Every once in a while, someone gives you a piece of information that leaves you so dumbfounded that you question your entire existence…until you look it up. You’re proved wrong when you look it up, and your mind is blown as you again question your existence, pondering over it again.
Now do that 8 times! ?
1. A typical cloud weighs around 1.1 million pounds.
The typical density of a cumulus cloud (white fluffy one) is 0.5 grams per cubic metre (about the size of two chairs together). An average cloud is 1 km cubical. Calculating the density and volume leads us to the result that it contains 50,00,00,000 grams of water. If 1.1 million pounds is too much to imagine, try 100 elephants.
2. Every year, 2 out of 3 Australians will get diagnosed for skin cancer.
There is a hole in the ozone layer above parts of Australia and it lets in a lot of UV rays than normal. Recent weather apps show a UV alert over Sydney from 7 AM to 6 PM, meaning you can get affected if you’re out a lot in that time period. And since Australians have a general lifestyle of staying outdoors, the problem has worsened.
3. If you remove the empty spaces in atoms, we’d be the size of a single Gems.
An atom’s mass is decided by its nucleus. An average atom is approximately 1,00,000 times larger than that of its nucleus, which means that everything else is mostly empty space. One person is just the sum total of the weight of their nuclei. So the entire human population of 7.3 billion people can fit inside a single Gems if the empty space in all atoms is removed.
4. 23 Exabytes of data was created in the year 2002. We now create and replicate that amount every 7 days.
In a study conducted by UC Berkley, 5 exabytes of data were ‘created’ in 2002, and other 18 exabytes were ‘replicated’ via CDs, phone, internet, etc. To put it into perspective, 1 terabyte is 1024 Gigabytes. 1 Petabyte is 1024 Terabytes. 1 Exabyte is 1024 Exabytes. That is the amount of data created and replicated today in a week. That is almost 575 crore Blu-ray movies of 4 GB. ?
5. Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin both owned the same tortoise.
Her name was Harriet, and reports say that Charles Darwin picked her up when she was a baby from the Galápagos Islands. She was then kept in the Australia Zoo owned by Steve Irwin (the crocodile hunter) and his wife Terri. Harriet lived on to be 175 years before passing away in 2006.
6. Death by coconuts is 15 times that of death by sharks.
Coconuts have been known to cause death if fallen from a great height directly on people’s heads. A study in 2002 showed that 150 people die globally every year as a result of coconuts falling on their heads. Death by sharks is less than 10 per year, globally. You do the math.
7. 1 out 5 mammals on the earth are bats.
Bats and their different species are in abundance on the planet. About 1200 different species have been identified. This means that out of all mammals on the earth, 20% are bats and their species. And you thought Batman was a legend.
8. The budget for sending the Curiosity Rover to Mars is less than the global military expenditure for just 13 hours.
$2.5 Billion. Can you believe it!? NASA and the US Government earned a lot of flak for this much of spending. If you go to calculate, $2.5 billion over approximately 10 years comes up to $312 million a year. This means a single dollar for every single person living in the US.
Keep scratching those heads and checking, and double-checking, and cross-checking the facts above. See you in the next one!