This section will tell you that there are many amazing things in this world. I know students love surprises more than their birthday cakes.
1. All microbes in our body are not harmful. Some are very useful. Escherichia coil and Lactobacillus that live in our intestine synthesise vitamin B-complex, essential for human nutrition.
2. Do you know why we have candles on birthday cakes? It is believed that the ancient Greeks used to make round cakes in honour of the full moon and used them in worshipping the moon goddess. It is said that Greeks placed candles around the cake to resemble a glowing full moon.
3. Candles were once used to measure time. If we cut equal-spaced notches in the candle, as it burns down, it gives a rough idea of time.
4. The biggest oil tanker is longer than the Eiffel Tower. It can carry enough oil to fill over 300 Olympic-size swimming pools.
5. The belief that animals can predict earthquakes has been around for centuries. Historians in 373 B.C. recorded those animals, such as rats and snakes, deserted the Greek city of Helices just a few days before an earthquake devastated the place.
6. In September 2003 the studies of medical doctor in Japan indicated erratic behaviour in dogs, such as excessive barking or biting, could be used to forecast earthquakes.
7. Based on the observation of the strange behaviours of animals, authorities have forecast successfully a major earthquakes. For example, Chinese officials in 1975 ordered the evacuation of Haicheng, a city with one million people, just a few days before 7.3 magnitude earthquake. Only a small portion of the population was hurt or killed. If the city had not been evacuated, it is estimated that the number of fatalities and injuries could have exceeded 150,000.
8. The Prehistoric remains of man disclose that the first man had a smaller brain then today’s man. The weight has been put at about one kilogram.
9. It is said that man is more intelligent today because more of his brain is concentrated towards the front of the skull.
10. After the age of 18, a person may lose more than 1,000 brain cells a day! They die and are not replaced. But no need to worry. There are 100 billion brain cells in the human brain.
11. Sharks have as many as five sets of teeth! You have two sets-milk teeth and permanent teeth. As a sharks’ teeth are worn down, they fall out and are replaced by new ones growing behind.
12. Owls can rotate their heads three quarter of the way around. They cannot move their eyes from side to side but have extremely flexible necks and can move their heads rather quickly.
13. Pythagoras lived in the 6th century B.C. and was a teacher in Samos, Babylon and Egypt. The Pythagorean triplets were already known in Babylonian times.
14. The word geometry literally means “to measure the Earth”. If we need to know the distance between two points, the volume of water in a pool, wall paper to cover a wall, tiles on the floor of a room etc, geometry holds the key to all those answer.
15. All the shapes like triangle, square, rectangle etc could be drawn on paper which has two dimensions i.e. length and breadth. These shapes are not solids and we can draw them and see them but cannot hold them as they have no depth. Thus every solid object having length, breadth and depth is referred to as 3-D objects.A rectangle is
2-D having four vertices (corners) and four edges (sides). A cube is 3-D having eight vertices and twelve edges.
16. Of the 130 million 6-11 years old children in the world who do not go to school, a majority i.e. 60% are girls. This is due to gender bias which hinders girls’ education especially in developing countries.
17. Democracy originated in the Greek city of Athens. It was practiced two and a half thousand years ago. Male citizens of Athens gathered together about 40 times a year. This was the people’s assembly. This was the system of direct democracy. Decisions were taken directly by the people. However, women, foreigners and slaves were not allowed to vote.
18. A giraffe has no vocal chord.
19. A goat’s eyes have got rectangular pupils.
20. The blood pressure of a giraffe is the highest in comparison to every animal species.
21. Zebra is not able to see orange colour.
22. You can lead a cow up the stairs, but not down the stairs.
23. A rat can survive longer than a camel without water.
24. Sharks are the only known species who never suffer from cancer.
25. The tongue of a blue whale could weigh more than a full grown adult elephant.
26. Oysters change from male to female gender several times during their lifespan.
27. Every shrimp (small shell fish) is actually born a male and then become females as they mature.
28. An elephant can smell water from a distance of three miles.
29. Music makes a cow to give more milk.
30. There is no sideway movementsof a cat’s jaws.
31. A cow lets out methane gas round about 400 litres.
32. Dolphins actually sleep with their eyes wide open.
33. Bulls are known to be colour-blind. It’s a black and white life for them.
34. The sweat glands of a cow are in its nose.
35. When lava cools, the surface is the first part to turn to rock. It gives the lava a rocky skin.
36. A group of owls is also called parliament.
37. A cow says, “Moo, moo” everywhere in the world but a pig says, “Moo, moo” only in Japan.
38. The eyesight of dogs are better than that of human beings.
39. The small intestine of an ostrich measures up to 46 feet in length.
40. A cat can scare a black bear.
41. Gorillas sleep up to fourteen hours a day.
42. The male lion rests in its den, it is the female that have to go out and get the food.
43. Bears are left handed.
44. An ostrich’s brain is smaller than its eye.
45. That taste buds of a butterfly are in its feet.
46. The first fish had no jaws, so they could only feed by sucking up food.
47. The butterfly was originally known as the ‘fluttery’.
48. Scientists think an asteroid may have crashed on Earth, killing some dinosaurs immediately. Others died later as the climate changed.
49. Blind and deaf newly born kittens follow their sense of smell to reach their mother to suckle.
50. A headless cockroach can survive for a couple of weeks. Its life would finally end due to starvation!
51. A coin is heavier than a hummingbird!
52. It would take just one night for a mole to dig a tunnel measuring 300 feet in length.
53. A snail can sleep for three years, at a stretch.
54. A housefly regurgitates the food it eats and then eats it again.
55. Each species of grasshopper has its own song. To breed the female needs to be aware that she is listening to a male from her own species.
