Some amazing facts useful to ISC members are given below. Hope everyone likes them.
* Astronauts get taller when they are in space.
* A tree in metropolitan area will survive for approximately eight years.
* A volcano has enough power to shoot ash as high as 50 km into the atmosphere.
* According to the Gemological Institute of America, up until the 1730's, India was the only source for diamonds in the world.
* An acre of trees can remove about 13 tons of dust and gases every year from the surrounding environment.
* An estimated 690 million people live in Africa.
* An olive tree can live up to 1500 years.
* Angel Falls in Venezuela is the world's highest waterfall, at 979 meters. This waterfall is sixteen times the height of Niagara Falls.
* Canada has more inland waters and lakes than any other country in the world.
* Corals take a long time to grow. Some corals only grow one centimeter in one year.
* Davao City, located at the Southern state of Philippines, is the largest city in the world in terms of area.
* Despite being over 27 times smaller, Norway's total coastline is longer than the USA's.
* Devon, England has about 33,000 miles of hedgerows, more hedgerows than any other country.
* Each day the sun causes about one trillion tons of water to evaporate.
* Even though the rose does not bear any fruit, the rose hips have more Vitamin C than most vegetables and fruits.
* Fine-grained volcanic ash can be found as an ingredient in some toothpaste.
* Finland has 187,888 lakes and 179,584 islands.
* Finland is also known as "the land of of the thousand lakes," because of the over 188,000 lakes found in this country.
* Florida has twice as many lightning injuries and deaths than any other state.
* In 1958, the United States Coast Guard off western Greenland measured the tallest known iceberg at five hundred and fifty feet.
* In 1998, approximately 1.6 billion tree seedlings were planted in the United States. This amounts to about five trees per American.
* In Albania, nodding your head means "no" and shaking your head means "yes."
* In France, the Big Dipper is called the "casserole."
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* In a day, a mature oak tree can draw approximately 50 gallons of water.
* In a year approximately 900 million trees are cut down to make the raw materials needed for American pulp mills and paper.
* In approximately 18 months, the papaya tree can grow to be 20 feet tall.
* In some parts of the Atacama Desert it has never rained.
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* In the Sahara Desert, there is a town named Tidikelt, which did not receive a drop of rain for ten years.
* In the United States, about 33% of land is covered by forests.
* In the dry valleys region of Antarctica, it has not rained in 2 million years according to scientists
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Shark Facts
Sharks are fish. However, they do not have bones like other fish. Their skeleton is made of cartilage. This is the same bendable material that is in your ears! They also do not have a swim bladder, the air filled balloon-like organ that keeps most fish upright. Sharks have gill slits but no gill-cover, which is common to most bony fish. Because they have no swim bladder to keep them buoyant, sharks sink when not swimming. Shark's bodies are heavier than water and most sharks are constantly on the move. By moving forward with their mouths open, sharks move water across their gills for breathing. The larger species produce live young that are fully formed, miniature versions of their parents. Mother sharks offer no food or protection for their young. Young sharks do have a fighting chance, though, as they are born with a full set of teeth and the ability to swim.. The list of amazing and funny facts about different kind of sharks are given below:
* The Whalefish Shark is the largest fish in the ocean. It can reach up to 50 feet and weigh about 30 tons. The whalefish eats plankton. It swims in warm waters near the equator. It filters meals as it swims with its mouth open. It is not threat to humans
* Just as humans rule the land, sharks rule the sea! Many people fear sharks, because they hear stories about sharks killing and eating humans. Actually, most sharks are not dangerous!
* Sharks never get cancer! Their cartilage is used in being studied with the hope of developing anti-cancer drugs.
* The dwarf shark is as small as your hand, while the whale shark can be as large as a school bus!
* A shark may grow and use over 20,000 teeth in its lifetime!
* Sharks never run out of teeth. If one is lost, another spins forward from the rows and rows of backup teeth.
* Sharks even eat other sharks. For example, a tiger shark might eat a bull shark, a bull shark might eat a blacktip shark and a blacktip shark might eat a dogfish shark!
* The whale shark is up to 46 feet (14 m), weighing up to 15 tons. The average size is 25 feet (7.6 m) long It is the largest fish in the world. Females are larger than males (like most sharks).
* It has been estimated that whale sharks may live up to 100 - 150 years.
* A shark's hunger can be satisfied with one good meal. The meal can last a long time because a shark uses little energy to swim. Some sharks hold food in their stomachs without it being digested. If they eat a big meal, it can last three or more months!
* A shark's hunger can be satisfied with one good meal. The meal can last a long time because a shark uses little energy to swim. Some sharks hold food in their stomachs without it being digested. If they eat a big meal, it can last three or more months!
* Sharks have existed for over 350 million years. They evolved over 100 million years before the dinosaurs did. This was long before people evolved.
