Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

What Happens If We Throw an Elephant From a Skyscraper? Life & Size 1

10 insights saved from this video by @science

@science
Make an animal ten times longer and its surface area grows 100-fold, but its volume and mass grow 1,000-fold.
@science
A wet mouse carries three grams of water, over 10% of its weight. Wet humans carry 800 grams, about 1%.
@science
An ant can be thrown from an airplane without serious harm. At its scale, falling is largely irrelevant.
@science
Fairy flies measure 0.15 millimeters and swim through air with hairy wings because ordinary insect flight fails at their scale.
@science
Some insects breathe underwater inside a trapped air layer: oxygen diffuses in, while carbon dioxide diffuses out.
@science
For insects, water’s surface tension acts like glue, engulfing them beneath a surface they cannot break.
@science
Tiny animals can survive falls from great heights: low mass means little kinetic energy, while surface area slows and cushions them.
@science
An elephant’s mass overwhelms its surface area, leaving little air resistance and enormous impact energy in a fall.
@science
Every size range is a different physical world, forcing evolution to redesign organisms as body size changes.
@science
Body size is biology’s most underappreciated regulator, shaping how organisms are built, experience the world, live, and die.

More from Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

See everything from Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

Keep what you found in What Happens If We Throw an Elephant From a Skyscraper? Life…

A free account saves any of these cards to your Collection, and Korva resurfaces them so you actually remember.