Dr.Jonas Salk, the man who came up with the cure for polio, didn’t patent the drug. This made the drug more affordable to the general public, and he lost out an an estimated $7 billion dollars for himself.
41
Out of all the senses, smell is most closely linked to memory.
146
Cellophane is not made of plastic. It is made from a plant fiber, cellulose, which has been shredded and aged.
44
Sound travels fifteen times faster through steel than through air.
134
In the 1950s, the US government placed beer next to an atomic bomb blast to determine if it was still drinkable. The result: in the event of a nuclear war, beer is safe to drink!
16
Oak trees produce 2,200 acorns in a season, but each acorn only has a 1 in 10,000 chance of becoming an oak tree.
304
A single cup of gasoline, when ignited, has the same explosive power as five sticks of dynamite.
57
For a high school science fair project, 17-year-old Michio Kaku built a particle accelerator in his parent's garage that was able to generate a magnetic field 20,000 times greater than the Earth's and produce collisions powerful enough to create antimatter.
34