* The Whalefish Shark is the largest fish in the ocean. It can reach up to 50 feet and weigh about 30 tons. The whalefish eats plankton. It swims in warm waters near the equator. It filters meals as it swims with its mouth open. It is not threat to humans
* Just as humans rule the land, sharks rule the sea! Many people fear sharks, because they hear stories about sharks killing and eating humans. Actually, most sharks are not dangerous!
* Sharks never get cancer! Their cartilage is used in being studied with the hope of developing anti-cancer drugs.
* The dwarf shark is as small as your hand, while the whale shark can be as large as a school bus!
* A shark may grow and use over 20,000 teeth in its lifetime!
* Sharks never run out of teeth. If one is lost, another spins forward from the rows and rows of backup teeth.
* Sharks even eat other sharks. For example, a tiger shark might eat a bull shark, a bull shark might eat a blacktip shark and a blacktip shark might eat a dogfish shark!
* The whale shark is up to 46 feet (14 m), weighing up to 15 tons. The average size is 25 feet (7.6 m) long It is the largest fish in the world. Females are larger than males (like most sharks).
* It has been estimated that whale sharks may live up to 100 - 150 years.
* A shark's hunger can be satisfied with one good meal. The meal can last a long time because a shark uses little energy to swim. Some sharks hold food in their stomachs without it being digested. If they eat a big meal, it can last three or more months!
* A shark's hunger can be satisfied with one good meal. The meal can last a long time because a shark uses little energy to swim. Some sharks hold food in their stomachs without it being digested. If they eat a big meal, it can last three or more months!
* Sharks have existed for over 350 million years. They evolved over 100 million years before the dinosaurs did. This was long before people evolved.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Some more Amazing Facts
* Chewing on gum while cutting onions can help a person from stop producing tears. Try it next time you chop onions!
* Until babies are six months old, they can breathe and swallow at the same time. Indeed convenient!
* Offered a new pen to write with, 97% of all people will write their own name.
* Male mosquitoes are vegetarians. Only females bite.
* The average person's field of vision encompasses a 200-degree wide angle.
* To find out if a watermelon is ripe, knock it, and if it sounds hollow then it is ripe.
* Canadians can send letters with personalized postage stamps showing their own photos on each stamp.
* Babies' eyes do not produce tears until the baby is approximately six to eight weeks old.
* It snowed in the Sahara Desert in February of 1979.
* Plants watered with warm water grow larger and more quickly than plants watered with cold water.
* Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
* Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave.
* Those stars and colors you see when you rub your eyes are called phosphenes.
* Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
* Everyone's tongue print is different, like fingerprints.
* Contrary to popular belief, a swallowed chewing gum doesn't stay in the gut. It will pass through the system and be excreted.
* At 40 Centigrade a person loses about 14.4 calories per hour by breathing.
* There is a hotel in Sweden built entirely out of ice; it is rebuilt every year.
* Cats, camels and giraffes are the only animals in the world that walk right foot, right foot, left foot, left foot, rather than right foot, left foot.
* Onions help reduce cholesterol if eaten after a fatty meal.
* The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.
* Until babies are six months old, they can breathe and swallow at the same time. Indeed convenient!
* Offered a new pen to write with, 97% of all people will write their own name.
* Male mosquitoes are vegetarians. Only females bite.
* The average person's field of vision encompasses a 200-degree wide angle.
* To find out if a watermelon is ripe, knock it, and if it sounds hollow then it is ripe.
* Canadians can send letters with personalized postage stamps showing their own photos on each stamp.
* Babies' eyes do not produce tears until the baby is approximately six to eight weeks old.
* It snowed in the Sahara Desert in February of 1979.
* Plants watered with warm water grow larger and more quickly than plants watered with cold water.
* Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
* Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave.
* Those stars and colors you see when you rub your eyes are called phosphenes.
* Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
* Everyone's tongue print is different, like fingerprints.
* Contrary to popular belief, a swallowed chewing gum doesn't stay in the gut. It will pass through the system and be excreted.
* At 40 Centigrade a person loses about 14.4 calories per hour by breathing.
* There is a hotel in Sweden built entirely out of ice; it is rebuilt every year.
* Cats, camels and giraffes are the only animals in the world that walk right foot, right foot, left foot, left foot, rather than right foot, left foot.
* Onions help reduce cholesterol if eaten after a fatty meal.
* The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.
Friday, April 4, 2008
100 Best Amazing facts
1. If you are struck by lightning, your skin will be heated to 28,000 degrees Centigrade, hotter than the surface of the Sun.
2. If you trace your family tree back 25 generations, you will have 33,554,432 direct ancestors – assuming no incest was involved.
3. The average distance between the stars in the sky is 20 million miles.
4. It would take a modern spaceship 70,000 years to get to the nearest star to earth.
5. An asteroid wiped out every single dinosaur in the world, but not a single species of toad or salamander was affected. No one knows why, nor why the crocodiles and tortoises survived.
6. If you dug a well to the centre of the Earth, and dropped a brick in it, it would take 45 minutes to get to the bottom – 4,000 miles down.
