As 2016 comes to its end, its time to look back about scintillating science facts discovered this year. About a score of them went on to become more popular, and here are they:
25 BREATH-TAKING SCIENCE FACTS OF THE YEAR
Fact 1: 1st written record demonstrating the ‘Laws of Friction’ was found after 500 years from Leonardo da Vinci’s “irrelevant scribbles”. He had stated them 200 years before Amontons stated the laws.
Fact 2: Second moon of the Earth was discovered this year. The mini-moon also called ‘quasi-satellite’ is now named as 2016 HO3.
Fact 3: After more than 100 years, Einstein’s prediction has come into reality. Gravitational waves are real. Researchers detected the elusive ripples over three times, this year at LIGO. LIGO is the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory.
Fact 4: There are four states of water. Water’s second liquid state exhibits a phenomenon called quantum tunneling.
Fact 5: Jamie Edward on March 5, last year created a revolutionary new type of nuclear fusion machine. This year the test proved successful and this could be used for clean and efficient energy in the near future.
Fact 6: As of April 2016, sexual transmission of Zika virus has been documented in 6 countries. This shows that it can be sexually transmitted. And more over, it was found that it causes microcephaly in babies.
Fact 7: According to a study, published in the journal eLife on January 7, 2016, a slight mutation due to an ancient molecule, GK-PID, is the reason single-celled organisms started to evolve into multicellular organisms about 800 million years ago.
Fact 8: Scientists at ESO discovered an Earth-like planet around Alpha Centauri C, i.e. Proxima Centauri, a 4.24 light years away star system.
Fact 9: After Pluto was de-recognized as a planet due to its size, scientists have predicted that there could be another planet. This may become the 9th planet of the solar system.
Fact 10: It is possible to live a normal life with just 10% of our brain.
Fact 11: The reason for weird metallic sound coming from the 11,000 meter deep Mariana Trench was found. This, according to the researchers is a new kind of baleen whale call.
Fact 12: It is possible to survive for more than 12 months without heart.
Fact 13 : On March 24, Arctic sea ice extent peaked at 5.607 million square miles, a new record low winter maximum extent in the 13 year satellite record.
Fact 14: The time travel may get ruined due to the newly discovered pear shaped atomic nuclei.
Fact 15: There’s a giant, 1.5 billion cubic meter field of precious helium gas in Tanzania.
Fact 16: The fossil of a 1.6 foot long reptile discovered in Italy, was now found to be of an ancient reptile with an ant eater claw.
Fact 17: Private company SpaceX successfully launches a rocket vertically.
Fact 18: Crows have big ears that are covered with feathers and are highly sensitive.
Fact 19: The artificial beings that were just fictional in 19th century, then became real and now they have started to beat humans in several fields.
Fact 20: Tardigrades that live at 20,000 ft Himalayas to 13,000 deep sea and polar regions are non-destructible due to their DNA make-up.
Fact 21: Dinosaurs’ glorious and floppy tail feathers were found with amber.
Fact 22: Largest known prime number is a 22 million digit number. It is 274,207,281 – 1. This is five million digits larger than the second largest prime number.
Fact 23: The north pole is moving towards the 2300 nautical mile distant London, due to planet’s shifting water content.
Fact 24: About one third of the planet can no longer see the Milky way galaxy, whose rotational period is about 240 million years at the position of the Sun.
Fact 25: Sloth who have a minimum life-span of 25 years, almost die every-time they poop.
