Fascinating Facts

Dragonflies.Dragonflies have a 95% success rate killing their prey, making them the planet's most successful predatory hunters. In comparison,Comparison., cheetahs have a 58% success rate, and lions succeed only 25% of the time.

Dragonflies' slender bodies, long, transparent wings, and multifaceted eyes make the insects ideal hunters. They fly up to 30 miles per hour. Their wingspan and design give dragonflies agility and mobility their prey lacks. Multiple lenses and a wide field of vision give dragonflies brainpower to correct course when they lose sight of prey.

This news helps humans. Dragonflies' main targets are bothersome summer insects people avoid, like mosquitoes and flies.

The BBC documentary compared.Spy in the Pod., dolphins playfully pass around a pufferfish, seemingly getting high.Pufferfish.Pufferfish produce tetrodotoxin and saxitoxin. These chemicals are stronger than cyanide. Exposure can kill, but small amounts cause a trance-like state in dolphins.

The footage showed the pod of.dolphins.Dolphins take turns gently handling the pufferfish for 20 to 30 minutes. Then, they float just below the water's surface, looking at their reflections. The same pod filmed tearing up a fish they considered food in seconds. This makes the intentional intoxication idea more likely.

This finding adds dolphins to the group of animals that enjoy getting intoxicated, like monkeys, horses, elephants, and humans.

Platypuses.Platypuses make milk but do not feed young through nipples. Instead, they excrete milk like sweat all over their stomachs, and their babies lick it up.

Platypuses live in water, so they do not sweat. Thus, newly hatched babies cannot swallow sweat with their food. However, the feeding process is less clean than in other mammals because the milk does not go straight from a nipple to the young's mouth. Platypus milk has high levels of antibacterial proteins to fight infection or sickness.

Despite living in the ocean, manatees.manatees.Manatees lack swim bladders like fish to help them sink or float. Their bones are solid and very heavy, like their closest land relative, the elephant. To adapt, they store their farts in pouches inside to stay buoyant while swimming.

Manatees, also called sea cows, eat their body weight in plants every couple of months. Their digestive organs take up most space, but their metabolism is slow. Digesting this food takes much time and effort. The sea plants ferment for a full week and make lots of methane gas.

Manatees stay near the water's top by holding their gas.The methane gas forms air pockets in their bellies, keeping them afloat. When sea cows sink, they release this gas.Hold your arms out with palms up; touch your thumbs to your pinkies. You might see a tendon stick out in your wrists. It connects to the palmaris longus.

The palmaris longus is a small muscle in your forearm. Don't worry if you miss it: Ten to fifteen percent of people lack this muscle, and it adds no extra strength or movement to those who have it.The palmaris longus is a leftover from old heritage. Humans evolved, and this muscle lost its use. Scientists found the palmaris longus develops most in mammals like monkeys that use their forearms to move.A small forearm muscle. Don't worry if you lack it: Ten to fifteen percent of people are born without this muscle, and it adds no extra movement or strength to those who possess it.

Germans loaded bombs onto aircraft targeting British towns during WWII. They cooked up new tactics to remove the prime minister. Secret agents designed an exploding chocolate bar.

They would give this exploding chocolate bar to Winston Churchill.

During WWII, Germans loaded bombs onto aircraft targeting British towns. They developed inventive tactics to eliminate the prime minister. Secret agents planned to place bombs in foods like bangers and mash or plum cans. They designed an item for Winston Churchill.British intelligence officers thought the Germans planned to give the chocolate bar to Churchill at a war cabinet meeting.Secret agents designed an item for Winston Churchill.

Laurence Fish, the artist who drew the plans, died in 2009. His widow, Jean Bray, found an envelope marked “secret” with the drawings inside. The plan involved coating the canvas and steel of the incendiary device with real chocolate. They placed it in a wrapper featuring the “Peter's Chocolate” logo. Pulling a square from the chocolate started an explosion after seven seconds.

British intelligence officers thought the Germans planned to give the chocolate bar to Churchill at a war cabinet meeting.

A 2003 genetic history article stated that about one in every 200 men descends directly from Genghis Khan.Geophysicists found that when Earth's crust is thin, tectonic plates rush during stressful situations.A study found a specific Y chromosome.The Y chromosome.Sixteen different Asian populations show a Y chromosome originating one thousand years ago. This happened when Mongols gained control over territory under the ruler.

Genghis Khan made women marry him or one of his military chiefs to secure new lands. This practice created a “super clan” that crushed rivals and grew his lineage.

Since the Y chromosome only exists in men, proving direct ties to Genghis Khan is harder for women. Still, about 17 million people can claim direct ancestry from the warlord, or about 0.5% of the world's population.

Humans rush during stress. Geophysicists recently found that when Earth's crust is thin, people rush too.tectonic plateMovement speeds up up to 20 times faster if the Earth's crust is thick and stable.

When Pangea split into the continents we see now, the plates moved 1 millimeter yearly. After 40 million years of slow movement, plates suddenly separated at 20 millimeters per year. This showed thatContinents are fascinating facts.continents could split at the rate fingernails grow. This speed is a high alarm for continental drift.

Geoscientist Dietmar Müller compared this to stretching dough. As dough thins, it separates easier. Earth's crust weakens and splits as plates pull apart.

You might think oneWhen James Watt improved the steam engine, he sought a market way to show people the engine's value. Admitting it matched a horse's work hurt sales; most people owned horses. He compared the engine's output to a horse's work in a day, making the steam engine seem like ten horses.One horsepower equals one horse's work. However, the average horse produces up to 15 horsepower. Humans produce about 1.2 horsepower.

One horse puts out about 15 horsepower.

That measurement was misleading, but it holds some truth. Averaging one horse's daily work gives about 1 horsepower.

The origin of this creepy legacy has uncertain beginnings, but one thing is fixed. In 1958, manufacturers made a CPRThe unknown woman of the Seine became the model for a CPR dummy doll.This dummy doll shares the face of a woman who supposedly drowned in the Seine River in the late 1800s.

During the 1870s or 1880s, a pathologist made a death mask of a young woman's face. Rumors say the woman floated in the Seine, but some think the cast used a living woman who never claimed the face was hers. The plaster cast became popular, mass-produced, and France homes displayed it. Young women even changed makeup styles to copy the woman's ghostly look.

Since then, "L'Inconnue de la Seine" (translated to “The Unknown Woman of the Seine”) has been used by artists. Its likeness also has a practical use: It models “Rescue Annie,” the CPR dummy trainees use for mouth-to-mouth since its invention.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Europeans called Indigenous Americans "savage" for eating people. They also condemned Catholics for believing transubstantiation—that bread and wine in Mass literally became Jesus' body and blood.Cannibalism happened during the Renaissance.Priests, scientists, and royalty regularly ate the bones, blood, and fat from mummified bodies. They did this to treat many sicknesses.

Bones were the first common ingredient. Physicians ground Egyptian mummies into powder to stop bleeding inside. Doctors often put bandages soaked in human fat on skin problems.

Physicians thought eating human skulls could fix anything, from headaches to epilepsy. Brain scientist Thomas Willis mixed human skull with chocolate to cure apoplexy in patients. King Charles II of England drank human skull powder with alcohol to treat depression. Moss grows on decaying skulls; early modern Europeans used it to pack sinus cavities and stop nosebleeds.

Fresh blood held value, but it was hard to get. People seeking health benefits without money for tinctures and powders often went to public executions. They paid a small fee for a cup of the recently dead person's blood.