SortStack #837 — 2028-09-23
By duration · Order from shortest to longest.
- 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.
- A single sneeze, from sharp inhale to achoo 1.5 sec
A sneeze can launch droplets several metres, and you can't sneeze with your eyes open without effort — the blink is part of the reflex.
- The elevator ride up the Burj Khalifa's observation deck 1 min
The lifts climb at around 10 metres per second. Your ears pop on the way to the 124th floor — the building is so tall it has distinct climate zones.
- NASA's Perseverance rover travelling from Earth to Mars 203 days
The 480-million-km cruise ended with the 'seven minutes of terror' landing — and the rover carried a small helicopter, Ingenuity, strapped to its belly.
- A horse's pregnancy 340 days
Foals can stand within an hour of birth and gallop within a day — a survival feature for a prey animal born on open grassland.
- The age of the oldest known figurative cave painting (Sulawesi) 51.1K years
The Indonesian rock art depicts wild pigs and human-like figures — painted tens of thousands of years before Lascaux's famous bulls.