7. Your body sheds 10 billion flakes of skin every day.
8. The Earth weighs 6,500 million million million tons.
9. Honey is the only food consumed by humans that doesn’t go off.
10. The Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters.
11. A donkey can sink into quicksand but a mule can’t.
12. Every time you sneeze your heart stops a second.
13. There are 22 miles more canals in Birmingham UK than in Venice.
14. Potato crisps were invented by a Mr Crumm.
15. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in their correct order.
16. Eskimoes have hundreds of words for snow but none for hello.
17. The word “set” has the most definitions in the English language.
18. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating its letters is uncopyrightable.
19. Windmills always turn counter-clockwise.
20. The “Sixth Sick Sheik’s Sixth Sheep’s Sick” is the hardest tongue-twister.
21. The longest English word without a vowel is twyndyllyngs which means "twins".
22. 1 x 8 + 1 = 9; 12 x 8 + 2 = 98; 123 x 8 + 3 = 987; 1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876; 12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765; 123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654; 1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543; 12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432; 123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321
23. The word "dreamt" is the only common word in the English language that ends in "mt".
24. Albert Einstein never wore any socks.
25. The average human will eat 8 spiders while asleep in their lifetime.
26. In space, astronauts cannot cry because there is no gravity.
27. Hummingbirds are the only creatures that can fly backwards.
28. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
29. Cockroaches can live 9 days without their heads before they starve to death.
30. A flamingo can eat only when its head is upside down.
31. The lighter was invented before the match.
32. It is physically impossible for pigs to look up at the sky.
33. The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year!
34. Scientists with high-speed cameras have discovered that rain drops are not tear shaped but rather look like hamburger buns.
35. The first Internet domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com on March 15, 1985.
36. When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone back in 1876, only six phones were sold in the first month.
37. Approximately 7.5% of all office documents get lost.
38. Business.com is currently the most expensive domain name sold: for $7.5 million.
39. In 2001, the five most valuable brand names in order were Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, GE, and Nokia.
40. In Canada, the most productive day of the working week is Tuesday.
41. In a study by the University of Chicago in 1907, it was concluded that the easiest colour to spot is yellow. This is why John Hertz, who is the founder of the Yellow Cab Company picked cabs to be yellow.
42. It takes about 63,000 trees to make the newsprint for the average Sunday edition of The New York Times.
43. On average a business document is copied 19 times.
44. The largest employer in the world is the Indian railway system in India, employing over 1.6 million people.
45. Warner Chappel Music owns the copyright to the song "Happy Birthday." They make over $1 million in royalties every year from the commercial use of the song.
46. All babies are colour-blind when they are born.
47. Children grow faster in the springtime than any other season during the year.
48. Each nostril of a human being registers smells in a different way. Smells that are made from the right nostril are more pleasant than the left. However, smells can be detected more accurately when made by the left nostril.
49. Humans are born with 350 bones in their body, however when a person reaches adulthood they only have 206 bones. This occurs because many of them join together to make a single bone.
50. May babies are on average 200 grams heavier than babies born in other months.
51. Leonardo da Vinci was dyslexic, and he often wrote backwards.
52. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had only one testicle.
53. Queen Lydia Liliuokalani was the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian Islands. She was also the only Queen the United States ever had.
54. Rolling Stones band member Bill Wyman married a 19 year-old model Mandy Smith in 1988. At the same time Wyman's son was engaged to Mandy Smith's mother. If his son had married Smith's mother, Wyman would have been the step grandfather to his own wife.
55. There are 158 verses in the Greek National Anthem.
56. There are about 6,800 languages in the world.
57. There was no punctuation until the 15th century.
58. Children laugh about 400 times a day, while adults laugh on average only 15 times a day.
59. The coconut is the largest seed in the world.
60. There is cyanide in apple pips.
61. If you were to take 1 lb. of spiders web and stretch it out it would circle the whole way around the world!
62. If every person in China stood on a chair and jumped off at the same time...it would knock the earth off its axis!
63. A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night!
64. The shortest war on record, between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896, lasted just 38 minutes.
65. The Shell Oil Company originally began as a novelty shop in London that sold seashells.
66. The symbols + (addition) and – (subtraction) came into general use in 1489.
67. If you save one penny and double it every successive day, (day two you have 2 pennies and day three you have 4 pennies, and so on), by the end of 30 days you’ll have $5,368,708! (or £’s or whatever currency).
68. It is not possible to tickle yourself. The cerebellum, a part of the brain, warns the rest of the brain that you are about to tickle yourself. Since your brain knows this, it ignores the resulting sensation.
69. The best time for a person to buy shoes is in the afternoon. This is because the foot tends to swell a bit around this time.
