Random Facts II

[xygnal11]

Hi, I was wondering if you could post some facts from around the world?

 

Inspired by this page: http://www.tdnforums.com/index.php?showtopic=3094

 

Here are three examples, do you have more??:

 

- It is possible to lick your elbow o_O

- It is possible to Sneeze with your eyes open :O

- Drinking milk after eating something spicy will make it stop burning (literally!) :whofarted:

[Swordorchid]

the measurement from the base of your wrist to the inside bend of your elbow, is the same measurement as the size of you foot. *nods*

[CheeseStorm]

Hi, I was wondering if you could post some facts from around the world?

 

Inspired by this page: http://www.tdnforums.com/index.php?showtopic=3094

 

Here are three examples, do you have more??:

 

- It is possible to lick your elbow o_O

- It is possible to Sneeze with your eyes open :O

- Drinking milk after eating something spicy will make it stop burning (literally!) :whofarted:

 

 

well I was going to post and say that the first two were incorrect, but I looked it up more and I guess if you do try hard enough you can sneeze with your eyes open (though it is apparently very uncomfortable) and not everyone can lick their own elbow, but some can (those with a long enough tongue and are flexible enough) =P

 

[edit] also, a 'quick' thing about why the milk helps you when your mouth is burning from chillies and certain other peppers containing capsaicin:

Milk contains the protein casein, which breaks the bond between the pain receptors and the Capsaicin. (other fatty foods can also help- like yogurt, peanut butter, et cetra)

To add to that, Capsaicin is the chemical that makes you feel the heat when you eat peppers containing it. I believe what it does is causes a substance to exit your cells (it's called "substance P" or just "P") which makes you feel pain.

 

Which also brings up another interesting fact I know! (The reason I know any of this is thanks to my dad who looked it up one day, lol)

 

"The Scoville scale is a measure of the 'hotness' of a chilli pepper or anything derived from chilli peppers, i.e. hot sauce. The scale is named after Wilbur Scoville who developed the test in 1912."

Pure capsaicin and Dihydrocapsaicin is the hottest substance on the Scoville scale measuring at about 16 million Scovilles....

to put that in perspective the average Jalapeo pepper is only 2,500 - 5,000 Scovilles!

To purchase a capsule of pure capsaicin (crystallized) you have to sign a waver because of how dangerously hot it is! It is often sold ONLY for display/show. [/edit]

 

 

 

 

 

Anyways,

--apparently, mosquitoes have 47 teeth. (though there are many things saying this is wrong.../shrug)

--the lifespan of a tastebud is 10 days (10 days up to 2 weeks actually)

--elephants are the only land mammals that cannot jump

--snails can sleep for 3 years

--the brain is more active sleeping than it is watching television

--the ball on top of a flagpole is called a "truk"

--all porcupines float in water

--Dr. Seuss pronounced "Seuss" as to rhyme with "rejoice"

--the average person falls asleep in 7 minutes

--(this must have been posted on the other one!) hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the phobia of long words

 

that's all I feel like postin' for now. lol.

[The Original Luna]

A polar bear's skin is black. Its fur is not white, but actually

clear.

Shakespeare invented the words "assassination" and "bump."

 

If you keep a goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white.

 

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than

left-handed people do.

 

The names of the continents all end with the same letter with which

they start.

 

Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or

it will digest itself. (YUCK!)

 

The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.

 

A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one knows why.

On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily

 

Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear

pants.

 

There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple

and silver.

 

The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan". There was

never a recorded Wendy before

 

The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War 2

killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

 

If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will

instantly go mad and sting itself to death.

(Who was the sadist who discovered this??)

 

Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to s-l-o-w the film down

so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm.

 

By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you cannot

Sink into quicksand. (GOOD FACT TO REMEMBER?? )

Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin

Look-alike contest.

[Yixzy]

-A cup of coffee could help protect your skin from the sun (that was on BBC a while ago)

- The average human body contains enough fat to make seven bars of soap. (ew...)

- Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes. (I wonder if thats true...)

-Giraffes are unable to cough.

-10% of us switch tags in the store to pay less for an item

-More than 2,500 left handed people a year are killed from using products made for right handed people. (o_0 I better watch out...)

[torridity]

Here's some more:

-Cats spend approx. 1/3 of their waking hours grooming themselves

-The scientific name for a gorilla is Gorilla Gorilla

-30% of the world's population is under age 15

-There are more plastic flamingos than real ones

-Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete

-Honey never spoils

-There are more TVs in the U.S. than there are people in the U.K.

[Stephi]

-Honey never spoils

 

Tell that to my honey. It DID go bad. Tasted awful and when I tried to heat it up, cuz it had gone too thick, it went all white.

 

Here are some I found/knew:

-An office desk has 400 times more bacteria than a toilet

-A dime has 118 ridges around the edge

-Around 85% of product warning labels on household items are inadequate

-Americans didn't commonly use forks until after the Civil War

-An average home creates more pollution than a car

-In the spring of 1975, a baby in Detroit fell 14 stories and landed on Joseph Figlock, who was walking below. A few years later it happened again. Figlock and both babies survived

-The Canadian Civil War was a bar fight that lasted just over an hour and the only person arrested was an American.

