10 Things you didn't know 5 minutes ago! (Part 5)

10. Why do Kangaroos hop?


If you have a look at fossil evidence from kangaroos, you'll find that 25 million years ago they used to walk like us.

However due to evolution they have an enlarged fourth toe on each foot.

The way the toe is aligned with their leg allows them to use it as a spring to propel them into the air.

Research has shown that at higher speeds hopping conserves more energy.

Scientists found this out by strapping our friends to a treadmill and monitoring energy consumption, at higher speeds of bounding, they actually saved more energy by bounding further instead of more frequently.

9. The average tree produces 85,000 sheets of paper


Assuming roughly a 50% yield, the tree being 18 feet high and 1 foot in diameter. So next time your parents accuse you of wasting paper, tell them it's the same as throwing a twig away!

8. Hug a tree at midday, you won't be able to at night


If you put your arms around a tree in the day, the trunk is undergoing transpiration, which means that water is constantly being lost through the leaves, and hence the trunk.

However at night the tree tries to save water, which means that it'll store it in the trunk.

If you ever want to 'extract' some information from someone, try binding them tightly to a tree during the day, as the tree grows during the night, it'll most likely snap their arms! (I'm joking, don't actually do it)


7. 60 million years ago we had the same ancestor as dolphins


Except they grew fins and we grew legs.. Maybe it suggests how both species are intelligent


6. Tiger sharks have a strange pregnancy


When fertilised, she develops 2 embyros, and the stronger of the two will eat the other.

It's survival of the fittest in the womb, and usually when the baby is born it is stronger than all the others.

This is the best smelling shampoo
ever made!

(Namely from practising on it's brothers)

5. Hair products are useless


I'm talking shampoos which claim to make your hair healthier.

Hair above the surface is infact dead cells. The hair that is alive in under your skin, and since no one can see that, there's not much point.

The only thing shampoos do is strip your hair of it's natural oils and make it shinier.

4. 3 states of matter? Try 15



Solid, amorphous solid, liquid, gas, plasma, super-fluid, supersolid, degenerate matter, neutronium, strongly symmetric matter, weakly symmetric matter, quark-gluon plasma fermionic condensate, Bose-Einstein condensate and ‘strange matter are all states of matter!

3. You have 9 senses


You know about 5 I assume; smell, touch, taste, hear and sight? Try these other 4 that scientists have agreed on: 

1. Thermoception – the sense of heat (or it’s absence) on our skin,
2. Equilibrioception – our sense of balance, which is determined by the fluid filled cavities in our inner ear.
3. Nociception – Pain.
4. Proprioception – or ‘body awareness’. This is the conscious knowledge of where our body parts are without having to look, for example, close your eyes and waggle your big toe, you still know where it is in relation to the rest of you.

2. On 1 square inch of skin, there is 20 million microscopic creatures


Before you frantically claw at yourself, don't worry they don't bite, most of them just chill there absorbing oxygen.

There is also no point trying to get rid of them, most of them are single celled, and so will produce rapidly by mitosis when it lands back on you.

You also cannot drown them, they don't' have lungs, they'll simply use oxygen which has diffused into them.

The only real way to eradicate them completely is to burn yourself alive, but you we don't want that do we?



1. Female koalas have 2 vaginas, and male koalas have a forked penis

I guess it's like a lock and key.. This can actually happen in humans, the condition is called Diphallia. It's quite rare though, only 1000 cases have been recorded.

There was a french woman who had a double vagina, and became a famous prostitute. The man who had 2 penises however, just got bullied all his life.