70. The typical lead pencil can draw a line that is thirty-five miles long.
71. Due to precipitation, for a few weeks, K2 is taller than Mt. Everest.
72. Astronauts get taller when they are in space.
73. There are over one hundred billion galaxies with each galaxy having billions of stars.
74. The surface area of the lungs is roughly the same size as a tennis court.
75. A dog can hear sounds that are 100 times fainter than the faintest sounds that a person can hear. If a person can just hear a noise that is coming from 10 feet away, a dog could hear that same noise from 100 feet away.
76. If a sole (a type of fish) lays upon a chessboard it can change the colouring of its body to match the pattern of the chess board. The sole takes about 4 minutes to make the change.
77. Of all the animals on earth the mosquito has contributed to the deaths of more people than any other animal.
78. In the courts of the Roman Empire, instead of swearing an oath on a bible, men swore to the truth on their statements while holding their genitals. Hence the word 'testify', from 'testicles'.
79. The first soap powder, produced in 1907, was made with Perborate and Silicate - hence its brand name, Persil.
80. If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, there would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Americas and 8 Africans. Only 1 would own a computer.
81. All elephants walk on tiptoe, because the back portion of their foot is made up of all fat and no bone.
82. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
83. Hawaii has the only royal palace in the United States.
84. Chicken liver can be used to change A type blood to O type blood.
85. It takes only 8 minutes for sunlight to travel from the sun to the earth, which also means, if you see the sun go out, it actually went out 8 minutes ago.
86. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
87. An octopus has 3 hearts.
88. If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
89. The hair on a polar bear is not white, but clear. They reflect light, so they appear white.
90. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.
91. The combination "ough" can be pronounced in 9 different ways; Read this: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
92. The blue whale has a heart the size of a small car and its blood vessel is so broad, that a person could swim through it.
93. A left-handed person finds it easier to open a jar than a right-handed person because they can supply a stronger anticlockwise turning force than a right-handed person. However a right-handed person will find it easier to tighten the jar up afterwards.
94. The orbit of the Moon about the Earth would fit easily inside the Sun.
95. A chameleon can move its eyes in two directions at the same time.
96. Typewriter is the longest word that can be made only using one row on the keyboard.
97. Because of the rotation of earth you can throw a ball farther to the west than to the east.
98. The name of all the continents ends with the same letter that they start with.
99. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
100. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar (euro, pound).
Also read about my blog on Yoga for Health!
See another article about 50 Amazing Facts about Food
2. If you trace your family tree back 25 generations, you will have 33,554,432 direct ancestors – assuming no incest was involved.
3. The average distance between the stars in the sky is 20 million miles.
4. It would take a modern spaceship 70,000 years to get to the nearest star to earth.
5. An asteroid wiped out every single dinosaur in the world, but not a single species of toad or salamander was affected. No one knows why, nor why the crocodiles and tortoises survived.
6. If you dug a well to the centre of the Earth, and dropped a brick in it, it would take 45 minutes to get to the bottom – 4,000 miles down.
7. Your body sheds 10 billion flakes of skin every day.
8. The Earth weighs 6,500 million million million tons.
9. Honey is the only food consumed by humans that doesn’t go off.
10. The Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters.
11. A donkey can sink into quicksand but a mule can’t.
12. Every time you sneeze your heart stops a second.
13. There are 22 miles more canals in Birmingham UK than in Venice.
14. Potato crisps were invented by a Mr Crumm.
15. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in their correct order.
16. Eskimoes have hundreds of words for snow but none for hello.
17. The word “set” has the most definitions in the English language.
18. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating its letters is uncopyrightable.
19. Windmills always turn counter-clockwise.
20. The “Sixth Sick Sheik’s Sixth Sheep’s Sick” is the hardest tongue-twister.
21. The longest English word without a vowel is twyndyllyngs which means "twins".
22. 1 x 8 + 1 = 9; 12 x 8 + 2 = 98; 123 x 8 + 3 = 987; 1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876; 12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765; 123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654; 1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543; 12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432; 123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321
23. The word "dreamt" is the only common word in the English language that ends in "mt".
24. Albert Einstein never wore any socks.
25. The average human will eat 8 spiders while asleep in their lifetime.
26. In space, astronauts cannot cry because there is no gravity.
27. Hummingbirds are the only creatures that can fly backwards.
28. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
29. Cockroaches can live 9 days without their heads before they starve to death.
30. A flamingo can eat only when its head is upside down.
31. The lighter was invented before the match.
32. It is physically impossible for pigs to look up at the sky.
33. The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year!
34. Scientists with high-speed cameras have discovered that rain drops are not tear shaped but rather look like hamburger buns.
35. The first Internet domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com on March 15, 1985.
36. When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone back in 1876, only six phones were sold in the first month.
37. Approximately 7.5% of all office documents get lost.
38. Business.com is currently the most expensive domain name sold: for $7.5 million.
39. In 2001, the five most valuable brand names in order were Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, GE, and Nokia.