-On average 100 people choke on a ballpoint pen every year

-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.

[Midtime]

The number four is the only number with the same amount of letters in its name as the number itself.

 

The real Latin name for a single radius is "radium". Many words were used for the plural other than the most often heard "radii". Some examples are "radios" and "radiorum".

 

You can chop a cylinder into a maximum of 93 pieces with 8 straight cuts.

[The Original Luna]

We are in the middle of an ice age. Ice ages include both

cold and warm periods; at the moment we are experiencing a

relatively warm span of time known as an interglacial period.

Geologists believe that the warmest part of this period occurred

from 1890 through 1945 and that since 1945 things have slowly

begun freezing up again.

A jogger's heel strikes the ground 1,500 times per mile.

A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years.

A red-haired man is more likely to go bald than anyone else.

[torridity]

Tell that to my honey. It DID go bad. Tasted awful and when I tried to heat it up, cuz it had gone too thick, it went all white.

Weird. Maybe it's only pure honey that never goes bad.... or at least non-processed.

 

A red-haired man is more likely to go bald than anyone else.

Because I'm a redhead, I know this to be true. Well not the balding part (<_<)... but just the fact that on average redheads have the least amount of hair to begin with, and blondes have the most.

[The Original Luna]

In ancient England a person could not have children unless you had consent

of the King (unless you were in the Royal Family). When anyone wanted to

have a baby, they got consent of the King, the King gave them a placard that

they hung on their door while they were having it. The placard had

F.*.*.*. (Fornication Under Consent of the King) on it. Now you know where

that came from.

[Yixzy]

In ancient England a person could not have children unless you had consent

of the King (unless you were in the Royal Family). When anyone wanted to

have a baby, they got consent of the King, the King gave them a placard that

they hung on their door while they were having it. The placard had

F.*.*.*. (Fornication Under Consent of the King) on it. Now you know where

that came from.

Hahaha!

No way, right?

Lol...

[Midtime]

That's funny... is having a baby fornication?! Aaaargh! I'm a product of fornication! (Fornication is supposed to be a bad thing, right? I'm not sure.)

If you take a random set of thirteen cards out of an ordinary pack, the odds that they will all be one suit are 1 in 635,013,559,600. Unless you're playing with someone who cheats, of course, in which case the odds of that not happening are about as low.

[The Original Luna]

In 1977, George Willig was fined $1.10 for climbing the World Trade Center building.

Was the $1.10 for the cleaners? :P

[Stephi]

That's funny... is having a baby fornication?! Aaaargh! I'm a product of fornication! (Fornication is supposed to be a bad thing, right? I'm not sure.)

 

Fornication = act of creating or attempting to create a baby... ask your parents.

[The Original Luna]

The average life span of an umbrella is under two years.

 

One googol written out is:

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

 

The worldU+2019s most common non-contagious disease is tooth-decay

The only words in the English language to contain two "UU+2019s" back to back are: vacuum,

residuum, and continuum.

[Midtime]

What are U+2019s and UU+2019s? I don't know much about chemistry...

 

Isaac Newton liked working out sums to 50 decimal places.

When Albert Einstein first saw his baby sister, he asked, "Where are the wheels?".

The longest word in the world is the name of a place in New Zealand. It is "Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoauaotamateaurehaeaturipukapihimaungahoronukupokai

henuaakitanarahu."

[The Original Luna]

The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book

most often stolen from Public Libraries.

 

Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space

because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them. (Not to mention the

other drawbacks to farting in such a confined space....)

Bats always turn left when exiting a cave!!

 

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred

and Wilma Flintstone.

 

Coca-Cola was originally green.

[Yixzy]

There is no word in the english language ending in the letter J (at least I think... my friends sister researched this)

[Midtime]

Yeah, I think so too.

By the way, the word "Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoauaotamateaurehaeaturipukapihimaungahoronukupokai

henuaakitanarahu" was entered into the Guiness Book of World Records.

Also, the word is usually shortened (well, did you think everyone could remember a name like that?) to Taumata.

[antiaircraft]

Approximately 50% of parents play their children's video games when their children aren't at home. That's assuming that 50% of parents are male (i.e. almost all fathers play their children's video games when their children aren't at home).

[Stephi]

My mom was the one that did that in our house... she loved Dr. Mario and she loves Neopets slots

[xygnal11]

i'm back here are some i found(again):

 

The chemicals indole and skatole, which help to account for the particular smell of human feces, are used as ingredients in perfume! :sick01:

 

The inventor of Vaseline ate a spoonful of the stuff every morning! *pukes*

 

Napoleon constructed his battle plans in a sandbox. :questionmark: :questionmark: :questionmark:

[Midtime]

I thought it was methane that made the smell?

[Stephi]

I thought it was methane that made the smell?

 

At room temp methane is colourless and odorless.