This thread was too good to let die.......
The Atlantic Ocean increases in width by 3cms each year.
3 planets orbit the star Upsilon Andromedae, 44 light years away.
A dog was killed by a meteor at Nakhla, Egypt, in 1911. The unlucky canine is the only creature known to have been killed by a meteor. (Other than those dinosaurs, I guess...)
In the history of the solar system, 30 billion comets have been lost or destroyed. That amounts to only 30 percent of the estimated number that remain.
What weighs more? A kg of feathers or a kg of bricks? If you thought this was a trick question...you were wrong...kinda. The kg of bricks weigh more. The kilogram is a measure of mass and a kg of bricks and feathers both have the same mass. But everything has a buoyancy, i.e. why somethings float in water. This effect is also caused by the air, though too a lesser extent, the air pushes up on the feathers more than the bricks, causing them to appear to weigh less. Weight, of course, a measure of force of gravity, though not affected by the air is somewhat offset by the air pressure.
While the retina of frogs can detect movement, the retina of humans and other primates cannot. In fact, frogs and some other simple vertebrates may not even see an object unless it is moving. If a dead fly on a string is dangled motionlessly in front of a starving frog, the frog cannot sense this winged meal. The "bug-detecting" cells in its retina are wired to respond only to movement. The frog might starve to death, tongue firmly folded in its mouth, unaware that salvation lies suspended on a string in front of its eyes.
In March 1999, Linda Buck of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, proved that mammals recognize and process odours through a code based on varying combinations of receptors. She likens olfactory receptors to letters of the alphabet, which can be used over and over again to compose a vast vocabulary.
The Rubik's Cube was invented by Erno Rubik in 1974. To date over 100 million have been sold. Dave Orser broke the Unofficial World Record for solving a Rubik's cube blindfolded, with a new record of 4 minutes 5 seconds, including memorization on the 11th December 2002.
The rarest and most valuable botanical jewel is the legendary "coconut pearl" that occasionally forms inside a coconut (Cocos nucifera). Like the pearls of oysters and giant clams, it is a shiny calcareous sphere. Coconut pearls are known to form inside "blind coconuts" that lack the three characteristic germination pores at one end. The odds of finding one in a coconut are certainly less than one in a million. To put it another way, if you cracked open and thoroughly examined one coconut every 15 minutes during a normal eight hour work day, it would take roughly 80 years to go through a million coconuts. You can however see one on display at the Fairchild Tropical Garden in the city of Coral Gables, Florida.
In 1964, a jury awarded $50,000 to a woman who claimed a cable car accident in San Francisco had made her into a nymphomaniac
The word trivia comes from the Latin word trivium, a place where 3 roads meet. The perfect opportunity to exchange stories, gossip, and information.
When Coca-Cola was first sold in China, they used characters that would sound like "Coca-Cola" when spoken. Unfortunately, what they turned out to mean was "Bite the wax tadpole". It did not sell well.
Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
A goldfish is the only animal that can see both infrared and ultraviolet light.
In 1609, a doctor named Wecker found a corpse in Bologna with two penises. Since then, there have been eighty documented cases of men similarly endowed.
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
Contemporary reports of a man being guillotined in 1905 indicate that for about 30 seconds after the head has been severed from the body, there is still a level of consciousness that meant the severed head opened its eyes twice when its name was called out.
It has been demonstrated that humans are able to control their body temperatures to an amazing degree. In one experiment involving skilled yoga practitioners, the yogi was able to change the temperature of two areas of skin just two inches apart by a difference of ten degrees fahrenheit.
In 1971 western journalists were invited to China to witness operations using only acupuncture techniques for anaesthesia. One of these operations involved a patient having a needle placed in their right forearm. This apparently numbed the whole chest region and allowed a procedure to commence which involved the removal of a tubercular lung. While the operation took place the man was fully conscious and chatted with theatre staff. After the operation the wound was closed and the needle removed and his arm massaged. He showed no discomfort, and afterwards gave a press conference.
About twenty years ago Harry Jerison of the University of California, Los Angeles, developed a concept called the encephalization quotient, or EQ - a measure of brain size relative to body size. A domestic cat has an EQ of 1.0 - it has just the right size of brain to control its body size. Dogs came in at 1:8; ie having a bit of spare brain to play with. Chimps scored 3:0, and humans came in at a monster 7:4 encephalization quotient. Interestingly, bottle-nosed dolphins scored higher than chimps, and second only to humans with 5:6.
Humans are not the only species to murder. Jane Goodall, an acclaimed primatologist, studied chimpanzees in the Gombe National Park in Tanzania starting in the mid 1960s. At first the chimps were in one large group, and seemed content and happy. Over time however she noticed them splitting into two seperate groups; and shortly thereafter the battered and beaten body of an adult female chimp was found. A short time after there was another killing, with one of Goodalls field assistants actually witnessing eight chimps surround an isolated male from the other group; and then proceed to beat him to death with their fists, and one even used a stone. Subsequent murders of chimps were also witnessed and described; and by 1977, just a few years later, all the members of the second breakaway group had either been killed or were forced to rejoin the first.
The risk of Down's Syndrome (an extra chromosome 21) rises with age. Studies suggest that over the age of thirty-five, about one-third of a woman's eggs are chromosomally abnormal. At age twenty-five, the risk of Down's is 1 in 1500; by forty it is 1 in a 100, and at forty-five, one in thirty.
The humble condom gets its name from the personal physician to King Charles II, the Earl of Condom, who recommended its use to the king as an aid to prevent the contraction of syphilis.
When sperm were first seen down a microscope about 300 years ago, scientists really thought they could see tiny whole humans in human sperm, donkeys in donkey sperm, and so on. The entities were hence named spermatozoa, which means 'seed animals'.
In Europe and the US less then 1 per cent of men are exclusively homosexual; with another 5 per cent being bisexual. In women the figures are far less than 1 per cent exclusively lesbians, and another 2 percent bisexual.
In the UK in the 1990s, 10 per cent of men had paid for sex at least once in their lives by the time they were fifty.
