14844. Science Facts

Some people – most of them in the USA – claim that they have been abducted by aliens from space while they slept, had their bodies experimented on and sometimes their minds changed, and were then returned to Earth.

14845. Science Facts

A will-o'-the-wisp is a flame of burning marsh gas that appears in boggy areas at night. It has lured many travellers to a muddy death when they have left the path to follow it, believing it to be someone with a light.

14846. Science Facts

The castor bean plant contains the most deadly poison in the natural world, ricin. Just 70 micrograms (2-millionths of an ounce) could kill an adult human. It is 12,000 times more poisonous than rattle snake venom!

14847. Science Facts

Bacteria – tiny living things that we also call germs – divide in two every 20 minutes. So, starting with one (it doesn't need a girlfriend/boyfriend), you can have over 130 million in just 9 hours!

14848. Science Facts

It's said that dead Americans rot much more slowly than they used to – because they eat so many preservatives in their foods.

14849. Science Facts

Some scientists think that being too clean might make us ill – some studies suggest that people need to eat a small amount of dirt in order to kick start their immune systems. Not learning to fight infections can lead to asthma and other allergic problems.

14850. Science Facts

One possible way of controlling cockroaches being explored in the USA is to release parasitic worms which will kill the roaches but don't harm people.

14851. Science Facts

The stinking corpse plant, or rafflesia, is a huge parasitic flower that smells like rotting meat.The flower is up to a metre (about 3 feet) across and is the largest flower in the world. It grows directly out of a creeping vine, from which it gains all its nourishment without ever growing leaves of its own.

14852. Science Facts

Scientists working on transplant techniques grew a human ear on the back of a mouse. The ear is moulded using human cartilage cells, and nourished by the mouse's blood as it grows.

14853. Science Facts

The average glass of London tap water has passed through nine people's bladders before it reaches your sink.

14854. Science Facts

Deodorants don't stop you sweating but they kill the bacteria that make sweat smell.

14855. Science Facts

The earliest study of brain damage was of railway worker Phineas Gage. In 1848, an explosion shot a thick iron rod through his head. Although he recovered physically, his character changed completely. His skull and the iron rod are on display in Harvard University, USA.

14856. Science Facts

A cure for whooping cough used in Yorkshire, England in the 1800s was to drink a bowl of soup with nine frogs hidden in it. You couldn't make it yourself – it only worked if you didn't know about the frogs. (And probably not then, either!)

14857. Science Facts

Romans dressed small wounds with spider webs soaked in vinegar.

14858. Science Facts

A Roman cure for epilepsy (having fits) was to bathe in the blood of a gladiator.

14859. Science Facts

People on the Pacific island of Chuuk use a love potion made from centipede's teeth and stingray tails.

14860. Science Facts

For centuries, it was illegal to cut up dead bodies, so surgeons and scientists had to pay criminals to steal the corpses of executed prisoners from the gallows in order to learn about anatomy.

14861. Science Facts

An old cure for tuberculosis consisted of cutting open a newly dead cow, pulling the folds of skin around your neck and breathing in deeply.

14862. Science Facts

A chemical extracted from leeches is used as a painkiller.

14863. Science Facts

Air conditioning systems are home to lots of nasty bacteria. And because they pump the same air around a building again and again, they are one of the best ways of spreading diseases to everyone in the building.

Fact
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