Fun facts about nature - By Felicia and Elena
Strange but true - there are 12 times more trees on Earth than stars in the Milky Way!
Scientists estimate there are between 200 - 400 billion stars in our galaxy while there are an estimated 1 trillion trees on Earth! Like the stars, trees live a long time and are truly important for life.
There was a time when 4 distinct human species lived at the same time!
After carefully studying hominin fossils found in Kenya, Ethiopia and Chad, German scientists have concluded that 4 distinct human species coexisted at the same time about 3 million years ago. What isn’t known is how or if they are related and whether they interacted with one another.
Cows kill more people than sharks.
Hard to believe, but true. Sharks kill an average of 5 people per year while cows kill an average of 22 people per year. In fact, humans are more deadly to sharks than they are to humans. Humans kill about 100 million sharks per year!
It's unlikely that anyone could die in quicksand!
You know all those movies and TV shows where someone very dramatically gets swallowed up by quicksand. It’s just that...dramatic, but not true. This is because most quicksand is only a few inches deep. If someone does die in quicksand it usually occurs in tidal basins. The person gets stuck, then drowns when the tide comes in.
There was a time when there was no bacteria that would decompose a tree!
The trees that existed 300 million years ago do not resemble the trees we have on Earth now. These trees could grow extremely tall, but they had very shallow root systems, so fell over very easily. At the time, no microbes existed that could decompose these trees, so as they fell, they stacked up upon each other, eventually creating what one could consider a blessing or a curse… coal.
Lobsters don’t die of old age.
Mind. Blown. There is a very long and scientific explanation behind this, so I’ll let this article explain it to you.
Pineapples take two years to grow
Remember this the next time you buy a lovely pineapple and then let it go to waste. If you plant the top of the pineapple, it will take 2 to 2 ½ years to produce a bloom.
About a million people die every year from mosquito bites.
Mosquitos carry the virus that causes Malaria. When they “bite” a human, the virus is transferred to the human who then contracts the disease. A child dies every 30 seconds from Malaria. Let that sink in a moment…
Pluto hasn’t made a full orbit around the sun since it was discovered in 1930
“Whaaaaat?” you might be saying. Yes! It’s true! Pluto was discovered on February 18, 1930. It hasn’t made a full orbit of the sun since that time because of its incredibly slow orbit. In fact, it takes Pluto 248.09 years to make one orbit around the sun. Which means that Pluto will make its first full orbit since 1930 on March 23, 2178! Whaaaaat??