Alex Pup's Cybermorgue: Amazing but True

Showing posts with label Amazing but True. Show all posts

About ordinary things

My favourite site never fails to inform me of the things I use every day but have never known how or through whom they appeared in the world. Take this for instance. A three-course meal. How did that come into being and who was it 'advocated' by? The listverse has the answer. This was introduced by a slave. Yes, a slave , Ziryab (789-857 AD), a Persian polymath (вот вам и словцо интересное, означающее эрудит): a poet, musician, singer, cosmetologist, fashion designer, celebrity, trendsetter (красиво звучит - законодатель моды), strategist, astronomer, botanis, geographer and former slave. Most people have never heard of Ziryab, yet at least two of his innovations remain to this day:
1. he introduced the idea of a three course meal (soup, main course, pudding) and
2. he introduced the use of crystal for drinking glasses (previously metal was the primary material).
3. He introduced asparagus and other vegetables into society, and made significant changes and additions to the music world. He had numerous children, all of whom became musicians, and spread his legacy throughout Europe. He could perhaps be considered an ancient Bach.
The list of societal changes Ziryab made is immense –
1. he popularized short hair and shaving for men, and wore different clothes based on the seasons.
2. He created a pleasant tasting toothpaste which helped personal hygeine (and longevity) in the region, and
3. also invented an underarm deodorant. He also promoted bathing twice a day.

Could you learn 40 languages?

A Story About Forks

In 1608 an Englishman whose name was Thomas Corayte visited Italy. He liked the country and noted down every interesting thing he found. But there was one thing which he found more interesting than the others. In his diary Thomas wrote, “ When the Italians eat meat, they use small forks. They do not eat it with hands, as they say, people do not always have clean hands.”
Before leaving for England, Thomas Corayte bought a few forks.
At home Thomas gave a dinner to show the invention to his friends. When the servants brought the steaks, he took out a fork and began to eat like they did in Italy.
Everybody looked at him in surprise. When he told his friends what it was, they all wanted to take a good look at the strange thing. All his friends said that the Italians were very strange people because the fork was very inconvenient.
Thomas Corayte tried to prove the opposite. He said it was not nice to eat meat with one’s fingers because they were not always clean.
Everybody got angry at that. Did Mr Corayte think that people in England always had dirty hands?
Thomas Corayte wanted to show that it was very easy to use the fork. But the first piece of meat he took with the fork fell to the floor. His friends began to laugh and he had to take the fork away.
Only fifty years later did people in England begin to use forks.

(Taken from “Английский язык для школьников и поступающих в ВУЗы.” by Tsvetkova I.V., Klepalchenko I.A., Myltseva N. A. Москва: Глосса – Пресс , 2003 c.73.)

Answer the questions:
1.Why did Thomas Corayte bring forks to England?
2.Why did everybody look at Thomas when he began to eat like the Italians?
3.Why did the first piece of meat fall to the floor when Thomas took it with the fork?
4.When did people in England begin to use forks?

The Bemuda Triangle

In 1492, just before he reached land, Christopher Columbus wrote that strange things were happening at sea. His ship’s compass wasn’t working right, and there were mysterious lights over the ocean. Today, the area that Columbus sailed through is famous because of the hundreds of ships and airplanes that have been lost there. This part of the ocean, which stretches from Florida to Puerto Rico to Bermuda, is often called the Bermuda Triangle.
Among the stories that have created a stir is the disappearance of Flight 19. In Flight 19, there were five United States Navy airplanes that were on a short and easy training mission. After reporting that the compass on the airplane wasn’t working properly, one of the pilots radioed that they were in a jam. There was something wrong with their position; they were lost. Then the airplanes just disappeared. A rescue airplane was sent out to bring them back, but something happened to that airplane as well. It disappeared along with the others. None of the planes or the 27 men on board were ever found.
Another bizarre incident involved a National Airlines passenger flight. Not long before it was announced to land at Miami International Airport, the flight disappeared from the airport’s radar screens. For ten minutes, the airplane could not be found on radar. But the flight did arrive on schedule. When it landed, the pilot said that, out of the blue, a strange fog had appeared and surrounded them for 10 minutes. It is strange but all the clocks and watches of the passengers and crew were ten minutes slow.
Some people think that UFOs are responsible. Others say that there are dangerous forces in the Bermuda Triangle and that traveling in that area is playing with fire. Most experts don’t believe these ideas, offering other explanations, such as bad weather or accidents. However, it is true that thousands of people have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. People who say they don’t believe it often have to agree that they are wrong when they examine the evidence.

(Taken From “Moscow News” № 36, September 5 – 11, 2001

“Learn English with Longman and MN” p.4)

Answer the Questions:

1.What happened to Christopher Columbus when he sailed through the area known as the Bermuda Triangle?
2.How many airplanes in Flight 19 disappeared? How many were later found?
3.What happened to the National Airlines flight that landed in Miami?
4.What was strange about the clocks and watches on board the airplane?
5.What do you think the best explanation is for the strange things that happen in the Bermuda Triangle?
6.Do you the stories about people disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle are true? Why or why not?

Eeww...still hungry?

Weird News: Man breaks world record for holding the biggest number of cockroaches in his mouth at once
Take a look at the picture above - would you like to have that in your mouth? How about having 11 of them?
Because that is what one man is claiming he achieved in order to break the current world record for the greatest number of Madagascan hissing cockroaches in a person's mouth at one time.
Travis Fessler from Florence, Kentucky, broke the previous world record by two. In order to qualify he had to hold all 11 of the 2.5 inch insects in his mouth for 10 seconds and all the bugs had to survive his attempt.
The hissing cockroach is one of the largest species of cockroach and is distinctive for its lack of wings. The current world record for the greatest number of live cockroaches eaten in one minute is 36. It is quite a difficult feat as the bugs contain a mild neurotoxin which numbs the mouth.

