Ok folks.... here are some useless but rather amusing facts of life. I've compiled this list of unbelivable facts, for my amusement. So just read on and enjoy them. This is a PERSONAL SITE. They MAY NOT BE TRUE
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A
You have to be at least 58.5 inches to be an astronaut. (Click here)
Unique animals. Hippopotami cannot swim (ppl have said that a hippo can swim, but i dont think its classified as swimming. I'll check), whales can't swim backwards, tarantulas can't spin webs, crocodiles can't chew and hummingbirds can't walk
Ants
Ants make up 1/10 of the total world animal tissue
An ant can survive for up to two days underwater.
The animal with the largest brain in proportion to its size is the ant.
Ants dont sleep. Thanx teepo (apparently noone can be sure since they don't have eyelids, they also have no need for sleep)
Ants taste like sweet tarts. (from experience..)Thanx RiffSingr
Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
The weight of air in a milk glass is about the same as the weight of one aspirin. (But one also wonders how big a milk glass is... anyone?)
The gases emitted from a banana or an apple can help an orange ripen. (Not sure which fruits are concerned).
Adolph Hitler was a vegetarian, and had only 1, and i repeat, ONE, testicle.
Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones were once roommates. Thanx Rebecca
Australia is a major exporter of camels
Australia has no native monkeys. (in the wild)
Australia's box jellyfish has toxins more potent than the venom in cobras, and is one of the most dangerous jellyfish in the world
Apparently 1/3 of people with alarm clocks hit the 'snooze' button every morning, and from 25-34 age group, it is over 1/2. (r u 1 of them?)
Hans Christian Anderson, creater of fairy tales, was word-blind. He never learned to spell correctly, and his publishers always had errors
On average, Americans spend about 6 months of their lives waiting at red traffic lights
There is air in space, but very little of it. In fact, it is equivalent to a marble in a box 5 miles wide. Most of the gas is captured by the gravitational pull of other celestial bodies.Thanx M.Lerner
Abdul Kassam Ismael, Grand Vizier of Persia in the tenth century, carried his library with him wherever he went. Four hundred camels carried the 117,000 volumes.
B
Most caucasian babies are born with dark blue eyes, although it normally changes colour after child birth.
Believe that Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad... are all prophets from God? Have you heard of the baha'i faith?
You're born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206. (apparently they fuse together such as the parietal, occipital of the skull) thanx Christie
One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete. Wow... utterly amazing huh
The only jointless bone in your body is the hyoid bone in your throat
A Baboon called "Jackie" became a private in the South African army in World War I.
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
< == ( the arrow is pointing left. Just in case)
The body can function without a brain. And anyone who has walked around the city on a Saturday night will know what I mean.
It takes about 20 seconds for a red blood cell to circle the whole body.
You sit on the biggest muscle in your body, the gluteus maximus a.k.a the butt. Each of the two cheeky muscles tips the scales at about two pounds (not including the overlying fat layer). The tiniest muscle, the stapedius of the middle ear, is just one-fifth of an inch long.
Butterflies taste with their feet.
You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
Butterflies cannot fly if their body temperature is less than 86 degrees.
Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts, and white worms like fried pork rinds.
Bees
Bees can see ultraviolet light.
Most honey bees die after it stings people as our skin is elastic, unsuitable for their stingers which are meant for harder inelastics skins. Their venom glands are also torn out in the process. (So removing the stinger by piching the tip is well, in one word, dumb.jk)Thanx Mr Tuvai
A bee could travel 4 million miles (6.5 million km) at 7 mph (11 km/h) on the energy it would obtain from 1 gallon (3.785 liters) of nectar, or it could just sit down on and enjoy that honey properly.
There is more bacteria in your mouth than the human population of U.S and Canada combined. Thanx Julie for this and a couple more
Over billions of years, black holes become white holes and they spit out all of the things they sucked in. the atoms are completely jumbled, so no one knows what will ever come out. Theoratically they'll also turn into a white hole. If you were unfortunate enough to fall within one, you would never actually hit -- because time would stop at some point within the event horizon (space outside) of the black hole. Thanx De Composed
The Burramundy, a fish, grows up as a male, but after 2 years or so, it turns into a female to breed. (i think papaya(papua?) trees are the same)
The first bar code was used on Wrigleys gum
Apparently, according to Playtex, the best selling bra sizes these days are 34B and 36B. (hmmm...)
Birds are largely unaffected by spicy things, like chilies, as they not sensitive to capsaicin, the hot stuff in chilies.
A bean has more DNA per cell than a human cell
Bulls are not attracted to the colour redThanx Gwynovere C.
