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Random Facts
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Author:  The Abominable Redhead [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 3:31 am ]
Post subject:  Random Facts
Any totally weird facts you know of? Here are a few (well, okay, a lot):

-Coca Cola was originally green and was intended as a headache remedy.
-When you sneeze, your heart stops for a split second.
-Carrots were once purple and white.
-Mudskippers are fish that can "walk" on land and climb trees.
-Human birth control pills work on gorillas.
-Hot water is heavier than cold.
-Peanuts are used as an ingredient in dynamite.
-Illinois Square is the most frequently landed-on space in Monopoly.
-The letter E is the most frequently used in the English language.
-The avarage human being spends about 4 years on the toilet.
-All polar bears are left-handed.
-Butterflies taste with their feet.
-Ants always fall over on their right side when intoxicated; never the left.
-Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
-The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
-Pearls melt in vinegar.
-In France, it is legal to marry a dead person.
-A jiffy is actually a real unit of time; it is one hundredth of a second.
-The first VCR was the size of a piano.
-The dots on top of lowercase I's are called tittles.

Well, that's all. Any more?
Author:  breadtangle o' pizza [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 3:37 am ]
Post subject: 
Chuck Norris' tears can cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.


...Are we talking about the same type of random facts? ;)
Author:  ed 'lim' smilde [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 3:49 am ]
Post subject: 
How 'bout some records...

Fastest 5000m: 12:37 [Kenenisa Bekele]
Fastest 100m: 9.77 [Asafa Powell]

There are two words with 6 or more e's: hexamethylenetetramine and methylenedioxymethamphetamine
Author:  Einoo T. Spork [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 3:54 am ]
Post subject: 
Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" was inspired by a line in Young Frankenstein.
Author:  Pepperochu Pepperotyugh [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 4:46 am ]
Post subject: 
Many days of the week are named after celestial bodies, such as Saturn and Saturday, the moon and monday, and some other ones I can't remember right now.

Some stars you see in the sky are dead-- but since they're so far away, their light is still traveling.

The major star in the constellation Draco, Thuban, was the north star 4000 years ago, and sometime in the future the north star will be Vega.

PTERASAURS AND PLESIOSAURS AREN'T DINOSAURS. They just happened to live in the same time period. Jeez.

My back hurts.

There are more than 5 senses. There are an extra two called equilibrium and kinesthetic. They are your sense of balance and sense of body position.

Sharks also have another sense that enables them to detect the electric signals sent out by a living creature's muscular contractions. (And I also happen to believe there are more senses than that, too.)

I'm done for now.
Author:  InterruptorJones [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 5:04 am ]
Post subject: 
Pepperochu Pepperotyugh wrote:
There are more than 5 senses. There are an extra two called equilibrium and kinesthetic. They are your sense of balance and sense of body position.


And there's another one called I SEE DEAD PEOPLE! :eekdance:
Author:  Pepperochu Pepperotyugh [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 5:24 am ]
Post subject: 
InterruptorJones wrote:
And there's another one called I SEE DEAD PEOPLE! :eekdance:


xD Totally.

Well, um, more facts.

People whose limbs have been amputated sometimes suffer from "phantom limb syndrome" where they can still feel the missing limb there-- pain, warmth, position, all that.

If you take a pigeon 1000 miles to a place they've never been before, they'll be able to make their way back, even if they didn't see anything during the trip.

Birds are technically types of reptiles. (Or so I've heard.)

S.O.S. doesn't stand for anything. It's the easiest thing to quickly punch out in morse code.

The awesome word "defenestrate" means to throw someone/something out a window. Literally.
Author:  StrongRad [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 5:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Random Facts
The Abominable Redhead wrote:
-Hot water is heavier than cold.

Actually, that's not the case..

It's the opposite.

