Science & Space

Workers at a Scottish nuclear facility were decommissioning a plutonium plant, but the expensive industrial cleaners were not working. Then one worker remembered a Cillit Bang TV ad for a £1.99 bathroom cleaner. They tried it. It worked so well that other UK nuclear sites called to ask about it.

Every other planet in the solar system can fit between Earth and the Moon — with roughly 4,400 km to spare.

About 2% of people worldwide can hear a mysterious low-frequency humming sound known as "The Hum" — and despite decades of research, no one has been able to fully explain it.

When you clap, the sound you hear isn't skin hitting skin. It's Helmholtz resonance — air trapped between your palms gets compressed and shoots out at up to 90 m/s, vibrating like blowing across a bottle. Cupped hands = deeper clap. Flat hands = sharper clap.

Jupiter produces lightning bolts up to 1,000 times more powerful than anything on Earth, generated by towering clouds of ammonia and water that don't exist anywhere else in the solar system. NASA's Juno spacecraft discovered that ammonia vapour melts high-altitude ice crystals on Jupiter, creating an exotic 'antifreeze' cloud system that generates these extreme electrical discharges.

Over 90% of land plants are connected through underground fungal networks called mycorrhizae, which allow trees to share nutrients, water, and chemical signals with each other—a system scientists call the 'Wood Wide Web.'

Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the Moon, wrote his daughter's initials there. They’ll last at least 50,000 years.

In 2005, paleontologist Mary Schweitzer dissolved a T. rex bone in acid and discovered preserved soft tissue, including blood vessels and collagen proteins—a finding that revolutionized our understanding of fossil preservation.

There is a poisonous plant that leaves the victim with a smile on their face at the time of death.

There's a plant that has survived in a sealed bottle for over 65 years. It was watered just once in 55 years.

Ice worms live inside glaciers and are so sensitive to temperature that exposure above 40°F causes their body enzymes to break down rapidly, killing them within minutes.

Daizi Zheng, a Chinese designer based in London, created a concept phone for Nokia that would run on Coca-Cola. Her design used a bio-battery with enzymes to generate electricity from the sugar in the drink.

Olympus Mons on Mars is the tallest volcano in the Solar System, standing approximately 13.6 miles (22 km) high. It is nearly 2.5 times the height of Mount Everest.

There's a species of orchid that looks like a monkey's face.

In 1977, researchers detected a strong and unusual radio signal from space that lasted 72 seconds. It hasn't been detected since.

In 1975, officials in the Chinese city of Haicheng were so alarmed by odd and anxious behavior of dogs and other animals, they ordered the evacuation of 90,000 residents from the city. Only a few hours later, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake destroyed nearly 90 percent of the city’s buildings.

Viagra dissolved in water can help cut flowers stay fresh longer. Studies found that sildenafil (Viagra's active ingredient) slows the breakdown of cyclic GMP, which helps keep plant stems rigid and delays wilting.

In the year 1054 AD, there was an explosion in the sky so bright that it was visible for 23 days straight, even during the day.

A German photographer actually snapped a picture of a plane being struck by lightning inside a rainbow.

The world's first genetically-engineered bioluminescent (glow-in-the-dark) house plants have been created and could eventually be used as a functional light source.