Fun Fact Friday

1. It Was Built As An Entrance For The 1889 World's Fair      In honor of the French Revolution's hundredth year anniversary, the city of Paris hosted the 1889 Exposition Universally, known in English as the 1889 World's Fair. Artists from all over the nation sent in their concepts for a structure, but the project fell into the hands of a construction firm owned by Gustave Eiffel, an architect and bridge-builder who also helped to design the Statue of Liberty. 2. The Size Of The Tower Changes With The Weather      When constructing the tower, Gustave Eiffel chose to use latticed wrought iron in order to prove that it could be just as strong as stone while also being lighter. The end result is a structure that is made up of approximately 7,300 tons of iron. Including its antenna, it is approximately 1,060 feet (320 meters) tall on an average day, but that's subject to change depending on the weather. The sun also causes it to expand and grow approximately 6 ...

 Every country on Earth has a unique shape. Many countries are larger than a single time zone, so they stretch through multiple, although the majority fits inside of one. However, the number of times zones a country passes through is not only determined by its size but also its offshore territories and colonies that might be a part of different time zones.       France is a country that has the largest number of time zones. It spreads across 12 different time zones that range from UTC-10 to UTC+12. France has many national territories scattered all over the world, which is the main reason for this. French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean is mostly to blame for this phenomenon. The United States of America also spreads through many time zones - 11, to be exact. This comes as no surprise since the country spreads across an entire continent. Still, only six of those eleven time zones are on the mainland. The country with the most time zones is France, these time zone...

       We usually think that animals like dogs, wolves bears have the best sense of smell but in 2014 researchers proved that African elephants have the greatest sense of smell among the mammals. They also beat dogs including the Bloodhound renowned for its sniffing ability. Humans may be the most intelligent creatures on earth but due to thousands of years of evolution some species have developed some uncanny ability.      In all animals the part responsible for the sense of smell are the Olfactory receptors (ORs), also known as odorant receptors. These are in epithelium of nose and provide the sense of smell. They have cilia that contain the receptors in its membrane and can detect specific chemicals.      Researchers examined the olfactory receptor (OR) repertoire encoded in 13 mammalian species and found that African elephants have the largest number of OR genes i.e., around 2000 functional OR genes which is twice that found in dogs ...

  GHAZI ATTACK OF 1971    The PNS Ghazi was the naval submarine, which was used in the naval battle of India-Pakistan Naval War of 1971 during the Bangladesh liberation war and hence popularly known as "Ghazi Attack".  PNS Ghazi was assigned with a two-fold objective. The primary goal was to find and sink INS Vikrant and the second one was to lay mines on India's Eastern seaboard with or without accomplishing the primary objective.   Finally on November 14, 1971, PNS Ghazi secretly sailed 3,000 miles (over 4,800km)    from the Arabian Sea to Bay of Bengal in a bid to locate and destroy INS Vikrant. Its secondary mission was to plant mines in India's eastern seaboard.   Ghazi started looking for Vikrant on November 23 off Madras but was not aware that she was 10 days too late and the Vikrant was actually somewhere near the Andaman islands.  Indian Navy got wind of the Ghazi's presence off the Sri Lankan coast by local fisherman which was ...

  Decimal and Sexagesimal Sexagesimal numeral system is a number system with the base of 60 as Decimal system has the base of 10. This sexagesimal system originated in ancient Sumerian civilisation in 3rd millennium BC, was further passed down to the ancient Babylonians. An hour consists of 60 minutes and a minute consists of 60 seconds but down further units we use a hundredth, millionth, and trillionth of a second i.e. we divide seconds further down by factor of ten i.e. the decimal system The Babylonians used this system for segmentation of time throughout the day and later it spread throughout the world. Many conversions in many units take place with the base 10 as given in the conversion chart below. Why 60 seconds/minutes? There are many possible reasons for the Sumerians, Babylonians and later civilizations to use the sexagesimal system for segmentation of time and measuring angles One of the reasons is that 60 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 i.e. an hour can be explained in h...

  INDIA DON’T HAVE NATIONAL SPORTS No particular sport is recognised as India’s national game, something confirmed by the country’s Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Since when is Hockey NOT the National Sport of India? This revelation came to light in 2012 when a 10-year-old girl named Aishwarya Parashar filed a Right to Information (RTI) request with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to get official declarations on the   national anthem , sport, song, bird, animal, flower and the country’s symbol. The PMO forwarded the query to the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. In response to the RTI, the ministry confirmed that it had not declared any sport or game as India’s national game. Why Not other Sports?  India was nowhere near the top in any other sports. Chess despite being invented by India, was being ruled by the Soviet Union (Russia). In fact, before Viswanathan Anand, India hardly had any player representing the nation at the highest level. Kabaddi is yet...

Copper has self disinfecting properties              Copper has been used in medicine for many decades and is known for its antimicrobial properties. But do you know that it is also known for its self-disinfecting properties. Self - disinfecting surfaces can be defined as a technology that has the ability to kill   and disable microbes on contact. Copper and its alloys can release reactive ions that invade the bacteria's cell wall, resulting in the destruction of DNA.                Although contact-killing cannot destroy some bacteria completely, but it is proven effective at reducing large amounts of various bacteria which include gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria as well as developed viruses. But there are some myths about this property of copper . It is said that copper cleans itself which is not correct. When bacteria come into direct contact with copper ions, a process begins which results in ...