At 4 degrees C (about 39 degrees F), a cubic foot of water weighs 62.42 pounds.
At 60 C (about 140, or rather hot for a water heater) a cubic foot of water weighs 61.39 pounds (almost a pound less)

Pocket Ref Strikes again. If you don't own that book, you need to buy it, or have someone buy it for you. Seriously, it's probably the most handy book I've ever owned. I've practically worn the thing out in the year that I've had my current copy. I refer to it at least 4 or 5 times a day.
Author:  Shippinator Mandy [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 5:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Random Facts
The Abominable Redhead wrote:
-In France, it is legal to marry a dead person.


...In that case...

PHIL AND RYA SHOULD ELOPE TO FRANCE.

...I scare myself sometimes.

MORE FUN FACTS:

-Two of Futurama's working titles were "Doomsville" and "Aloha Mars".
-The Jubilee line of the London Underground was originally going to becalled the Fleet line. It was changed in honor of the queen's Silver Jubilee thingy.
-On Futurama, Fry's first name was originally going to be Curtis; it was changed to Philip in honor of Phil Hartman, who voiced many of the characters on The Simpsons. He was murdered by his wife in 1998.
-Zapp Brannigan was created as a role for Phil Hartman.
-John Linnell is seriously farsighted, and wears glasses offstage.
-Matt Groening's favorite Simpsons episode is Bart The Daredevil.
Author:  Mr.KISS [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 5:57 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Random Facts
Shippinator Mandy wrote:
-On Futurama, Fry's first name was originally going to be Curtis...


Oh, man! That would of ruled!

Curtis=My name.

Other facts:

-A toy car can beat a normal sized car for 50m.
-That's really all I got.
Author:  ramrod [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 6:07 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Random Facts
Mr.KISS wrote:
-A toy car can beat a normal sized car for 50m.
-That's really all I got.
Mythbusters. I saw that too. Nice.
Author:  sb_enail.com [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 6:39 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Random Facts
StrongRad wrote:
Pocket Ref Strikes again. If you don't own that book, you need to buy it, or have someone buy it for you. Seriously, it's probably the most handy book I've ever owned. I've practically worn the thing out in the year that I've had my current copy. I refer to it at least 4 or 5 times a day.


That is the same book that the legendary Mythbusters refer to on a daily basis.

As for random facts, lemme think.

Polar bear hear isn't white, it's actually clear and hollow.
Their skin is black, too.

The front teeth of a rat grow continuously throughout its life. If it didn't gnaw things constantly, its teeth would grow out of it's mouth like tusks.

During the summer of 1997, underwater sonar arrays picked up an organic, ultra-low frequency sound, nicknamed "Bloop". Analyses of the sound indicate that if it was produced by a living creature, it would have to be one far larger than any known to science.

In proportion to body weight, the largest eyes of any animal belong to the tarsier, a small, arboreal mammal from south east Asia.

It is possible, under certain conditions, to have all three states of water at the same time. This is achieved by subjecting water to a specific pressure (.006 atmospheres) and temperature (0.01 degrees Celsius, barely above freezing). This is done pretty often at chemistry symposiums in order to keep the guests awake.
Author:  Mr.KISS [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 6:55 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Random Facts
The Abominable Redhead wrote:
-Coca Cola was originally green and was intended as a headache remedy.


Hey, I was just on snopes and they said that that wasn't true...
Author:  Darth Katana X [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 10:10 am ]
Post subject: 
It still is a headache remedy for me.

Here's some.

If you don't get at least seven hours of sleep every night, you'll have wrinkles and gray skin and basically look like a zombie for a few days. Lucky me. X-(
Author:  StrongRad [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 2:48 pm ]
Post subject: 
Darth Katana X wrote:
It still is a headache remedy for me.

Here's some.

If you don't get at least seven hours of sleep every night, you'll have wrinkles and gray skin and basically look like a zombie for a few days. Lucky me. X-(


Wrinkles, probably, gray skin I'm not so sure about.