Human babies are born 2 months prematurely for our size and lifespan, to accomodate for the fact that we have large brains during birth. (Got this off my lecture).
Babies crawl an average of 200m a day
Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
Barbies full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts
If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall and have a neck twice the length of a normal human's neck
If you put a piece of scotch tape on an inflated balloon, then stick it with a small pin or needle, it won't pop.Thanx harrison
Bruce Lee was the Hong Kong 'cha cha' dance champion in 1958.(Hang on... Bruce Lee a cha cha king? This i gotta see) He was also an American born in San Francisco and had a German grandfather. THanx Mrtan787
What does a Dead Leaf, Paper Kite, Blue Striped Crow,Julia and Great Egg Fly have in common? They're all butterflies!Thanx Bijou
The BEAVER, is America's largest rodent and can remain underwater for 20 minutes! erm... sealions can do that as well (just something random)
Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of the four Presidents on Mount Rushmore, died a few months before the project was completed. It took him 14 years.
A boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight (120ft). Click here
Eating breakfast will help you burn from 5-20% more calories throughout the day. Click here
Bamboo can grow up to 36 inches in a day. Click here
C
Colour blind people are used to detect camouflaged units in previous war-fare. And some of you thought Jonathan was useless.. :P~
Cats sweat through the pads of their feet (especially when they hear a dog barking) and cannot taste sweet things.
Cat's urine glows under a black-light. (But did you reeeeally want to know this?)
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, dogs only have about ten (unsure)
Cats have 32 muscles in each ear
Cockroach
The cockroach has a high resistance to radiation and is the creature most likely to survive a nuclear war.
Fried cockroach with garlic is used as medicine for the common cold (unsure)
The cockroach is the fastest animal on 6 legs, covering a meter a second.
If it were human size, it could run at speeds of 300MPH.
If you cut off the head of a cockroach, it can still survive but will eventually die, but only because it cannot eat without its head.
cockroaches can change course as many as 25 times in one second
A chicken who just lost its head can run the length of a football field before dropping dead.
The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds!
Coffee beans can be mixed into B type blood, changing it into O type blood
Rubbing cocoa butter on your abdomen during pregnancy will prevent stretch marks. Thanx udamann
The light from your computer screen streams at you at almost 186,000 miles per second.
If you chew a cabbage/lettuce leaf properly, you'll lose more energy than you'll gain from actually eating it.
The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
Cicadas have their hearing organs in their stomachs, at the base of the abdomen.
The caterpillar has more than 2,000 muscles
There are more than 40,000 characters in Chinese script. (I could have sworn it was more.)
In a deck of cards, the King of Hearts is the only king without a moustache.
There are more chickens than people in the world. (unsure)
On the old Canadian 2 dollar bill,the flag flying over the Parliament Building is NOT an American flag.Thanx Doug B. and Dwain
In the city of Carmel, where Clint Eastwood grew up, they dont have postmen, coz they dont have street numbers. Ppl go to the post office to collect their mail. Thanx Erin
The first contraceptive diaphragms, centuries ago, were citrus rinds (i.e., half an orange rind). Casanova used half lemon rinds as a cervical cap and the acidic juice as a potent spremicide(something that kills sperms).Thanx Donna C.
Some large clouds store enough water for 500000 showers
Crocodiles have brains no larger than a cigar and they cannot stick their tongue out. (I wonder why)
Crocodiles can snap their jaws in 1/8th of a second and can use over 40 sets of teeth
In 1915, Winston Churchill fought in the front line trenches before he became the Minister of Munitions.Thanx Shadey66
Cows release 50 million metric tonnes of methane gas a year.
Cows sweat through their noses. (Think twice before clicking here.)
An American cow called Fawn was not afraid of flying. In May 1963, she was swept up by a tornado and carried half a mile, only to land safely in another farmer's field. Five years later, another tornado carried her over a bus. She survived this too, and lived to the ripe old age of 25.
Cows, like my grannie, do not have upper teeth.
Chocolate is potentially lethal to a dog coz cocoa beans contain theobromine which can poison the poor bastard
Coral (pro osteon) has molecular architecture and chemistry similar to human bone and so it can be used to replace bone grafts, helping bones heal faster. 150-200 pounds of it can sustain hundreds of graphs
The liquid inside coconuts can be used as blood plasma substitutes!
There are more coffee drug addicts in the US than drug addicts of any other kind. Click here
80% of arrested criminals are male. (and you girls thought that we just sit on the couch and fart whole day).
Canada actually comes from the word 'Kanata', a Huron or Iroquois word for village, and Canada is a 'big village'.
The Catholic Church only declared in 1992 that the earth may go round the sun.