5 Most Unbelievable Symptoms

"1.Allergic to water:

Teenager Ashleigh Morris can’t go swimming, soak in a hot bath or enjoy a shower after a stressful day’s work - she’s allergic to water.
Even sweating brings the 19-year-old out in a painful rash.
Ashleigh, from Melbourne, Australia, is allergic to water of any temperature, a condition she’s lived with since she was 14.

2.Bizarre Ant Fungus Makes Heads Explode!

3. The man who can’t get fat
Now this is something most of us would love to have. Mr Perry, 59, can eat whatever he likes - including unlimited pies, burgers and desserts - and never get fat. He cannot put on weight because of a condition called lipodystrophy that makes his body rapidly burn fat.

Mr Perry regularly eats Chinese takeaways, chips, chocolate and clotted cream, but his weight has remained stable at 11st 12lb. He told the Sun that he used to be a chubby child, but at age 12 the fat dropped off "almost over night".

4. Girl who bleeds without being cut baffles doctors
Twinkle Dwivedi, 13, has a strange disorder which means she loses blood through her skin without being cut or scratched.
She has even undergone transfusions after pints of it seeped through her eyes, nose, hairline, neck and the soles of her feet.

Girl who bleeds without being cut. Sometimes her condition is so bad she wakes up with her entire body covered in dried blood.

5. IceMan - He doesn’t feel cold

He’s known as ‘The Ice Man."
Scientists can’t really explain it, but the 48-year-old Dutchman is able to withstand, and even thrive, in temperatures that could be fatal to the average person.
It’s an ability he discovered in himself as a young man 20 years ago.
"I had a stroll like this in the park with somebody and I saw the ice and I thought, what would happen if I go in there. I was really attracted to it. I went in, got rid of my clothes. Thirty seconds I was in," Hof said. "Tremendous good feeling when I came out and since then, I repeated it every day." It was the moment that Hof knew that his body was different somehow: He was able to withstand fatally freezing temperatures.
"

Identical twins marry, give birth to identical twins

Identical twins marry, give birth to identical twins: "When identical twin sisters Diane and Darlene Nettemeier met identical twin brothers Craig and Mark Sanders a decade ago, they could never have guessed just how much of their lives would be based around perfect sets of two.

The sets of twins, from Texas, fell in love, went on a double date to Las Vegas, and won thousands of dollars at poker.
Sensing they were on a winning streak, they got engaged on the same day, married at a joint ceremony (officially "quarternary marriages"), and built a pair of homes, side by side.
Soon afterwards, despite a million-to-one odds, Diane and Craig went on to have identical twins of their own - Colby and Brady, now seven.
But the happy unions weren't all down to incredible odds - one decade after they started dating Craig, 44, and Diane, 37, are returning to the Twin Day festival in Twinsburg, Ohio, where they met in 1998.
This year they will be taking their own seven-year-old boys to celebrate their good fortune at being part of a double double-act.
Twin Days are annual gatherings in which genetically identical siblings gather, in matching outfits, to celebrate sameness.
Five weeks after meeting "the girls", the Sanders twins went to visit them in St Louis, where the sisters lived together, and had their first kisses in the Busch Stadium parking lot after watching the Astros play the Cardinals in baseball.
The following winter, the sisters went to visit the brothers in Houston, where they celebrated New Year's Eve at a restaurant called Sabine-- because it was owned by twins, naturally.

Good question – why do human beings blush?

Good question – why do human beings blush?: "

Not so long ago, an article claimed that blushing was one of the 10 things that science cannot yet explain:
Things we don’t understandIt turns out that the solution may be nigh on blushing. Why do human beings blush? Here’s (at least part of) the answer:
Why We Blush: The Social Purpose of Showing Embarrassment
The good news is that although it may cause you some chagrin, blushing appears to serve a functional purpose. Recent findings by Dutch psychologists Corine Dijk, Peter de Jong and Madelon Peters reveal that if you ever find yourself in a pickle after, say, committing a social offence or being caught in an embarrassing mishap, the presence or absence of blushing can help determine if you’ll be forgiven by others…

Astronauts could reach Mars in 2020s, panel says

Astronauts could reach Mars in 2020s, panel says: "NASA can't afford to go beyond low-Earth orbit without extra cash, says a review panel – but a funding boost could get crews into orbit around Mars relatively quickly

5 Reasons to Choose English

* в табасаранском языке 48 падежей, в кабардинском 28 лиц;
* в айнском языке (о. Хоккайдо) числительные образуются по схеме: (2 х 20) - (7 + 10) = 23; во французском: (4 х 20) + (10 + 7) = 97; в датском: 3 + 4 1/2 x 20 = 93 или 3 + (5 - 1/2) x 20 = 93;
* в убыхском языке 80 согласных звуков и 1 гласный - а; больше всего гласных (55) в языке седанг (Центральный Вьетнам);
* в папуасском языке тангма 2 обозначения цвета: muli - 'чёрный/зелёный'; mola - 'белый/красный/жёлтый';
* в нидерландском, фризском, датском и шведском 2 рода: средний и общий, а в языке австралийских аборигенов диирбалу - 4рода: мужской, женский, средний и съедобный!

Tim Curry Rocks

Starting April 30 I'll be singing this beautiful song for my little sweetheart.

We are Volunteers Fighting Disease,
And we're cheerful all day long.
If someone said that we were sad,
That person would be wrong.

We visit people who are sick,
And try to make them smile,
Even if their noses bleed,
Or if they cough up bile.

Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee,
Hope you get well soon.
Ho ho ho, hee hee hee,
Have a heart-shaped balloon.

We visit people who are ill,
And try to make them laugh,
Even when the doctor says

He must saw them in half.

We sing and sing all night and day,
And then we sing some more.
We sing to boys with broken bones
And girls whose throats are sore.

Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee,
Hope you get well soon.
Ho ho ho, hee hee hee,
Have a heart-shaped balloon.

We sing to men with measles,
And to women with the flu,
And if you breathe in deadly germs,
We'll probably sing to you.

Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee,
Hope you get well soon.
Ho ho ho, hee hee hee,
Have a heart-shaped balloon.

