Description

With added illustrations

This book has 2,600 fascinating and educational facts chosen just for kids; these are the best facts for kids put into one mega edition that combines Really Interesting Stuff for Kids with additional facts. To make it both entertaining and educational, it has periodic illustrations, and the content is focused on animals, geography, history, and science and nature; for example:

• The termite queen is the longest living insect. They have been known to live for at least 50 years, and some scientists believe they may live to 100.
• Recent research suggests that ice is slippery because there are loose water molecules on the surface that act like marbles on a floor. Prior theories that it was due to pressure creating a thin layer of water on the surface have been disproven since the pressure would have to be far too great.
• Mongolia is the only country that has entirely wild horses that have never been domesticated by humans. The endangered Przewalski's horse is native to the steppes of Mongolia; all other wild horses are feral horses that are descendants of domesticated horses.
• Stars don't twinkle; the light they emit is steady and constant, but the earth's atmosphere interferes with what we witness and makes them appear to twinkle.
• Rock paper scissors originated in China about 2,000 years ago.
• If you could fold an average thickness (0.004 inches) paper in half 42 times, it would be thick enough to reach the moon; if you could fold it 103 times, it would be 109 billion light-years thick, thicker than the observable universe is wide.
• On a per weight basis, spider silk has a tensile strength five times greater than steel. Each strand is 1,000 times thinner than a human hair and is made up of thousands of nanostrands, only 20 millionths of a millimeter in diameter.
• Without a visual reference point, humans are incapable of walking in a straight line. If blindfolded or lost in terrain devoid of landmarks, we tend to walk in circles. Scientists have yet been unable to determine why.
• A domestic cat shares 95.6% of its DNA with a tiger.
• Maine is the closest state to Africa; Quoddy Head, Maine, is 3,154 miles from Morocco. It is almost 1,000 miles closer than Florida.
• Scientists have found that humans are born with two innate fears, the fear of falling and the fear of loud sounds. All other phobias are acquired.
• Technically, United States Independence Day is July 2, 1776, which is when Congress voted America free from British rule. July 4 is the day the Declaration of Independence was adopted.
• An adult blue whale's tongue weighs 6,000-8,000 pounds, about the same as a small elephant.
• Due to anti-German sentiment during WWI, the British royal family changed their name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor, so the family is named after the castle and not the other way around.
• For countries that share a land border, the distance between Brasilia, Brazil, and Paris, France, is the greatest distance between any two national capital cities. French Guiana borders Brazil and is part of France, just as Alaska is part of the United States, so France shares a land border with Brazil. Paris and Brasilia are 5,424 miles apart.
• Bamboo is the fastest growing plant. Bamboo can grow 35 inches in a day, a rate of 0.00002 mph.
• Tsutomu Yamaguchi is the only recognized person to survive both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts. He was in Hiroshima on business for the first bomb and then returned home to Nagasaki.
• Huh is the closest thing to a universal word. It means the same thing in every language, and everybody in almost every language says it.

This is book 5 of the Really Interesting Stuff series; I hope you enjoy it, and if you do, look for other books in the series.