6 You are wealthier than 15% of the Americans put together if you have $10 in your pocket and no debts.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York put forth a report which stated that 15.1% of the households in the United States have a net wealth that is less than or equal to zero in 2015. The percentage of households with “non-positive wealth” were 3-4% more than in previous years, as computed by various organizations.

The report further stated that the heads of these households (of an average age from 43-51) had incurred debts in the form of student loans or credits when they were young. There were some households that had a negative net wealth as well.

So, be it $10 or $5, if you have that much in your pocket right now, you might technically be richer than the 15% of the population of United States which will be around 50 million people. (source)

7 Fungi breathe in oxygen and carbon dioxide which makes them more closely related to animals than plants.

Through molecular phylogenetic analysis, it has been determined that fungi are more closely related to animals unlike how they are popularly believed to be like plants. Fungi do not have stems, vascular systems, roots, leaves and do not perform photosynthesis.

Their cell walls contain polysaccharide chitin which is a major constituent in the exoskeleton of arthropods. The components of fungi, like Mushroom, contain the same as those present in the human cells like nucleotides, amino acids, niacin, vitamins etc. Like humans, they breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.

Did you know some fungi are bioluminescent? And, some of the fungi form loops and snares to trap nematode worms with their hyphae. When a nematode passes through these snares, they tighten and trap the worm. They are also known to perform symbiosis with many plants and animals. (1, 2)

8 Our fingers can feel objects as small as 13 nanometers, which means that if our finger was as big as the Earth, we could feel the buildings and the cars.

We have seen how important the power of touch is for the blind to read through the Braille script. Often, they can figure out who a person is by touching them on the face. We all have that power. In a ground-breaking study, Swedish scientists have found out that human fingers can feel nano-scale wrinkles as small as 13 nanometers while running them over a smooth surface.

The researchers say that when a finger touches a surface vibrations occur. We feel these vibrations differently on different structures. The higher the friction property of a surface, the softer is our touch. This research could go a long way in improving products for the visually impaired and in the fields of robotics and virtual reality.

Touch therapy has been a popular form of treatment in various regions across the world. There might be a lot more to it than we know. The science of touch might be completely unexplored. (source)

9 The 15-20 biggest ships in the world create more pollution than all of the cars in the world combined.

While all of us keep talking about the toxic car emissions and come up with measures to combat it, ships need some attention. Only 15-20 of the biggest ships in the world create more pollution than all of the world’s cars due to the heavy fuel oil they burn.

These ships emit noxious oxides of nitrogen and sulfur, and not much is being done about it. It is estimated that there are 1.2 billion cars on the road today and compared to the emissions by ships, the cars have a far lesser share.

The United Nations’ regulatory agency, the International Maritime Organization, has agreed to cap the sulfur emissions beginning in 2020, and the European Parliament agreed to include shipping in the European Union’s emissions-trading scheme beginning in 2021.

But the ship owners, who are already in debt, do not have enough funds to modify their vessels which may lead to many companies going out of business. The banks across the world have approximately 400 billion dollars invested in these ships, and if they do not function, all that money might go down the drain. (source)

10 The world’s largest ocean, the Pacific Ocean, is so huge that there is a point where you could tunnel straight through the Earth and come out on the other end and still be in the Pacific Ocean.

When we look at the map, we cannot even imagine how large the Pacific Ocean really is because it occupies the area between the United States and Australia which is shown on two different corners of the map. We know that it has an area of 165,250,000 square kilometers, but how big is that really?

The ocean that is often called “The Big, Blue Eye” from space because of an astronaut being able to see a full 360 degrees of its expanse, can stretch from one side of the Earth to the other. It stretches halfway across the world. All the seven continents could fit into the Pacific and there would still be space!

To understand how large the ocean is, let’s first understand what the term “antipodes” means. Antipodes are two points on the surface of the Earth that are diametrically opposite to each other. So, Spain’s antipode is New Zealand and the United States’ antipode would be somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

But the Pacific Ocean has its own antipode where both the points lie in the same ocean! That is how massive it is. If you burrow through the Earth from the Gulf of Tonkin and when you come out on the other end, you would still be in the Pacific. (1, 2)