If you haven't heard this audio series yet, you I have been missing a lot.
This unforgettable voice belongs to Tim Curry
And the book he's reading is the best non-children's book I've ever read. I suggest you listen to it.
Мы братья-волонтеры, с болезнью борцы,
Поем-распеваем день напролет,
Кто нас печальными зовет,
Бессовестно тот соврет.
Мы ходим по больнице, больных веселя,
А ну-ка, улыбнитесь, страдальцы по весь рот,
Хотя б у вас из носу кровь,
Хотя вас желчью рвет.
Тра-ла-ла, все трынь-трава,
Уйдет болезнь, конечно.
Возьми – хи-хи! Возьми – ха-ха!
Воздушное сердечко.
Приедем мы в больницы, в палаты войдем
И примемся тут же до колик смешить
Тех, кого доктор посулил
На части распилить.
Поем мы днем и ночью, ночью и днем,
Поем для тех, кто бодрствует, поем для тех, что спят.
И для детей, что смазаны
Зеленкою до пят.
Тра-ла-ла, все трын-трава!
Уйдет болезнь, конечно.
Возьми, хи-хи! возьми, ха-ха!
Воздушное сердечко.

Amazingly

Present Simple + Modal Verbs
1. 80% of human brains is water.
2. 99% of conversation in English uses only 2,000 words, and 25% uses only 10 words.
3. A caterpillar has more than 2,000 muscles, compared with a person's 700 or so.
4. A fly's eye has over 4,000 facets (= One of the numerous small eyes which make up the compound eyes of insects) that enable it to see in almost any direction without moving.
5. A glow-worm (жук-светляк) is a female beetle.
6. A kangaroo can only jump in the air if its tail is touching the ground.
7. A litre of vinegar (= a sour liquid used as a condiment) is heavier in winter than it is in summer.
8. A person can live for 2 weeks without food, but for only 2 days without water.
9. A proportion of the air you breathe and the water you drink has already been breathed and drunk by someone else - maybe several times over.
10. A queen bee can lay 3,000 eggs in one day.
11. A spider's web applied to a bleeding wound helps the blood to clot.
12. A swarm of locusts (= long-winged, migratory insects allied to the grasshoppers) crossing the Red Sea in 1889 covered an area of 5,200 square km.
13. A tiger may eat as much as one-fifth of its body-weight in one meal.
14. A worker bee, all of whom are female, has to travel more than 75,000km to make 500 grams of honey.
15. Almost 1 person in every 4 in the world is of Chinese origin.
16. An "anatomical juxtaposition of 2 orbicular is oris muscles on a state of contraction" means - "a kiss".
17. An albatross can stay in the air for several days, often without flapping its wings for long periods as it glides.
18. An elephant's trunk can hold 6.6 litres of water.
19. An oyster can change sex a number of times during its life.
20. Angel Falls in Venezuela are nearly 20 times higher than Niagara Falls.
21. Ants are capable of lifting stones 50 times their own weight, and of pulling load 300 times their own weight.
22. As it burns, magnesium gains weight, so its ashes are heavier than the original substance.
23. Astronauts can grow an inch or so during their time in space.
24. Astronauts shave by using razors like tiny vacuum cleaners that suck in their whiskers (the hair of the upper lip; a mustache) to prevent them flying round the cabin.
25. At any one moment there are 2,000 thunderstorms (= storm accompanied with lightning and thunder) taking place somewhere on earth.
26. At rest the average person breathes 7 liters of air a minute.
27. Australian earthworms can grow up to 3 meters.
28. Balsa wood is so light a person can lift a whole tree trunk on their own.
29. Bamboo can grow a meter (over a yard) in just over 24 hours.
30. Bears climb telegraph poles looking for honey, fooled by the humming of the wires, which they mistake for bees buzzing.
31. Blond people have more hair on their heads than dark-haired people.
32. Bubbles are round because the air enclosed inside them presses equally on all part of their surface.
33. Butterflies can fly at 32km an hour.
34. Camels' humps (= a fleshy protuberance on the back of an animal) contain fat, not water.
35. Cats cannot taste sweet foods.
36. Chewing a stick is a good way of cleaning your teeth.
37. Children grow faster in springtime than they do the rest of the year.
38. Cockroaches have remained unchanged on earth for about 250,000,000 years.
39. Crocodiles' stomachs contain stones, which help them digest their food.
40. Despite its length, the neck of a giraffe contains the same number of bones as that of a human being.
41. During a lifetime the average person eats about 35 tons of food.
42. Each day 7,500,000 tones of water evaporate from the Dead Sea.
43. Each day a common shrew eats 2/3 of its own body-weight.
44. From the southern hemisphere the man in the moon appears to be upside-down.
45. Gruesome studies have shown that a man weighing 68kg would provide enough meal to feed 75 people at one meal.
46. Horses can sleep standing up.
47. Horses don't have collar bones,
48. Human beings are the only animals to sleep on their backs.
49. If you fly to New York from London on Concord you arrive 2 hours before you leave.
50. If you squeeze an egg by the pointed end you will find it almost impossible to break.
51. If you stand with your elbows out at shoulder level and bring the tips of your forefingers together so that they are jus touching, the strongest person will not be able to pull them apart by tugging at your wrists.
52. In California people hold frog-jumping contests.
53. In France people eat approx. 500,000,000 snails a year.
54. In Sedlec, a town in Slovakia, there is a church with a chandelier made from human bones.
55. In the galaxy that contains the earth there are 5 billion stars larger than the sun.
56. In the Kalahari Desert in Botswana lives a race of Bushmen who are seldom more than 1.4 meters tall.
57. Inhaling the smoke form a cigarette produces more carbon monoxide(a deadly poison) in the lungs than breathing the air of a traffic-field street.
58. It is possible to see a rainbow as a complete circle from an airplane.
59. It takes 12 hours of steady walking to lose 500 grams of weight.
60. It takes 120 drops of water to fill a teaspoon.
61. Lake Superior, in North America, is almost twice the size of Switzerland.
