SortStack #312 — 2027-04-17

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. A mantis shrimp throwing its famous punch 3 ms

   The strike accelerates like a bullet and creates collapsing cavitation bubbles that briefly flash with light and heat — prey gets hit twice by one punch.

2. An average human yawn 6 sec

   Yawns are so contagious they jump species: dogs catch yawns from their owners, and even reading the word can trigger one. You're welcome.

3. A standard television commercial 30 sec

   A single Super Bowl slot of this length has sold for over US$7 million — more than US$230,000 per second of airtime.

4. The average adult's actual night of sleep 6.8 h

   Smartphone-tracking studies put the global average well under the recommended eight hours — and humans sleep less than virtually any other primate.

5. The construction of the Sydney Opera House 14 years

   Planned as a four-year, $7 million project, it took fourteen years and $102 million — and its architect left Australia before it opened, never returning.

6. The time humans have lived in Australia 65K years

   Aboriginal Australians' roughly 65,000 years make theirs the oldest continuous culture on Earth — some oral histories describe coastlines drowned by rising seas 10,000 years ago.

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