True or False Nature Facts

Explore true or false facts about plants, trees, weather, oceans, volcanoes, rocks and seasons. Read a statement, then open its answer and explanation

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A lichen is a single plant that grows on rocks, trees and walls
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False
A lichen is a partnership of a fungus with an alga or cyanobacteria, and it is classed with the fungi
Source: artsci.usu.edu
Coast redwoods get a large share of their summer water from fog
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True
They absorb fog through the pores of their leaves, which supplies nearly 40% of their water in dry summers
Source: nps.gov
The Sun rises due east on every day of the year, in summer and in winter
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False
It rises due east only at the 2 equinoxes, and the rest of the year the sunrise point shifts north or south
Source: nesdis.noaa.gov
The top of a big thunderstorm cloud rises higher than Mount Everest
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True
Thunderstorm clouds can climb up to 16 km into the sky, while Everest's summit is 8.8 km above sea level
Source: nesdis.noaa.gov
Breaking waves can glow blue at night because of tiny glowing plankton
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True
Plankton called dinoflagellates flash neon blue light when the water around them is disturbed
Source: utmsi.utexas.edu
Erupting volcanoes can produce lightning inside their own ash clouds
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True
Colliding ash particles build up electric charge near the vent, and ice in the high plume adds more
Source: pubs.usgs.gov
Some bamboo species flower once every 120 years or so and then die
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True
In Phyllostachys bambusoides the plants flower together on a roughly 120-year cycle, set seed, then die
Source: nationalgeographic.com
A Venus flytrap snaps shut as soon as 1 trigger hair is touched
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False
It counts: 1 touch does nothing, a 2nd touch closes the trap, and about 5 touches start digestion
Source: uni-wuerzburg.de
Utah's Pando aspen forest is one organism, about 47,000 stems on one root system
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True
All the trunks are genetically identical clones sprouting from 1 root system that covers over 40 hectares
Source: en.wikipedia.org
The Amazon rainforest produces about 20% of the oxygen we breathe
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False
The Amazon's net oxygen contribution is about zero, because trees and microbes use up the oxygen they make
Source: nationalgeographic.com
A rainbow is really a full circle, which you can sometimes see from a plane
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True
From the ground the horizon cuts off the lower part, but from an airplane you can sometimes see the whole circle
Source: nesdis.noaa.gov
Raindrops fall in the classic teardrop shape, pointed on top and round below
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False
Small drops are round, and bigger ones flatten into a shape like a hamburger bun as they fall
Source: usgs.gov
A wave crossing the open ocean carries the same water along with it across the sea
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False
Waves carry energy, not water, and each bit of water just moves in a small circle as the wave passes
Source: oceanservice.noaa.gov
Quicksand can suck a person in until they disappear completely
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False
A person floats in quicksand because it is denser than the body, so you sink only about waist deep, but pulling a stuck leg out is very hard
Source: nature.com
Diamonds form when coal is squeezed by heat and pressure deep underground
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False
Diamonds form 150 to 200 km down in the mantle, but coal is a crustal material that is not found at mantle pressures
Source: gia.edu
Scientists grew a flowering plant from Siberian fruit tissue frozen for over 30,000 years
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True
Russian researchers revived ice age fruit tissue from permafrost, and the new plants flowered and set seeds
Source: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Mature sunflowers keep turning their heads to follow the Sun across the sky
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False
Only young sunflowers track the Sun, while mature ones stop moving and face east for good
Source: doi.org
Water from deep-sea hydrothermal vents cannot exceed 100 degrees Celsius because it boils
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False
The pressure at the seafloor is so great that vent water can top 370 degrees Celsius and still stay liquid
Source: oceanservice.noaa.gov
Underwater lakes made of dense brine exist on the ocean floor
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True
Brine is saltier and denser than seawater, so it sinks and collects in pools that barely mix with the sea above
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Floating pumice rafts can carry coral and other sea life across thousands of kilometers
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True
One raft from a Tonga eruption carried over 80 species more than 5,000 km to Australia in about 8 months
Source: journals.plos.org

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