62. Lemons contain more sugar than strawberries.
63. Los Angeles contains more cars than people.
64. Male monkeys sometimes go bald, just like men do.
65. Mayflies live only for a few hours after they hatch.
66. More Italians live in New York than in Rome.
67. Mosquitoes prefer biting fair-haired people.
68. Most people's sense of smell has diminished by 50% by the time they are 60.
69. One day on Jupiter lasts only 9 hours and 50 minutes.
70. One human hair can support a weight of up to 3 kilograms.
71. Only men can suffer from hemophilia, but only women can pass it on from one generation to the next.
72. Oranges do not ripen after being picked.
73. People are taller first thing in the morning than they are at night.
74. People speak at the rate of about 120 words per minute.
75. Polar bears can outrun reindeer.
76. Relative to its size, a sparrow has a larger brain than a man.
77. Scorpions can withstand 200 times more nuclear radiation than humans.
78. Snails can sleep for 3 years without waking up.
79. Sound travels so well in the Arctic that on a still day you can hear a conversation from a distance off 3 km.
80. Spitsbergen in Norway has 3 and half months of constant daylight in summer.
81. The 10 most common surnames in England and Wales are Smith, Jones, Williams, Brown, Taylor, Davies, Evans, Thomas, Roberts and Johnson.
82. The 2 largest cities in the Netherlands, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, are both below sea level.
83. The average clean-shaven man spends 5 months of his life shaving, removing approximately 8.5 metres of bristles.
84. The average human body contains enough fat to make 7 bars of soap.
85. The average person can distinguish about 4,000 different smells.
86. The blue whale weighs as much as 1,800 people.
87. The book most often stolen from public libraries in Britain is the Guinness Book of Records.
88. The Canadian winter of 1925 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze.
89. The chameleon can not only change color to match its surroundings, but can also focus its eyes in different directions simultaneously.
90. The city of London has no roads called "roads".
91. The commonest letter in English is "e".
92. The Dead Sea is so salty it is impossible to sink in it.
93. The eye of a giant squid is bigger than a person's head.
94. The female black-widow spider eats the male after mating, hence its name. Some females have been known to eat 25 mates a day.
95. The founder of the McDonald's hamburger chain is a Bachelor of Hamburgerology.
96. The greatest number of sightings (= appearances) of UFOs occurs when Mars is at its nearest point to the earth.
97. The house-fly beats its wings nearly 200 times a second.
98. The human brain uses the same amount of power as a 10-watt light bulb.
99. The human heart beats 100,000 times a day.
100. The human neck contains muscles, which are now redundant, that in the early years of man's evolution were used to wiggle the ears.
101. The humming-bird is the only kind of bird that can fly backwards.
102. The kiwi bird of New Zealand has its nostrils at the end of its bill.
103. The left-hand side of the brain controls the right-hand side of the body, and vice versa.
104. The Library of Yale University in the USA possesses enough books to stretch from the North Pole to the Equator.
105. The liner Queen Elizabeth II has more bedrooms than Buckingham Palace has rooms.
106. The literal translation of the word kung fu is "leisure time".
107. The Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean is 10.91km deep. An object dropped in it would take over an hour to reach the sea-bed.
108. The middle finger-nail on each hand grows the fastest; the thumb-nail the slowest.
109. The most popular sport played in American nudist camps is volleyball.
110. The Netherlands grows and sells more than 2,700,000,000 flowers every year.
111. The Pacific Ocean is 25% larger than the total of the earth's lands surface.
112. The palms of your hands and the soles of your feet contain no pigment, so they don't tan in the sun.
113. The shark lays the largest eggs in the world.
114. The skeletons of most birds weigh less than their feathers.
115. The smallest country in the world is Vatican City, which measures 44 hectares, and has a population of 1,008 people.
116. The song most frequently sung in the world is "Happy Birthday to you".
117. The sun weighs 330,000 times as much as the earth.
118. The US Mint once stamped some gold coins with the legend "In Gold We Trust", instead of "In God We Trust".
119. The world's widest road, the Monumental Axis in Brazil, is wide enough for 160 cars to drive side by side.
120. There are 3.2km of corridors in the Houses of Parliament.
121. There are about 100, 000 bacteria in 1 litre of drinking water.
122. There are about 2 million sweat glands on the surface of the human body.
123. There are more miles of canals in Birmingham than in Venice.
124. There are more than 20 sheep for every person living in New Zealand.
125. There are more than 28,000,000 cats in the USA.
126. There are no snakes in Ireland. Legend has it that St Patrick banished them all.
127. There is a place in Norway called Hell.
128. There is a town in Sweden called A.
129. There is a village in France called Y.
130. Tomatoes and cucumbers are fruits, not vegetables.
131. Trinidad has a lake filled with asphalt, across which you can walk if you keep moving.
132. Venus rotates clockwise. All other planets rotate anti-clockwise.
133. Warm water freezes more quickly than cold water.
134. When a piece of glass cracks the cracks travel at over 4,800km per hour.
135. When flies take off they jump backwards.
136. When food supplies are short, the ribbon-worm worm can digest up to 95% of its body - and survive.
137. You only need about a third of the muscles to smile as you need to frown.
138. Dogs sweat through their paws.
139. Emus can run at 48km per hour. The male emu hatches the eggs.
140. Every continent in the world has a city named ROME.
141. Human beings use only about 4% of the plants growing on earth.
142. If you live to 70, your heart will have pumped 250 million liters of blood round your body.