I average 6-7 hours a night and no gray skin. Gray hairs, maybe.
Author:  ramrod [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 3:20 pm ]
Post subject: 
StrongRad wrote:
I average 6-7 hours a night and no gray skin. Gray hairs, maybe.
Lucky you. My roomates keep me up half the night by playing music constantly.
Author:  PianoManGidley [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 7:24 pm ]
Post subject: 
I dunno if I trust these "facts"...it sounds like that list of stuff I'd get in an email that would include things that are proven to be UNtrue, such as "A duck's quack doesn't echo, and nobody knows why."
Author:  Dark Grapefruit [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 8:26 pm ]
Post subject: 
For the ultimate in random "facts", I give you http://www.gullible.info Guaranteed to sound plauisble.
Author:  Ju Ju Master [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 9:31 pm ]
Post subject: 
Pepperochu Pepperotyugh wrote:
Many days of the week are named after celestial bodies, such as Saturn and Saturday, the moon and monday, and some other ones I can't remember right now.


It's easier in Spanish

Monday = Lunes, like Lunar
Tuesday = Martes, like Mars
Wednesday = Miercoles, Mercury
Thursday = Jueves, Jupiter
Friday = Viernes, Venus

Interestingly enough, two of the three days in English taht resemble celestial objects' names, Satruday and Sunday, don't seem to in Spanish (Sabado and Domingo)
Author:  Kevin DuBrow [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 9:33 pm ]
Post subject: 
breadtangle o' pizza wrote:
Chuck Norris' tears can cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.


...Are we talking about the same type of random facts? ;)


I knew someone would throw in a Chuck Norris fact.

CN fact:
Aliens do exist. They just won't come to the planet Chuck Norris is on.
Author:  J-Man [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 10:23 pm ]
Post subject: 
The Mellotron was in effect the world's first sample-playback keyboard. The heart of the instrument is a bank of strips of magnetic tape, each with approximately eight seconds of playing time; playback heads underneath (but not directly underneath) each key enable performers to play the pre-recorded sound assigned to that key when pressed.

Ah, Mellotron <3
Author:  The Abominable Redhead [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 10:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Random Facts
Shippinator Mandy wrote:
The Abominable Redhead wrote:
-In France, it is legal to marry a dead person.


...In that case...

PHIL AND RYA SHOULD ELOPE TO FRANCE.


OMG I NO RITE?

Here's another two I found: if you keep a goldfish in a dark room, it will eventually turn white. And the Kiwi, a type of bird, cannot fly, lives underground, and lays only one egg a year, althought is has managed to survive for over 70 million years.
Author:  The Zephyr Song [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 10:52 pm ]
Post subject: 
i love this kind of stuff!

- A monkey was once tried and convicted of smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana.

- You're more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day than on any other day.

- 98% of Americans think they drive better than anyone else.

- Christopher Columbus's hair was blond.

- "Kemo Sabe" means "soggy shrub" in Navajo.

- A dime has 115 ridges around the edge; a quarter has 116.

- 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

- A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn't give her coffee.

- All the clocks in Pulp Fiction are stuck on 4:20.

- America's first nudist organization was founded in 1929, by 3 men.

- Amount American Airlines saved in 1987 by eliminated one olive from each salad served in first class: $440,000

- Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been struck by lightning.

- David Prowse was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all of Vader's lines, and didn't know that he was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie.

- Albert Einstein couldn't speak fluently when he was nine. His parents thought he might be retarded.

- Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.

- Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming one tenth of a calorie. One wonders if it takes more energy to lick the stamp and mail the letter than the .1 calorie can produce, which results in "negative calories"...

- The glue on the backs of Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

- Facetious and abstemious contain all five vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."

- The Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters: A, E, I, O, U, H, K, P, L, M, N, and W.

- If you are locked in a sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.

- If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.

- In 1681, the last dodo bird died.

- In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients would die.

- In the Caribbean there are oysters that can climb trees.

- It cost $7 million to build the Titanic and $200 million to make a film about it.

- One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the 30s lobbied against hemp farmers -- they saw it as competition. It is not chemically addictive as is nicotine, alcohol or caffeine.

