Interesting Facts... Enjoy The Blog...

 Interesting Facts: -

1. Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.

2. Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.

3. The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.

4. No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.

5. Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.

6. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.

7. Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.

8. The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.

9. The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.

10. A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.

11. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class.

12. Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

13. Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.

14. The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.

15. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.

16. The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.

17. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.

18. Marilyn Monroe had six toes. (rumor)

19. All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen wearing them in public.

20. Walt Disney was afraid of mice.

21. Pearls melt in vinegar.

22. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.

23. The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.

24. It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.

25. A duck's quack doesn't echo and no one knows why. (Or does it? http://www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk/acoustics_world/duck/duck.htm)

26. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.

27. Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word 'criminal.' The second was William Jefferson Clinton.

28. Turtles can breathe through their butts.

29. Butterflies taste with their feet.

30. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world's nuclear weapons combined.

31. On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.

32. On average people fear spiders more than they do death.

33. Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.

34. Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.

35. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

36. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

37. It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow. (or can you? http://www.uvm.edu/~dfisher1/random/elbow.jpg http://www.uvm.edu/~dfisher1/random/elbow2.jpg)

38. The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.

39. A snail can sleep for three years.

40. No word in the English language rhymes with 'MONTH.'

41. Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.

42. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. SCARY!!!

43. The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

44. All polar bears are left handed.

45. In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies,

including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

46. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

47. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

48. 'Go', is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

49. If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.

50. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

51. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.


52. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

(Hardly seems worth it)



53. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.

(Now that's more like it)


54. A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.

(In my next life I want to be a pig)

(How'd they figure this out, and why?)



55. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.

(Still can't get over that pig thing)

(Don't try this at home...maybe at work?)



56. Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.

(Is that why Flipper was always smiling?)

(And pigs get 30-minute orgasms? Doesn't seem fair)



57. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.

(Hmmmmmmmmm........)


58. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.

(If you're ambidextrous do you split the difference?)



59. The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

(From drinking little bottles of...?)

(Did taxpayers pay for this research??)



60. Polar bears are left handed.

(Who knew....? Who cares? How'd they find out, did they ask them?)



61. The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.

(What can be so tasty on the bottom of the pond?)



62. The flea can jump 350 times its body length.

It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.

(30 minutes...can you imagine?? And why pigs?)



63. A cockroach will live nine days without it's head, before it starves to death.

(Creepy)



64. The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.

(Honey, I'm home. What the....)

(Well, at least pigs get a break there...)



65. Some lions mate over 50 times a day.

(In my next life I still want to be a pig ... quality over quantity)



66. Butterflies taste with their feet.

(Oh, Geez) (That's almost as bad as catfish)



67. An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.

(I know some people like that.)



68. Starfish don't have brains.

(I know some people like that too.)


Thank you For Reading...

 

