Football teams wearing red kits play better. The colour of your clothes can affect how you’re perceived by others and change how you feel. A review of football matches in the last 55 years, for example, showed that teams wearing a red kit consistently played better in home matches than teams in any other colour.
Wind turbines kill between 10,000 and 100,000 birds each year in the UK. Interestingly, painting one of the blades of a wind turbine black can reduce bird deaths by 70 per cent.
The average dinosaur lifespan was surprisingly small. The Tyrannosaurus rex, for example, reached full size between 16-22 years old and lived up until 27-33. The largest dinosaurs such as the Brontosaurus and Diplodocus tended to live up to between 39-53 years old, maybe reaching the heights of 70.
Snails have teeth. Between 1,000 and 12,000 teeth, to be precise. They aren’t like ours, though, so don’t be thinking about snails with ridiculous toothy grins. You’ll find the snail’s tiny ‘teeth’ all over its file-like tongue.
The biggest butterfly in the world has a 31cm wingspan. It belongs to the Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing butterfly, which you can find in the forests of the Oro Province, in the east of Papua New Guinea.
Murder rates rise in summer. Ever feel angry or in a bad mood when the weather is hot? Well, you’re not alone. Violent crime goes up in hotter weather, and in the US, murder rates reportedly rise by 2.7 per cent over the summer.
Glass sponges can live for 15,000 years. This makes them one of the longest-living organisms on Earth. The immortal jellyfish, however, could theoretically live forever (but scientists aren’t sure)
The longest anyone has held their breath underwater is over 24.5 minutes. The world record for breath-holding underwater was achieved by Croatian Budimir Šobat on 27 March 2021, who held his breath for a total of 24 minutes and 37 seconds. On average, a human can hold their breath between 30-90 seconds.
If the Earth doubled in size, trees would immediately fall over. This is because surface gravity would be doubled. It would also mean dog-size and larger animals would not be able to run without breaking a leg.
A chicken once lived for 18 months without a head. Mike the chicken’s incredible feat was recorded back in the 1940s in the USA. He survived as his jugular vein and most of his brainstem were left mostly intact, ensuring just enough brain function remained for survival. In the majority of cases, a headless chicken dies in a matter of minutes.
Earth’s rotation is changing speed. It’s actually SLOWING. This means that, on average, the length of a day increases by around 1.8 seconds per century. 600 million years ago a day lasted just 21 hours.
Honey is the only food that will never rot, it can last 3000 years.
Our galaxy probably contains at least 2 billion planets like Earth.
Newborn babies can only see in black and white for a few months.
A blue whale’s heart can be as large as a car.
Alec school 