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Brainfree

Man living with no brain puzzles scientists

The following case provides evidence that the human brain can adapt itself to a pathology that occurred earlier. Despite the pathology, the sufferer’s neurological and physical development was not severely hampered. He was able to lead a life that can be considered normal.
French doctors are still racking their brains over the case of a patient who is said to live a normal life despite the fact that his brain is almost completely absent. Quoting an article published by The Lancet, the agency says that the 44-year-old French civil servant, a married man and a father of two, was admitted to hospital in 2003 after suffering mild weakness in his left leg.
A team of doctors led by Dr. Lionel Feuillet diagnosed the patient with non-communicating hydrocephalus, also called water on the brain.
Hydrocephalus is an abnormal increase in the amount of cerebrospinal fluid within the cerebral cavities or ventricles of the brain.
Computer tomography showed that the man’s ventricles had greatly expanded. "The brain itself, meaning the grey matter and white matter, was completely crushed against the sides of the skull," said Dr. Feuillet.
Doctors were amazed to discover a "complete lack of consistency in those most unusual images with the patient’s seemingly normal life." Neuropsychological testing revealed the man had an IQ of 75; the level is way below the benchmark, which is thought to be 85 for the majority of people in society.
The patient’s case history showed that at the age of six months, he suffered hydrocephalus, and underwent an operation to drain the buildup (скопление) of cerebrospinal fluid from the ventricles of his brain into the cardiac cavity. Another shunt was performed when the patient was 14 years old. The fluid was drained into the patient’s abdominal cavity in the latter case.
"In the sixties, there were no sufficient radiological investigations to show what exactly could have occurred. If the present-day diagnostic techniques had been available at the time, doctors would have suggested that the patient might end up mentally handicapped or even bedridden.
"The case provides evidence that the brain can adapt itself to a pathology that occurred earlier," Dr. Feuillet concluded. "Even if he has a slight intellectual handicap, this has not hampered his development of building social network."

Useless Facts

There have been more than 900 nuclear explosions within 70 miles of Las Vegas since 1951.
In Italy, it is believed that men can ward off the evil eye by grabbing their crotch.
Fish can count to four.
The average man takes two years, 11 months and eight days to propose after first meeting his love.
The 43rd most popular baby name in America is Brooklyn.
Kermit the Frog is left-handed.
The British invented ketchup.
Chickens lay eggs that are the color of their earlobes.
Women have thicker skulls than men.
Lindsay Lohan is now more famous than Marlon Brando.
55 percent of supermarket grocery cart handles are contaminated with bodily fluids.
It is believed that Adolf Hitler drew sketches of Dopey, one of the dwarfs from the movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
Dopey was the only one of the seven dwarfs who did not have a beard.
Dean Martin's California auto license was: DRUNK

78 Trivial and useful facts

1. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
2. On the average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
3. Chocolate kills dogs! True, chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system. A few ounces are enough to kill a small sized dog.
4. Ketchup was sold in the 1830's as a medicine.
5. Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.
6. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.
7. Leonardo da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.
8. Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to slow a film down so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm.
9. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand.
10. Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
11. Dentists recommend that a toothbrush be kept at least six feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
12. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than the entire Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
13. Marilyn Monroe had six toes on one foot.
14. Adolf Hitler's mother seriously considered having an abortion but was talked out of it by her doctor.
15. The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
16. To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, stick your fingers into its eyeballs. It will let you go instantly.
17. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
18. The "pound" (#) key on your keyboard is called an octothorp.
19. The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
20. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
21. In Chinese, the KFC slogan "finger lickin' good" comes out as "eat your fingers off".
22. A cockroach can live for 10 days without a head.
23. Brains are more active sleeping than watching TV.
24. When a person shakes their head from side to side, he is saying "yes" in Sri Lanka and Bulgaria.
25. There are more chickens than people in the world.
26. The average person presses the snooze button on their alarm clock three times each morning.
27. The three wealthiest families in the world have more assets than the Combined wealth of the forty-eight poorest nations.
28. The first owner of the Marlboro cigarette Company died of lung cancer.
29. Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
30. The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
31. Our eyes remain the same size from birth onward, but our noses and ears never stop growing.
32. A person will die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. Death will occur about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks.
33. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
34. The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows.
35. When the moon is directly overhead, you weigh slightly less.
36. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, never telephoned His wife or mother because they were both deaf.
37. A psychology student in New York rented out her spare room to a Carpenter in order to nag him constantly and study his reactions. After weeks of needling, he snapped and beat her repeatedly with an axe Leaving her mentally retarded
38. "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language
39. Colgate faced a big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking countries because Colgate translates into the command "go hang Yourself."
40. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
41. "Bookkeeper" is the only word in English language with three consecutive double letters.
42. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed people do.
43. The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every Letter in the English language.
44. If the population of China walked past you in single line, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction
45. Every human spent about half an hour as a single
46. Each square inch of human skin consists of twenty feet of blood vessels.
47. Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood we have only 206 in our bodies.
48. Beards are the fastest growing hairs on the human body. If the average man never trimmed his beard, it would grow to nearly 30 feet long in his Lifetime.
49. According to Genesis 1:20-22, the chicken came before the egg.
50. If you leave Tokyo by plane at 7:00am, you will arrive in Honolulu at Approximately 4:30pm the previous day.
51. Scientists in Australia 's Parkes Observatory thought they had positive Proof of alien life, when they began picking up radio-waves from space. However, after investigation, the radio emissions were traced to a Microwave in the building.
52. Wearing headphones for an hour increases the bacteria in your ear 700 times.
53. More than 40,000 parasites and 250 types of bacteria are exchanged during a French kiss.
54. Men can read smaller print than women, but women can hear better.
55. Coca-Cola was originally green.
56. The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
57. The name of all the continents ends with the same letter that they start with.
58. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
59. Women blink nearly twice as much as men!
60. You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
61. People say "Bless you" when you sneeze because when you sneeze, your heart stops for a millisecond.
62. It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
63. If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.
64. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents great king from history. Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne, Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
65. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
66. If a statue of a person in the park on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
67. Question - This is the only food that doesn't spoil. What is this? Ans. – Honey
68. A snail can sleep for three years.
69. All polar bears are left handed.
70. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.
71. Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
72. Shakespeare invented the word 'assassination' and 'bump'.
73. Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.
74. The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
75. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over million descendants.
76. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