For Your Warehouse of Useless Knowledge

1. 1,525,000,000 miles of telephone wire a strung across the U.S.
2. 101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan (Wendy) are the only two Disney cartoon features with both parents that are present and don't die throughout the movie.
3. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
4. 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
5. 123,000,000 cars are being driven down the U.S's highways.
6. 160 cars can drive side by side on the Monumental Axis in Brazil, the world's widest road.
7. 166,875,000,000 pieces of mail are delivered each year in the U.S.
8. 27% of U.S. male college students believe life is "A meaningless existential hell."
9. 315 entries in Webster's Dictionary will be misspelled.
10. 5% of Canadians don't know the first 7 words of the Canadian anthem, but know the first 9 of the American anthem.
11. 56,000,000 people go to Major League baseball each year.
12. 7% of Americans don't know the first 9 words of the American anthem, but know the first 7 of the Canadian anthem.
13. 85,000,000 tons of paper are used each year in the U.S.
14. 99% of the solar systems mass is concentrated in the sun.
15. A 10-gallon hat barely holds 6 pints.
16. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
17. A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off.
18. A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate.
19. A cow produces 200 times more gas a day than a person.
20. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
21. A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.
22. A fully loaded supertanker travelling at normal speed takes a least twenty minutes to stop.
23. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.
24. A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can.
25. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
26. A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat evaporates before a person realizes it's there.
27. A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average.
28. A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.
29. A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
30. A jellyfish is 95 percent water.
31. A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
32. A jumbo jet uses 4,000 gallons of fuel to take off.
33. A male emperor moth can smell a female emperor moth up to 7 miles away.
34. A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 6 years. Wow.
35. A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night.
36. A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana.
37. A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
38. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
39. A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn't give her coffee.
40. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
41. A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove.
42. A shark can detect one part of blood in 100 million parts of water.
43. A skunk can spray its stinky scent more than 10 feet.
44. A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
45. A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans!
46. A walla-walla scene is one where extras pretend to be talking in the background -- when they say "walla-walla" it looks like they are actually talking.
47. A whale's penis is called a dork.
48. About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30.
49. About 70% of Americans who go to college do it just to make more money. [The rest of us are avoiding reality for four more years.]
50. According to a British law passed in 1845, attempting to commit suicide was a capital offense. Offenders could be hanged for trying.
51. Actor Tommy Lee Jones and former vice-president Al Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.
52. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
53. All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
54. All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
55. All porcupines float in water.
56. Almonds are a member of the peach family.
57. Almost a quarter of the land area of Los Angeles is taken up by automobiles.
58. America once issued a 5-cent bill.
59. America's first nudist organization was founded in 1929, by 3 men.
60. Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone.
61. An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.
62. An average person laughs about 15 times a day.
63. An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.
64. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
65. Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.
66. Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always all the same sex.
67. Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.
68. Aztec emperor Montezuma had a nephew, Cuitlahac, whose name meant "plenty of excrement."
69. Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under is cap to keep him cool. He changed it every 2 innings.
70. Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.
71. Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day.
72. Back in the mid to late 1980's, an IBM-compatible computer wasn't considered a hundred percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft's Flight Simulator.
73. Bank robber John Dillinger played professional baseball.
74. Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.
75. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
76. Ben and Jerry's send the waste from making ice cream to local pig farmers to use as feed. Pigs love the stuff, except for one flavor: Mint Oreo.
77. Bird droppings are the chief export of Nauru, an island nation in the Western Pacific.
78. Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan.
79. Bubble gum contains rubber.
80. Camel's milk does not curdle.
81. Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
82. Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".
83. Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
84. Cats can produce over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs can only produce about ten.
85. Charles Lindbergh took only four sandwiches with him on his famous transatlantic flight.
86. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
87. Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them use to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."
88. Cleo and Caesar were the early stage names of Cher and Sonny Bono.
89. Columbia University is the second largest landowner in New York City, after the Catholic Church.
90. David Prowse was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all of Vader's lines, and didn't know that he was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie.
91. Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?
92. Dogs and cats consume almost $7 billion worth of pet food a year.
93. Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
94. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
95. Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was the physician who set the leg of Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth... and whose shame created the expression for ignominy, "His name is Mudd."
96. Dr. Seuss pronounced "Seuss" such that it rhymed with "rejoice."
97. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."
98. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
99. During your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds of food, that's the weight of about 6 elephants.
100. Einstein couldn't speak fluently when he was nine. His parents thought he might be retarded.
101. Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
102. Eskimo ice cream is neither icy, or creamy.
103. Even if you cut off a cockroach's head, it can live for several weeks.
104. Every person has a unique tongue print.
105. Every time Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured ice water over his head.
106. Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
107. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."
108. February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
109. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.
110. Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung.
111. Gilligan of Gilligan's Island had a first name that was only used once, on the never-aired pilot show. His first name was Willy. The skipper's real name on Gilligan's Island is Jonas Grumby. It was mentioned once in the first episode on their radio's newscast about the wreck.
112. Giraffes have no vocal cords.
113. Goethe couldn't stand the sound of barking dogs and could only write if he had an apple rotting in the drawer of his desk.
114. Hang On Sloopy is the official rock song of Ohio.
115. Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
116. Honeybees have hair on their eyes.
117. Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks.
118. Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
119. Hydroxydesoxycorticosterone and hydroxydeoxycorticosterones are the largest anagrams.
120. Hypnotism is banned by public schools in San Diego.
121. "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
122. If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
123. If NASA sent birds into space they would soon die; they need gravity to swallow.
124. If you bring a raccoon's head to the Henniker, New Hampshire town hall, you are entitled to receive $.10 from the town.
125. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
126. If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times, but more like 4,950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom.
127. If your eyes are six feet above the surface of the ocean, the horizon will be about three statute miles away.
128. In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients would die.
129. In 1980, there was only one country in the world with no telephones - Bhutan.
130. In 1983, a Japanese artist made a copy of the Mona Lisa completely out of toast.
131. In 1984, a Canadian farmer began renting ad space on his cows.
132. In 75% of American households, women manage the money and pay the bills.
133. In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals.
134. In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" were considered a dirty word.
135. In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
136. In every episode of "Seinfeld" there is a Superman somewhere.
137. In Kentucky, 50 percent of the people who get married for the first time are teenagers.
138. In Los Angeles, there are fewer people than there are automobiles.
139. In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
140. In space, astronauts cannot cry, because there is no gravity, so the tears can't flow.
141. In the 1940s, the FCC assigned television's Channel 1 to mobile services (two-way radios in taxicabs, for instance) but did not re-number the other channel assignments. That is why your TV set has channels 2 and up, but no channel 1.
142. In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but only 6 people were injured.
143. In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
144. In the movie "Casablanca," Humphrey Bogart never said "Play it again, Sam."
145. In the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons.
146. In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs.
147. Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal category.
148. It takes a lobster approximately seven years to grow to be one pound.
149. It takes about a half a gallon of water to cook macaroni, and about a gallon to clean the pot.
150. It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up its stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of its mouth. Then the frog uses its forearms to dig out all of the stomach's contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.
151. It was once against the law to have a pet dog in a city in Iceland.
152. It was once against the law to slam your car door in a city in Switzerland.
153. It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a certain church in Omaha, Nebraska.
154. It's against the law to catch fish with your bare hands in Kansas.
155. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (Don't try this at home!)
156. Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been overmixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float. Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated ever since.
157. John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.
158. "Kemo Sabe" means "soggy shrub" in Navajo.
159. Kotex was first manufactured as bandages, during WWI.
160. Lee Harvey Oswald's cadaver tag sold at an auction for $6,600 in 1992.
161. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
162. Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.
163. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
164. Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright's son.
165. Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of "Lorne Greene's Wild Kingdom."
166. Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula" and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its original size: "L.A."
167. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
168. Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.
169. Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
170. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
171. Millie the White House dog earned more than 4 times as much as President Bush in 1991.
172. Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.
173. Montpelier, VT is the only U.S. state capital without a McDonalds.
174. More Monopoly money is printed in a year, than real money printed throughout the world.
175. More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.
176. More people use blue toothbrushes, than red ones.
177. Mosquitoes have teeth.
178. Most Americans' car horns beep in the key of F.
179. Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.
180. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
181. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
182. Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
183. Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.
184. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
185. Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
186. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously
187. On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament Building looks like an American flag, but is actually the flag that flew over to Dominion of Canada before the Maple Leaf .
188. On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield" and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner.
189. One in every 4 americans has appeared on television.
190. One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the 1930's lobbied against hemp farmers -- they saw it as competition. It is not as chemically addictive as is nicotine, alcohol, or caffeine.
191. One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet.
192. Only 55% of all Americans know that the sun is a star.
193. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
194. Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
195. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
196. Over 1000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.
197. Owls are one of the only birds who can see the color blue.
198. Pamela Anderson Lee is Canada's Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence.
199. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
200. Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air.
201. Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."
202. Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII. If captured, they could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape.
203. Polar Bears trying to blend in with the ice will sometimes cover up their black nose with their paws.
204. Pollsters say that 40 percent of dog and cat owners carry pictures of the pets in their wallets.
205. Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States.
206. Recycling one glass jar, saves enough energy to watch T.V for 3 hours.
207. Reindeer like to eat bananas.
208. Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have recently eaten bananas.
209. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
210. Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson."
211. Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.
212. Since 1896, the beginning of the modern Olympics, only Greece and Australia have participated in every Games.
213. Slugs have 4 noses.
214. Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food.
215. Some toothpaste's contain antifreeze.
216. Spotted skunks do handstands before they spray.
217. "Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
218. Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself.
219. Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar with "Midnight Cowboy." Her entire role lasted only six minutes.
220. Texas is also the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.
221. The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)
