Animals
Honeybees are capable of recognizing individual human faces.
True
Lightning never strikes the same place twice
False Lightning frequently strikes the same place multiple times. The Empire State Building is struck by lightning around 20 times per year.
The human body contains enough iron to make a small nail.
True The average adult body contains about 3 to 4 grams of iron, mostly in the blood.
Australia is both a country and a continent.
True Australia is the only nation in the world that occupies an entire continent
Almonds are a type of nut.
False Almonds are technically seeds. They are the edible pit of a drupe fruit, more closely related to peaches than to walnuts.
Sharks are the only fish that can blink.
True Sharks have a nictitating membrane, a protective inner eyelid that closes when they attack prey.
The human brain uses about 20% of the body's total energy.
True Even though the brain accounts for only about 2% of body weight, it consumes a large portion of the body’s energy.
Your nose and ears never stop growing.
True While most bones stop growing after adolescence, cartilage continues to grow slowly throughout life. Ears and noses are largely made of cartilage.
The Sahara is the largest desert in the world.
False Antarctica is the largest desert in the world. A desert is defined by low precipitation, not temperature. The Sahara is the largest hot desert.
Carrots were originally purple.
True Wild carrots were purple, yellow, and white. The familiar orange carrot was cultivated in the Netherlands during the 17th century.
A cow produces more milk when listening to music.
True Studies have shown that slow, calming music can increase milk production by a meaningful amount.
All planets in our solar system rotate in the same direction.
False Venus and Uranus rotate in the opposite direction from most other planets
The tongue is the strongest muscle in the human body.
False The tongue is strong, but the masseter (jaw muscle) is generally considered the strongest muscle relative to its size.
The Amazon River flows into the Pacific Ocean.
False The Amazon River flows into the Atlantic Ocean on the northeastern coast of Brazil.
Tomatoes are legally classified as a vegetable in the United States.
True In 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Nix v. Hedden that tomatoes are legally vegetables for trade and tariff purposes, even though they are botanically fruits.
Penguins mate for life.
False Most penguin species are serially monogamous. They are faithful within a breeding season but not always to the same partner across years.
Atoms are mostly empty space.
True If the nucleus of an atom were the size of a marble, the atom itself would be roughly the size of a football stadium.
Your stomach gets an entirely new lining every few days.
True Stomach acid is powerful enough to dissolve metal, so the stomach replaces its lining roughly every three to four days.
The Eiffel Tower grows taller in summer.
True The iron structure expands in warm temperatures, allowing the tower to grow up to about 6 inches taller during hot weather.
White chocolate is a type of chocolate.
False White chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk but no cocoa solids, which many purists consider necessary for true chocolate.
The mantis shrimp can see more colors than any other known animal.
True Mantis shrimp have 16 types of color receptors, compared to the three that humans have.
Hot water freezes faster than cold water under certain conditions.
True this phenomenon is called the Mpemba effect. Scientists have observed it repeatedly, although the exact conditions that cause it are still debated.
Yawning is contagious even when you read about it.
True Simply reading or thinking about yawning can trigger one. (You might even be yawning right now.)
More people live in the city of Tokyo than in the entire country of Canada.
True the greater Tokyo metropolitan area has around 37 million residents, which is close to the entire population of Canada.
Peanut butter was invented by a Canadian.
True Marcellus Edson of Montreal patented a peanut paste made from roasted peanuts in 1884.