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I’m really into solar right now, so I decided today will be the day to gather and share ten cool solar facts from around the World Wide Web.

What? You’re welcome! :P

  1. As for solar energy history as we know it, it wasn’t until 1839 when French physicist Edmond Becquerel first discovered photovoltaic activity.
  2. This discovery was followed by another Frenchman, Auguste Mouchout, in the 1860’s who invented the first motor to be powered by solar energy.
  3. In 1883, Charles Fritz turned the sun’s rays into electricity!
  4. In 1990, a aircraft powered solely by the sun crossed the United States.
  5. It takes only about 8 minutes for solar energy to travel from the sun to the earth.
  6. Solar energy is measured in kilowatt-hours. One kilowatt hour (kWh) is the amount of energy needed to burn a 100 watt light bulb for 10 hours.
  7. If we covered a small fraction of the Sahara desert with photovoltaic cells, we could generate all the world’s electricity requirements.
  8. Enough sunlight falls on the earth every minute to meet the world’s energy demands for an entire year.
  9. Two billion people in the world have no access to electricity. For most of them, solar photovoltaics would be their cheapest electricity source, but they cannot afford it.
  10. Solar energy will not pollute our air with carbon dioxide and other harmful greenhouse gases and bad emissions which is one of the main causes of global warming.

In 5 billion years the sun will run out of fuel, so let’s use this baby while we still can.

-Cara

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Arsenic has been a common additive in factory chicken feed for nearly 50 years. It is used to kill parasites, reduce stress, and promote growth in the birds. The practice has long been deemed safe. Recently, however, scientists have found that the substance turns carcinogenic rather quickly after application. Arsenic-imbued manure becomes toxic to the environment when spread as fertilizer. The risk for those who ingest the meat of treated birds is, in fact, worse than once thought, particularly since exposure to arsenic is cumulative and people are eating three times the chicken they once did in the 1960s.