- Rene Descartes came up with the theory of coordinate geometry by looking at a fly walk across a tiled ceiling.

- Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.

- The "y" in signs reading "ye olde ..." is properly pronounced with a "th" sound, not "y". The "th" sound does not exist in Latin, so ancient Roman-occupied (present-day) England used the rune "thorn" to represent "th" sounds. With the invention of the printing press the character from the Roman alphabet which closest resembled thorn was the lowercase "y".

- The combination "o-u-g-h" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

- The Lord's Prayer is 66 words; the Gettysburg Address is 286 words; there are 1,322 words in the Declaration of Independence; but government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26,911 words.

- The most extras ever used in a movie was 300,000, for the film Gandhi in 1981.

I have more, but I don't feel like typing anymore.
Author:  Acekirby [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:28 pm ]
Post subject: 
Courtesy of Hooked on Facts.com

-More people have a phobia of frogs than rats.

-Jimmy Carter is the first U.S. President to have been born in a hospital.

-The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

-J. Edgar Hoover liked to fire FBI agents whose palms were sweaty when shaking hands.

-Bluebirds cannot see the color blue.

-Mexico has more American residents than any other country except the United States.

-One in three snake bite victims is drunk. One in five is tatooed.

-Whale oil was used in automobile transmissions as late as 1973.

-The average human body contains enough fat to make seven bars of soap.
Author:  The Noid [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:31 pm ]
Post subject: 
It is physically impossibble to lick the tip of our elbow.

That's...all....
Author:  Acekirby [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:36 pm ]
Post subject: 
The Noid wrote:
It is physically impossibble to lick the tip of our elbow.

That's...all....

Ah! I have a response fact to that.

Upon reading the above fact, 70% of people will attempt to lick their elbow.
Author:  sb_enail.com [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:40 pm ]
Post subject: 
As tested on Mythbusters, a rolling stone does not gather moss.

Contrary to popular belief, cobras charmed by snake charmers playing pipes are not swaying to the music. They are merely following the motion of the pipe.

On a related note, snakes don't have ears. The closest thing they have is the ability to pick up vibrations through their lower jaw.

When you sneeze, the air you exhale travels at over 100 miles per hour.

Ear wigs do not live in peoples ears. They do, however, tend to live in warm, moist places.

Flies take off backwards.

When a cat laps up milk or water, or any liquid, its tongue curls down instead of up as is commonly thought.

The smallest of the bird species, the hummingbirds, lay the largest eggs in proportion to body size. Conversely, ostriches, the largest living birds, lay the smallest eggs in proportion.
Author:  The Abominable Redhead [ Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:40 pm ]
Post subject: 
Acekirby wrote:
The Noid wrote:
It is physically impossibble to lick the tip of our elbow.

That's...all....

Ah! I have a response fact to that.

Upon reading the above fact, 70% of people will attempt to lick their elbow.


I thought it was 73%. But whatever. Ace knows best. :p
Author:  Choc-o-Lardiac Arrest [ Sat Feb 11, 2006 1:01 am ]
Post subject: 
Acekirby wrote:
-Mexico has more American residents than any other country except the United States.



heh, i think you read that backwards.

"34% of Mexicans in Mexico say that if they could, they would come to the U.S....... the other 66% is allready here."
Author:  sb_enail.com [ Sat Feb 11, 2006 1:58 am ]
Post subject: 
In Kentucky, it is illegal to fish with a bow and arrow.

In Oklahoma, whaling is illegal.

Until the year 1920, Canada was planning on invading the US.

Right handed people live, on average, 9 years longer than left handed people.

About 25% of people sneeze when exposed to light.

Until President Kennedy was assassinated, it was not a federal offense to assassinate the President.

Every single President with a beard has been a Republican.

The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.

The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the South
Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber
machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded
into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it
got "the whole 9 yards."

Only 1/3 of the people that can twitch their ears can twitch only one
at a time. (I can :) ).

The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English
language.
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