Your weekly fact-checks
Happy New Year!
Snopes
True: It is estimated that there are more trees on Earth than stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
According to NASA, most estimates put the number of stars in the Milky Way at between 100 billion and 400 billion stars. The global number of trees is approximately 3 trillion, an order of magnitude higher than the previous estimate.
Snopes
True: No two snowflakes are exactly alike.
Visual similarity between snowflakes can only be superficially achieved under extremely controlled laboratory conditions. But even then, the number of possible ways to arrange the branches and side branches is far, far, far greater than even the total number of snowflakes that have ever fallen on Earth.
Snopes
True: Holding a car's key fob to your head increases the range from which the fob can lock or unlock a car.
Holding the key fob to your your head turns it into a temporary antenna, taking whatever signal was present and amplifying it. This works because of how water interacts with electric fields.
Snopes
True: Giraffes have the same number of neck bones as humans.
Though both giraffes and humans have the same number of individual neck bones (known as vertebrae), the two species also have size and structural differences.
Snopes
True: Harry Truman said of the creation of the state of Israel, "We took Palestine in small doses. You can’t move 5 or 6 million people out of a country and fill it up with 5 or 6 million more and expect both sets of them to be pleased."
He made the remarks in footage recorded for an episode of a film series in which he recounted the process that led to his 1948 presidential decision to officially recognize the newly created state of Israel on territory formerly occupied by the Palestinians.
Snopes
True: A comic first published in 1919 predicted cell phones.
The comic was seemingly a response to a claim by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company — an early player in long-distance wireless communication — that it was not far off from the realization of a pocket-sized wireless phone.
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