Blog

There are just 31 GPS satellites currently working and they orbit along different paths to cover Earth’s entire surface. These satellites carry extremely precise clocks, and they’re constantly broadcasting the time. A GPS receiver can measure how long it took for that time signal to arrive from the satellite. If the receiver can listen to 4 satellites at the same time, they can find your exact GPS location!

Fleas can jump 50-100 times their body length but that’s still much smaller than 2.45 metres. Similarly, rabbits can jump high for their size, but still only about a metre. Of these choices, only the impala can top the human with a vertical leap of 3 metres!

Bowhead whales are one of the longest-living animals on Earth. They regularly live to over 200 years! African elephants can live to be in their 70’s while naked mole-rats are long-lived for rodents (they get to their late 30’s). Giant tortoises regularly live beyond 100 years.

Rock-wallaby is the common name for a genus of wallabies, which is unusually rich in species. Rock-wallabies often live in rocky, rugged terrain, which provides protection from predators. There are at least 17 species recognised.

The Rosetta Stone’s message is repeated in two Egyptian languages as well as ancient Greek. Archaeologists understood ancient Greek well and could use it to decipher the alphabets for both Egyptian hieroglyphics and Egyptian cursive script.

True. This gigantic telescope is called FAST, and the F stands for Five-hundred-meter. It’s built into a big, naturally occurring hole in the ground, and it steers by moving a cabin around above the dish (and by waiting for Earth to rotate!).

False. The construction dates for these two famous structures are similar but not the same! The first stones of Stonehenge were placed around 3000 BCE. The stones of the first Great Pyramid of Giza were placed about 500 years later, around 2550 BCE.

A strong password uses uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers and symbols (like !, @, #, $). It’s also important to use passwords that are different from past ones. Strong passwords are harder to remember so it is a good idea to use a password manager.

The 60 centimetre pizza is twice the width and twice the length of the 30 centimetre pizza, so it’s 2 x 2 = 4 times the area!

There are lots of holograms on banknotes, including a different bird on each note that appears to fly. Raised ink, called intaglio print, can be felt by running a finger across the portraits. All banknotes have clear, plastic windows, too. All of these features are hard to copy.