40. In Canada, the most productive day of the working week is Tuesday.
41. In a study by the University of Chicago in 1907, it was concluded that the easiest colour to spot is yellow. This is why John Hertz, who is the founder of the Yellow Cab Company picked cabs to be yellow.
42. It takes about 63,000 trees to make the newsprint for the average Sunday edition of The New York Times.
43. On average a business document is copied 19 times.
44. The largest employer in the world is the Indian railway system in India, employing over 1.6 million people.
45. Warner Chappel Music owns the copyright to the song "Happy Birthday." They make over $1 million in royalties every year from the commercial use of the song.
46. All babies are colour-blind when they are born.
47. Children grow faster in the springtime than any other season during the year.
48. Each nostril of a human being registers smells in a different way. Smells that are made from the right nostril are more pleasant than the left. However, smells can be detected more accurately when made by the left nostril.
49. Humans are born with 350 bones in their body, however when a person reaches adulthood they only have 206 bones. This occurs because many of them join together to make a single bone.
50. May babies are on average 200 grams heavier than babies born in other months.
51. Leonardo da Vinci was dyslexic, and he often wrote backwards.
52. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had only one testicle.
53. Queen Lydia Liliuokalani was the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian Islands. She was also the only Queen the United States ever had.
54. Rolling Stones band member Bill Wyman married a 19 year-old model Mandy Smith in 1988. At the same time Wyman's son was engaged to Mandy Smith's mother. If his son had married Smith's mother, Wyman would have been the step grandfather to his own wife.
55. There are 158 verses in the Greek National Anthem.
56. There are about 6,800 languages in the world.
57. There was no punctuation until the 15th century.
58. Children laugh about 400 times a day, while adults laugh on average only 15 times a day.
59. The coconut is the largest seed in the world.
60. There is cyanide in apple pips.
61. If you were to take 1 lb. of spiders web and stretch it out it would circle the whole way around the world!
62. If every person in China stood on a chair and jumped off at the same time...it would knock the earth off its axis!
63. A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night!
64. The shortest war on record, between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896, lasted just 38 minutes.
65. The Shell Oil Company originally began as a novelty shop in London that sold seashells.
66. The symbols + (addition) and – (subtraction) came into general use in 1489.
67. If you save one penny and double it every successive day, (day two you have 2 pennies and day three you have 4 pennies, and so on), by the end of 30 days you’ll have $5,368,708! (or £’s or whatever currency).
68. It is not possible to tickle yourself. The cerebellum, a part of the brain, warns the rest of the brain that you are about to tickle yourself. Since your brain knows this, it ignores the resulting sensation.
69. The best time for a person to buy shoes is in the afternoon. This is because the foot tends to swell a bit around this time.
70. The typical lead pencil can draw a line that is thirty-five miles long.
71. Due to precipitation, for a few weeks, K2 is taller than Mt. Everest.
72. Astronauts get taller when they are in space.
73. There are over one hundred billion galaxies with each galaxy having billions of stars.
74. The surface area of the lungs is roughly the same size as a tennis court.
75. A dog can hear sounds that are 100 times fainter than the faintest sounds that a person can hear. If a person can just hear a noise that is coming from 10 feet away, a dog could hear that same noise from 100 feet away.
76. If a sole (a type of fish) lays upon a chessboard it can change the colouring of its body to match the pattern of the chess board. The sole takes about 4 minutes to make the change.
77. Of all the animals on earth the mosquito has contributed to the deaths of more people than any other animal.
78. In the courts of the Roman Empire, instead of swearing an oath on a bible, men swore to the truth on their statements while holding their genitals. Hence the word 'testify', from 'testicles'.
79. The first soap powder, produced in 1907, was made with Perborate and Silicate - hence its brand name, Persil.
80. If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, there would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Americas and 8 Africans. Only 1 would own a computer.
81. All elephants walk on tiptoe, because the back portion of their foot is made up of all fat and no bone.
82. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
83. Hawaii has the only royal palace in the United States.
84. Chicken liver can be used to change A type blood to O type blood.
85. It takes only 8 minutes for sunlight to travel from the sun to the earth, which also means, if you see the sun go out, it actually went out 8 minutes ago.
86. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
87. An octopus has 3 hearts.
88. If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
89. The hair on a polar bear is not white, but clear. They reflect light, so they appear white.
90. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.
91. The combination "ough" can be pronounced in 9 different ways; Read this: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
92. The blue whale has a heart the size of a small car and its blood vessel is so broad, that a person could swim through it.
93. A left-handed person finds it easier to open a jar than a right-handed person because they can supply a stronger anticlockwise turning force than a right-handed person. However a right-handed person will find it easier to tighten the jar up afterwards.
94. The orbit of the Moon about the Earth would fit easily inside the Sun.
95. A chameleon can move its eyes in two directions at the same time.
96. Typewriter is the longest word that can be made only using one row on the keyboard.
97. Because of the rotation of earth you can throw a ball farther to the west than to the east.
98. The name of all the continents ends with the same letter that they start with.
99. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
100. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar (euro, pound).
