Science is awesome!

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 26 '19

Physics The smallest movie ever made, "A Boy and His Atom", was created using individual atoms and a scanning tunneling microscope (STM).

917 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jan 26 '21

Biology Turtles & tortoises can feel their shells (their shells have nerve endings). Sometimes they can get itchy. Keepers at the Philly Zoo made this shell scratcher so the turtles & tortoises can get A+ scratches.

747 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 05 '20

Physics This gif, created by Google product developer Clay Bavor, puts the 747 and SR-71 aircraft speeds into perspective compared to New Horizons spacecraft. 36,000 mph ~ 58,000 km/h was the speed reached at launch (Atlas V third stage cut off)

633 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/SirT6 • Aug 13 '19

Biology Leucochloridium is a parasitic worm that infects snails. It takes over motor function in the eye stalks, making them into caterpillar mimetics so that birds will eat them. The worm can then reproduce in the bird's GI tract, eventually transmitting via its feces.

612 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/SirT6 • Oct 08 '19

Ants use pheromones to follow trails. If a trail loops, they get locked running in a circle and die from exhaustion. This is called an ant mill.

560 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 16 '19

Biology When a horse is running, its breathing and stride are linked in a 1:1 ratio, so for every stride they take, they also take one breath. The peak airflow they generate is very high (about 80 liters per second). Thus, a very small defect in the airway can cause a big decrease in performance.

534 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Feb 23 '20

Ecology A fungus observed inside Chernobyl is a radiation extremophile that could inspire new technology. It absorbs normally harmful rays which it then converts into chemical energy (radiosynthesis). The fungi use high amounts of melanin to resist radiation and turn it into energy.

popularmechanics.com

521 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 18 '19

Ecology In preparation for the annual spawning season of the Red crab, rangers on Christmas Island put up barriers along the roadside to prevent the crabs from being crushed by cars. They have also constructed a 5 m high bridge to help the crabs move across the island and continue their migration.

515 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 27 '19

Biology Scientists used CRISPR to store a GIF inside the DNA of a living E. coli cell

503 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • 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.

483 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jun 09 '19

Scientists Dr. Jonas Salk volunteered himself and his entire family for a polio vaccine trial. He refused to patent the vaccine and never received financial compensation for his discovery. When asked who owned the vaccine he replied “Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

475 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 14 '19

Environment Ten percent of the oxygen we breathe comes from just one kind of bacteria in the ocean. Now laboratory tests have shown that these bacteria are susceptible to plastic pollution.

458 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jun 06 '19

Shoebill storks are native to Uganda, Rwanda, Western Tanzania, and Zambia. They feed on snakes, lungfish, catfish and even small crocodiles.

436 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/remotectrl • Nov 02 '22

Ecology Pallid bats were long considered to be gleaning insectivores which specialized in eating venomous arthropods like scorpions and centipedes. Newer research has found that they are also pollinators. Hundreds of plant species are pollinated by bats.

431 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 02 '20

Astronomy/Space NASA's Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located on the turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm, on April 23, 2020, Sol 2742 of the Mars Science Laboratory Mission, at 16:21:18 UTC.

430 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jul 03 '19

Biology The aardvark is the only species in the family Orycteropodidae and the only living member of order Tubulidentata. While they may resemble anteaters their closest living relatives are elephants (order Proboscidea), hyraxes (order Hyracoidea), and dugongs and manatees (order Sirenia).

430 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Nov 06 '19

Biology Wood ants spray formic acid from their abdomens as a defense. The acid gives off a pungent odor, but does't hurt unless it gets into an open wound, which is most often caused by the ants biting with their powerful jaws. The acid fumes also irritate the nose and mouth causing coughing and choking.

414 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/SirT6 • Aug 31 '19

Biology Most geckos do not possess eyelids; they feature a clear scale that covers the eye. Because they can’t blink, they lick their eyes to keep them clean and moist, with the tongue acting like a windshield wiper.

411 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Mar 10 '19

Scientists Dr. Donald Unger cracked his knuckles every day for 60 years to see if it would cause arthritis. Unger would crack his knuckles on one hand every day and leave the other one as a control. After 60 years, there was no discernible difference between them and Unger won the Ig Nobel Prize for Medicine.

405 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 24 '20

Biology Crabs, such as this Japanese spider crab (Macrocheira kaempferi), cannot grow in a linear fashion like most animals. Because they have a hard outer shell (the exoskeleton) that does not grow, they must shed their shells, a process called molting.

402 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Feb 03 '20

Biology Bats are often mistaken as rodents, but in fact they belong to their own mammalian order called Chiroptera. They are more closely related to cats than rats.

402 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Oct 10 '19

Ecology Acanthaspis petax, a type of assassin bug, stacks dead ant bodies on its back to confuse predators.

396 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 27 '20

Neuroscience Menthol makes our mouths and noses feel cold because it binds to the cold receptor protein and activates it. Since our experience of cold is our brain receiving the message that these neurons have been activated, the feeling from menthol is identical to the feeling of actual cold.

newscientist.com

394 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Aug 29 '19

Botany In 1941 the world’s largest seed bank (created by botanist Nikolai Vavilov) was housed in Leningrad. As the Germans surrounded the city forcing mass starvation, Vavilov’s scientists refused to eat from the collection, slowly dying of hunger as they maintained 16 rooms of edible plants.

393 Upvotes

r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 04 '20

Astronomy/Space It's fair to say planets orbit the Sun, but that's not 100% true. The Sun holds 99.8% of the Solar System's mass; Jupiter contains most of what's left and as a result plays tug of war with the Sun. Everything orbits a center of mass!

391 Upvotes