Ten Interesting Things About Water

Water may seem the most basic of things on our planet, but it is also one of the most important. Here are ten interesting things about water to quench your thirst.

When considering water, it is important that you do not take it for granted. When you compare our planet to all the others we know of, we are the only body that has life on it. What is the reason? We are the only one with water!

1. Water is the most common substance on earth with 70 percent of the earth's surface covered with water. There are roughly 326 million cubic miles of water on earth.

2. There could be no life without water. Every living thing is made of at least some water. Roughly 60 percent of our body is water.

3. A cow must drink roughly four gallons of water to produce one gallon of milk.

4. Humans consume over 16,000 gallons of water during their lifetimes. Water carries out life processes in everything. It controls biological reactions and serves as a remedy for digestion of other nutrients.

5. 97 percent of all the fresh water on the planet is trapped in glaciers, particularly in Antarctica.

6. Less than 1 percent of the water treated by public water systems is used for drinking and cooking. A quarter of the world's population is without safe drinking water.

7. The natural rotation of the Earth has been slightly changed by some 10 trillion tons of water stored in reservoirs over the past 40 years.

8. You can live for roughly a week without water, but you can live for 30 days or more without food.

9. Water absorbs infrared radiation, which gives a blue tint to large bodies of water such as lakes and oceans.

10. Water has a high surface tension due to a strong bond between the atoms comprising it. As a result, things float on water that otherwise should not based on basic physics. To see this, take a pan of water and place a paper clip on it. Note that it floats and ridges of surface tension around its edges. This is also why you can slightly overfill a cup with water without it spilling.

Water is one of the fundamental building blocks to life on our planet. As these items show, our planet would be a barren rock without it and we would not exist.