Amazing But True

# Molecularly speaking, water is actually much drier than sand.
# The term "bank teller" originated in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, when banks began hiring low-paid workers to "tell" throngs of frantic depositors that their money was gone.
# The brand name "Jelly Belly" was created in 1982 after Nancy Reagan made a much-publicized quip about her husband's 20-pound weight gain.
# The Internal Revenue Service audits 87 percent of women who claim breast implants as tax deductions.
# Scandinavian berserkers used to cut out their eyes before battle to spare themselves the sight of the carnage they invariably wrought.
# Human tonsils can bounce higher than a rubber ball of similar weight and size, but only for the first 30 minutes after they've been removed.
# Comic duo Cheech and Chong were originally known as Spic and Span before changing due to pressure from Chicano organizations.
# The city of Slaughter, Texas (population: 11,284), has never had a homicide occur within its boundaries.
# Rubbing Tabasco on one's upper lip before bedtime is an effective temporary cure for sleep apnea.
# British pop singer Baby Spice is the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandniece of Archduke William Pinkley-Hogue of Standishfordshire, making her 103rd in line for the throne of England.
# The curved shape of a hockey stick is a throwback to prehistoric use of mastodon tusks in a similar game.
# A Native American tribe in South Dakota collects bottle caps left by campers, using them as currency. Several banks in the area now recognize the caps as legal tender.
# Fish have "dandruff" caused by flaking skin, and it is impossible to filter all traces of it from drinking water.
# Moths are unable to fly during an earthquake.
# The first case of the common cold was diagnosed in 1611 in Stratford, England. The patient? John Common, who coincidentally gave his cold to William Shakespeare who said the new malady exacerbated his lovesickness, thereby inspiring several of his most fondly remembered sonnets.
# "Hello Kitty" began as part of a covert propaganda campaign originally proposed by Prime Minister Tojo during World War II.
# When in heat, female hippopotami secrete an oil with a flavor similar to strawberries. Kalahari bushmen use the oil to make flat-bread treats for children.
# If an average human scrotum were stretched until all its wrinkles were smoothed out, it could hold a basketball.
# Ingesting small doses of ink over an extended period of time will change your eye color slightly.
# To commemorate ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, U.S. playing card manufacturers replaced "staffs" with "hearts" as the fourth suit in the deck. The world soon followed.
# In 1960, a then-unknown Dan Rather auditioned for the voice of cartoon character Dudley Do-Right but was turned down by animator/director Jay Ward.
# When subjected to an electric current of at least 50 volts, a cat's tail always points toward the north.
# If the current trend continues, by the year 2215 midgets will outnumber "normal-sized" people.
# Scientists estimate that sleep lost due to daylight saving time reduces the average lifespan by nearly two full months.
# In the late '90s, Microsoft secretly developed its own version of Linux, but shelved it after quality control researchers deemed it "too stable."
# No NCAA basketball team from a school located in its state's capital has ever won the national championship.
# The African black rhinoceros excretes its own weight in dung every 48 hours.
# The top three names for female babies born in China last year were Huan Yue, Jia Li and -- unlikely as it seems -- Buffy.
# Peter Maas, creator of the character Serpico, got his character's name from an ultra-expensive, highly-prized Malaysian liqueur made from fermented viper venom.
# Shortly before his execution, Timothy McVeigh constructed a scale model of the Lincoln Memorial with soda crackers.
# There have been four documented cases of humans who have hibernated through an entire winter.
# Strains of bacteria similar to E. coli have been found in spent printer cartridges -- but only in the cyan ones. Scientists have no explanation.
# The four different people who, at various times, tried -- and failed -- to become the Guinness Book of World Records' "Human Milkshake Volcano" by drinking five gallons of milk and then riding the Six Flags Screaming' Eagle roller coaster all shared the same birthday: September 18, 1970.
# The Australian aborigine language has over 30 words for "dust."
# Anyone convicted of animal cruelty in Sedalia, Missouri, is sentenced to a month's confinement in the county animal shelter.
# Fewer divorces occur in families in which the children wake their parents before 6 a.m. on Saturdays.
# A futuristic automobile designed by Ford for the movie Blade Runner was produced and sold in limited quantities as the "Ford Harrison."
# John F. Kennedy was an accomplished ventriloquist.
# A bad case of laryngitis forced Abraham Lincoln to lip-sync the Gettysburg Address. The speech was actually delivered by an aide hidden beneath the stage.
# A prominent organization of anthropologists has predicted that by the year 5000, humans will have two rectums, but only one nostril.
# For over a decade, the number of drive-by shootings has been directly proportional to increased gas prices.
# Two-thirds of all the world's coriander comes from a single valley in Italy.
# As the sheer volume of Internet traffic has increased, the friction of the electrons passing around the planet has increased the overall global temperature by .07 degrees.
# Contrary to popular belief, the white is not the healthiest part of an egg. It's actually the shell.
# A comprehensive multi-year study using pattern-recognition software determined that Millard Fillmore is the most common identifiable U.S. president seen in cloud formations.
# Baking soda and vinegar will make your scrambled eggs fluffier.
# The first prototype defibrillators delivered 1,200 joules of electrical energy instead of the now standard 360, occasionally causing dead bodies to sit upright momentarily as though they were still alive.
# Ancient Egyptians used molted cobra skins as condoms.
# Using its anal sphincter muscle, the Mongolian tapir is capable of creating high-pitched tones that can be heard by dogs nearly 30 miles away.
# Customs officials have dogs that are trained to distinguish between Cuban cigars and all other cigars.
# Archimedes' screw was the basis for Max Factor's invention of the twisting lipstick holder.
# A Tokyo inventor has developed a laptop computer whose battery is recharged by energy generated from the movement of the user's mouse, yet Sony lawyers have successfully blocked every attempt to produce a product using the technology.
# Female black cats can actually see their shadows at night.
# Ballpoint pens were invented by a Michigan scientist attempting to reduce the number of birds killed for their quills.
# Glamorous movie star Brad Pitt once had a summer job posting warning signs at coal mine entrances.
# U.S. Army medics in World War I knew of the germ-fighting properties of rodent saliva and carried hamsters in their medical bags to sterilize wounds in the field.
