Random Fact of the Day - Tumblr Edition

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Did you know that the world record for a mile run is 3:43.13 by Hicham El Gerrouj (men’s) and 4:12.33 by Sifan Hassan (women’s)?

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Did you know that sharks have organs called ampullae of Lorenzini that allow them to sense electric fields generated by the nervous systems of other fish? They appear as small dark spots on the snout of the fish. Other cartilaginous fish, as well as some bony fish have the organs. Platypus and echnida (which are mammals) have an unrelated ability to sense electric fields.

(Image Credit: Albert Kok)

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Did you know that bull sharks are able to regulate the amount of salt in their blood stream, thereby allowing them to live comfortably in fresh or salty water? Most fish are unable to do this, and cannot live in water with significantly different salinity. Other fish that can include salmon, some types of trout, stingrays, and lots of others.

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Did you know that sharks and rays (and skates, which are very similar to rays) are distinct from almost all other vertebrates—animals with spines—since they have skeletons made of cartilage rather than bone?

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Did you know that if the space probes currently going into interstellar space (Pioneer 1 & 2, Voyager 1 & 2, New Horizons), the Voyager probes are expected to run out of power in the later half of the 2020s, and the New Horizons in the 2030s? The Voyager probes will be further from the Sun when the mission ends, compared to New Horizons, at somewhere between 160-200 AU for Voyage 1 and 140-160 AU for Voyager 2 (1 AU is the mean distance from the Earth to the Sun).

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Did you know that the World Health Organization has 194 members, consisting of all UN members except Lichtenstein, as well as the Cook Islands and Niue (which are associated states with New Zealand)?

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Did you know that pistol dueling was an Olympic demonstration sport in 1908, as well as a full sport in the semi-official 1906 Intercallated Olympics? The contestants in 1908 fired at dummy targets, and in 1906 they used rubber bullets and padding so duelists were mostly safe.

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Did you know that Sneek is a city in Friesland in the Netherlands, and is the 3rd largest city in the province with 33,000 residents?

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Did you know that a nautical mile was defined as the length along the Earth’s surface of 1 minute of latitude (1/60 of a degree of latitude)? This would be well-defines if the Earth was a sphere, but it’s slightly ‘squished’ so the old definition could change depending on where it was measured. The new definition is 1852 meters, approximating the average of the old definition.

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Did you know that the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic were both founding members of the United Nations despite not actually being independent until 1991? India, the Philippines, and New Zealand were also non-sovereign founding members, although they all gained independence within a few years.

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Did you know that the HMS Sandwich was a 90 gun ship-of-the-line in the Royal Navy that served from 1759 to 1810?

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Did you know that the splashdown (Earth landing) of Apollo 14 was the most accurate in the program, landing only 0.7 miles from the target? The next most accurate was actually Apollo 13, despite the problems it encountered.

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Did you know that the coordinate axes for the Saturn V rocket were +x for up, +y for north, and +z for east?

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Did you know that the 1918 H1N1 pandemic, also known as the Spanish Flu pandemic, was unusual due to being more lethal for people with healthy immune systems (e.g. young adults) compared to people with impaired immune systems (e.g. the elderly)? This is due to the virus causing a “cytokine storm,” an overreaction of the immune system, which is more dangerous with a stronger immune system.

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Did you know that Disney’s Aladdin was originally supposed to be set in Bagdhad, the actual city in Iraq, but after the Gulf War started they decided to set it in a fictional city?

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Did you know that most films are made at 24 frames per second? For contrast, phone cameras often film at 60 frames per second.

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Did you know that the first circumnavigation of the world by an entirely submerged submarine was conducted by the US in 1960? The Soviet Union would do (roughly) the same in 1966.