Category Fun Facts

What are the interesting facts about the Pyramids of Giza?

The Great Pyramid of Giza, located on the bank of River Nile in Egypt is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Relics of Egypt’s Old Kingdom era, they were constructed nearly 4,500 years ago. Egyptian pharaohs (kings) erected temples and giant tombs for themselves to sustain them in their afterlife. These tombs that we know as pyramids were filled with all the things the pharaohs would need in their afterlife, including gold, boats to carry them. and small tombs for the officials and relatives they would like to accompany them. Today, the Great Pyramid is the oldest and the only remaining ancient wonder of the world.

1. The three pyramids

The Giza pyramid complex has three pyramids. The first pyramid, known as the Great Pyramid of Khufu, was built by Pharaoh Khufu. It is the tallest among the three and was built around 2550 BC. It stands at 481 feet above the plateau.

The second pyramid was built by Khufu’s son, Pharaoh Khafre in 2520 BC. Khafre also built the Sphinx, a mysterious limestone monument of a lion with a pharaoh’s face.

The third pyramid, which is the smallest of the three, was built by Pharaoh Menkaure, son of Khafre, in 2490 BC.

2. The weight of the Great Pyramid

The Great Pyramid of Khufu took nearly 20 years to build. The massive structure required 2.5 million limestone and granite blocks to build. While some of the limestone blocks were quarried from near the site. the larger granite stones were fetched from Aswan, nearly 800 km away. Each stone block on average weighed 2.5 tonnes. The pyramid was built by skilled Egyptian workers who lived in a temporary city close by. When it was completed, the Great Pyramid was the tallest structure in the world. It retained the title for nearly 3,800 years, when it was finally overtaken by the Lincoln Cathedral in the 1300s. Experts estimate that the Great Pyramid would cost over 1 billion dollars if it were to be built today.

3. Aligned to the stars

The three pyramids of the Giza necropolis are built in such a way that they are perfectly aligned with the Orion constellation.

4. The monument of Glorious Light

In its initial years, the Great Pyramid was covered in highly polished limestone blocks known as casing stones. These stones reflected the Sun’s light so well that the people of ancient Egypt used to call the Great Pyramid Ikhet, meaning GloriouS Light. The casing stones are now gone. It is suspected that massive earthquakes loosened the stones and they were taken away to build mosques in Cairo.

5. Depicting life in ancient Egypt

The interiors of the Pyramids of Giza are decorator with scenes from every aspect of life in ancient Egypt. The art includes depictions of carpentry, costumes, ancient farmers working in their fields, fishing, religious rituals and burial practices among others. The pyramids also contain inscriptions and texts that allow experts to research ancient Egyptian language and grammar.

 

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Can elephants hear with their feet?

The sound waves come from the animals’ huge vocal cords, and distant elephants “hear” the signals with their highly sensitive feet.

Elephants perceive vibrations through the soles of their feet. Vibrations travel up through their bones to their head. They are then amplified by the skull’s bones and transmitted to the ossicles of the ear. The elephant pounds the earth to alert others of danger. Such messages can be perceived at a distance of up to 18.5 mi. (30 km).

To test the theory that elephants transmit and receive underground messages, O’Connell-Rodwell and her colleagues previously conducted several novel experiments with pachyderms in Africa, India and at a captive elephant facility in Texas.

“We went to Etosha National Park in Namibia and recorded three acoustic calls commonly made by wild African elephants,” she says. “One is a warning call, another is a greeting and the third is the elephant equivalent of ‘Let’s go!'”

The researchers wanted to find out if elephants would respond to recordings played through the ground, so they installed seismic transmitters at a tourist facility in Zimbabwe where eight trained, young elephants were housed.

The idea was to convert audible “Greetings,” “Warning!” and “Let’s go!” calls into underground seismic waves that an elephant could feel but not hear directly through the air.

“We used a mix of elephant calls, synthesized low-frequency tones, rock music and silence for comparison,” says O’Connell-Rodwell.

“When the ‘Warning!’ calls were played, one female got so agitated she bent down and bit the ground,” she notes. “That’s very unusual behavior for an elephant, but it has been observed in the wild under conditions of extreme agitation.”

The young female had the same agitated response each time the experiment was repeated. Researchers also played recorded calls to seven captive males.

“The bulls reacted, too, but their response was much more subtle,” notes O’Connell-Rodwell.

“We think they’re sensing these underground vibrations through their feet,” she adds. “Seismic waves could travel from their toenails to the ear via bone conduction, or through somatosensory receptors in the foot similar to ones found in the trunk. We think it may be a combination of both.”

 

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What is the meaning of name rhinoceros?

The literal translation of rhinoceros is ‘nose-horned’. It comes from the Greek word ‘rhinokeros’ from ‘rhinos’ meaning ‘nose’ and ‘keras’ meaning ‘horn of an animal’. 

Rhinoceros are killed by some poachers for their horns, which are bought and sold on the black market, and used by some cultures for ornaments or traditional medicine. East Asia, specifically Vietnam, is the largest market for rhino horns. By weight, rhino horns cost as much as gold on the black market. Some cultures believe the horns to have therapeutic properties and they are ground up and the dust consumed. The horns are made of keratin, the same type of protein that makes up hair and fingernails. Both African species and the Sumatran rhinoceros have two horns, while the Indian and Javan rhinoceros have a single horn. The IUCN Red List identifies the black, Javan, and Sumatran rhinoceros as critically endangered.

