Galaxies

Distant galaxies undergoing intense bursts of star formation have been shown by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to be fertile growing grounds for the largest black holes in the Universe. Collisions between galaxies in the early Universe may be the ultimate cause for both the accelerated star formation and black hole growth.

A car travelling at 100mph would take more than 29 million years to reach the nearest star but you could reach the sun by car in a little over 106 years.

The Earth weighs around 6,588,000,000,000,000,000 tons.

Every year the sun losses 360 million tons.

Over 1000 Earths could fit inside the sun.

The average modern home computer is more powerful than all of NASA's computers at the time of the Apollo moon landings put together.

If you took 1 pound of cobwebs and stretched them out into 1 single thread it would fit round the world twice

X-ray technology has shown that there are 3 different versions of the Mona Lisa under the visible one.

Radio waves travel so much faster than sound waves that a broadcast voice can be heard sooner 18,000km away than in the back of the room in which it originated.

Biology

The brain is the second heaviest organ in the body after the liver and ahead of the heart.

The brain uses 25% of the oxygen required by the human body.

Someone still owns Albert Einstein's brain as it was preserved after his death.

The Buffalo Theory

A herd of buffalo only moves as fast as the slowest buffalo. So when the herd is hunted, it is the weakest and slowest ones at the back that get killed first. This example of natural selection is beneficial for the herd because the regular culling of the weakest animals improves the overall and average health and speed of the whole group. Similarly, the human brain can only work at the speed of it's slowest cells. Now, to much alcohol kills brain cells - but, importantly, the weakest and the slowest cells first. Consequently, regular beer consumption, by eliminating them, is making your brain work faster and better.

So the moral is: drink more beer.