Cool Science Facts Your School Probably Never Taught You!

Introduction

There is nothing on the planet more astounding than the marvels of science and nature unfolding before us. The innovation and the organic life we are encompassed by everyday are a proof to the way that science is much more interesting than any fantasy or magical story we've experienced. So, here are some such mind blowing science facts that will take you on an irresistible trek to a universe of marvel.

#1 You can relight a candle by holding a flame into the smoke that rises after you blow it out.

When we light a candle, the wax evaporates into the air and undergoes combustion producing light in return. When we blow out the candle the smoke that rises up contains the wax vapor that hasn't yet undergone combustion. So when you hold a flame into that smoke it lights up burning all the way down its trail to the wick, relighting the candle.

#2 A man defies gravity by doing a loop the loop on foot.

During circular motion, there are two main forces acting on the body centripetal, the force that pulls you towards the center, and centrifugal, the force that pulls you away from the center. Many people have made use of this simple law of physics to defy gravity by going on a loop on skateboards and motorcycles. Damian Walter, a stuntman and gymnast, did it on foot. To achieve this he had to accelerate to a velocity of 13.84 km per hour at the highest point and keep his head and shoulders at the center of the loop.

#3 This is what happens when you heat a surface to very high temperatures and pour water drops.

It's called Leidenfrost effect.

When you heat a pan on high for some time and then pour water drops they become mercurial. Instead of evaporating the water drops just move around on the pan like mercury. This happens because when the water hits the pan its outer surface evaporates so fast that it creates a layer of vapor below the water drop insulating it and stopping it from coming into direct contact with the pan. So, instead of boiling the water just rolls around. If you do the experiment on ridged surface like shown above, the water drops would even move upwards.

#4 Miura Fold is a rigid origami technique that can be used to fold rigid materials into flat parallelograms.

It is used to fold large solar panels in Japanese satellites before launch which can then be spread out when in space.

The folding patterns of this origami form a regularly repeated pattern of parallelograms. Each adjacent parallelogram is a mirror image of the one before and after it. When folded this way, any flat material can be packed into a compact shape which can be pulled open and closed shut by moving the opposite corners. This technique when used in folding the solar arrays reduces the number of motors required for unfolding in space, reducing the weight of the satellite.

#5 If you take the picture of the sun every day from the same spot at the same time you get a looped shape known as “analemma”.

Since the planet Earth revolves around the Sun in an elliptical orbit and has an axial tilt, the Sun doesn't appear at the same location every day at the same time. The analemma depicts the relative motion of the Sun with respect to a fixed location on the Earth. The analemma can be traced for not just the Sun, but also for the Moon, geosynchronous satellites and quasi-satellites.

#6 Non-Newtonian fluids let you run on their surface without sinking or drowning.

It is because the sudden impact of feet causes the surface to temporarily thicken.

Non-Newtonian fluids, unlike normal fluids, have viscosity that depends on shear rate, or the time it takes for it to undergo deformation when force is applied. When a sudden force is introduced to the liquid, like a slap on the surface, a quick hit or placing it on a plastic sheet over subwoofer speakers, the viscosity of the liquid increases causing it to thicken and the surface acts as a barrier. Which is why, the woman running on top of the the non-Newtonian fluid above was able to do so without breaking the surface.

#7 How the Earth’s ice and vegetation cycle occurs seasonally through each year.

The earth goes through many changes during the year during each season. John Nelson, a data visualizer at IDV Solutions, illustrated two animated GIFs titled "A Breathing Earth" to show the transformation of Earth as seen from the outer space. It was designed by combining all the photographs taken by satellites each month over a year. The GIF almost makes it look as if the earth is breathing, or pulsing, each time the snow starts covering the Earth during cold seasons and when the snow retreats after melting during warm seasons.

#8 Researchers from Cambridge University have found that it is possible to make a baby using cells from two same-sex parents.

The researchers from Cambridge have shown that you could create human eggs and sperm cells from the stem cells of two adults. From five different donors they used the stem cell lines of embryos and skin cells. And they used the skin cells of ten different donors and were able to successfully create new germ-cells from all of them. They also had another happy discovery during the research. The epigenetic mutations, the cell mistakes that occur with age, that happen in the germ cells are removed.

#9 The combined length of the DNA in your body is more than twice the diameter of the solar system.

Being a double helical structure DNA takes up quite less space than it would if it were stretched out. The DNA is organized into the long structures of 46 chromosomes. Many coils of these DNA, in fact 3 billion base pairs, are arranged to fit in each cell in as less as 6 microns of space. Stretching the DNA from one cell gives you a length of about 2 meters and stretching all the DNA in your body would be about twice the diameter of the solar system.

#10 This is what a single drop of the viper’s venom can do to blood

#11 In zero gravity, a candle’s flame is round and blue

On Earth, when the candle burns the heated gases rise upward pushing combustion products along with them while drawing fresh air with oxygen towards the flame. This process is called convection, hot air becomes light and goes up, while the cool air stays heavier and comes down. But it doesn't occur in space. Instead, the combustion products accumulate around the flame causing it to be cut off from oxygen and eventually going out. Though the candle does get oxygen through diffusion, the process is a 100 times slower than it is on Earth.