Fact Book

Many tribes around the world have practised trepanning since the Stone Age. It involves drilling a hole in the skull, often with a stone, to ease headaches by letting out evil spirits. People frequently survived, as many skulls have been found with several such holes, some partially healed.

14729. Science Facts

In 1962, a Dutch doctor decided to try trepanning. He used an electric drill to make a hole in his own head.

14730. Science Facts

Sundew plants have lots of sticky tentacles. When an insect lands on them, it can't escape and the glue on the plant digests the insect's body, feeding the plant.

14731. Science Facts

In 1986, 92 people were killed in Bangladesh by giant hailstones weighing up to 1 kilogram (2 pounds 3 ounces) each.

14732. Science Facts

Sometimes frozen blocks of toilet waste flushed from aeroplanes fall to earth.

14733. Science Facts

The scientific name for fear of slime is blennophobia.

14734. Science Facts

The English rhyme Ring-a-Ring-o'-Roses dates from the time of the bubonic plague.The ‘roses' refer to red spots that appeared before boils started, the ‘posies' to flowers people carried around to counteract the bad air that they thought caused plague, and the sneezing was an early symptom.

14735. Science Facts

In the Middle Ages, people thought they could cure the medical condition rheumatism by carrying a dead shrew in their pockets.

14736. Science Facts

The Fore people of Papua New Guinea traditionally eat the bodies of their dead relatives, including the brain. During the 1950s to 1960s an outbreak of the disease kuru was traced to the practice and people were dissuaded from enjoying the usual funeral meal.

14737. Science Facts

Scientists are working on a design for a spacecraft that will be partly fuelled by burning astronauts' faeces.

14738. Science Facts

Some babies are born still enclosed in the sac that holds the fluid in which they develop in the womb. It used to be considered a sign of good luck.World War II leader Winston Churchill was born like this.

14739. Science Facts

In the nineteenth century, arsenic was often used to create green colouring. A cake with green icing, coloured with arsenic, killed children who ate it at a birthday party, prompting chemists to ask for laws about what could be used in foods.

14740. Science Facts

A new design for a rat trap sends a text message to a pest controller when it kills a rat, so that the rat can be quickly removed before it starts to decompose and smell.

14741. Science Facts

Sometimes fish or frogs fall from the sky like rain – and there have been cases of a shower of meat (lumps of lung and muscle) and a rain of maggots.

14742. Science Facts

Taking a bath in the water used to wash a corpse was thought to cure epilepsy.

14743. Science Facts

Using genetic engineering techniques, scientists have a made a mouse that glows in the dark.

14744. Science Facts

There are about 4,000 microbes above every 6.4 square centimetres (1 square inch) of ground.

14745. Science Facts

Bodies buried in lead-lined coffins sometimes explode, as gases from the rotting body are held in by the strong metal. If they are dug up and opened, bits of body can fly out in all directions.

14746. Science Facts

Equipment retrieved from the moon in the 1970s contained germs left there in 1967 – they were still alive.

14747. Science Facts

The strangler fig grows from a seed dropped on another tree in bird or opossum faeces. It grows roots around the host tree and shades its leaves, eventually strangling the host tree to death.

14748. Science Facts

Plants aren't as harmless as they seem.There are more than 600 types of carnivorous plants – plants that eat animals or insects.

14749. Science Facts

Pitcher plants have a deep funnel filled with acid that dissolves any insects or small animals that fall into it. The dead creatures are used as food by the plant.

14750. Science Facts

A zookeeper in Germany tried to treat an elephant for constipation with laxative foods and an enema (pumping oil into its anus through a tube). His cure was effective – the elephant produced 90 kilograms (200 pounds) of faeces, which landed on the keeper and suffocated him.

14751. Science Facts

A firestorm is an uncontrollable fire, often the result of a bombing raid. Temperatures can rise to 800 degrees Celsius (1,472 degrees Fahrenheit) and air is sucked into the firestorm with the force of a hurricane. People who aren't burned can suffocate.

14752. Science Facts

Fat contains a huge amount of energy. Polar explorers sometimes eat hunks of greasy seal fat to give themselves enough calories to keep their bodies warm.

14753. Science Facts

In 1890, a young girl was smeared with phosphorous so that she would glow in the dark and could act as a ghost in a hoax séance. She was poisoned by the chemical and died.

14754. Science Facts

Scabs are formed when chemical proteins react with special blood cells called platelets, which cause the blood to get sticky and clump together. Once you've clotted, lots of different chemicals and cells work together to dry out the clot and form a scab, keeping out germs while the cells underneath repair themselves. So, if you pick a scab you're messing with all your body's hard work!

14755. Science Facts

Piles of horse manure steam in cold weather because the action of bacteria breaking it down produces so much heat.The manure, filled with water and gas, is a good insulator, so it stays hot.

14756. Science Facts

In 2000, UK mountaineer Major Michael Lane gave to a museum five of his own fingers and eight of his toes which had dropped off as a result of frostbite when he was climbing Mount Everest in 1976.

14757. Science Facts

A French cement factory uses soiled nappies as fuel to heat its cement kilns.

14758. Science Facts

Volcanic vents deep under the sea are home to strange plants and animals that can live in high temperatures and poisonous, acidic water.

14759. Science Facts

Scientists studying Mormon crickets cut the heads off to see what the crickets had been eating – and found many had eaten other Mormon crickets. If one stopped to eat, another would often come along and eat it.

14760. Science Facts

Doctors used to test for diabetes by tasting the patient's urine – diabetes made it taste sweet because sugar was lost in it.

14761. Science Facts

The first frozen chicken was created by Sir Francis Bacon who stuffed a plucked chicken with snow in 1626 to experiment with refrigeration. It worked, but he died from a chill contracted during the experiment. The chicken is said to haunt Pond Square in London.

14762. Science Facts

It is possible to drown in mud – and almost impossible to save someone who is drowning in mud as so much force is needed to pull them against the weight of it.

14763. Science Facts

On the east coast of the USA there is a laboratory that leaves dead bodies of humans and animals outside to decay so that scientists can study the rate at which they rot, and the maggots and microbes that help them decompose.

14764. Science Facts

If blue whales tried to live on land, they would be crushed and suffocated by their own weight.They can live successfully in water because it supports them.

14765. Science Facts

In an experiment with a condemned prisoner, Doctor Beaurieux of France discovered in 1905 that a person – or head – can hear and respond for around 25 seconds after beheading.

14766. Science Facts

Diamonds are so hard they are often used as the tip of a dentist's drill because they can grind through teeth.

14767. Science Facts

Soap can be made by dissolving animal fat using an alkali such as sodium hydroxide. Soap used to be made from sheep or pig fat.

My Account / Test History

Discovery
Anti-Toxins (Science Of Immunity)
Discoverer/Inventor : behring and kitasato (germany, japan)
Year : 1890 .. More >>