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.

14864. Science Facts

Electric bug zappers splatter an aerosol of dead bugs around the room as the bugs explode.

14865. Science Facts

The Australian 1991 Inventor of the Year Award was won by the designer of a cockroach zapper. The roach is lured into a trap with food, then electrocuted.

14866. Science Facts

If you flush the toilet without putting the seat down, a fine aerosol spray of urine and faeces flies into the air of the bathroom – and some lands on your toothbrush.

14867. Science Facts

A stinging tree in Australia can cause intense pain and even death.Tiny hairs full of poison break off the leaves and stick to the skin, which can then heal over the injury, trapping the poison inside. Even standing near the tree can cause painful nosebleeds!

14868. Science Facts

A medieval cure for meningitis involved splitting a pigeon in two and laying the two halves, cut side down, on the patient's head.

Fact
In ancient Egypt they paid their taxes in honey.      .. More >>