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Amazing Facts archive


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Antartica
  • Penguins only live in Antartica (South) and not in the Artic (North).
  • Australia’s Mawson station is the oldest building in the Antartic
  • 1 or 2 priests live in Antartica, in an Orthodox Church at the Russian station
  • The first person born in Antartica was an Argentinian
  • The South pole is colder than the North Pole
  • Over 7 countries want to claim Antartica territorially

Redwood
  • The bark of a redwood tree is fire resistant
  • No insect can kill a redwood tree
  • A redwood tree can live for 2000 years
  • A redwood tree ‘holds on’ to other tree roots in order to stand so tall.

Earth
  • Earth is the densest planet in the solar system and the only one not named after a God
  • Earth is egg shaped
  • The Earth’s equater is actually growing fatter. Accelerated melting of Earth’s glaciers is taking the blame for the gain in equatorial girth. Reported in Aug. 2 issue of the journal Science
  • Earth gets heavier every year. Roughly 1000 tonnes of space dust land of its surface annually

hurricane
  • Early on, storms were named for the location they hit or a particular day they made landfall, i.e. the Labor Day Hurricane. In 1953, the Department of Defense started naming hurricanes by a numerically, i.e. Able, Baker, Charlie, etc. This lasted only 3 years upon which female names were used instead
  • A storm surge only officially becomes a hurricane when winds hit 119km/hr (74 mph)
  • In 1950, the first Hurricane name was Easy that hit the coast of Florida
  • Hurricanes lose about 50% of their intensity in the 12 hours after landfall
  • Hurricanes circulate counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere

snow
  • Snow is a good insulator of heat. 25 cm of snow insulates as well as 15 cm of fibreglass
  • No 2 snowflakes are identical because this statement is impossible to disprove

Greenpeace
  • Greenpeace was founded by Canadians to protest against the United States’ nuclear research in Alaska

rain
  • Rain falls at 11kmph (7mph)

Niagara Falls
  • The bridge across the Niagara Falls began with a kite carrying a line across it
  • It is estimated that the Niagara Falls pour over 5.7 million litres of water a second
  • It takes only 3 minutes for the yearly consumption of coca-cola in the UK to go over the Niagara Falls

lightning
  • Lightning bolts can sometimes be hotter than the sun. (about 50 000ยบ F)

clouds
  • Some large clouds store enough water for 500000 showers