Monday, February 22, 2010

A little something to waste your time

Totally Useless Facts...

The "pound" key on your keyboard (#) is called an octotroph.

The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.

The "dot" over the letter "i" is called a tittle.

Table tennis balls have been known to travel off the paddle at speeds up to 160 km/hr.

Pepsi originally contained pepsin, thus the name.

The original story from "Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights" begins, "Aladdin was a little Chinese boy."

Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

Honey is the only natural food that is made without destroying any kind of life. What about milk you say? A cow has to eat grass to produce milk and grass is living.

The most common name in the world is Mohammed.

The volume of the Earth's moon is the same as the volume of the Pacific Ocean.

Cephalacaudal recapitulation is the reason our extremities develop faster than the rest of us.

Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is because all knights used to be right-handed. When the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was holding the sword because of the difficulties of climbing the stairs. Left-handed knights would have had no troubles, except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil.

Ham radio operators got the term "ham" coined from the expression "ham fisted operators," a term used to describe early radio users who sent Morse code (i.e., pounded their fist).

The slogan on New Hampshire license plates is "Live Free or Die." These license plates are manufactured by prisoners in the state prison in Concord.

Chinese Crested dogs can get acne.

Hydrogen gas is the least dense substance in the world, at 0.08988g/cc.

Hydrogen solid is the most dense substance in the world, at 70.6g/cc.

Each year there is one ton of cement poured for each man woman and child in the world.

The house fly hums in the middle octave key of F.

The only capital letter in the Roman alphabet with exactly one end point is P.

The giant red star Betelgeuse has a diameter larger than that of the Earth's orbit around the sun.

The longest place name still in use is: Taumatawhakatangihangaoauauotameteaturipukakapikimaungahoronuk- upokaiwhenuakitanatahu--a New Zealand hill.

Los Angeles's full name is: "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Poriuncula" and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size, "LA.".

Only 1 in 2,000,000,000 will live to be 116 or older.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

According to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, it is possible to go slower than light and faster than light, but it is impossible to go the speed of light. Also, there is a particle called tackyon which is supposed to go faster than light. This means if you fire a tackyon beam, it travels before you fire it.

When you tie a noose, the rope is wrapped twelve times around because it's the same length as a persons head.

Hummingbirds are the only animal that can fly backwards.

A cat's jaw cannot move sideways...

Now, be truthful, aren't you glad you wasted your time reading these? Didn't you learn something?

16 comments:

dyanna said...

Some are really interesting. I really didn.t know about the cat being the only domestic animal mentioned in the Bible.

Kavita Saharia said...

Very interesting facts..nutmeg,spiral staircase,LA's full name,longest place full name...wow !!!

Reanaclaire said...

yes, yes...dint waste my eyesight too..lol.. something very new to me esp the most common name is Mohammed.. serious??

nituscorner said...

am glad of the time spent reading these interesting facts.

sandy said...

These were fascinating. I love honey and enjoyed reading that interesting fact and of course, it made sense. All of them were great. I think I'll copy and paste it somewhere so I can memorize it and impress my husband, ha.

sandy said...

I just saw your sidebar. Glad your niece came through okay!

Mental P Mama said...

I always learn something here!

Gigi Ann said...

I love reading all kinds of useless information. I guess that is why I like to play Trivia Pursuit. It is full of a lot of useless information. Now if I could only remember some of it. I liked the one. "Honey is the only natural food that is made without destroying any kind of life....."

Gill - That British Woman said...

the staircase thing was interesting, as was the honey fact....I am glad I popped by and spent the time reading those.

Gill in Canada

Renie Burghardt said...

Actually, these are fascinating facts! Got to copy these, if you don't mind Patty.

And the most common name in the world isn't Obama??? Haha.

Have a good evening.

Wanda said...

Patty, so glad you posted Sherry's picture. She looks wonderful. How please to know the lymp nodes were clear...... I'm so happy for her. Will she have radiation now?

Hope you and Abe are doing well too.

Interesting list of trivia...but the best news is Sherry.

claude said...

Yes some are veru interesting.
Happy to read your Niece Sherry is better.

Clytie said...

Wow, a lot of things I didn't know, and some I used to know but forgot.

Margaret Cloud said...

I enjoyed reading this, very interesting facts. Have a nice day.

Twisted Fencepost said...

Some of those make me wonder if someone needs a little more to do. Seriously, why do we need to know what key a fly hums in? tee hee

Beth Niquette said...

How VERY interesting! Especially that one about the knights.

I'm abidexterous. Hmmmm... (grin)