Facts Archive - Page 12 of 62 - Interesting Facts

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While we humans can quite happily sit out in the sun for hours (with adequate sun protection, of course), jellyfish can disappear completely if washed ashore on a sunny day. This is because a jellyfish’s delicate body is composed of at least 95% water, unlike the human adult body, which is about 60% water.

Jellyfish are older than dinosaurs.

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Jellyfish have been around for more than 500 million years, possibly even as long as 700 million years, meaning they appeared more than 250 million years before the first known dinosaurs. This gives jellyfish the distinction of being the oldest multi-organ animals in the world.

As you may suppose, jellyfish are jellylike in consistency — at least when well hydrated — but they aren’t actually fish. They are in fact plankton, ranging in size from less than an inch to nearly 8 feet long, with tentacles that can measure an impressive 100 feet or more. (The largest jellyfish is longer than a blue whale.) Jellyfish have no bones, no brain, and no heart, and they use only rudimentary sensory nerves at the base of their tentacles to detect light and odors.

Due to their structure and exceptionally high water content, jellyfish can evaporate within hours in a process known as deliquescing if they’re stranded on a beach in the sun. The jellyfish shrinks as its water evaporates away, leaving behind nothing but a faint imprint on the sand.

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Numbers Don't Lie

Numbers Don't Lie

Percentage of the Earth’s surface covered by ocean

71%

Average amount (in tons) of plankton consumed by an individual blue whale each day

16

Depth (in feet) of the deepest human free-dive, achieved by Herbert Nitsch in 2012

830

Depth (in feet) of the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the ocean

35,876

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St. Lucia is the only country named after a woman.

Sand dunes can ‘sing.’

Some parts of the world have pink snow, known as ‘watermelon snow.’

Dialing 911 on smartphone screen

You can call 911 in the U.S. even with no cell service.

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The ‘S’ in Ulysses S. Grant doesn’t stand for anything.

On average, it takes light from the sun ______ to reach Earth.

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On average, it takes light from the sun 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach Earth.

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Box jellyfish rank among the ocean’s deadliest creatures.

When we think of dangerous sea creatures, our minds tend to jump straight to sharks. In reality, there’s a far greater threat floating in the open water: the box jellyfish. These nearly transparent creatures possess up to 15 tentacles, each growing to roughly 10 feet in length.

Each tentacle has about 5,000 stinging cells, whose venom is considered to be among the most potent and deadly in the world. While typically used to instantly stun or kill prey such as fish and shrimp, a box jellyfish’s venom can also be fatal to any humans who come too close. The sting is so unbearably painful that human victims have been known to go into shock and drown — or die from heart failure — before even reaching the shore.

While there are an average of six fatalities from shark attacks per year, box jellyfish stings result in between 40 and 100 human fatalities annually, although experts believe the true figure is likely far higher. As such, box jellyfish can claim to be the deadliest creatures in the ocean.

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On September 9, 1972, spelunkers exploring Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave system made an incredible discovery. While plumbing the darkest recesses of the nearby Flint Ridge Cave system, then the longest known cave in the world, the group suddenly spotted a well-groomed tourist trail that belonged to Mammoth Cave. The spelunkers quickly realized that the two cave systems were actually one, making Mammoth Cave the longest cave in the world. (The world’s second-longest cave, Sistema Ox Bel Ha in Quintana Roo, Mexico, is around 150 miles shorter.) With the discovery, what was once simply one of America’s oldest tourist attractions became one of the world’s grandest caves.

Kentucky was originally part of Ohio.

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Virginia’s General Assembly created the county of Kentucky in 1776, and the county (which eventually split into smaller counties) remained a part of the state until 1792, when Virginia ceded it to the newly formed United States. Kentucky became the 15th state that same year.

This historic revelation was the culmination of thousands of years of human exploration of the cave system. The first peoples to enter the cave were Native Americans, who explored roughly 19 miles of its interior some 5,000 years ago. Tribes used the cave for shelter, and the discovery of mummified remains suggests they also found the caves sacred in some way. In the years leading up to the U.S. Civil War, an enslaved cave guide named Stephen Bishop extended the cave’s known length while also creating its first map. Entire families of explorers traversed the caves leading up to the 1930s, until Mammoth Cave became a national park in 1941. With around half a million visitors every year, Mammoth Cave continues to inspire awe just as it did many thousands of years ago.

