STRANGE SCIENCE : Use This Info to Impress Your Friends

How far can the human eye see? While the majority of us wouldn’t consider our vision to be extraordinary, the human eye can see much farther than most of us realize. On a clear night most of us are able to make out the faint haze of the Andromeda Galaxy some 2.6 million light-years into space. Cool, right?

A huge study of half a million people has suggested that severe viral infections like encephalitis and pneumonia increase the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Read more here.

Human hearts have a big job: moving oxygen and nutrients throughout our bodies. But as much credit as the heart gets, it doesn’t work alone — the adult human circulatory system includes arteries, veins, and capillaries in a network that’s more than 60,000 miles long.  Read more here.

Does it make sense to describe asteroids as being equivalent in size to penguins? Um, probably not. But more and more science writers are comparing inanimate space objects to animals. Shouldn’t happen. See essay here.

Can caffeine improve exercise performance? Well, coffee lovers, the good news is yes, according to the International Society of Sports Medicine. See report here.