# An early draft of the Declaration of Independence included a line by Benjamin Franklin inviting King George to "kisse our collective arse."
# Nearly three percent of the ice in Antarctic glaciers is penguin urine.
# The sound made when a duck passes gas is the precise acoustic opposite of its quack; if it does both simultaneously, there's no audible sound.
# Contrary to their popular image as spinsters, the average librarian has 5.9 random sex partners per year.
# The rhesus monkey is the only animal that can be taught to hum a tune.
# With the exception of a small 200-square-mile section of Antarctica, every single square kilometer of dry land on the planet has been walked on by at least one human being.
# In the weightlessness of space a frozen pea will explode if it comes in contact with Pepsi.
# The increased electricity used by modern appliances is causing a shift in the Earth's magnetic field. By the year 2327, the North Pole will be located in mid-Kansas, while the South Pole will be just off the coast of East Africa.
# The idea for "tribbles" in "Star Trek" came from gerbils, since some gerbils are actually born pregnant.
# Male rhesus monkeys often hang from tree branches by their amazing prehensile penises.
# Johnny Plessey batted .331 for the Cleveland Spiders in 1891, even though he spent the entire season batting with a rolled-up, lacquered copy of the Toledo Post-Dispatch.
# Smearing a small amount of dog feces on an insect bite will relieve the itching and swelling.
# The Boeing 747 is capable of flying upside-down if it weren't for the fact that the wings would shear off when trying to roll it over.
# The trucking company Elvis Presley worked at as a young man was owned by Frank Sinatra.
# The only golf course on the island of Tonga has 15 holes, and there's no penalty if a monkey steals your golf ball.
# Legislation passed during WWI making it illegal to say "gesundheit" to a sneezer was never repealed.
# Manatees possess vocal chords which give them the ability to speak like humans, but don't do so because they have no ears with which to hear the sound.
# SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below.
# Catfish are the only animals that naturally have an ODD number of whiskers.
# Replying more than 100 times to the same piece of spam e-mail will overwhelm the sender's system and interfere with their ability to send any more spam.
# Polar bears can eat as many as 86 penguins in a single sitting.
# The first McDonald's restaurant opened for business in 1952 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and featured the McHaggis sandwich.
# The Air Force's F-117 fighter uses aerodynamics discovered during research into how bumblebees fly.
# You *can* get blood from a stone, but only if contains at least 17 percent bauxite.
# Silly Putty was "discovered" as the residue left behind after the first latex condoms were produced. It's not widely publicized for obvious reasons.
# Approximately one-sixth of your life is spent on Wednesdays.
# The skin needed for elbow transplants must be taken from the scrotum of a cadaver.
# The sport of jai alai originated from a game played by Incan priests who held cats by their tails and swung at leather balls. The cats would instinctively grab at the ball with their claws, thus enabling players to catch them.
# A cat's purr has the same romance-enhancing frequency as the voice of singer Barry White.
# The typewriter was invented by Hungarian immigrant Qwert Yuiop, who left his "signature" on the keyboard.
# The volume of water that the Giant Sequoia tree consumes in a 24-hour period contains enough suspended minerals to pave 17.3 feet of a 4-lane concrete freeway.
# King Henry VIII slept with a gigantic axe.
# Because printed materials are being replaced by CD-ROM, microfiche and the Internet, libraries that previously sank into their foundations under the weight of their books are now in danger of collapsing in extremely high winds.
# In 1843, a Parisian street mime got stuck in his imaginary box and consequently died of starvation.
# Touch-tone telephone keypads were originally planned to have buttons for Police and Fire Departments, but they were replaced with * and # when the project was cancelled in favor of developing the 911 system.
# Human saliva has a boiling point three times that of regular water.
# Calvin, of the "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip, was patterned after President Calvin Coolidge, who had a pet tiger as a boy.
# Watching an hour-long soap opera burns more calories than watching a three-hour baseball game.
# Until 1978, Camel cigarettes contained minute particles of real camels.
# You can actually sharpen the blades on a pencil sharpener by wrapping your pencils in aluminum foil before inserting them.
# To human taste buds, Zima is virtually indistinguishable from zebra urine.
# Seven out of every ten hockey-playing Canadians will lose a tooth during a game. For Canadians who don't play hockey, that figure drops to five out of ten.
# A dog's naked behind leaves absolutely no bacteria when pressed against carpet.
# A team of University of Virginia researchers released a study promoting the practice of picking one's nose, claiming that the health benefits of keeping nasal passages free from infectious blockages far outweigh the negative social connotations.
# Among items left behind at Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan were 27 issues of Mad Magazine. Al Qaeda members have admitted that bin Laden is reportedly an avid reader.
# Urine from male cape water buffaloes is so flammable that some tribes use it for lantern fuel.
# At the first World Cup championship in Uruguay, 1930, the soccer balls were actually monkey skulls wrapped in paper and leather.
# Every Labrador retriever dreams about bananas.
# If you put a bee in a film canister for two hours, it will go blind and leave behind its weight in honey.
# Due to the angle at which the optic nerve enters the brain, staring at a blue surface during sex greatly increases the intensity of orgasms.
# Never hold your nose and cover your mouth when sneezing, as it can blow out your eyeballs.
# Centuries ago, purchasing real estate often required having one or more limbs amputated in order to prevent the purchaser from running away to avoid repayment of the loan. Hence an expensive purchase was said to cost "an arm and a leg."
# When Mahatma Gandhi died, an autopsy revealed five gold Krugerrands in his small intestine.
# Aardvarks are allergic to radishes, but only during summer months.
# Coca-Cola was the favored drink of Pharaoh Ramses. An inscription found in his tomb, when translated, was found to be almost identical to the recipe used today.
# If you part your hair on the right side, you were born to be carnivorous. If you part it on the left, your physical and psychological make-up is that of a vegetarian.
# When immersed in liquid, a dead sparrow will make a sound like a crying baby.
# In WWII the US military planned to airdrop over France propaganda in the form of Playboy magazine, with coded messages hidden in the models' turn-ons and turn-offs. The plan was scrapped because of a staple shortage due to rationing of metal.
