Friday, March 28, 2014

Friday's Focus: Fun, Fanciful, and Farcical Facts

Today I feel like doing something for fun. In my research over the years, I've run into all kinds of funny, weird, crazy, and even nonsensical "facts." So, just for the heck of it, here are some of them, in no particular order, and relating to nothing in general.

>> Americans purchase more than 20 million pounds of Candy Corn every Halloween season.
>>Uncopyrightable is the only English word with fifteen letters that does not repeat a letter.
>>The only English words that cannot be rhymed are orange, month, silver, and purple.
>>A Texan's ten-gallon hat only holds about six pints.
>>Ninety percent of the world's ice covers Antartica, but the continent is the driest place on earth. (with the exception of California this year.) The average percipitation is about two inches a year, and it has an absolute humidity lower than that of the Gobi Desert.
>>The only state in the US that has never had an earthquake is North Dakota.
>>The number of bones in the human body is 350 at birth, and 206 in adulthood. ??
>>The average office desk has over 400 times more bacteria than a toilet. !!!
>>The body pumps 2,000 gallons of blood 60,000 miles every day.
>>The US motto, In God We Trust, was not adopted until 1956.
>>San Francisco's cable cars are the only mobile National Monument.
>>The shortest war in history was between England and Zanzibar in 1896. It only lasted 38 minutes before Zanzibar surrendered.
>>"When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" was written by a German musician, George Graff, who had never even visited Ireland.
>>Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to power a television for three hours; the same can, thrown away, will still be a can 500 years from now.
>>Rycycling one ton of paper saves: 17 trees; 6,953 gallons of water; 463 gallons of oil; 587 pounds of air pollution; 3.06 cubic yards of landfill; and 4,077 kilowatt hours of energy.
>>A hippopotamus can open its mouth wide enough to fit in a 4-foot person. They are the third largest land animal but can still outrun a human.
>>A cockroach can live up to nine days without its head. Yuck.
>>A Poison Arrow frog, indigenous to South American rainforests, contains enough poison to kill 2,200 people, although they are only one half inch in length.
>>Koala bear fingerprints are very similar to human fingerprints, as their fingers and toes have patterned ridges.
>>Contrary to popular opinion, a porcupine cannot "shoot" its quills. They rise up from the back and come out easily enough to embed themselves in predators...or nosy dogs who get too close.
>>Thomas Jefferson introduced brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and eggplant to America.
>>Coconut water can be used intravenously in emergency situtations to rehydrate a person, because it is sterile, has an ideal pH level, and is chemically similar to blood plasma.
>>Americans consume 75 to 100 acres of pizza each day, which is about 350 slices a second, and 40 slices per man, woman, and child, a year.

Until next time,
That's a wrap.