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In the Fact File section we bring you a new collection of quick facts each week. (Click on the links below for more facts)

 
 

1061/ Because diamonds can withstand extremely high temperatures and corrosive conditions, and because they are transparent to most forms of light and electromagnetic radiation, they are ideal for use as windows in industry and in space probes, including the 1978 Pioneer space probe to the surface of Venus.

1062/ Sperm banks store there wriggling contents at a temperature of -196C.

1063/ The first manned space flight happened on the 12th April 1961, when Yuri Gagarin made a complete orbit of the Earth before landing safely back in Russia.

1064/ The 'Manhattan Project' - the original programme to design atomic weapons - was founded with just $6000 at the beginning of the Second World War. By 1945 that budget had grown to $2 billion dollars. Equivalent to about $20 billion in todays prices.

1065/ Government figures reveal that approximately 2.5 million animals are experimented upon every year in the UK. Not included in this figure are the animals bred simply to provide parts of their bodies for research. Worldwide, an estimated 200 million animals die every year in laboratories. Click Here to Learn More about Vegetarianism - Or Here For the American Anti-Vivisection Society.

1066/ Since 1978, satellites have recorded a decrease in sea ice of 2.9 percent every decade.

1067/ The Titanic weighed approximately 45,000 tons.

1068/ Early Roman women were the pioneers for modern day beauty treatments. They employed white lead and chalk as face powders, squashed ants eggs and flies to emphasise the eyes, and red earth as blusher.

1069/ Linus Pauling is the only scientist to win two Nobel Prizes Outright (not shared) - The prize for Chemistry in 1954, and the Peace Prize in 1962 for his vocal campaigning against nuclear weapons.

1070/ Over one billion mobile text messages are sent in the UK every month.

1071/ Diatoms are single celled plants found virtually anywhere where there is light and moisture. They make up a quarter of the planets plantlife by weight, and through photosynthesis account for 40-45% of the world's oxygen.

1072/ Loss of oxygen is known as 'anoxia'.

1073/ 80% of all galaxies are spiral shaped.

1074/ Basic surgery would cure 80% of the over 45 million blind people in the world. Sixty percent of whom live in sub-saharan Africa, China and India.

1075/ No two zebras have the same markings.

1076/ The longest suspension bridge in the world is the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan.

1077/ William Bottke at Cornell University in the US has calculated that at least 900 asteroids of a kilometre or more across regularly sweep across Earth's path.

1078/ The marathon is 26.2 miles long (42.2km).

1079/ In the early 1890s about 60% of jobs in the UK fell into three categories - farming, manufacturing and mining. By the 1930s that figure had fallen to 40% and in 2000 it had fallen to less than 15%.

1080/ The reason that apples turn brown after you have bitten into them is that the apple is exposed to the air and causes the oxidisation of tannic acid which causes the apple to turn a brown colour.

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