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Page 154 - Science Facts

There’s a waterfall in Minnesota where the water disappears into a hole and no one knows where it goes.

Devil’s Kettle Falls in Judge C. R. Magney State Park, on the north shore of Lake Superior is an unusual waterfall that confuses scientists to this day. The Brule River splits in two, and the eastern half plummets 50 feet to make up the falls. After that, no one knows where it goes.

The waterfall’s namesake, the Devil’s Kettle is a massive pothole at the bottom of the falls where all the water goes. The hole is at least 10 feet deep, but no one knows for sure how deep underground it gets. Researchers have tried putting colored dyes and ping pong balls into the falls to see if the water flows from the Devil’s Kettle back into another body of water, but to no avail. So far, nothing that’s been thrown into Devil’s Kettle has ever been seen again.
(Sources: 1, 2)

The highest temperature ever in Alaska was as high as the highest ever in Hawaii: 100 °F.

Even though Hawaii is tropical, the cool ocean breezes keep the statewide total temperature from getting extremely high. It hasn’t gotten as hot as 100°F since 1937. Not surprisingly, Alaska’s high record of 100°F was almost 100 years ago in 1915. The highest temperature ever in the United States was in California. In 1913, the temperature in Death Valley reached 134°F. That’s close to the world record: 136°F in El Azizia, Libya in 1922
(source)

If you go back 25 generations, you have 33,554,432 ancestors.

Assuming no inbreeding occurred in the past 25 generations, you should have 33,554,432 great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandparents. If you added together ALL of your potential ancestors (including your parents, grandparents, great grandparents, great great grandparents, etc.) you really have a total of 67,108,862 ancestors. Of course, this is only true IF none of your ancestors ever had children with any of their relatives (not even 23rd cousins!), which in the course of 25 generations is a huge “if”.

Feel free to check the math:

2^25=33,554,432

2^25+2^24+2^23+2^22+2^21+2^20+2^19+2^18+2^17+2^16+2^15+2^14+2^13+2^12+2^11+2^10+2^9+2^8+2^7+2^6+2^5+2^4+2^3+2^2+2=67,108,862

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Gold nanoparticles are actually red.

This is the natural color of a neutral gold atom. Normally, gold in this form is in an aqueous solution. You can make it yourself by diluting chloroauric acid in water, adding a small amount of a reducing agent like sodium citrate, and stirring them together. That red liquid you get as a result is actually tiny gold particles suspended in water. People have actually been doing this for centuries. The ancient Romans used to use solutions like these (called “colloidal gold”) to stain glass. It was even suggested that this red liquid gold had the potential to be an “Elixer of Life”.

Learn how to make your own colloidal gold here.

The largest pumpkin in the world weighs more than the largest man in the world.

The current record for largest pumpkin is 1810.5 pounds. Chris Stevens’ pumpkin at the Stillwater Harvest Fest in Stillwater, Minnesota was recognized in October 2010 by the Guinness World Records as the largest pumpkin. Compare that to Manuel Uribe who, until recent years, held the record as world’s heaviest man, clocking in at 1300 pounds. (As we've mentioned before, he has since lost a lot of that weight).

The heaviest man in recorded history, Jon Brower Minnoch, was approximately 1400 pounds at his peak, still quite a bit lighter than Chris Stevens’ pumpkin. This is true for everyone else on the list of the heaviest people on Wikipedia.

You can read more about this enormous pumpkin here.

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