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Numbers Don't Lie

Numbers Don't Lie

Estimated number of caves in the contiguous U.S.

45,000

Depth of the Verëvkina cave in the country of Georgia, the deepest cave explored by humans

7,257

Year the United Nations established Mammoth Cave as a World Heritage Site

1981

Distance (in miles) of the Kentucky Derby

1.25

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St. Lucia is the only country named after a woman.

Sand dunes can ‘sing.’

Some parts of the world have pink snow, known as ‘watermelon snow.’

Dialing 911 on smartphone screen

You can call 911 in the U.S. even with no cell service.

Ulysses S. Grant with his hand in his vest

The ‘S’ in Ulysses S. Grant doesn’t stand for anything.

The most-visited national park in the U.S. is ______.

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The most-visited national park in the U.S. is the Great Smoky Mountains.

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The world’s largest cave has its own weather system.

In Vietnam’s Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park lies Hang Son Doong — the largest cave in the world. While the cave was discovered by a local in 1990, it took almost two decades for an official expedition to rediscover it and explore its vast interior, which encompasses a dumbfounding 1.35 billion cubic feet. Because of the cave’s immense size and consistent year-round temperature (a very comfortable 73 degrees Fahrenheit), when warm air enters the cave it forms clouds, which then cool and produce rain inside the cave, creating a unique rainforest ecosystem. This occurs at the cave’s mouth and at two dolines, spots where the cave ceiling collapsed around a millennia ago. These cave clouds only form in Vietnam’s warm and muggy spring, summer, and fall months. During the winter, when outside temperatures are cooler than the cave’s ever-consistent 73 degrees, the weather inside Hang Son Doong is crystal clear, much like in many other much smaller caves on the planet.

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Darren Orf lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes about all things science and climate. You can find his previous work at Popular Mechanics, Inverse, Gizmodo, and Paste, among others.

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When things heat up in July and August, you inevitably hear the phrase “dog days of summer.” No, this doesn’t have anything to do with canines lying around panting in the heat — instead, the phrase is a celestial reference. Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is nicknamed the “dog star” because it makes up the “eye” of the constellation Canis Major (Latin for “Greater Dog”). In Greek mythology, Canis Major is said to be a hunting dog who belongs to the legendary huntsman Orion. Cosmologically speaking, this relationship is fitting, because the three stars that make up the Orion’s Belt asterism point to the “dog star” in the southern sky.

Sirius is the closest star to Earth (excluding the sun).

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Sirius is the brightest star in the sky (except for our sun, of course), but it’s not the closest. That accolade belongs to Proxima Centauri, at only 4.246 light-years away. But light travels fast, and even the star closest to Earth is still some 25 trillion miles away.

The phrase “dog days of summer” actually refers to a specific period on the calendar, from July 3 until August 11. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed these “dog days” occurred when Sirius appeared to rise with the sun, which always occurred during the summer. The idea was that the immense luminosity of Sirius along with the sun’s heat somehow created summer’s scorching temperatures. Of course, we now know this doesn’t make much sense. For one thing, Sirius is much farther away from Earth than the sun is — like 50 trillion miles farther — so the star has absolutely no effect on Earth’s climate. For another, the dog days of summer are relative to where you live on Earth, appearing earlier in the year for those living farther south and later for those in the north. Also, the position of Sirius is subject to Earth’s wobbly rotation — meaning that in 13,000 years, Sirius will instead rise in midwinter rather than midsummer. So, no, “dog days of summer” isn’t an allusion to our cuddly canines, but a vestigial phrase derived from some 2,500-year-old astronomy.

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Numbers Don't Lie

Years until Vega surpasses Sirius as the brightest star in the night sky

210,000

How many times brighter Sirius is compared to our sun

25.4

Distance (in light-years) Sirius is from Earth

8.6

Year Sirius Satellite Radio launched (now called Sirius XM)

2002

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St. Lucia is the only country named after a woman.

