09. Fact Check #5: 10 Random Science facts

 Hey everyone

Check out my fourth Fact check video.

In this blog post, I will be providing the explanation of each facts presented in my fact check video.

• More human twins are being born now than ever before.

Twin births are multiplying, a new study finds. In their study, the scientists, from Radboud University, University of Oxford, and the French Institute for Demographic Studies, found that one in 42 babies born today is a twin. That reflects an overall rate of 12 twin pregnancies out of 1,000, up from just nine in the 1980s.

The biggest factor behind the spike is IVF and other medically assisted reproduction (MAR) procedures.  [source]

IVF increases the chance of twins if more than one embryo is transferred. [source]

• A narwhal's tusk reveals its past living conditions.

Same as rings in a tree trunk, a new growth layer is added to the narwhal's spiralled tusk every year. The individual layers act as an archive of data that reveals what and where the animal has eaten, providing a glimpse of how the ice and environmental conditions have changed over its long life span (up to 50 years). [source]

• "New car smell" is the scent of dozens of chemicals.

That “new car smell” may come from toxic chemicals, according to new research.

A new study suggests that new car smell comes from toxic chemicals off-gassing in a car’s interior, like brominated flame retardants (BFRs), chromium, and lead. In all, researchers identified more than 275 different chemicals in vehicle interiors, including those associated with birth defects, impaired learning, liver problems, and cancer.

The 2012 new vehicle study from the nonprofit Ecology Center analyzed the chemical content of more than 200 new cars for its top 10 healthy and unhealthy car interiors. The higher the vehicle rating in the study, the higher the level of these chemicals was, based on their testing methods. [source]

• According to a study conducted in 2019, the world wastes about 1 billion metric tons of food each year.

The world wasted about 931 million metric tons of food in 2019 — an average of 121 kilograms per person. That’s about 17 percent of all food that was available to consumers that year, a new United Nations report estimates. [source]

• The severed head of a sea slug can grow a whole new body.

Losing your body from the neck down can be just another one of life’s annoying, but temporary, setbacks — at least for two kinds of rippling, green-tinged sea slugs.

Heads of young Elysia cf. marginata sea slugs can pull themselves free from their bodies and just keep crawling around while growing a new body, report ecologists at Nara Women’s University in Japan. Within a few hours, some separated heads start nibbling on algae again, Sayaka Mitoh and Yoichi Yusa report March 8 in Current Biology. And within about 20 days, a third of the young sea slugs they watched had grown their bodies back, heart and all. [source]

• Hair and nails may grow faster during pregnancy.

A woman’s body goes through many changes during pregnancy. Having a baby even affects your hair, skin and nails. You may notice several differences—some good and some not so good.

Your hair may seem to grow faster during pregnancy. It may also feel thicker. Normally, about 90% of your hair is growing at any given time. You don’t lose as much hair each day, making your hair seems fuller and thicker.

Some women find that their nails grow a lot faster during pregnancy. [source]

• The world's smallest reptile, a tiny chameleon measuring just 28.9 millimeters, was first reported in 2021.

Officially known as Brookesia nana, or B. nana for short, the new species is so tiny it’s thought to survive on a diet of mites and springtails, which it hunts down in leaf litter.

About the size of a sunflower seed, the newly described creature from Madagascar may already be critically endangered. [source]

• Many feet bones don't harden until you're an adult.

According to the Ontario Society of Chiropodists, the bones in our foot are completely hardened at around 21 years of age. The group notes that while our bodies are made up of 206 bones, we walk around with 52 bones in our feet — 26 in each foot — which means that more than a quarter of our body's bones is in our feet. [source]

• Some sea snakes can breathe through their skin.

The 3m species, which is native to Australian and Asian coastal waters, can draw in oxygen with the help of a unique set of blood vessels below the skin in its snout and forehead.

The network of blood vessels works very similarly to a fish’s gills, and represents a newly discovered addition to the extraordinary range of adaptations that sea snakes use to thrive below the waves. [source]

• The heads on Easter Island have bodies.

Moʻai, or moai, are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500.

The mysterious Easter Island statues — hundreds of huge, ancient carved stone heads that guard the hilly Pacific island landscape — may actually have bodies, according to an email showing excavations at the site.

The email, which made the rounds in May 2012, contained photos of a startling excavation project at Easter Island. According to the email, archaeologists were in the process of unearthing the statues' bodies, which were gradually buried by 500-plus years of erosion. [source]