Fun Facts

06/30/08

Sometime back I received a mail entitled 'Facts' thru a series of FWDs ... ashwin, geevee, atk moorthy ( I do not know the source). They were in large number, from which I today propose to reproduce some of the more interesting from them. Here are they: ( Of course, some of them, you may have to 'take with a pinch of salt' as idiom goes! )


1. Over 10,000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.   
2. Honey is the only food that does not spoil.   
3. A snail can sleep for three years.   
4. Butterflies taste with their feet.   
5. Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.   
6. If all the gold in the ocean were mined, every person can get 20 kg of gold each!    7. Warner Communications  paid $ 28 million for copyright of the song "Happy Birthday"   
8. The Sun is 3,30,330 times larger than earth.   
9. A kangaroo cannot jump if its tail is off the ground.
10. It takes 17 muscles to smile, 43 muscles to frown, and 72 muscles to say a word.
11. The world's best selling book is the Bible.   
12. Water expands 9% as it freezes.
13, There are more than 40,000 characters in the Chinese script.   
14. Chinese use about 45 billion chopsticks per year. 25 million trees are chopped down to make them.
15. It is impossible to write number 6 with the right hand, when you rotate your right leg clockwise.   
16. It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open
17. When English settlers landed in Australia, and noticed a strange animal, and asked the aboriginals (in a body language) what it was, the response was 'Kan ghu ru'. They called it Kangaroo, which in native language meant 'We don't understand you'.   
 18. Marina beach in Chennai is the longest in India and second longest in world. 
19. Leonardo da Vinci invented the scissors.
20. An egg shell can have up to 17000 tiny pores on its surface,   
21. One quarter of human brain is used to control the eyes.  
22. 'TYPEWRITER' is the longest word that can be typed using letters only on one row of the keyboard.  
23. Einstein could not speak fluently when he was nine. His parents thought he was retarded.   
24. The three wealthiest families in the world  have more assets than the combined wealth of 48 poorest nations !
25. A species of earthworm in Australia grows upto 10 feet in length. 26.Sheeps outnumber humans in New Zealand 15 to 1.   
27. Saturn Rings are about 500,000 miles in circumference
but only about a foot thick!   
28. Except for Europe, all continents have deserts.  
29. The letters  ' A, B, C, D ' are not found in any number names between  0 to 99.
30. As many as 2,40,000 spectators can be accomodated in the Strahov stadium in  Prague, Chechoslovakia. it is the biggest in the world.   
31. Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.  
32. Each year, 96 billion pounds of food is wasted in USA.  
33. Each day the Sun causes about one trillion tons of water to evaporate.   
34. 'Dreamt' is the only English word to end with 'mt'. 
35. Our eyes are always of the same size from birth, but our nose and ears grow. 
36. There are only four words in English language which end in 'dous' : tremendous,
horrendous,  stupendous,  hazardous.   
37. There are only two words in English language that have all five vowels in same order; 'abstemious' and 'facetious' (a,e,i,o,u)  
38. Kangaroos cannot walk backwards. 
39. A microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube, and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.   
40. The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid !