Factoids

Interesting Science Facts and Trivia

Food

Although Hindus do not eat beef, approximately one-fifth of all the world's cattle live in India.
-Unmentionable Cuisine, Calvin W. Schwabe, p. 12

Guinea pigs are raised for food in Central and South America.
-Unmentionable Cuisine, Calvin W. Schwabe, p. 202

Locusts contain 31% more protein per pound than a T-bone steak.
-Unmentionable Cuisine, Calvin W. Schwabe, p. 366

Tomatoes can survive 60,000 times the radiation damage of a human being and still reproduce.
-Soviet study reported in Science in the USSR, S. Yuriev, p. 37

Space

The Pioneer 10 spacecraft will make its next celestial rendezvous, with Proxima Centauri, in the year 28135 A.D.
-The New York Times Book of Science Literacy, p. 416

The Earth and Environment

One third of the sun's energy absorbed by the earth is consumed in the evaporation of the oceans and other bodies of water.
-Chemistry: The Central Science, p. 506

Half of the rainfall in the Amazon Basin results from water evaporating from the rain forest.
-The New York Times Book of Science Literacy, p. 266

Of the 1.35 billion cubic kilometers of water on the earth, 92.7% is contained in the oceans, 2.1% is in the form of glaciers and ice, 0.6% is fresh water, and 0.1% is brine.
-Chemistry: The Central Science, p. 506

It takes 364 kilograms of coal to equal the fuel energy in the manure produced by a cow over the period of one year.
-Unmentionable Cuisine, Calvin W. Schwabe, p. 3

25 tons of water and materials from the earth are needed to support one person for one year.
-Chemistry: The Central Science, p. 677

Miscellania

In the twentieth century, heart disease has killed more people than the First and Second World Wars combined.
-Science in the USSR, Prof. V. Repin, p. 37

The shock a person receives from a doorknob on a dry day can be as much as 35,000 volts.
-"Designing Microcontroller Systems for Electrically Noisy Environments", Tom Williamson, Intel Embedded Applications Manual

Out of any randomly chosen twenty-three people, there is a 50% chance that two of them will have the same birthday.
-The New York Times Book of Science Literacy, p. 346

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