20 most incredible facts confirmed by science (21 photos)
There is no shortage of amazing facts on the internet, but few of them are actually backed by science. Here is the most incredible set of such facts!
Reverse arterial perfusion of twins. Sometimes in identical twins who share a placenta, umbilical cords connect artery to artery as they begin to develop. What then happens is that the one with the stronger heartbeat (the pump twin) pumps its deoxygenated blood through the other twin (the trap twin) before finally returning to the placenta for more oxygen. The pump twin continues to develop normally, but the trap twin is supplied only with oxygen-poor blood and ends up developing only what is closest to where the umbilical artery enters the body: the legs and intestines. They have no brain, no heart, and in fact no upper body at all, as they use up the oxygen entering their body before it reaches these organs. It turns out, in essence, just a round extension of the twin pump. This is dangerous for the pump twin, as their heart pumps along a whole extra circuit and tends to have defects. It is now possible to perform surgery on such a fetus by inserting a laser into the amniotic sac and cauterizing the umbilical cord of the trap twin, which interrupts the blood flow and forces the pump twin's circulatory system to redirect the blood back to normal. The remains of the trap twin just sit there until the baby is born and comes out with the placenta. This can also happen in other animals, such as cows. They will eventually give birth to a small cowhide cushion along with a normal calf.
There have been cases when young children had to have up to half of their brain removed due to some serious illness. Children could live almost normal lives because the remaining parts of the brain took over the functions of the removed part.
The acids in your stomach denature proteins. This is the same thing that heat does to eggs when you cook them. So if you eat a dozen raw eggs, you'll vomit scrambled eggs.
Bed bugs mate through traumatic insemination. It is a mating practice in some invertebrate species in which the male pierces the female's abdomen with his aedeagus and injects his sperm through the wound into her abdomen. The female does not have an opening to the vagina, so this is the only way they can reproduce.
Female ferrets die during estrus if they do not mate.
We live closer to the time of the tyrannosaurs than they themselves lived to the stegosaurs.
If your lungs were filled with oxygenated fluid, you wouldn't die from it. But the accumulation of carbon dioxide in your body will kill you.
“Cuttlefish can change the color of every scale on their body, and also take on different shapes and sizes - that is, they are practically werewolves. They also took an IQ test last year. Luckily, they only use their shapeshifting powers to hypnotize the crabs and eat them.
When two cultures with different languages are forced into contact with each other and a common language is needed, a proto-language called a pidgin will form as a means of communication. Pidgins often do not have the same grammatical structure or rules that govern a typical language, and they also have a limited vocabulary. Children raised as pidgin speakers create these types of structures and sequences themselves, and also make the language more diverse to expand their vocabulary, essentially giving it the properties of a typical language. This is because our ability to create language is hardwired into our brains from birth.
During early development, humans develop a third artery running down the arms, called the median artery. It passes between the ulnar and radial arteries. It usually disappears after birth, but over the last hundred years the number of people who still have it in adulthood has increased from about 10% to more than 30%. This increases blood flow to your hand, increasing dexterity. But it also increases the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome.
The placenta is the only non-native organ that is not rejected without immunosuppressants. Scientists are studying it closely to find out why: it should help organ transplant recipients avoid suffering from organ rejection.
The stars are very loud. They simply cannot be heard because sound cannot travel in the vacuum of space.
Wombat feces are cube-shaped.
Iron dissolved in human blood was born in a supernova.
Lobotomy received the Nobel Prize in Medicine as a miracle cure. More than half of lobotomized patients were women, and in some countries the majority were children with behavioral problems.
People with ADHD have “low pain perception.” This means that their brain cannot reliably process pain signals, resulting in a delayed response to pain (sometimes to the point that they will not feel pain until they visually confirm that they are actually injured), disproportionate pain intensity (pain sensation less or more than neurotypical people), inconsistent response to pain (may have no problem eating spicy food once but suffer from it at other times), or simply not feeling pain from injuries.
White holes are theoretical regions of space that function opposite to black holes. Just as nothing can leave a black hole, nothing can enter a white hole.
If you are in a room with only 23 people, there is at least a 50% chance that one of them shares your birthday.
Whenever you think you see something out of the corner of your eye but turn to look and see nothing there, always remember that our vision is dependent on light and reflection. We can see things more clearly if they are in front of us, moving, or reflecting light back into our eye. So, when you look and don't see anything, keep in mind that there was probably something there, but there wasn't enough reflected light for you to see it.
“It would take less than one teaspoon of neutron star matter to equal the mass of the Great Pyramid.