Facts for Ages 14+
838 facts perfect for this age group
The ratio of dissolved salts in ocean water is remarkably consistent everywhere on Earth, even though total salinity varies. This suggests the ocean has been efficiently mixed over millions of years.
Africa has the youngest population of any continent, with a median age of just 19 years. More than 40 per cent of Africans are under 15.
In a phenomenon called sudden stratospheric warming, temperatures in the stratosphere can rise by up to 50 degrees Celsius in a few days, often causing cold snaps at the surface below.
The sum of the first N odd numbers always equals N squared: 1+3=4 (2²), 1+3+5=9 (3²), 1+3+5+7=16 (4²).
In 2009, NASA confirmed that water ice exists on the Moon, trapped in permanently shadowed craters at the south pole — a discovery that could help future lunar missions.
The QWERTY keyboard layout was designed in the 1870s partly to keep commonly used letter pairs apart so typewriter keys wouldn't jam.
Noctilucent clouds are the highest clouds on Earth, forming about 50 miles up and visible only around twilight.
Over 750,000 miles of fiber optic cables sit on the ocean floor, carrying 99% of the world's internet data between continents.
A derecho is a widespread, long-lasting windstorm with straight-line winds that can exceed 100 mph.
Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of spacetime caused by massive events such as colliding black holes. First detected in 2015, they travel at the speed of light and were predicted by Einstein 100 years earlier.
The magma chamber beneath Yellowstone is estimated to be roughly 90 kilometres long and 30 kilometres wide, containing enough molten and partially molten rock to fill the Grand Canyon more than eleven times.
Collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body, making up about one third of all your proteins and providing structure to skin, bones, and tendons.
A shuffled deck of cards has never been in the same order before — there are more possible arrangements than atoms on Earth.
The last supernova observed in the Milky Way with the naked eye was Kepler's Supernova in 1604.
A lahar is a fast-moving river of volcanic mud and debris that can travel over 100 kilometres per hour. In 1985, a lahar from Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia buried the town of Armero.
In real-world data, the number 1 appears as the first digit about 30% of the time — this is called Benford's Law.
Pascal's triangle hides tons of number patterns — it contains the Fibonacci sequence, powers of 2, and triangular numbers.
Volcanic eruptions are measured on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), which goes from 0 to 8. A VEI 8 'mega-eruption' would eject more than 1,000 cubic kilometres of material.
In many real-life data sets, about 30% of numbers start with the digit 1. This surprising pattern is called Benford's Law and is used to detect financial fraud.
When Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in 1991, it was so powerful that it temporarily cooled the entire Earth's average temperature by about 0.5°C.