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Some parts of the world have pink snow, known as ‘watermelon snow.’

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You can call 911 in the U.S. even with no cell service.

Ulysses S. Grant with his hand in his vest

The ‘S’ in Ulysses S. Grant doesn’t stand for anything.

“Sirius” means “______” in Greek.

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“Sirius” means “glowing” in Greek.

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Sirius is actually two stars.

Sirius has a long history in human culture; ancient Egyptians referenced the star in their mythology, and even built an entire calendar around it. But despite its long legacy, scientists are still discovering new things about the night sky’s most prominent star. Although you’ll often hear the name Sirius in the singular, Sirius is actually a binary system, meaning there are in fact two stars. In 1844, German astronomer Wilhelm Bessel discovered that Sirius’ course through the sky was ever-so-slightly wavy, suggesting that the star actually had a stellar companion and that they revolved around each other. Eighteen years later, astronomers in Massachusetts confirmed Bessel’s hunch. Today, Sirius is known in astronomy circles as Sirius A and Sirius B. The star you see with the naked eye is Sirius A, while Sirius B — the first white dwarf ever discovered — is comparably faint, nearly 10,000 times dimmer than its celestial companion. In fact, NASA couldn’t even begin to estimate the star’s mass until measurements were made by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2005 (turns out it’s about 98% as massive as our sun).

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Many vocal coaches divide the human voice into three main registers, or ranges of tones — chest, middle, and head. The most familiar of these is the chest register, also known as the speaking voice (at least for men; women tend to speak a bit higher). The head register comes to life when singers are trying to hit high notes, and the middle register falls somewhere in between. But there are two other registers at the extreme ends of the singing spectrum. First, there’s vocal fry, the sound vocal cords make when they’re struggling to hit low notes, which creates an almost growling, popping sound. And then there’s the whistle register — the highest vocal register a singer can produce.

The human voice can’t shatter wine glasses.

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Everything has a resonant frequency (the frequency at which it vibrates). If a singer can find the right resonance and deliver that note with a lot of power, it’ll break glass. It’s not nearly as easy as Hollywood suggests, but it’s not impossible either.

This register is a bit of a mystery, primarily because the epiglottis (a flap of cartilage in the throat) closes over the larynx when it happens, blocking the view of the vocal cords and making it impossible to record the anatomical structures that create the register. The undisputed current master of the whistle register is Mariah Carey, who’s been wowing audiences with it since 1990. (Exhibit A: Her trills at the conclusion of 1991’s “Emotions.”) In 2020, Carey and fellow pop vocal acrobat Ariana Grande harmonized their whistle registers during an awe-inducing performance of “Oh Santa.” But the whistle register comes with a “don’t try this at home” warning. Because people rarely access it, using the whistle register extensively can cause damage. So to sing like Mimi, find a coach.

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Numbers Don't Lie

Numbers Don't Lie

Max frequency (in hertz) of the whistle register

2,350

Score of Game 1 of the 1990 NBA Finals, the first time Carey sang in a whistle register on TV

99–105

Frequency (in hertz) of the lowest note ever produced by a human (inaudible to the human ear)

0.189

Year Disney released “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” featuring the song “Whistle While You Work”

1937

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St. Lucia is the only country named after a woman.

Sand dunes can ‘sing.’

Some parts of the world have pink snow, known as ‘watermelon snow.’

Dialing 911 on smartphone screen

You can call 911 in the U.S. even with no cell service.

Ulysses S. Grant with his hand in his vest

The ‘S’ in Ulysses S. Grant doesn’t stand for anything.

The animal that can hear the highest known frequency (300 kilohertz) is the ______.

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The animal that can hear the highest known frequency (300 kilohertz) is the greater wax moth.

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Around 70 cultures speak in whistles.

