Until selective breeding made them taste better, watermelons tasted bitter and were harvested only for their water content

Dandelion flowers and greens are actually edible, can even be eaten raw, and are chock-full of nutrients

“Eye of newt,” “toe of frog,” and “wool of bat” are archaic names for mustard seeds, buttercups, and holly leaves

Octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish all have three hearts

Most flight-capable birds have 21 or 22 flight feathers on each wing

Spilling superglue on cotton, leather, or wool can trigger a rapid, heat-producing reaction that can result in severe burns or even ignition

The largest known intact meteorite is Hoba, a 66-ton chunk of iron, that landed on Earth approximately 80,000 years ago in Namibia

The wind on Venus can often reach speeds as high as 450 mph (724 km/h); to contrast, the highest recorded wind speed on earth is 254 mph

Selfies are deadlier than shark attacks, causing about 28 deaths annually, with falls from heights being the most common cause

Jupiter completes a full rotation approximately every 9 hours and 55 minutes, making it the fastest-spinning planet in our Solar System

Indian elephants carry their young for about 22 months, the longest gestation period of all terrestrial mammals

There are only three species of raccoon in the world: common raccoon, crab-eating raccoon, and the critically endangered pygmy raccoon

The letter J was the last letter added to the English alphabet, originally developing as a variation of the letter I in the 1500s

Groundhogs and woodchucks are the same animal. It’s a rodent, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots

The number four is the only number in the English language that has the same value as its number of letters

Jabiru storks hunt by touch rather than sight, holding their bills partly open in the water and snapping them shut when prey touches them

The largest constellation in the night sky is Hydra, one of 48 named in the 2nd century by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy

Glass is made mainly from sand, mixed with lime and soda ash, then heated to very high temperatures until it melts, it then cools into glass

The Big Dipper is classified as an asterism, rather than a constellation, as it is part of the Ursa Major constellation

All space telescopes take photos in black and white; astronomers colorize them afterward by assigning colors to different wavelengths

Dugongs are the only remaining species in their family, Dugongidae; their closest living relatives are manatees

In perfect conditions, there are around 5,000 stars visible to the naked eye when you look up at the night sky

The Black-backed jackal has been around for over 2 million years, remaining almost unchanged since the Pleistocene epoch

A bolt of lightning can reach 53,540°F. That’s over five times hotter than the surface of the Sun, which is 10,340°F

The American pocket shark, which lives in the Gulf of Mexico, measures only 5 ½ inches long and glows in the dark

The oldest dinosaur discovered was the Nyasasaurus parringtoni, a small carnivorous dinosaur that roamed the planet approximately 240 m.y.a.

The can opener wasn’t invented until almost 50 years after the can. Earlier methods to open cans included the use of a hammer and chisel

Roborovski dwarf hamsters, the smallest hamster species, weigh up to 0.71 oz (20 g) and can run up to 6 miles (10 km) in a single night

A loofah sponge is the dried interior of a luffa gourd from the cucumber family, which is edible when young

Grizzly bears can sprint up to 35 miles per hour (56 km/h) over short distances

Electric eels are not true eels, but belong to a different family that’s more closely related to catfish

In 2007, Oklahoma declared the watermelon its state vegetable

Learning new information in small daily doses leads to stronger long-term memory retention

Uranus is the only planet named after a Greek deity rather than a Roman one

Camels store fat in their humps, not water, contrary to popular belief, though the fat can be metabolized into water during dry periods

Both Motel 6 and Super 8 got their names from the original prices of the rooms; Motel 6 started at $6 in 1962, and Super 8 at $8.88 in 1974

Earth’s escape velocity, or the speed required by a spacecraft to break free of Earth’s gravity, is 6.96 miles (11.2 km) per second

You can tell the difference between a Hubble photo and a James Webb by the number of points on the stars

Clocks move clockwise because the shadows cast on sundials in the northern hemisphere moved the same way

The Burj Khalifa has the most windows of any building in the world at 24,348

The spotted predatory katydid mimics female cicada signals to lure male cicadas, which it then attacks and eats

Unlike many sharks that swim to breathe, nurse sharks can breathe while stationary thanks to a process called buccal pumping

Mercury has no moons because it’s too close to the Sun, which would pull any potential moons away from the tiny planet

Timor-Leste's name has a funny quirk: “Timor” derives from “timur,” meaning “east” in Malay, and “Leste” also means “east” in Portuguese

The placebo effect has been found to work even if people know they’re taking a placebo

There are approximately 1.4 billion insects for every human on Earth

In 1664, the Senate of Hamburg, Germany, made it illegal to insult, harm, or eat swans