10 unnecessary ridiculous facts about science

The world is weird. That we live is crazy and if you think a little longer about things, it becomes. It. All. Extremely. Weird. Let me start by saying sorry: sorry for point four. You wouldn't want to know this about yourself.

1. According to astronauts, space smells like a combination of diesel and barbecue. The scent is caused by dying stars.

2.  Your DNA is – excusez le mot – fucking long. If you unfold a molecule of human DNA, it averages about 5 centimeters long. Every cell in the human body contains 23 DNA molecules and you have about 37 trillion cells. If you unfold all the DNA molecules from your body and lay them end to end, you would have a strand of 200,000,000,000 kilometers. That’s enough to go back and forth to Pluto 17 times. Craaaazy.

3. Scientists from Cornell University have created a functioning guitar the size of a human blood cell. Just so you know, huh.

4. This is an extremely weird story, but really: you were once an asshole. When cells divide and grow into a human, the anus forms first. Then comes the mouth. Humans therefore belong to the order ‘deuterostomia’, Greek for ‘mouth second’. Sounds a bit fancier than ‘asshole first’, right?

5. In 1992, a GIGANTIC shipment of bath ducks (29,000 to be exact, woohoo) accidentally got lost at sea and they are still being discovered in unexpected places.

6. The average lightning bolt contains enough energy to toast 100,000 pieces of bread.

7. Stomach acid is one of the most acidic substances on earth with an average pH of 1.5. If you ever ‘spontaneously’ swallow a razor blade, it could be completely digested by your stomach acid.

8. The coldest temperature ever recorded on a planet in our solar system was on Uranus. There, the mercury once dropped to -224°C.

9. Your eyes can detect a candle flame from 48 kilometers away. Really. It's just that you can't see for miles due to the curvature of the earth, but if the earth were flat, you would be able to see the flame of a candle from 48 kilometers away. That's like being able to see a candle flame in The Hague from Amsterdam...

10. If you drill straight down into the world, you would eventually end up near New Zealand. If you jumped into that hole, it would take you about 38 minutes to reach the other side of the world. Airplane, eat your heart out.