Whistled languages are perhaps as old as civilization. In the fifth century BCE, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus described an Ethiopian language similar to the squeaking of bats. Fast-forward 2,500 years, and there are about 70 cultures around the world that still use whistled languages. The advantages are pretty clear: Whistles can be heard several miles away and are an extremely useful tool in cultures that must be heard across deep ravines and towering mountains. Some form of whistled language has been found on nearly every continent, from the Arctic-dwelling Inuit to the forest hunters of the Amazon. And like spoken languages, they can have major differences. Asian whistled languages tend to replicate the melodies of sentences, while Turkish and Spanish whistled languages replicate vowel sounds as whistles and then create consonants through abrupt note shifts. (Whistled languages are always based on the local spoken language, at least these days.)

Darren Orf

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Darren Orf lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes about all things science and climate. You can find his previous work at Popular Mechanics, Inverse, Gizmodo, and Paste, among others.

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Walking in high heels requires a skillful mix of balance and coordination, but for something so graceful, these shoes actually pack a surprising amount of pressure underfoot. Pressure is the amount of force distributed over a specific area, and when that area is small, such as the tip of a high heel, the pressure exerted increases. For example, if a 160-pound person shifts their weight onto a heel tip measuring just a quarter of an inch — roughly the size of a pencil eraser — approximately 640 pounds per square inch (psi) are being felt under the heel.

Let’s compare that to the pressure exerted by a skyscraper — specifically the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world’s tallest building as of 2025. At 2,717 feet tall and weighing more than 500,000 tons (or 1 billion pounds), the tower is undeniably massive. But that weight, of course, is spread across a significantly larger area than the heel of a shoe. Measurements of the concrete foundation — which extends beneath the tower’s central core and the three wings that make up its footprint — put the base at around 35,575 square feet. So even with that astonishing amount of weight, the building exerts only about 196 psi on the ground.

The world’s first skyscraper was in New York City.

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Chicago’s Home Insurance Building, completed in 1885, is considered the world’s first skyscraper.

It’s the same idea behind lying on a bed of nails: If you spread out the weight over a larger area, the pressure drops, but if you focus it on a small pinpoint, it will skyrocket. This also explains why high heels can dent floors or sink into the ground — and why they’re even banned at certain historical sites such as the Acropolis in Athens to prevent damage to the ancient stone.

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Numbers Don't Lie

Price of the world’s most expensive shoes, made of gold, diamonds, and meteorite

$19 million

Year Christian Louboutin first painted the soles of his famous high-heeled shoes red

1993

Pressure (in psi) at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, more than 1,000 times what we feel at sea level

15,750

Person-hours it took to build the Burj Khalifa

22 million

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St. Lucia is the only country named after a woman.

Sand dunes can ‘sing.’

Some parts of the world have pink snow, known as ‘watermelon snow.’

Dialing 911 on smartphone screen

You can call 911 in the U.S. even with no cell service.

Ulysses S. Grant with his hand in his vest

The ‘S’ in Ulysses S. Grant doesn’t stand for anything.

Famous sneaker company ______ is credited with creating the first signature basketball shoe.

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Famous sneaker company Converse is credited with creating the first signature basketball shoe.

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The Eiffel Tower grows and shrinks in size.

The Eiffel Tower has undergone a few changes since its completion in 1889: It was once painted yellow, and over the years, it’s gained radio and television antennas. But in addition to those more purposeful transformations, there’s another subtle change continually occurring: The iconic Paris landmark tends to grow in the summer and shrink in the winter. This fluctuating height is caused by the expansion and contraction of the tower’s iron in response to temperature shifts. The variation isn’t visible to the naked eye, growing or shrinking by just a few millimeters. And it’s not the tower’s only trick — on hot days, the sun-facing side warms and expands more than the shaded side, causing the entire structure to tilt slightly away from the sun.

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Nicole is a writer, thrift store lover, and group-chat meme spammer based in Ontario, Canada.

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In central Utah, state highway UT-25 cuts through a stand of quaking aspens near the alpine Fish Lake. Many travelers driving south from Salt Lake City in search of a relaxing weekend getaway likely drive by this stretch of forest unaware that they’ve just seen one of the greatest — and strangest — natural wonders in the world. That’s because this particular stand of quaking aspens (Populus tremuloides), known as “Pando,” is the world’s largest plant by mass, containing some 47,000 trees spread across 107 acres.

