Random Fascinating Scientific Facts We Just Learned That Made Us Say ‘Really?’ (12 items)

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  (#1) Hooded Pitohui Birds Are Toxic To The Touch

  Papua New Guinea's hooded pitohui is one of the few poisonous bird species. Their toxicity was discovered by ornithologist Jack Dumbacher in 1989. Dumbacher caught some of the birds in a net; then, as Australian Geographic explains,

  As Jack struggled to free the pitohuis from his nets, they scratched his hands and the cuts hurt more than they should have. He put his fingers in his mouth to dull the pain, but that only made his tongue tingle and burn.

  After Dumbacher sent the birds' feathers away for study, they were found to contain batrachotoxins. These neurotoxic steroidal alkaloids can be fatal in high doses and are also found in the skin of poison dart frogs. The birds acquire this toxin from feeding on melyrid beetles. 
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  (#7) Approximately 0.001% Of People Who Develop Cancer May Enter Spontaneous Remission - Healing Naturally Without Treatment

  The phrase "spontaneous regression of cancer" refers to the process of cancer cells being eradicated by the body's natural immune system. It is an incredibly rare but documented phenomena, occurring in about one in 100,000 cancer patients.

  A 2011 article in the Journal of Natural Science, Biology and Medicine notes:

  The spontaneous healing of cancer, after having been the subject of many controversies, is now accepted as an indisputable fact. The percentage of spontaneous regression as quoted by Boyers is 1 in 80,000 and 1 in 100,000 by Bashford; it may be subjected to criticism but proves a remarkable fact that cancer is not an irreversible process.

  Regression is more commonly associated with groups of tumors like the embryonal tumors in children, carcinoma of the female breast, chorionepithelioma, adenocarcinoma of the kidney, neuroblastoma, malignant melanoma, sarcomas, and carcinoma of the bladder and skin.
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  (#3) China's Three Gorges Dam Is So Massive It Can Slow The Rotation Of The Earth

  Though not so much that you'd actually notice. According to Dr. Benjamin Fong Chao, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center:

  If filled, the [Three Gorges Dam] would hold 40 cubic kilometers (10 trillion gallons) of water. That shift of mass would increase the length of day by only 0.06 microseconds and make the Earth only very slightly more round in the middle and flat on the top. It would shift the pole position by about two centimeters (0.8 inch).

  Dr. Chao's comment comes from a 2005 NASA article that explains how many things affect the rotation and shape of the planet, including earthquakes, weather patterns, and even traffic.
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  (#10) Humans Have The Same Density Of Body Hair As Chimpanzees And Gorillas

  Though humans appear to be hairless compared to other great apes like chimpanzees and gorillas, they sport the same number of hair follicles per centimeter of skin.

  As National Geographic points out, the hairy divide between humans and other hominids is not measured by volume but type:

  We actually have the same density of body hair as other apes of our size, but ours is largely fine and colourless rather than thick and dark. We are coated with a layer of short, fine hair, known technically as vellus hair and colloquially as peach fuzz.

  As to why human hair has become finer over time: it may have been to help us detect parasites on our skin; to enable our skin to cool off more efficiently when sweating; or even to boost humans' sexual attraction to each other.
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  (#8) Radiotrophic Fungi Are Feeding On Chernobyl's Radiation

  Since the 1986 meltdown at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, a dark fungus has been growing around the area - seemingly nourished by the radioactive soil. The fungus is notable for containing melanin, the same pigment that darkens human skin. Scientific American writes that breeds of fungus that contain melanin are absorbing "high levels of energy in ionizing radiation and somehow turn it into a biologically useful (and benign) form."

  One scientific paper reports that "ionizing radiation changes the electron structure of the melanin molecule and that fungi with a natural melanin shell (the soil-dwelling Cladosporium sphaerospermum and yeastlike Wangiella dermatitidis varieties), which were deprived of other nutrients, grew better in the presence of radiation."

  More research is required, but the possibilities are exciting. As Scientific American speculates, "melanin-bearing fungi could be used in clothing to shield workers from radiation or even farmed in space as astronaut food."
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  (#2) Metal From Sunken WWII Ships Is In High Demand Because It's Uncontaminated By Radiation

  If you want to make highly sensitive medical or physics equipment, a cost-effective method is to use the metal from sunken World War II ships. This is because they contain what is known as "low-background steel." 

  All steel produced after the 1945 atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki is contaminated with radionuclides, or radioactive isotopes. Air is required in the steel manufacturing process, and any steel made using atmospheric air has a high chance of containing radioactive particles (a side effect of the more than 1,900 nuclear tests conducted since WWII). 

  The steel used to make WWII ships was not only produced before atomic testing, but also remains insulated from atmospheric radiation by the ocean depths. In the modern era, it is possible to produce non-radioactive steel in a controlled environment, but this is a more expensive process than simply salvaging the metal from the sea.

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