20 Interesting Science Facts (#1)

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1. 1 in 10 Europeans are immune to the HIV virus.
2. It was either the plague or smallpox that made 1 in 10 Europeans immune to HIV
3. Some women can see an extra colour. Its called tetrachromacy.
4. Birds have a one-way respiratory system.
5. Black slime on the Chernobyl reactor turned out to be a fungi that has evolved to use the reactors radiation as a food source.
6. Margaret Thatcher was a chemist. She worked in a lab developing ice cream and helped make Mr Whippy.
7. The wingspan of a Boeing 747 is longer then the Wright brother’s first flight.
8. The Big Bang theory was given the name by Fred Hoyle to make the theory sound absurd.
9. The microwave oven was accidentally discovered when a researcher’s chocolate bar melted in his pocket near a radar tube.
10. Alfred Nobel created the Nobel Prize out of guilt after inventing dynamite.
11. Only 1 of the UK’s 650 MPs is a scientist :S
12. 78% of the population don’t have the genes required for smelling smelly urine after eating asparagus.
13. Henning Brand though urine contained gold because of its colour. Trying to collect this gold he accidentally discovered phosphorus.
14. Scientists got a cat to express GFP. Under a florescent light he glows bright green.
15. Chickens have the genes for making teeth.
16. Birds have nuclei in their red blood cells.
17. The Big Bang was not an explosion, it was an expansion of space time.
18. Fritz Haber is know for being responsible for sustaining 1/3 of the Earth’s population and also for his poisons gases in WWI.
19. Laser was originally an acronym and stood for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
20. Octopuses have three hearts.