Pando, Utah’s “Trembling Giant,” is still growing.

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In 2018, after analyzing 72 years of aerial photos, scientists discovered that Pando is shrinking due to hungry animals and encroaching humans. Conservationists have fenced off parts of Pando to protect young aspens, which have now grown tens of feet in just a few years.

At first glance, the aspens look like any other forest, but hidden wonders are locked inside their DNA. Although scientists first recognized Pando’s extraordinary qualities in the 1970s, only in 2008 did they confirm that the aspens are all genetically identical. Unlike many other trees that reproduce sexually — using seeds and pollen — these aspens reproduced asexually, by sprouting from Pando’s underground root system. That means they’re genetic clones of the same original aspen, now long-dead. (While asexual reproduction is far from rare for aspens, a clone of this size is.) Because the trees are genetically identical, and because they all share a root system, they’re considered one plant, no matter how separate they may appear aboveground. Pando has been growing for tens of thousands of years to create the “Trembling Giant” that now awes both tourists and scientists today.

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Numbers Don't Lie

Estimated weight (in pounds) of Pando

13 million

Year the U.S. Postal Service issued a Pando stamp

2006

Estimated age (in years) of the oldest trees in Pando

130+

Estimated year humans began leaving Africa — and the first Pando aspen grew near Fish Lake

78,000 BCE

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St. Lucia is the only country named after a woman.

Sand dunes can ‘sing.’

Some parts of the world have pink snow, known as ‘watermelon snow.’

Dialing 911 on smartphone screen

You can call 911 in the U.S. even with no cell service.

Ulysses S. Grant with his hand in his vest

The ‘S’ in Ulysses S. Grant doesn’t stand for anything.

“Pando,” the Utah clonal quaking aspen’s nickname, means “______” in Latin.

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“Pando,” the Utah clonal quaking aspen’s nickname, means “I spread” in Latin.

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The world’s largest flower smells like rotting meat.

Found in the rainforests of Southeast Asia, Rafflesia arnoldii is the world’s largest individual flower, stretching more than 3 feet wide and weighing upwards of 15 pounds. Because the flower is parasitic, it has no leaves, roots, or stem — instead, it attaches itself to a host plant to gain nutrients. While the bloom enjoys Guinness World Records notoriety for its gargantuan size, its measurements may not even be the strangest thing about it. Although most flowers are known for their sweet-smelling fragrance, the genus Rafflesia smells like rotting meat. Known as a “corpse lily” or “carrion flower,” Rafflesia arnoldii smells so horrible on the third or fourth day of its weeklong bloom that swarms of carrion flies, tricked by the flower’s foul-smelling odor and mottled red appearance, become unwitting pollinators. Despite its grotesque smell, the Rafflesia genus (which includes several species alongside arnoldii) is beloved throughout Southeast Asia. It’s a national flower of Indonesia and appears on Malaysian currency. Its blooms are also considered a delicacy in Thailand, and in Borneo, Rafflesia tea is believed to have medicinal properties if drunk after childbirth.

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Darren Orf lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes about all things science and climate. You can find his previous work at Popular Mechanics, Inverse, Gizmodo, and Paste, among others.

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Overcooking ingredients is one of the most common mishaps in the kitchen and can result in mushy vegetables, tough meats, and other gastronomic woes. Mushrooms, however, are incredibly forgiving, being almost impossible to overcook. Their ability to maintain an agreeable texture over a wide range of cooking times is all due to the unique cellular structure of fungi. The secret lies in chitin, the material that forms the cell walls in mushrooms.

Chitin, which is also found in insect exoskeletons and crustacean shells, is very durable and heat stable — unlike the cellulose found in plant cells or the proteins in animal tissue. In most foods, cooking often produces dramatic structural changes. The proteins in meat go through a process of denaturation and coagulation, causing the meat to firm up and, when overcooked, become tough. Vegetables, meanwhile, are held together by pectin, which starts to break down during cooking, releasing the bond between cells and making the vegetables turn soft — potentially too soft if overcooked.

