Trivia : General Facts

Trivia : Item Teasers

Trivia are facts that can be amusing although they are mostly knowledge that we can do without. Here, we have compiled some of them.

Ten random selection

Women get bitten by mosquitoes more often than men do because mosquitoes like the scent of estrogen, a female hormone.

NOTE: This fact is based on the assumption that all other factors between males and females are equal. Many factors actually causes mosquitoes to target certain humans. These include sweat, body odour, body chemicals such as uric acid (builds up in skin), lactic acid (released from pores), octanol (in sweat and breath), acetone (in breath), and estradiol (a collective constituent of oestrogen).
 
The sizes of ours eyes are the same for all babies and the same for all adults. Also, our ears and nose never stops growing.

NOTE: Baby eyes are approximately 16mm at birth and grow to approximately 24mm in adults for all sexes and ethnic groups. Ears and nose get larger due the effect of gravity. It is thought that their cartilages stop growing by late teens.
The ostrich egg cell is among the largest single animal cell which is about 6 in or 15 cm long and weighs about 3 lbs or 1.4 kg.
The footprints made by astronauts on the moon will stay there for many centuries. There is no erosion on the moon to disturb the footprints.

NOTE: The moon has no weather so there is no erosion from wind, rain, rivers or the sea. There is also no geological activity to disturb the soil, like volcanoes or earthquakes. The effect of the solar wind on soil particles on the moon surface is far too slow to be significant. Meteorite strikes are the only likely sources to erase the footprints. Even a tiny fragment or speck of space rock can wipe out a single footprint.
 
More people suffer heart attacks on Monday mornings due to increased cortisol levels believed to be from the anxiety of getting back to work.

NOTE: It is believed that Monday morning stress increases stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenalin, in higher than normal levels. People who then suffer heart attacks as a result, do so as a consequence of higher spikes in blood pressure or of arterial constriction. The latter is in response to an outpour of cortisol, that causes cholesterol plaque to dislodge and block blood flow to the heart.
 
The state of matter that exists at the coldest temperature, Bose-Einstein Condensate superfluid, defies gravity. It flows up the side of its container, then flows over the edge and down the outside wall before dripping away.

NOTE: This is possible due to superfluids being at such a cold temperature (less than 2.1768K for helium II) that a significant fraction (over 90% in helium II) of the molecules achieve the lowest quantum state of matter while the other fraction of molecules remain as a normal liquid. Molecules in the lowest state achieve zero viscosity status while retaining the property of surface tension. The zero viscosity produces a frictionless state within the superfluid. Thus, as the molecules moves under the influence of adhesion to the container wall (van der Waal attractive forces between molecules of different types), the surface tension of the superfluid that binds molecules together by cohesion (van der Waal attractive forces between molecules of the same types) allows a front of molecules to rise up the side of the container. This is the same way that normal liquids form their meniscus. In normal liquids, the height that the liquid rises up the side of the container depends on how strong the cohesive forces between the liquid molecules are, before gravity eventually stops it. A superfluid, however, will continue to rise due to zero viscosity where the motion continues in a frictionless state without loss of kinetic energy. It is the surface tension, in binding the superfluid molecules, that allows the superfluid to flow in a thin film (about 30nm in helium II) to keep the bulk moving. The zero viscosity allows for the unimpeded distance to be travelled. This is providing that the superfluid moves at speeds below a critical velocity (60m/s for helium II or 20cm/s by another source). Above this velocity, the superfluid properties are lost and it reverts to normal fluid properties. As of now August 2019, only superfluid 4He and 3He have been identified and successfully experimented with. Reports of some success with superfluid evidence in hydrogen have been made in 2000 and another more recently by NASA, in the International Space Station in 2018, from atoms of rubidium.
Skylab, the first American space station, fell to the earth in thousands of pieces in 1979, mostly over the ocean near Australia.
Fingerprint development on foetuses (fetuses) starts around the third month of gestation.
The hairy frog or horror frog with the scientific name Trichobatrachus robustus breaks its own bones to make a claw for a fight.
 
Most fish do sleep. While most fish do not have eyelids, they do have a regular period of reduced activity and metabolism. Some hover close to the bottom barely moving.

Published on: 13 Feb 2019 2124.
Last updated: 13 Feb 2019 2124.