Also read about my blog on Yoga for Health!
See another article about 50 Amazing Facts about Food
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Amazing Animal Senses
Animals have developed amazing adaptations to their environments. Many different types of energy & senses exist in the environment, some of which humans cannot detect. Here are some examples of how some animals sense the outside world.
Ants
* Can detect small movement through 5 cm of earth.
* Can see polarized light.
Bats
* Can detect warmth of an animal from about 16 cm away using its "nose-leaf".
* Bats can also find food up to 18 ft. away and get information about the type of insect using their sense of echolocation.
Bees
* Can see light between wavelengths 300 nm & 650 nm.
* Have taste receptors on their jaws, forelimbs and antennae.
* Worker honey bees have a ring of iron oxide in their abdomens that may be used to detect magnetic fields. They may use this ability to detect changes in the earth's magnetic field and use it for navigation.
* Can see polarized light.
Butterfly
* Has taste receptors on its feet.
* The butterfly has hairs on its wings to detect changes in air pressure.
* Using vision, the butterfly Colias can distinguish two points separated by as little as 30 microns.
Cat
* Has hearing range between 100 and 60,000 Hz.
* Olfactory membrane about 14 sq. cm. For comparison, humans have an olfactory membrane of about 4 sq. cm.
Chameleon
* The eyes of the chameleon can move independently & can see in two different directions at the same time.
Cockroach
* Can detect movement as small as 2,000 times the diameter of a hydrogen atom.
Crab
* Has hairs on claws and other parts of the body to detect water current and vibration.
* Many crabs have their eyes on the end of stalks.
Cricket
* Can hear using their legs; sound waves vibrate a thin membrane on the cricket's front legs.
Dog
* Has olfactory membrane up to 150 sq. cm.
* Can hear sound as high as 40,000 Hz.
Dolphin
* Like bats, dolphins use echolocation for movement and locating objects.
* Can hear frequencies up to at least 100,000 Hz.
Dragonfly
* Eye contains 30,000 lenses.
Earthworm
* Entire body covered with chemoreceptors ( taste receptors ).
Elephant
* Has hearing range between 1 and 20,000 Hz. The very low frequency sounds are in the "infrasound" range. Humans cannot hear sounds in the infrasound range.
Falcon
* Can see a 10 cm. object from a distance of 1.5 km.
Fish
* Have a "lateral line" system consisting of sense organs ("neuromasts") in canals along the head and trunk. These receptors are used to detect changes in water pressure and may be used to locate prey and aid movement.
* Some fish can see into the infrared wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Fish ( Deep sea )
* Only have rods in the retina: 25 million rods/sq. mm. Perhaps they need this high density of photoreceptors to detect the dim biolumninescence that exists in the ocean depths.
Fish ("Four-eyed Fish" Anableps microlepis)
* Can see in air and water simultaneously. Each eye is divided by flaps, so there is one opening in the air and one in the water.
Fly
* Eye has a flicker fusion rate of 300/sec. Humans have a flicker fusion rate of only 60/sec in bright light and 24/sec in dim light. The flicker fusion rate is the frequency with which the "flicker" of an image cannot be distinguished as an individual event. Like the frame of a movie...if you slowed it down, you would see individual frames. Speed it up and you see a constantly moving image.
* Blowflies taste with 3,000 sensory hairs on their feet.
Frog
* Has an eardrum (tympanic membrane) on the outside of the body behind the eye.
Hawk
* Normal vision for people is 20/20. A hawk's vision is equivalent to 20/5. This means that the hawk can see from 20 feet what most people can see from 5 feet. (Scientific American, April 2001, page 24)
Mice
* Can hear frequencies between 1,000 and 100,000 Hz. By comparison, we humans can hear frequencies between 20 and 20,000 Hz.
Mosquito
* Attracted to host by human body odor ( especially the foot odor), carbon dioxide, body heat and body humidity.
Octopus
* Retina contains 20 million photoreceptors.
* The eye has a flicker fusion frequency of 70/sec in bright light.
* The pupil of the eye is rectangular.
Penguin
* Has a flat cornea that allows for clear vision underwater. Penguins can also see into the ultraviolet range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Pig
* Tongue contains 15,000 taste buds. For comparison, the human tongue has 9,000 taste buds.
Pigeon
* With eyes mounted laterally on their heads, pigeons can view 340 degrees...everywhere except in back of their heads.
* Can detect sounds as low as 0.1 Hz.
Rabbit
* Tongue contains 17,000 taste buds.
Rat
* Has hearing range between 1,000 and 90,000 Hz.
Seahorse
* Each eye can move independently.
Scorpion
* Can detect air moving at only 0.072 km/hr with special hairs on its pincers.
* Can have as many as 12 eyes.