Some mushrooms are capable of changing color to match their surroundings, like chameleons.

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Mushrooms cannot change their color in the same way as chameleons. But around 100 mushroom species do possess bioluminescent properties, allowing them to glow in the dark. By emitting light, those mushrooms attract the attention of insects, which can help spread fungal spores.

But thanks to the magic of chitin, mushrooms maintain their structural integrity, and therefore their firmness, when cooked for even long durations. Any textural change that occurs in mushrooms while cooking is more likely due to water loss than cellular breakdown. Mushrooms have a high water content, and this liquid is released while cooking, which concentrates the flavor and changes the texture slightly without compromising structure. So while it is possible to burn mushrooms through overly high heat and negligence, it’s difficult to overcook them, whether you’re sautéing a chanterelle or roasting a portobello.

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Numbers Don't Lie

Known species of edible mushrooms

2,189

Record for the most mushrooms chopped in one minute

58

Price of the most expensive giant white truffle ever sold

$330,000

Height (in feet) of the largest mushroom statue in the world

20

More Interesting Reads

St. Lucia is the only country named after a woman.

Sand dunes can ‘sing.’

Some parts of the world have pink snow, known as ‘watermelon snow.’

Dialing 911 on smartphone screen

You can call 911 in the U.S. even with no cell service.

Ulysses S. Grant with his hand in his vest

The ‘S’ in Ulysses S. Grant doesn’t stand for anything.

Mushrooms are more closely related to ______ than to plants.

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Mushrooms are more closely related to animals than to plants.

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The Armillaria ostoyae honey mushroom is the heaviest living organism on Earth.

Deep within the Malheur National Forest of Oregon lives the heaviest living thing on Earth: a giant mushroom playfully dubbed the “humongous fungus.” This gigantic specimen of Armillaria ostoyae honey mushroom is estimated to weigh somewhere between 7,500 and 35,000 tons and occupies a total area of 2,385 acres — equivalent to 1,350 soccer fields.

DNA testing has revealed this to be a single organism, consisting of a massive mycelial network located mostly underground. While the humongous fungus can claim to be the heaviest living organism in the world, it’s not necessarily the largest in terms of area. A specimen of Posidonia australis seagrass, located in Shark Bay in Western Australia, covers an area of approximately 77 square miles — equivalent to around 28,000 soccer fields.

Both the Oregonian Armillaria ostoyae and the Shark Bay seagrass rank among the oldest living organisms on Earth. Based on current growth rates, the seagrass is estimated to be around 4,500 years old, while the honey mushroom is estimated to be at least 2,400 years old and possibly even as ancient as 8,650 years.

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Tony is an English writer of nonfiction and fiction living on the edge of the Amazon jungle.

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When we think of animals with long lifespans, tortoises usually come to mind first. But even Jonathan, a roughly 192-year-old giant tortoise who resides in St. Helena, would seem positively young compared to the average Greenland shark. Somniosus microcephalus (“sleepy small-head”) can live as long as 400 years or more, meaning there are probably some of them swimming the depths right now who predate the United States — or Sir Isaac Newton, for that matter. The deep-sea dwellers, most commonly found in the Arctic Ocean and North Atlantic, are the world’s longest-living vertebrates.

Sharks will die if they stop swimming.

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While it’s true that some species really do need to keep moving, most can stop swimming whenever they feel like it. That luxury is the result of a breathing process called buccal pumping, in which sharks use their mouth muscles to draw water over their gills — even while staying still.

In addition to their longevity, they’re also quite, well, long: Greenland sharks can reach a length of 23 feet and weigh over 2,000 pounds, though the average specimen isn’t quite that imposing. Despite also being among the world's slowest sharks — they’ve been observed “almost immobile” while “practically hovering” above the seafloor — they’re capable of quick bursts of speed that allow them to target fast-moving seals, Greenland halibut, Atlantic cod, and other marine creatures. As for how and why Greenland sharks live so long, it’s partially explained by their preferred environs: Cold-blooded animals in cold environments tend to have slow metabolic rates, which are associated with longevity (although scientists are still teasing out why), and “deep and cold equals old.”

