Wednesday, April 25, 2007
I'm going through a list of 301 useless facts. Friends who know me well knows that I remember all sort of ridiculous facts about the world. Here, I'm posting some that I find extremely interesting. the full list is at http://www.singlegrain.com/blog/301-useless-facts/
Enjoy...
1. Giraffes and rats can last longer without water than camels.
2. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
3. In ancient Rome, when a man testified in court he would swear on his testicles.
4. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades = David ; Clubs = Alexander the Great ; Hearts = Charlemagne ; Diamonds = Caesar
5. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark’s stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
6. If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die. If you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out. (I love this one)
7. Upper and lower case letters are named “upper” and “lower” because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the upper case letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the lower case letters.
8. Bruce Lee was so fast that they had to slow the film down so you could see his moves.
9. There are 318,979,564,000 possible combinations of the first four moves in Chess. (Amazing huh?)
10. The first bomb the Allies dropped on Berlin in WWII killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo. (LMAO!!!)
11. One in ten people live on an island
12. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.
13. Triskaidekaphobia means fear of the number 13. Paraskevidekatriaphobia means fear of Friday the 13th (which occurs one to three times a year). In Italy, 17 is considered an unlucky number. In Japan, 4 is considered an unlucky number.
14. The sound you here when you put a seashell next to your ear is not the ocean, but blood flowing through your head. (Uber cool..........)
15. More people are afraid of open spaces (kenophobia) than of tight spaces (claustrophobia).
16. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave. (I love the bo liao-ness of this piece of info)
17. The names of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with (not counting the words “North” and “South). (Never thought of this...)
18. A snail can sleep for 3 years.
19. Finnish folklore says that when Santa comes to Finland to deliver gifts, he leaves his sleigh behind and rides on a goat named Ukko instead. According to French tradition, Santa Claus has a brother named Bells Nichols, who visits homes on New Year’s Eve after everyone is asleep, and if a plate is set out for him, he fills it with cookies and cakes.
20. You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world.
21. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times. (oh crap....)
22. Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations (implemented on July 16, 1969) makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles. (Huh?1)
23. For every memorial statue with a person on a horse, if the 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 of battle wounds; if all four of the horse’s legs are on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
24. Dreamt is the only English word that ends in the letters “MT”
25. Rats and horses can’t vomit.
26. There are only four words in the English language that end in “-dous”: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
27. Elephants are the only mammals that cannot jump
28. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite
29. The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses (Must sing for how long siah)
30. A “jiffy” is the scientific name for 1/100th of a second
31. One out of every 43 prisoners escapes from jail. 94% are recaptured. (Michael Scofield)
32. The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.
33. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed people do. (Fuck.....)
34. If you yelled for 8 years 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
35. If you plant an apple seed, it is almost guaranteed to grow a tree of a different type of apple
36. “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English.
37. Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same airplane in case there is a crash. (seriously...)
38. Around 2,000 left-handed people die annually due to improper use of equipment designed only for right handed people. (Second left handed thingy...)
39. The past-tense of the English word “dare” is “durst”.
Posted by NuhC at 6:07 PM
