Shocking, Americans can't answer a simple question.

The most fundamental question in science: <x)

The good news is 74 percent of Americans know the answer.

The bad news is that this means 26 percent really don't know.

These findings, presented in the survey by the National Science Foundation (NSF) of 2,000, will be part of a report presented to Barak Obama and lawmakers at the congress, where it raised the issue of educational standards in the United States.

Other surprising results from the survey included that only 39 per cent of Americans believed that <x0-universi started with a huge explosion of”.

And less than half of the people surveyed (48 per cent) agreed that the <x0 human species, as we know them today, are from previous animals”.

Meanwhile, 51 percent of Americans knew that antibiotics do not destroy viruses.

The study also showed that a total of 42 percent of Americans thought astrology was either highly scientific “” or “some kind of science”.

The poll, reported by the Agence France-Press, takes place every two years in order to analyse whether the US is making educational progress.

Despite the somewhat negative findings of the study, there is a significant enlightenment of hope./Periscopi/