Shark
* Has specialized electrosensing receptors with thresholds as low as 0.005 uV/cm. These receptors may be used to locate prey. The dogfish can detect a flounder that is buried under the sand and emitting 4 uAmp of current.
* Some sharks can detect fish extracts as concentrations lower than one part in 10 billion.
* Some sharks sense light directly through the skull by the pineal body.
Snakes
* The tongue of snakes has no taste buds. Instead, the tongue is used to bring smells and tastes into the mouth. Smells and tastes are then detected in two pits, called "Jacobson's organs", on the roof of their mouths. Receptors in the pits then transmit smell and taste information to the brain.
* Snakes have no external ears. Therefore, they do not hear the music of a "snake charmer". Instead, they are probably responding to the movements of the snake charmer and the flute. However, sound waves may travel through bones in their heads to the middle ear.
* Snakes have no moveable eyelids. Instead, they have a clear, scale-like membrane covering the eye.
Spider
* Many spiders have eight eyes.
Ants
* Can detect small movement through 5 cm of earth.
* Can see polarized light.
Bats
* Can detect warmth of an animal from about 16 cm away using its "nose-leaf".
* Bats can also find food up to 18 ft. away and get information about the type of insect using their sense of echolocation.
Bees
* Can see light between wavelengths 300 nm & 650 nm.
* Have taste receptors on their jaws, forelimbs and antennae.
* Worker honey bees have a ring of iron oxide in their abdomens that may be used to detect magnetic fields. They may use this ability to detect changes in the earth's magnetic field and use it for navigation.
* Can see polarized light.
Butterfly
* Has taste receptors on its feet.
* The butterfly has hairs on its wings to detect changes in air pressure.
* Using vision, the butterfly Colias can distinguish two points separated by as little as 30 microns.
Cat
* Has hearing range between 100 and 60,000 Hz.
* Olfactory membrane about 14 sq. cm. For comparison, humans have an olfactory membrane of about 4 sq. cm.
Chameleon
* The eyes of the chameleon can move independently & can see in two different directions at the same time.
Cockroach
* Can detect movement as small as 2,000 times the diameter of a hydrogen atom.
Crab
* Has hairs on claws and other parts of the body to detect water current and vibration.
* Many crabs have their eyes on the end of stalks.
Cricket
* Can hear using their legs; sound waves vibrate a thin membrane on the cricket's front legs.
Dog
* Has olfactory membrane up to 150 sq. cm.
* Can hear sound as high as 40,000 Hz.
Dolphin
* Like bats, dolphins use echolocation for movement and locating objects.
* Can hear frequencies up to at least 100,000 Hz.
Dragonfly
* Eye contains 30,000 lenses.
Earthworm
* Entire body covered with chemoreceptors ( taste receptors ).
Elephant
* Has hearing range between 1 and 20,000 Hz. The very low frequency sounds are in the "infrasound" range. Humans cannot hear sounds in the infrasound range.
Falcon
* Can see a 10 cm. object from a distance of 1.5 km.
Fish
* Have a "lateral line" system consisting of sense organs ("neuromasts") in canals along the head and trunk. These receptors are used to detect changes in water pressure and may be used to locate prey and aid movement.
* Some fish can see into the infrared wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Fish ( Deep sea )
* Only have rods in the retina: 25 million rods/sq. mm. Perhaps they need this high density of photoreceptors to detect the dim biolumninescence that exists in the ocean depths.
Fish ("Four-eyed Fish" Anableps microlepis)
* Can see in air and water simultaneously. Each eye is divided by flaps, so there is one opening in the air and one in the water.
Fly
* Eye has a flicker fusion rate of 300/sec. Humans have a flicker fusion rate of only 60/sec in bright light and 24/sec in dim light. The flicker fusion rate is the frequency with which the "flicker" of an image cannot be distinguished as an individual event. Like the frame of a movie...if you slowed it down, you would see individual frames. Speed it up and you see a constantly moving image.
* Blowflies taste with 3,000 sensory hairs on their feet.
Frog
* Has an eardrum (tympanic membrane) on the outside of the body behind the eye.
Hawk
* Normal vision for people is 20/20. A hawk's vision is equivalent to 20/5. This means that the hawk can see from 20 feet what most people can see from 5 feet. (Scientific American, April 2001, page 24)
Mice
* Can hear frequencies between 1,000 and 100,000 Hz. By comparison, we humans can hear frequencies between 20 and 20,000 Hz.
Mosquito
* Attracted to host by human body odor ( especially the foot odor), carbon dioxide, body heat and body humidity.
Octopus
* Retina contains 20 million photoreceptors.
* The eye has a flicker fusion frequency of 70/sec in bright light.
* The pupil of the eye is rectangular.
Penguin
* Has a flat cornea that allows for clear vision underwater. Penguins can also see into the ultraviolet range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Pig
* Tongue contains 15,000 taste buds. For comparison, the human tongue has 9,000 taste buds.
Pigeon
* With eyes mounted laterally on their heads, pigeons can view 340 degrees...everywhere except in back of their heads.