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Numbers Don't Lie

Numbers Don't Lie

Maximum depth (in feet) a Greenland shark has been recorded swimming

7,218

Approximate population of Greenland

57,000

Year Shark Week premiered on the Discovery Channel

1988

Documented cases of Greenland sharks attacking humans

0

More Interesting Reads

St. Lucia is the only country named after a woman.

Sand dunes can ‘sing.’

Some parts of the world have pink snow, known as ‘watermelon snow.’

Dialing 911 on smartphone screen

You can call 911 in the U.S. even with no cell service.

Ulysses S. Grant with his hand in his vest

The ‘S’ in Ulysses S. Grant doesn’t stand for anything.

There’s a bristlecone pine tree that is more than ______ years old.

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There’s a bristlecone pine tree that is more than 4,850 years old.

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Greenland shark meat is poisonous.

The flesh of Greenland sharks contains an unusually high concentration of urea and the compound trimethylamine oxide (TMAO), which protect against cold temperatures and high water pressure. Should one choose to dine on Greenland shark meat that hasn’t been dried or soaked, one will experience an intoxicating effect that’s been referred to as both “shark sick” and “shark drunk.” That hasn’t stopped it from becoming an Icelandic delicacy, however. Hákarl is Greenland shark that has been fermented and hung to dry for as long as five months, resulting in a pungent, ammonia-like smell and cheesy texture. Though beloved by some (but certainly not all) Icelanders, it was described by Anthony Bourdain as “the single worst, most disgusting and terrible-tasting thing” he ever ate.

Michael Nordine

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Michael Nordine is a writer and editor living in Denver. A native Angeleno, he has two cats and wishes he had more.

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While exact numbers vary depending on factors such as body size and sex, the average giraffe heart weighs approximately 25 pounds — roughly 40 times more than the 10-ounce heart of a human adult. In addition to this stark weight differential, a giraffe heart measures 2 feet long, nearly five times a human’s 5-inch heart.

Giraffe hearts can also pump 16 gallons of blood per minute, which is more than 10 times greater than the 1.5 gallons that flow through a human heart in that same time frame. Furthermore, studies indicate that giraffe hearts make up 0.5% to 0.6% of the animal’s total body mass — slightly higher than the average measurement of 0.47% to 0.48% in our species.

Human babies have faster heartbeats than adults.

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A healthy human infant typically has a heart rate of 90 to 160 beats per minute (bpm) when sleeping, 100 to 190 bpm when awake, and around 205 bpm when crying. Most human adults have a resting heart rate of just 60 to 100 bpm.

This notable size gap extends to other organs as well. For instance, a giraffe’s lungs can hold 12 gallons of air, whereas the average set of human lungs has a maximum capacity around 1.6 gallons. And while Gene Simmons of Kiss is famous for his abnormally long tongue, it still pales in comparison to that of a giraffe, which clocks in around 21 inches long. The average human tongue ranges from 3.1 to 3.3 inches long.

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Numbers Don't Lie

Numbers Don't Lie

African countries where giraffes live in the wild

21

Year “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe was published

1843

Gallons of blood pumped each day by the average human heart

2,000

Records sold by the band Heart

35 million+

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Ulysses S. Grant with his hand in his vest

The ‘S’ in Ulysses S. Grant doesn’t stand for anything.

The largest heart in the animal kingdom belongs to the ______.

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The largest heart in the animal kingdom belongs to the blue whale.

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The first successful human heart transplant was in 1967.

The first known attempted heart transplant took place in 1905, when one canine’s heart was implanted — albeit unsuccessfully — into the neck of another dog. A little more than half a century later, in 1964, a human heart transplant was attempted for the first time, when doctors attempted to implant the heart of a large chimpanzee into a dying human. This effort also ultimately proved futile. But on December 3, 1967, a major advancement was made in Cape Town, South Africa, when Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human-to-human heart transplant. Barnard implanted the heart of 25-year-old car accident victim Denise Darvall into the body of 53-year-old Louis Washkansky. The heart functioned as intended, though Washkansky passed away 18 days later from pneumonia. Barnard’s second transplant proved more enduring, as the recipient lived for nearly 19 months after the operation.

