From driving across dwarf planets to playing cards being used as currency, we count ten
awesome facts that will change your life
10 – The Size of Pluto • The last few years have shed some interesting
light on the loneliest heliocentric body in our solar system, Pluto.
• Compared to the Earth, this dwarf planet is not only smaller than our moon, but it
could fit inside a map of Australia.
The biggest planet in our solar system gang is Jupiter, who is a whopping 69 times bigger
than little old Pluto.
Pluto is roughly 736 miles in diameter, which would take around 12 hours to drive across
in a car.
However, the car would take 6,200 years to get from Earth to Pluto at the same speed.
• Its teeny tiny size is nothing compared to Earth, it’s no wonder Pluto was kicked
out of the planet club.
9 – 10% of People on Earth Can’t Read • According to the CIA, there are a lot
of human beings on earth who still haven’t learned to read or write.
• 10% of Earth’s population - which roughly equates to 713 million people – are illiterate.
In places like Afghanistan, only 38% of all of its citizens can read.
Printed words (or hieroglyphs if you’re an ancient Egyptian) are one of the oldest
traditions of communication.
Without literacy, there would be no books or blogs, and –gasp- no Google.
• Knowledge is a powerful tool.
As Mark Twain once said: “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who
cannot read.”
8 – 1 Sperm in 1.2 Billion Wins the Race • Traditional pregnancies begin with an
age old race of man sperms to a lady egg – let’s just assume we know how the sperms got there.
• When males ejaculate, they expel over 40 million sperm cells, each microscopic sperm
then races around, frantically trying to be the first to conquer the female’s egg.
The more sperm in the race, the higher the chance of successfully making babies.
Most likely, you were the winner of this race.
• Reproduction is a fierce competition in the sperm world and you single-handedly out-swam
up to 1.2 billion other competitors.
Nice work!
7 – France Still Beheaded People When Star Wars Premiered
• In 1977, Star Wars premiered in cinemas around the world.
At the same time, France was still executing criminals in barbaric public displays.
• The last execution by guillotine took place in beautiful Marseilles on September
11, 1977, the day before ‘Episode IV – A New Hope’ celebrated its French premiere.
A young man named Hamida Djandoubi was the last to endure death by guillotine for the
crime of killing his lover, Elisabeth Bousquet.
• The guillotine was put out of action by the end of 1977, and three years later a Star
Wars sequel struck back into cinemas.
6 – No Food is Naturally Blue • We might enjoy a blue-coloured cocktail
or a delicious blue cupcake every now and then, but somehow this incredible blue pigment
rarely occurs naturally.
• The reproduction of plants is often a chemical reaction of its environment.
Some people suggest that nature advertises its food by amping up the contrasting colours
of green leaves, such as bright red tomatoes, and vibrant yellow lemons.
Hungry foragers are more likely to notice a bright colourful fruit, making blue a less
noticeable colour.
• Blueberries seem to be the only ones who can pull of a blue look, though a lot of people
argue they are mostly purple.
5 – Coffee Will Not Dehydrate You • It is often believed that coffee will
dehydrate your body, but apparently this isn’t true.
• Some people may experience the need to excuse themselves to the bathroom after drinking
coffee, and this is due to the diuretic properties of caffeine.
But the amount of liquid you may or may not pee out after a cappuccino doesn’t exceed
the amount of liquid you are consuming.
This doesn’t mean coffee is better than a glass of water - caffeine can still have
side effects like insomnia and headaches.
• Better yet, just have a nice glass of water with your next iced latte mocha frappaccino.
4 – You are 99% empty • Everything and everyone is made up of
countless little tiny atoms, and an atom is mostly empty space.
• Only 1% of an atom is made up of things – protons, electrons and neutrons.
What’s in the other 99%?
Empty nothingness.
Our bodies are formed entirely by these atoms, meaning that we are in fact mostly just empty,
vibrating energy beams, using the technology of our eyes and brains to understand the atoms
of other people, who are also just vibrating fields of energy.
• The atoms we are made up of are confined to act a certain way, so unfortunately we
can’t just walk through walls or turn invisible on command.
3 – We Can See Through Time • Light has a speed limit, so when we see
a star twinkling in the sky, that twinkle might have taken hundreds – or thousands
of years – to reach your eyeballs.
• The light from nearby star Betelgeuse takes about 640 years to hit our eyes, so
we’re seeing that star exactly as it looked during the 1300’s on earth.
This works with planets too - when we see a distant planet 1 million light years away,
we’re actually seeing the planet as it was 1 million years ago.
• If aliens are watching at us from other planets, they might see Earth as it was in
the dinosaur era.
2 – Humans Floating In Space for Fifteen Years.
• The International Space Station has been inhabited by at least one person ever since
November 2000, and has hosted over 220 astronauts and space tourists.
• For fifteen years, humans have been continuously spinning around our planet fifteen times per
day.
Life in zero gravity is a bit different to earth, there are no showers and everything
gets recycled – including toilet waste.
The effects of living in space for humans are still being researched, so that we can
one day safely send people to Mars and beyond.
• You can see the international space station flying across the sky without a telescope
if you know where and when to look.
2 – Canada Used Playing Cards as Money • Back when parts of Canada were actually
France, playing cards had to be used as money due to a scarcity of metallic money in the
colonies.
• Between 1685–1729, metal coins were brought to the French colony by boat, and
were distributed among traders for their goods.
But nobody wanted to give up their coins so they continued to pay in hide.
The coins were being hoarded and the boats delivering more coinage couldn’t keep up
with demand.
In the meantime, the King gave out signatured playing cards which people could cash in when
the next boat arrived.
• Unfortunately these days, playing cards will no longer get you your next beer or pay
your mortgage.