Mercury gets its chemical symbol Hg from “Hydragyrum,” the Greek for “liquid silver”!

A White rhino weighing 2 tons can run faster than Usain Bolt!

How did doctors figure out if women were pregnant back in the day? They used frogs, of course! Before the 1960's, the only reliable pregnancy test involved injecting a woman's urine into an African clawed frog and seeing if the frog spawned.

This peculiar method, known as the 'frog pregnancy test,' may sound bizarre today, but it was a common practice in the early to mid-20th century. The African clawed frog, a species native to sub-Saharan Africa, was preferred for this test because of its unique reproductive system.

If a woman was pregnant, her urine would contain hormones that would induce the frog to lay eggs, confirming the pregnancy. While this method may seem unusual by modern standards, it was an early example of using biological indi ...

This fly-sized frog is the world's smallest known vertebrate. Paedophryne amauensis is 7.7 millimetres long and inhabits New Guinean rain forests.

An enormous tomb has been unearthed in northern Greece, guarded by two beautifully preserved female figures. It’s been dated to the time of Alexander the Great.

Don't ask questions, just get on. Genets are small, mongoose-like felines found in Africa - and this one has been caught on camera hitching rides from at least two different species over the past month. This is the first time this behaviour has ever been seen in the mammal...

Fuzzy green aliens? Not quite, but that doesn't make the colony of living balls that took up residence on an Australian beach last weekend any less peculiar.

"They're actually a really unusual growth form of seaweed, because seaweeds mostly grow on the rocks but occasionally they get knocked off and rolled around in the ocean forming these beautiful little balls. It's quite an unusual phenomenon, it's only been seen a handful of times around the world."

Source: http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20142409-26225.html ...

Desolate, frozen and black as coal - welcome to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This is one of the closest colour images ever of a comet, taken from just 29 kilometres away by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft. Rosetta will soon land on this rugged surface.

What a waste!

The collider will be twice the size of the Large Hadron Collider outside Geneva in Switzerland. At 80 km in circumference, it could encircle the whole island of Manhattan.

We're all thinking it... this watermelon looks like a big green butt. Accidentally grown in Japan, it formed when two watermelons grew too close together and fused. And it turns out that 'Japanese butt melons' aren't all that uncommon

Botanically, apples, peaches, grapes, and tomatoes are all fruits. But don’t try telling that to the U.S. Supreme Court. Per the 1893 case Nix v. Hedden, the court decided that tomatoes were veggies and therefore subject to the vegetable tariff. The Supreme Court’s reasoning? Tomatoes have to be vegetables because they’re usually served with dinner, not dessert.

Say hello to the California Red-Sided Garter Snake. Don't worry, they are only mildly venomous.

The Dana octopus squid (Taningia danae) of the Pacific blinds its prey with flashes of light from its arms! It is believed that this highly maneuverable squid uses the bright flashes to disorientate potential prey. These flashes may also serve to illuminate the prey to make for easier capture as well as a courtship and territorial display.

The RYNO is a cross between a segway, unicycle, and a scooter.

African spur-winged geese (Plectropterus gambensis) become so toxic after eating blister beetles that consuming their flesh can kill a human. Blister beetles (family Meloidae) are toxic due to the presence of a chemical compound called cantharidin. Cantharidin is a potent toxin that these beetles produce and store in their bodies as a defense mechanism against predators. It acts as a powerful irritant and blistering agent when it comes into contact with skin or mucous membranes. The toxicity of blister beetles serves as a deterrent to potential predators, helping them avoid being eaten. ...

The Drama! Hognose snakes play dead by lying on its back, lolling its tongue, and giving off the odor of carrion!

When it comes to hygiene, which should you be using?

Building a modern-day replica of the Great Pyramid of Giza would take five years and around 5 billion dollars to build. Even with access to as many stone-carrying vehicles, cranes and helicopters as required, it would still take 1,500 to 2,000 workers around five years to replicate the Great Pyramid of Giza.

These tiny chips have been designed to bring the capability of the Internet to everyday objects in your home. Think smart light globes, smart vacuum cleaners, and smart coffee makers, all communicating wirelessly with each other to cater to your every whim.

Turns out big cats like the taste of dog - a new study of scat samples found that 87 per cent of the diet of Indian leopards was made up of domestic animals, with dogs being the most common prey item.

A new robotic 'smart suit' has been developed by FastCompany to give anyone from soldiers and fire-fighters to hiking enthusiasts and the elderly a bit of superhuman strength. It's lightweight, flexible, and can be worn under clothes.

According to its makers, "the suit works by mimicking the action of the leg muscles and tendons when a person walks, with an actuator system giving small, carefully timed assistance at the ankle and hip joints without restricting the wearer’s movement. The breakthrough is in the 'structured functional textiles' that transmit those applied forces all over the body during natural movement. Wearable, flexible sensors integrate into the fabric to gauge the body’s movement and provide support at the right moment." ...

A federal judge has passed down a ruling on the largest accidental marine oil spill (the Deepwater Horizon oil spill) in history, calling major players British Petroleum (BP) "reckless", and Transocean and Halliburton "negligent". BP is ordered to pay 17.6 billion for the damages it caused in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Let's just hope they don't end up spending that money on their military instead.

These lamps, designed by Yukio Takana from Japan, use mushroom-shaped LEDs, bits of driftwood, and salvage lumber to create something that has a kitsch or whimsical quality.

Why do these fish look like they’re spouting puffs of magic dust out of their mouths? The tiny crustaceans (1 millimetre-long crustacean called an ostracod) that these transparent fish try to eat light them up, causing the fish to be at risk of predation themselves, so they spit them out!

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Blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus), the largest animals on Earth, were nearly hunted to extinction in the last century. But now, the population of California blue whales is almost as high as it was in the early 1900s - a recovery that should be celebrated as a conservation success story!

Right now, people with pacemakers need to go into surgery every time the battery dies. But this new pacemaker is based on the mechanics of a self-winding wristwatch, drawing all its power from the patient's beating heart.

Japan may be short on land, but that's not stopping the country from investing in renewable energy. Two floating solar farms are scheduled to be operational by April 2015, and they'll eventually become part of a 60 megawatt floating solar network.

The sophistication of ants never ceases to amaze. New footage of an undocumented behaviour reveals a ‘daisy-chaining’ technique, in which ants link themselves together to haul large food away.