222. The average American drinks about 600 sodas a year.
223. The average American will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year.
224. The average bank teller loses about $250 every year.
225. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
226. The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.
227. The average person is about a quarter of an inch taller at night.
228. The average person laughs 15 times a day.
229. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
230. The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth.
231. The band Duran Duran got their name from an astronaut in the 1968 Jane Fonda movie "Barbarella.
232. The blesbok, a South African antelope, is almost the same color as grapejuice.
233. The Boston University Bridge (on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts) is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.
234. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life".
235. The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
236. The company providing the liability insurance for the Republican National Convention in San Diego is the same firm that insured the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic.
237. The condom - made originally of linen - was invented in the early 1500s.
238. The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
239. The Earth weighs around 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
240. The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
241. The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
242. The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump.
243. The first Ford cars had Dodge engines.
244. The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C.
245. The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave It To Beaver."
246. The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
247. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
248. The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
249. The housefly hums in the middle octave, key of F.
250. The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
251. The katydid bug hears through holes in its hind legs.
252. The "L.L." in L.L. Bean stands for Leon Leonwood.
253. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
254. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
255. The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.
256. The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
257. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
258. The moon is moving away at a tiny, although measurable distance from the earth every year. Do the math and you will clearly see that 85 million years ago it was orbiting the earth at a distance of about 35 feet from the earth's surface. This would explain the death of the dinosours; the tallest ones, anyway.
259. The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
260. The name for Oz in the "Wizard of Oz" was thought up when the creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z, hence "Oz."
261. The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
262. The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
263. The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses. No one in Greece has memorized all 158 verses.
264. The Neanderthal's brain was bigger than yours is.
265. The oldest known goldfish lived to 41 years of age. Its name was Fred.
266. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
267. The only nation whose name begins with an "A" but doesn't end in an "A" is Afghanistan.
268. The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-Star Game.
269. The penguin is the only bird who can swim, but not fly.
270. The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
271. The phrase, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" is from Ancient Rome. The only rule during wrestling matches was, "No eye gouging." Everything else was allowed, but the only way to be disqualified was to poke someone's eye out.
272. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
273. The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all four feet at all times.
274. The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head.
275. The Ramses brand condom is named after the great pharaoh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.
276. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
277. The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows."
278. The "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backwards.
279. The saying "it's so cold out there it could freeze the balls off a brass monkey" came from when they had old cannons like ones used in the Civil War. The cannonballs were stacked in a pyramid formation, called a brass monkey. When it got extremely cold outside they would crack and break off... thus the saying.
280. The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in Jello.
281. The starfish is one of the only animals who can turn it's stomach inside-out.
282. The state of Florida is bigger than England.
283. The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."
284. The three best-known western names in China: Jesus Christ, Richard Nixon, and Elvis Presley.
285. The United States Government keeps its supply of silver at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York.
286. The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.
287. The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
288. The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
289. The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead".
290. The word "modem" is a contraction of the words "modulate, demodulate." (MOdulate DEModulate)
291. The word "samba" means "to rub navels together."
292. The world population of chickens is about equal to the number of people.
293. The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old.
294. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
295. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
296. There are over 52.6 million dogs in the U.S.
297. There are more chickens than people in the world.
298. There are more plastic flamingos in America than real ones.
299. There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
300. There are only thirteen blimps in the world. Nine of them are in the United States.
301. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
302. There is a town in Newfoundland, Canada called Dildo.
303. There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses.
304. Thomas Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.
305. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
306. To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs -- it will let you go instantly.
307. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
308. Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it is known as Tennessee.
309. Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden. The conversion to right-hand was done on a weekday at 5pm. All traffic stopped as people switched sides. This time and day were chosen to prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and been too sleepy to realize that this was the day of the changeover.
310. When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.
311. When snakes are born with two heads, they fight each other for food.
312. When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home, the stadium becomes the state's third largest city.
313. White Out was invented by the mother of Mike Nesmith (formerly of the Monkees).
314. Who's that playing the piano on the "Mad About You" theme? Paul Reiser himself.
315. Wilma Flintstone's maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty Rubble's Maiden name was Betty Jean Mcbricker.
316. Windmills always turn counter-clockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland.
317. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
318. Women's hearts beat faster than men's.
319. You blink over 20,000,000 times a year.
320. You can only smell 1/20th as well as a dog.
321. You'll eat about 35,000 cookies in a lifetime.
322. You're born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206.
323. You're more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day than in any other weather.
324. Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day.
325. Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, everytime you breathe.
326. Your right lung takes in more air than your left one does.
327. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.

