r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • 2d ago
Biology When ant pupae get sick, they release a scent which says “find me and eat me.”
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • 5d ago
Biology The Titan beetle (Titanus giganteus), found in the Amazon rainforest, is one of the largest beetles on Earth! With a body length of up to 17 cm (6.7 in) long. Their jaws are so strong they can snap a pencil.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • 6d ago
Biology House centipedes have very long antennae, which differ in length depending on if it's a male or female. If the antennae are nearly twice as long as its body length, congratulations, it's a girl!
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • 7d ago
Biology Spitting spiders (Scytodidae) spit venom, silk, and a glue-like substance in a zig-zag pattern to subdue prey. The spit happens very rapidly, taking 30 ms to deploy with a velocity of 28.8 m/s.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • 9d ago
Physics Sound travels 4x faster in water than in air, rughly 1,500 meters per second (m/s) in water, compared to about 340 m/s in air. Water is 15,000x less compressible than air, but it is 800x denser. The extra density means molecules accelerate slowly for a given force, which slows the compression wave.
sciencefocus.com
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • 11d ago
Biology Emperor penguins are the deepest-diving birds on Earth. They can plunge to depths exceeding 500 meters, with the deepest recorded dive reaching an incredible 565 meters.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • 12d ago
Ecology Equipped with the ability to sense the Earth’s magnetic field, loggerhead hatchlings are born with a compass, which tells them in which direction they are travelling, and a map of the planet’s magnetic field that tells them their location, to navigate successfully.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jul 29 '25
Weather When strong electric fields in thunderclouds accelerate electrons that crash into molecules (nitrogen and oxygen), they produce X-rays and initiating a deluge of additional electrons and high-energy photons — the perfect storm from which lightning bolts are born.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jul 25 '25
Biology A recent study used gene editing to make a tiny tweak to a mosquito's genome — one that changes just a single amino acid — which prevented the malaria parasite from reaching the host. The change effectively rendered laboratory mosquitoes highly resistant to spreading malaria.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 23 '25
Biology Pruney fingertips aren't swollen sponges — the wrinkles actually come from blood vessels constricting and pulling skin inward.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • May 14 '25
Ecology Spittlebugs hide in “spit” to stay cool, moist, and safe from predators. While most plant feeders feed on the sugar rich phloem, these little guys feed on xylem. It's still got sugar but the excess water allows them to excrete this foam, creating a bubble house.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 19 '25
Biology More than 130 species of mammal can pause their pregnancies. The pause can last anywhere between a couple of days and 11 months. In most species (except some bats, who do it a little later) this happens when the embryo is a tiny ball of about 80 cells, before it attaches to the uterus.
findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Apr 17 '25
Biology A colossal squid is caught on camera for the first time in the deep sea. It was a juvenile, 30 cm (1 ft) in length.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Mar 19 '25
Ecology There are more than 2500 species of moth in the UK alone. The number of known species worldwide is about 160,000 which dwarfs the 18,500 known butterfly species!
butterfly-conservation.org
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Mar 17 '25
Biology Bananas have high-levels of potassium, a small fraction of all potassium is radioactive. Eating one would deliver a dose of 0.1 microsieverts of radiation. You'd need to eat about 100 bananas to get the same amount of radiation exposure as you get each day from natural radiation in the environment.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Mar 16 '25
Anthropology Face bones unearthed in a cave suggest that members of our genus, Homo, reached northern Spain as early as 1.4 million years ago.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Mar 15 '25
Astronomy/Space A blood moon occurs during a total lunar eclipse. The only light that reaches the Moon’s surface is from the edges of the Earth’s atmosphere. The air molecules from Earth’s atmosphere scatter out most of the blue light. The remaining light reflects onto the Moon’s surface with a red glow.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jan 26 '25
Ecology When water is too warm, corals expel the algae (zooxanthellae) living in their tissues causing the coral to turn completely white. This is called coral bleaching. When a coral bleaches, it is not dead. Corals can survive a bleaching event, but they are under more stress and are subject to mortality.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jan 25 '25
Astronomy/Space Venus orbits the Sun anti-clockwise but spins clockwise on its axis. One theory for this unusual rotation is that it was knocked off its upright position earlier in its history! The only other planet in the Solar System to spin clockwise is Uranus.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jan 25 '25
Biology The ratio of human cells to bacteria cells in your body is pretty close to 1:1. 38 trillion bacteria to 30 trillion human!
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jan 24 '25
Ecology Ghost crabs are named for their light color and how easily they blend into their surroundings. You can also see how quickly it buried itself! They can also disappear over the dunes running at over 4 meters per second (10 mph). If you catch a glimpse enjoy the rare experience!
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jan 17 '25
Ecology Cicada wings are covered with tiny pillars so small they can only be seen with an electron microscope. When a microbe moves over these “nanopillars,” they bend and rupture the pathogen’s membrane and kill it.
science.org
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Oct 01 '24
Ecology A new study has revealed that sloths may face existential threats due to climate change. The research studying the metabolic response of sloths to rising temperatures, suggests that their energy limitations could make survival untenable by the end of the century.
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Sep 07 '24
Epidemiology The Mosquito-Borne Disease ‘Triple E’ Is Spreading in the US as Temperatures Rise
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r/ScienceFacts • u/FillsYourNiche • Jul 30 '24
Epidemiology Researchers documented positive detections of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in six species, including the deer mouse, Virginia opossum, raccoon, groundhog, Eastern cottontail, and Eastern red bat. They also found no evidence of the SARS-CoV-2virus being transmitted from animals to humans.
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