* Can detect sounds as low as 0.1 Hz.
Rabbit
* Tongue contains 17,000 taste buds.
Rat
* Has hearing range between 1,000 and 90,000 Hz.
Seahorse
* Each eye can move independently.
Scorpion
* Can detect air moving at only 0.072 km/hr with special hairs on its pincers.
* Can have as many as 12 eyes.
Shark
* Has specialized electrosensing receptors with thresholds as low as 0.005 uV/cm. These receptors may be used to locate prey. The dogfish can detect a flounder that is buried under the sand and emitting 4 uAmp of current.
* Some sharks can detect fish extracts as concentrations lower than one part in 10 billion.
* Some sharks sense light directly through the skull by the pineal body.
Snakes
* The tongue of snakes has no taste buds. Instead, the tongue is used to bring smells and tastes into the mouth. Smells and tastes are then detected in two pits, called "Jacobson's organs", on the roof of their mouths. Receptors in the pits then transmit smell and taste information to the brain.
* Snakes have no external ears. Therefore, they do not hear the music of a "snake charmer". Instead, they are probably responding to the movements of the snake charmer and the flute. However, sound waves may travel through bones in their heads to the middle ear.
* Snakes have no moveable eyelids. Instead, they have a clear, scale-like membrane covering the eye.
Spider
* Many spiders have eight eyes.
Did u Know - Unbelievable Amazing Facts
1. Did you know the largest fish ever caught was the Whale Shark? It was 59ft long.
These fish can weigh up to 15 tons.
2. Did you know fishes cannot live in the Dead Sea because the water has too much salt in it?
3. A parrotfish makes its own sleeping bag to sleep in. It uses mucous (like spit)
to make a see-through bag all around it's body to protect it from attack by other
creatures in the ocean.
4. The pelican uses the funny looking pouch under its lower beak for catching fish.
It does this by swooshing into the water and scooping up as many fish as
possible.
5. The blue whale is the largest animal on earth. The heart of a blue whale is as
big as a car, and it's tongue is as long as an elephant.
6. Did you know pearls are found in oysters? The largest pearl ever found was 620
carats.
7. The heaviest fish ever caught was the OCEAN SUNFISH. It weighed 4,928 lbs.
8. The Blue Whale's whistle is the loudest noise made by an animal.
9. here are two kinds of elephants: the African that is taller and has larger ears
and the Indian that is small and has smaller ears.
10. Did you know there are two kinds of camels? One is the Arabian that lives in
Western Asia and Northern Africa. It has one hump. And the second kind is called
Bactrian which has two humps and lives in Mongolia and Chinese Turkistan.
11. The smallest bird in the world is the Hummingbird. It weighs 1oz.
12. The fastest human swimmer can swim at 6 miles per hour. The fastest mammal - the
dolphin - can swim up to 35 miles per hour.
13. The bird that can fly the fastest is called a White It can fly up to 95 miles
per hour.
14. Did you know fishes talk to each other? Some of them communicate by making noises
in their throats by rasping their teeth, others use their swim bladders to make
sounds
15. The the oldest living thing on earth is 12,000 years old. It is the flowering
shrubs called creosote bushes in the Mojave Desert
These fish can weigh up to 15 tons.
2. Did you know fishes cannot live in the Dead Sea because the water has too much salt in it?
3. A parrotfish makes its own sleeping bag to sleep in. It uses mucous (like spit)
to make a see-through bag all around it's body to protect it from attack by other
creatures in the ocean.
4. The pelican uses the funny looking pouch under its lower beak for catching fish.
It does this by swooshing into the water and scooping up as many fish as
possible.
5. The blue whale is the largest animal on earth. The heart of a blue whale is as
big as a car, and it's tongue is as long as an elephant.
6. Did you know pearls are found in oysters? The largest pearl ever found was 620
carats.
7. The heaviest fish ever caught was the OCEAN SUNFISH. It weighed 4,928 lbs.
8. The Blue Whale's whistle is the loudest noise made by an animal.
9. here are two kinds of elephants: the African that is taller and has larger ears
and the Indian that is small and has smaller ears.
10. Did you know there are two kinds of camels? One is the Arabian that lives in
Western Asia and Northern Africa. It has one hump. And the second kind is called
Bactrian which has two humps and lives in Mongolia and Chinese Turkistan.
11. The smallest bird in the world is the Hummingbird. It weighs 1oz.
12. The fastest human swimmer can swim at 6 miles per hour. The fastest mammal - the
dolphin - can swim up to 35 miles per hour.
13. The bird that can fly the fastest is called a White It can fly up to 95 miles
per hour.
14. Did you know fishes talk to each other? Some of them communicate by making noises
in their throats by rasping their teeth, others use their swim bladders to make
sounds
15. The the oldest living thing on earth is 12,000 years old. It is the flowering
shrubs called creosote bushes in the Mojave Desert
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