The family Rhinocerotidae consists of only four extant genera: Ceratotherium (white rhinoceros), Diceros (black rhinoceros), Dicerorhinus (Sumatran rhinoceros), and Rhinoceros (Indian and Javan rhinoceros). The living species fall into three categories. The two African species, the white rhinoceros and the black rhinoceros, belong to the tribe Dicerotini, which originated in the middle Miocene, about 14.2 million years ago. The species diverged during the early Pliocene (about 5 million years ago). The main difference between black and white rhinos is the shape of their mouths – white rhinos have broad flat lips for grazing, whereas black rhinos have long pointed lips for eating foliage. There are two living Rhinocerotini species, the Indian rhinoceros and the Javan rhinoceros, which diverged from one another about 10 million years ago. The Sumatran rhinoceros is the only surviving representative of the most primitive group, the Dicerorhinini, which emerged in the Miocene (about 20 million years ago).

 

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What are some mind-blowing facts about biology?

1. During pregnancy, the baby in womb can help repair a mother’s organ damage by giving its stem cells. In Biology, it’s a form of chimerism called the Fetomaternal microchimerism (FMc). Alternatively, this is a survival mechanism by which the fetus ensures maternal fitness in order to enhance its own chances of survival.

2. Some humans have a total of 207 bones instead of 206. The Fabella is a tiny sesamoid bone in the knee that has been making a come back in recent years. At present, around 39% of the population have the extra fabella bone, which is three times more in 100 years, compared to only 11% of world population having it in 1918. Scientists theorize, this emergence is due to increased nutrition and humans getting taller and heavier.

3. A newborn baby has only one cup (0.2 liters) of blood in the whole body, whereas, the healthy adult has about 1.3 to 1.6 gallons or 4.0 to 5.0 litres of blood circulating inside their body.

4. Lungs are the only organ in the human body that can float on water. In fact, medical examiners use the “lung float test” during autopsies to determine if a baby was stillborn (died in the womb). If the lungs float, the baby was born alive; if the lungs don’t float, the baby was stillborn.

5. Speaking about lungs, did you know that you can live with just one lung? Patients with lung cancer, can still live healthily even after a lung is removed, retaining at least 70% of their previous respiratory function. Surprisingly, the remaining lung will expand to fill the empty space of the other lung in the chest.

6. If you pulled out the blood vessels from an an average child and laid out in one single line, it would stretch to over 60,000 miles. The entire circumference of the earth at it’s largest is 24,900 miles.

7. Your eyes blink over ten million times a year!

8. The entire surface of your skin is replaced every month, which put another way means you have about 1,000 different skins in your life.

9. Next time you’re wounded, and can’t find a bandage, just ask the friendly spider next wall. Spiderwebs/cobwebs have natural antiseptic and anti-fungal properties, and were used in ancient Greece and Rome by physicians to make bandages. They’re also thought to be rich in Vitamin K. 

10. While you’re sleeping, your ears continue to function. They will pick up sounds, but your brain acts as a filter and blocks out the unimportant ones.

11. More humans are evolving to have three arteries in their arms. The Median artery which is present during the early human embryonic stage is later replaced by the ulnar and radial artery during developmental changes. However new research shows that median artery is now prevalent in about 35% of the population and researchers predict that people born 80 years from now might all carry a median artery. This is an example of Micro-evolutionary changes that are occurring in the human body.

 

Credit : Quora

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What are some mind-blowing facts about food?

White chocolate is not chocolate
Don’t be fooled by the name of white chocolate. It doesn’t contain any chocolate. It’s actually just a mixture of sugar, milk, vanilla, lecithin and cocoa butter.

Nutmeg is a hallucinogen
If you take a lot of nutmeg, it works like a psychedelic because it contains a natural compound called “myxorubicin.”. If taken in large doses, it can have a mind altering effect. It is also poisonous in large doses.

There is no difference between the wax on the surface of fruit candy and that on the car
The luster of fruit fudge comes from the palm wax of Brazil, which is actually the same type of wax used in cars. I don’t know what you think about this!

Ketchup was once used as medicine
As early as 1800, people believed that tomatoes had medicinal value. Doctors at the time claimed that ketchup could treat diarrhea and indigestion, so it was once used as a pill.

Biscuits are more harmful to your teeth than sugar
Acid is the biggest cause of tooth decay, not sugar! Biscuits tend to stick to your teeth and eventually become a hotbed of bacteria.

Drink more wine in the bar, not because it is good, but because the music is loud
Studies have shown that the volume of music can change people’s drinking habits. Loud music seems to make people drink more and faster.

The validity period of bottled water has nothing to do with water
Water doesn’t expire, but bottles do. Plastic bottles will leak chemical particles into the water over time. Although it will not make the water harmful, it will reduce the freshness of the water.

 Honey is actually the vomit of bees
When bees collect nectar, they take nectar and keep it in their stomachs. Once back in the hive, the nectar is expelled back into the hive.

Sweet drinks can cause dementia
Studies have shown that people who drink one or more artificial sweetened drink a day are three times more likely to develop dementia than others.

 

Credit : Quora

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What are the most interesting and unknown facts?

1. North Korea is the only country that do not sell Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola cannot be bought or sold in Cuba due to the long-term US trade embargo since 1962. Cuba was actually one of the first 3 countries outside the US to bottle Coke in 1906 but the company moved out as Fidel Castro’s government began seizing private assets in the 1960s & has never returned

2. The entire world’s population could fit inside Los Angeles standing shoulder to shoulder.

3. The world’s hottest pepper could kill you.

4. The Canary Islands are named after Dogs.

5. The longest place name in the world is 85 letters long.

6. Four babies are born every second.

7. The coldest temperature ever recorded was -144°F(-98°C).

8. The current amount of people who are alive represents only 7% of those who have ever lived.

9. California is home to the Artichoke Capital in the world.

10. The world’s largest man-made oyster reef was created in Maryland.

 

Credit : Quora

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