D
Laika the dog, was the first living thing which was sent to space. (remember snoopy?)
Dominique Larrey, Napoleon's chief surgeon, could amputate a leg in 13 seconds.
Donald Duck comics were once banned from Finland because he/it doesn't wear pants
The electric chair was invented by a dentist. Dentistry has also achieved the highest number suicidal deaths for a profesional job. Thanx Dan R.
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year
The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all four feet at all times
Dolphins sleep with one eye open
The dioxin 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin is 150,000 times deadlier than cyanide.
Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
Calculating DNA length for each person, it would stretch across the diameter of the solar system. 6 000 000 000 000 basepairx 0.6 nm x 1013 cell = 3.6x1016 metres
If the information contained in the DNA could be written down, it would fill a 1000 volume encyclopedia
Dragonfly larvae develop under the water and eject water from their anus to propel them for short distances
A dragonfly can fly 25 mph.
A dragonfly is also known as "devil's darning needle", "horse stinger" and "devil's steelyard".
The amount of drag or air resistance produced by putting your bicycle on top of your car is so great that on a trip from England to Scotland it would be cheaper to send it by train because of the fuel consumption to overcome the drag
The "Daddy long legs" spider has venom to be used as a defensive mechanism. Don't worry though, coz it cannot puncture human skin, and even if it did, it would PROBABLY only cause a allergic reaction
A human's scent membrane in the nose is about the size of a postage stamp. A dog's is about the size of a handkerchief. It's olfactory lobe is also 4 times that of a humanThanx liz chell
It has been reported that some dogs are able to sniff out skin cancer. It's in a journal on Lancet. Click here
E
Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand, and Bujang Senang has 2.
Thomas Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark
Mr Ennis used to be a singer for a jazz band (He's my modern history teacher)
Emus cannot walk backwards.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
Everest is not the tallest mountain. Mauna Kea Mountain in the Hawaiian Island is 230m taller. It is 4201m above water and 4877 underwater! Everest is only 8848m.
Elvis had a twin brother named Garon, who died, so his middle name Aaron is in his honour. In 1971, he was appointed an honourary FBI agent by Nixon before Nixon's resignation.Thanx Spike
There are approximately 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building. Thanx Laine S.
E-mails started in 1971. Ray Tomlinson is it's DADDY!! and the first e-mail was sent WRITTEN ENTIRELY IN UPPER CASE.
During the 1600's, boys and girls in England wore dresses until they were about seven years old.
Elephants can't jump.
Baby elephants can drink over 80 litres of milk a day. (Do you drink milk?)
If you try to squeeze the ends of an egg with your thumb and finger and you wont be able to break it. Thats probably why people use the design so often or used to for building (arches)
gutters drain pipes the skull, makesa sense dont it? Thanx J Kennedy
F
Pope Adrian VI choked to death after a fly got stuck in his throat as he was taking a drink from a fountain
Certain frogs can reguritate their stomachs, in order to clean them (with their feet)
Faye Wong received a 7 digit fee for recording 'eyes on me' and it took her about 4 hours.
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
Flies
Flies taste with their feet.
A fly always jumps backwards for a quick getaway when you try to hit it. (Listen up all you fly haters)
Assuming that all the offspring survived, 190,000,000,000,000,000,000 flies could be produced in four months by the offspring of a single pair of flies.
Franz Ferdinand was killed.. remember that the guys death partly caused the WWI. Anyway, his death was almost unavoidable. After an attempted assasination using a bomb failed, (because the bomb hit the rear mud flap of the car Ferdinand was in and bounced away) authorities decided to change the route of Ferdinands tour... but failed to inform the driver of the car. And so, unfortunately, at one stage, the driver took a wrong turn and drove into an alley. While reversing out, Princip (killer) came and shot Ferdinand and his wife at a distance of 4-5 feet killing them. Ferdinand brought his wife to Serejavo to celebrate their anniversary. (And you thought you had a bad day)
Fleas are essential to the health of armadillos and hedgehogs; they provide necessary stimulation of the skin. Deloused armadillos and hedgehogs will die.
A flea can jump 350 times is own body length. (say..you jumping the length of a soccer field)thanx seraph
Finagle's Law was the one that went, "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." Not Murphy's Law.
Rosalind Franklin was the woman behind Watson and Crick's doudle helix DNA model. She did all the experiments, but died before she was paid credit. Watson and Crick merely took her results and interpreted it.
Some frogs use sugars as an antifreeze for vital organs
Some frogs like the wood frog and some turtles can stop their heart and frost their tissues during winter and defrost after that
The reason firehouse stairways are circular is from the days when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor but figured out how to walk up straight staircases. (unsure)