…New Gadgets Around You…

Wear Ur World (WUW)

MIT researcher Pattie Maes demonstrated a new gadget earlier this week at a technology conference in South California. It is called Wear Ur World (WUW), or 6th Sense and allows you to access information as though you always have a PC in front of you, but controlled by hand gestures.
What the researchers have done is combine a number of standard gadgets including a webcam, projector, and mobile phone, to form a brand new interaction experience. In its current form the battery-powered projector is attached to a hat, the webcam is hung around the neck (or also positioned on a hat), and the mobile phone provides the connection to the Internet.
The wearer uses hand gestures combined with the gadgets to perform actions. So, for example, they could make a circle over their wrist with the fingers of one hand. WUW would recognize this action and project a clock face on to their wrist. Make a picture frame with both your hands and WUW will take a picture as if it was a camera. Stand near a wall and you can get a projected desktop allowing you to open applications, view the pictures you’ve taken, or surf the ‘Net.
At the moment it is just a prototype system, but because it uses off-the-shelf components the cost of creating one is just $300 for the hardware involved.

Confused which GPS (Global Positioning System) to buy?

Which GPS?

       There are lots of GPS units on the market from the traditional manufacturers like Garmin to exciting new entrants like the SatMap. This can make the selection process somewhat daunting. So how do you pick the one that is right for you? Should you forget about a dedicated GPS altogether and go for a PDA, satnav unit or mapping software for your mobile phone?

In our 'Choosing the right GPS' video we outline five key criteria for making your selection and weigh up the pros and cons of the alternatives.

Do also check that you are not making one of our five most common mistakes before plumping for your final choice.

Dedicated outdoors GPS units remain an attractive choice for many walkers, not least because of their robustness and ease of use. We cover the main choices in our article on Garmin GPS units. The Garmin Oregon and Dakota are interesting new entrants to the market because they are capable of displaying both vector and raster mapping, meaning that you can view 'standard' Ordnance Survey mapping on it. However a lot of people are beginning to look elsewhere, notably because devices which combine other functions, such as a camera, can save significantly on price and weight.

PDAs and Smartphones are probably the cheapest way to get 'proper' Ordnance Survey mapping onto a GPS device, especially if you already own the device or can get one with your mobile phone contract. If you are a user of Memory-Map, Anquet or Quo digital mapping software, for instance, the PDA/Smartphone application and ability to transfer mapping to your device is included(but note that the device must be a Microsoft OS one).

On the face of it, this is a very appealing option. The mapping really is the same as your paper map, so you can instantly see where you are. You are also able to combine several functions – your PDA, for instance, can be your in-car SatNav system, contact book, notebook and GPS, all in one unit costing as little as £200 or so. Several PDAs come with built-in GPS receivers. Alternatively if you already own a Bluetooth-enabled PDA, you can marry it with a Bluetooth GPS receiver which can be carried separately in your pack. Such receivers can bought for around £40 , so the investment in upgrading need not be much (try MobileFun if you want to buy one).

A number of advanced users swear by the PDA option because it offers so many opportunities for downloading free maps from the web. Using the calibration functions in many PC mapping applications you can load in a map and see your position on it anywhere in the world. This does make it very attractive for frequent travellers, though expect to spend some time mastering the art of calibration. If you are interested in this route read our help article on calibration.

Mapping software for Smartphones is becoming very popular. Many newer phones have a GPS built in and you may be able to get one free with your ordinary mobile phone tariff when you next renew. If you have an older phone with Bluetooth you could buy separate receiver as for a PDA. Memory-Map, Anquet and Quo digital mapping software all come with Smartphone software for the Microsoft operating system, while several applications including ViewRanger are available for Nokia and other Symbian phones.

There are downsides to the PDA and Smartphone route. The units are nowhere near as rugged and waterproof as a dedicated GPS. In most cases to fully waterproof them you need to put them in a casing or Aquapac cover. The screens are not particularly bright, making them quite difficult to read in sunlight, especially if they are under a waterproof cover. And finally you need to make sure you have charged them up enough before each trip, because you can’t simply slip in a spare set of ordinary AA batteries. You can get external battery packs but it's a slightly bulky and awkward solution.

