% of the time. By comparison, tigers have a success rate of just 10%.
43. Yes, some figs there are really wasps in there.
44. OpenAI’s GPT-4 used around 50 gigawatt hours of energy — enough to power San Francisco for three days.
45. The oldest sequenced DNA of animals and plants comes from 2.4 million years ago.
46. On average, a person produces about 30 to 91 cubic inches (500 to 1,500 cubic centimeters) of gas each day, regardless of their diet. Fortunately, more than 99% of these gases are odorless.
47. A female viper holds the record for most children are born during a live pregnancy – a whopping 156 fully developed snakes.
48. The file for the most of the time, a piece of paper folded in half is worth 12. If you were to fold it 42 times, it would be more than 273,280 miles (439,800 kilometers) tall, more than the average distance between the Earth and the Moon.
49. It is possible to transform a different element into gold, but not much.
50. The most cited number of organs in the human body is 78, and the heaviest organ is the skin.
Looking for more mysteries?
Here are more incredible stories from The little mysteries of life:
—Do humans and chimpanzees actually share nearly 99% of their DNA?
—Why do European cities have milder winters than those in North America, even though they are at the same latitude?
—Why does boiling water bubble, except in the microwave?