Bennett Kleinman

Staff Writer

Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Inbox Studio, and previously contributed to television programs such as "Late Show With David Letterman" and "Impractical Jokers." Bennett is also a devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.

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Original photo by Firefighter Montreal/ Shutterstock

While you might imagine Antarctica as primarily a land of ice and seabirds, the human presence on the continent has meant that it's occasionally home to something a little, well, warmer. The Antarctic Fire Department — the only full-time, professional fire department on the southernmost continent — serves the U.S.-run McMurdo Station, the largest research station in Antarctica. (Other stations have part-time fire brigades.) The population at McMurdo can grow to more than 1,000 people in the summer season, between October and March, as scientists arrive to study phenomena such as melting glaciers and migrating penguins. McMurdo’s infrastructure includes around 85 buildings with amenities such as dormitory housing, three bars, yoga classes, and hiking trails. The Antarctic Fire Department also serves the U.S.-run Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and the U.S. Air Force Airfields, and the firefighters pride themselves on responding to any incident at these sites within two minutes.

The majority of the world’s polar bear population lives in Antarctica.

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Polar bears only dwell north of the equator, in the Arctic — none of the furry creatures reside in Antarctica. Between 60% and 80% of all polar bears live in the ice-covered regions of Canada; the rest live in Alaska, Greenland, Norway, and Russia.

The Antarctic Fire Department staffs nearly 55 specially-trained firefighters, who are based at either McMurdo Station or the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Dispatchers field about 350 emergency calls yearly, mostly involving small fires, odor complaints, and hazardous materials. One routine duty is spraying every incoming flight with a deicing foam that also stops engine fires and dripping oil. Firefighters must be ready to battle the continent’s fierce winds, which encourage flames, and use fire engines with pumps that continually cycle water throughout the custom fire trucks to prevent the liquid from freezing. Individual deployments last between three and 13 months — a long time to be away from family, friends, and fresh produce — and each shift lasts 24 hours. It can be grueling, but for those seeking adventure and camaraderie, few things beat putting your survival skills to the test in one of the harshest, and most exquisite, settings on Earth.

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Numbers Don't Lie

Numbers Don't Lie

Number of fire signs in the zodiac (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius)

3

Vehicles in the largest parade of fire trucks ever, which traversed Atoka, Oklahoma, in 2012

220

Year U.S. sealer and explorer John Davis became the first person to set foot on Antarctica

1821

Year McMurdo station was established

1955

More Interesting Reads

St. Lucia is the only country named after a woman.

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Some parts of the world have pink snow, known as ‘watermelon snow.’

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"Fargo" (1996) actor ______ served as a New York City firefighter from 1980 to 1984.

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"Fargo" (1996) actor Steve Buscemi served as a New York City firefighter from 1980 to 1984.

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Women were nominated to lead Chicago’s and Los Angeles’ fire departments for the first time in 2021 and 2022.

On May 14, 2021, then-Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot selected Annette Nance-Holt to be the city’s first fire commissioner, the top post in the roughly 2,550-person Chicago Fire Department. The City Council approved Nance-Holt’s nomination the following month, making her the first woman — and woman of color — to oversee the city’s fire department in its 162-year history. “As fire commissioner, I intend to show the next generation of young Black women that they too can achieve any and everything they set their minds and hearts to,” said Nance-Holt, who has served the department for more than three decades. Then, on January 18, 2022, then-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti chose Kristin Crowley as his pick to helm the local fire department. Crowley had previously been part of the 3,435-member Los Angeles Fire Department for 22 years. She took the oath of office on March 25, 2022, becoming the first female fire chief since the department was founded in 1886. Overall, however, women still make up less than 10% of the U.S. fire service.

Jenna Marotta

Writer

Jenna is a writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, and New York Magazine.

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