That said, you can expect to see mobile phones become more robust as time goes by. Already mobile phone manufacturers expect the phone to be usable in the rain for a few minutes and capable of surviving a drop from a metre or more. Demand for increased robustness is bound to lead to more ruggedized phones in the not too distant future. Overall the use of the phone as a GPS unit has many appeals - it means that you can have your phone, your GPS and your camera in one small device (though that of course means equally that if you lose one you lose them all).

The SatMap, a dedicated PDA-type device that also displays standard Ordnance Survey mapping, has been making considerable inroads into the British GPS market. The SatMap costs around £380, but that includes rechargable batteries and access to a new online route plotting application. On top of this you will need to buy mapping, taking the total price to £500 or more if you get a reasonable area of Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 scale Landranger mapping.

The producers of the SatMap have really got their act together recently and sorted out the problems that dogged some of their earliest devices. Most notably the rechargeable batteries now provide plenty of time 'on the hill' and mapping is beginning to become available for countries outside the UK. It is certainly worth serious consideration if you can afford the fairly hefty price tag.

So there is lots of choice, and every solution has its pros and cons. There is no such thing as the perfect GPS. It’s all about what you are going to use it for, how and where.

If you are still unsure about what to get, one suggestion would be to go on a training course, where you will be able to experiment with different models. GPSTraining run some excellent introductions to GPS where you can do just this.

***USB-3.0***

   
       The Universal Serial Bus standard has come a long way since its introduction in 1996. Backed by a consortium of companies led by Intel, Compaq and Microsoft, it offered some unheard-of features for its time, including the ability to connect peripherals without turning off the computer first and to draw power without a separate AC connection. The standard became popular with the arrival of version 1.1 in late 1998, allowing a maximum transfer rate of 12Mb/s, and as we can witness nowadays just about any device comes standard with 'Hi-Speed' USB 2.0 connectivity.
USB 3.0 is the next major revision of the ubiquitous interface. Dubbed SuperSpeed USB, this new version promises a tenfold leap forward in transfer speeds as well as improved capabilities, all while maintaining compatibility with USB 2.0 devices. In the following few paragraphs we've rounded out all the relevant information that you as a consumer should know about the next-generation USB standard.

Some quick facts about USB 3.0

It's fast. The new standard breaks the 480Mb/s data transfer limit of USB 2.0 and takes it to a new theoretical maximum of 4.8Gb/s. Keep in mind that real-world performance can be considerably lower than that. USB 3.0 devices are not expected to reach their full potential at launch, but as the standard matures the USB-IF considers it reasonable to achieve a throughput of 3.2Gb/s, or just about enough to transfer a 27GB high definition movie in little over a minute rather than 15 or more with USB 2.0.
It's bi-directional. Unlike previous versions where data can only be piped in one direction at a time, USB 3.0 can read and write data simultaneously. This is achieved by adding two new lanes dedicated to transmit Super Speed data and another pair for receiving it, bringing the total number of connections from four on USB 2.0 (power, ground and two for sending/receiving non-SuperSpeed data) to nine counting the 3.0 ground contact.
Furthermore, the signaling method, while still host-directed, abandons device polling in favor of a new interrupt-driven protocol. This ensures that the USB host controller doesn't continually access a connected device in anticipation of a data transfer. Instead, USB 3.0 devices will send the host a signal to begin a data transfer.
It's more power efficient. The signaling method mentioned directly above also means that non-active or idle devices won't have their power drained by the host controller as it looks for active data traffic. Minimum device operating voltage is dropped from 4.4 V to 4 V. On the other hand, the USB-IF has upped the maximum bus power output from about 500 mA to 900 mA, which will enable power-hungrier devices to be bus-powered and USB hubs to support more peripherals. There's also the bonus that battery-powered devices should charge faster.
It's backwards compatible. Your existing USB 2.0 gear will work on version 3.0 ports and vice versa. You'll be able to maximize your bandwidth when using a USB 3.0 cable with USB 3.0 devices and ports, otherwise plugging a 3.0 device into a 2.0 port or a 2.0 device into 3.0 a port will get you standard USB 2.0 data rates.


Since the new interface has been carefully planned from the start to peacefully co-exist with its predecessor, the connector itself remains mostly the same with the four USB 2.0 contacts in the exact same location as before. Extra pins for the new lanes dedicated to transmit and receive SuperSpeed data are located on the back and only come into contact when mated with a proper USB 3.0 port.