Your stomach gets a new lining every few days
Stomach acid is strong enough to dissolve metal, so the cells lining the stomach are replaced roughly every three to four days before the acid can damage them.
Read the fact →You are about 1 cm taller in the morning
The cartilage discs between your vertebrae compress under your weight during the day and expand again while you sleep lying down.
Read the fact →Your body makes about 2 million red blood cells every second
Bone marrow produces them continuously because each red cell lives only around 120 days. The total in your body is roughly 25 trillion.
Read the fact →Humans glow in the dark — just too faintly to see
Chemical reactions in our cells give off a tiny amount of visible light, about a thousand times weaker than the eye can detect. It is strongest in the late afternoon.
Read the fact →Your nose can tell apart about a trillion smells
A 2014 study estimated humans can distinguish at least one trillion different odours — far more than the old 10,000 figure that textbooks repeated for decades.
Read the fact →Babies are born with about 300 bones; adults have 206
Many of a newborn’s bones are separate pieces of cartilage that fuse together as the child grows, so the count drops as the skeleton hardens.
Read the fact →Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire
Teaching at Oxford was under way by 1096. The Aztec capital Tenochtitlan was founded in 1325 — more than two centuries later.
Read the fact →Cleopatra lived closer to the Moon landing than to the Great Pyramid
The Great Pyramid of Giza was finished around 2560 BC. Cleopatra died in 30 BC — about 2,500 years later. The Moon landing in 1969 was only about 2,000 years after her.
Read the fact →The shortest war in history lasted about 38 minutes
The Anglo-Zanzibar War of 27 August 1896 began at 9:02 am and was over by around 9:40 am, after British ships bombarded the sultan’s palace.
Read the fact →Ketchup was sold as medicine in the 1830s
An Ohio physician, John Cook Bennett, promoted tomato ketchup as a cure for indigestion and even sold it in pill form.
Read the fact →The Eiffel Tower grows in summer
Its iron expands in the heat, so the tower can be up to 15 cm taller on a hot day than on a cold one.
Read the fact →Chess was invented in India
The game began as chaturanga in India around the 6th century, spread to Persia as shatranj, and reached Europe through the Arab world.
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