56. Flying frogs change colour in the day. They are greenish blue in sunlight and green in the evening. At night there are black.
57. The king cobra can grow to the length of 5.5 m, and is regarded as the largest poisonous snake in the world. A tiny amount of its poison can kill up to 30 people.
58. The hippopotamus’s eyes, ears and nostrils are on the top of its head.
59. Crickets have ears on their knees. Cockroaches have ears on their tails.
60. Insects and fish have no eyelids. Hardened lens protect their eyes.
61. The spine tailed swift is the fastest bird, flying at a maximum speed of 150 km/hr.
62. Squirrels accidentally plant millions of trees, as they bury their nuts and forget where they are.
63. Australia has a population of 17 million people and 150 million sheep.
64. The population of New Zealand is 4 million people and 70 million sheep.
65. The memory span of goldfish is just about 3 seconds.
66. The Supreme Court of India, had given a direction to the Government in 2001 to introduce one cooked, balanced meal for children in schools. That is how the mid-day meal scheme started.
67. An angry horned toad squirts blood from its eyes.
68. The tyrannosaurus Rex went extinct 65 million years ago. It was one of the largest animals. It measured up to 43.3 feet in length and 16.6 feet in height. It weighed approximately 7 tons.
69. A lion’s roar is so loud that it can be heard up to a distance of five miles.
70. Cheetahs maybe large and fast, but when they roar they chirp. This sounds more like a bird or a yelping dog, but it is loud enough to be heard up to a mile away.
71. The oldest bird was known as Archaeopteryx and lived about 150 million years ago.
72. Monkeys communicate with each other by means of violent actions and hand signals.
73. The most common use of papaya is to aid digestion. Papayas are the only natural source of papain, an effective natural digestive aid, which breaches down protein and cleanses the digestive track.
74. Tiger’s might vision is six times sharper than that of a human.
75. Tigers can live up to 20 years and typically 10 to 15 years in nature.
76. The sun is over 300000 times larger than earth.
77. Halley’s Comet was last seen in the inner solar system in 1986, it will be visible again from earth sometime in 2061.
78. Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system with a surface temperature of over 450 degree Celsius.
79. Footprints and tyre tracks left behind by astronauts on the moon will stay there forever as there is no wind to blow them away.
80. The only planet that rotates on its side like a barrel is Uranus, the only planet that spins backwards relative to the others is Venus.
81. The hairs of man’s head are about as strong as copper wire of the same dimensions.
82. The humming bird can fly backward, sideways, forward and hover motionless for an hour.
83. Early guns took so long to load and fire that bows and arrows in trained hands were twelve times more efficient.
84. The National Library of India is in Kolkata. It is the largest library in the country. The library has a copy of everything that is printed in the country.
85. The only bones the shark has in its body are jaws and teeth.
86. The eyes of chameleon can move independently and can see in two different directions at the same time.
87. A garden caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head.
88. A chicken can fly for more than 13 seconds at a stretch.
89. Over millions of years, the giant trees and plants from the swamps of this time rotted and hardened to form the coal we burn today.
90. The Big Bang was an explosion that created the whole universe. About 14 billion years ago, the universe exploded outwards from a hot, dense bubble that was smaller than a pinhead. The universe quickly grew larger than a galaxy and kept on expanding. As it slowly cooled, tiny particles (pieces) within it joined and began to form the stars and planets.
91. The earth’s surface is cracked into large pieces called plates, which fit together like an enormous jigsaw. There are seven large plates and several smaller ones.
92. The first mammal was probably a small rat like animal called megazostrodon.
93. The seeds of the coco de mer palm tree are the biggest in the world. They can weigh up to 42 kilograms.
94. The thigh bone (Femur) is the longest bone in the human body.
95. Even when you are in a deep sleep your brain never rests. It keeps your heart beating, make sure you breathe and controls many other body functions. This is the time when the brain processes, or sorts out, all the new stuff you learned during the day.
96. Bats make very high-pitched noises that humans cannot hear.
97. Paper becomes brittle and yellow with age because the acid content in paper causes brittleness to develop. The ultraviolet component of Sun light causes photolysis of cellulose by direct cleavage of the cellulose polymer.
98. The blue colour of the water in the sea is due to reflection of blue sky by sea water and scattering of blue light by water molecules.
99. All the data contained in the DNA would fill 1000 volume encyclopaedia.
100. If a single pair of flies were to breed and all the offspring survived there would be 190,000,000,000,000,000,000 flies in four months.
101. All the parts of the television set are very sensitive. If we bring a magnet near a television set, it will spoil the television.
102. The genome of AIDS (HIV) is made up of RNA.
103. Our brain is capable of having more ideas than the numbers of atoms in the known universe.
104. All of our “thinking” is done by electricity and chemicals.
105. Unconsciousness will occur after 8-10 seconds after loss of blood supply to the brain.
106. It was long believed that four tastes were sensed in different parts of the tongue. Scientist now thinks that there is a fifth taste ‘savoury’.
107. The liver is the largest organ in the body.
108. The Statue of Liberty was given to the USA by France on the 100th anniversary of the declaration of independence.
109. India contains maximum Post Offices.
110. ‘The Times of India’ is an English-Language daily newspaper in India whose average daily circulation is highest in the world.
111. The world’s highest cricket ground is in Chail, Himachal Pradesh. Built in 1893 after levelling a hilltop, this cricket pitch is 2444 meters above sea level.
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