# Although difficult, it's possible to start a fire by rapidly rubbing together two Cool Ranch Doritos.
# Napoleon's favorite type of wood was knotty chestnut.
# The world's smartest pig, owned by a mathematics teacher in Madison, WI, memorized the multiplication tables up to 12.
# Due to the natural "momentum" of the ocean, saltwater fish cannot swim backwards.
# In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families were dipped in olive oil at birth to keep them hairless throughout their lives.
# It is nearly three miles farther to fly from Amarillo, Texas to Louisville, Kentucky than it is to return from Louisville to Amarillo.
# The "nine lives" attributed to cats is probably due to their having nine primary whiskers.
# The original inspiration for Barbie dolls comes from dolls developed by German propagandists in the late 1930s to impress young girls with the ideal notions of Aryan features. The proportions for Barbie were actually based on those of Eva Braun.
# The Venezuelan brown bat can detect and dodge individual raindrops in mid-flight, arriving safely back at his cave completely dry.
# The Mongolian pony is the only animal other than an elephant capable of fending off an attack by a healthy adult tiger.
# Because of their unusual shape, Hershey's Kisses contain more calories per ounce than the same amount of chocolate in other forms.
# The French language has seventeen different words for "surrender."
# The average person can fit exactly one half of their pinky finger in one of their nostrils. However, if an attempt is made to put a pinky finger in EACH nostril, only one quarter of each will fit.
# Showing off at a party one evening, Chopin played the entire "Minute Waltz" in under 10 seconds.
# If the air in your car's tires is not completely replaced every two years, it can turn to liquid and cause severe damage.
# If you tar and feather a 2x4 and place it in your yard, it will ward off bats.
# The largest home in the United States, North Carolina's Biltmore House, was originally intended to be the official residence of a new monarchy to be established when the South rose again.
# The Toltec calendar was based on a 360-day year, with each day being about 24 hours and 20 minutes long.
# The universal size of low interest credit cards is based entirely on the size of the 1960s US Communist Party membership card. Credit cards were designed so that they wouldn't cause the Communist Party card to stand out.
# Nobody born in Kentucky has ever been elected to Congress.
# In an effort to improve the nutritional value of its "Shamrock shakes," McDonald's colors them with broccoli extract.
# Winston Churchill was born with a third nipple, which he removed himself with nail-clippers at the age of 14.
# Only a single dissenting vote prevented the death penalty in Texas from being carried out by immersing the convicted person in a nest of fire ants.
# If you place a fresh Viagra tablet in a houseplant's soil every six months, the plant will not wilt.
# The ancient Arabic word "jorgbushii" translates roughly to "evil one who comes disguised in peace to drink Earth's black blood."
# In Finland, "Sintter Klaas" brings bad children a small bag of old toenail clippings.
# The practice of putting a letter "e" in front of words to mean "web-based" (e.g., eBusiness, eLearning, etc.) was patented by Microsoft in 1992. They are waiting until their anti-trust trial has been officially completed to begin enforcing it.
# The noun "sled" originates from the name of a 18th-century mountaineer from Finland, Schletz Linden, whose body was used by his climbing partner to slide down a mountain during a winter storm after he froze to death.
# If a cricket were the size of Mount Rushmore, it could jump to the moon.
# The increase in the amount of metals mined and brought to the surface of the earth in order to manufacture SUVs has caused higher tides in the Northern Hemisphere.
# Children conceived on airplanes never suffer from motion sickness.
# The life span of dogs allowed to dine in cat litter boxes is on average 18 percent longer than that of dogs restricted to commercial diets.
# Charles Darwin once attempted to breed flying monkeys by crossing chimpanzees with vultures.
# The steady, rhythmic sound produced by dripping water increases the capacity for sleeping males to experience lucid sexual dreams.
# Blue water in a toilet bowl causes males to urinate 7 percent more.
# Women who use chewing tobacco are three times LESS likely to accidentally swallow it while they are pregnant.
# The melody of the classic hymn "Amazing Grace" originated from a 12th-century pagan song celebrating masturbation.
# The Federal Department of Online Commerce has been compiling a list of US-based e-mail addresses. Once 100 million addresses have been collected, the list will be sold to online marketers as part of President Bush's plan to reduce the deficit.
# A 9-volt battery contains roughly the same amount of kinetic energy as a bowl of Lucky Charms.
# The Yanomami tribesmen of the Amazon basin can track game birds by the slight difference in warmth their shadows create on the forest floor as they fly by, for up to an hour after the birds have departed.
# Contrary to the popular saying, 99 percent of the time you lead a horse to water, it'll drink on its own.
# The first Ford Excursion was actually designed and built in 1951. It was never marketed because the then-current braking technology required a drum 3 feet wide on each wheel.
# Rapid deforestation has decreased the friction of the surface of the Earth, causing it to spin infinitesimally faster and thereby cool the air, combating global warming.
# The flush toilet was invented in Flushing, NY.
# The inner core of most standard golf balls is made of nougat, which helps the balls remain aloft longer.
# On occasions when the sun is shining brightly on falling snowflakes, they contain enough ionic charge to stun insects. Observation of this phenomenon inspired the invention of the bug zapper.
# Over the last two decades, more Americans died of heart attacks while watching horror movies in movie theaters than died while sky-diving.
# A common misconception is that the term "salsa dancing" derives from the food condiment called salsa. Actually, the dance was invented in the 1930s by a dance teacher named Frankie Salsa.
# Every common food product, with the exception of fish and veal, contains some traces of peanut enzymes.
# The number of words in the Bible divided by the number of verses equals exactly 666.
# An 18th-century law still on the books in Vermont makes it illegal for a woman to lick a stamp in a public place.
# Anthropologists have discovered a tribe of South American monkeys with a rudimentary system of government analogous to our own three-branch form of government.
# Constipation kills nearly twice as many people as diarrhea, mainly because the former mostly afflicts the old and weak while the latter mostly affects young, strong children.
# It is physically impossible to urinate and give blood at the same time.
# If you fill a standard 750ml wine bottle with live hornets, their angry buzzing will resonate at precisely the right frequency to shatter the glass.
# During his famous "Blue Period," Pablo Picasso invented the substance that eventually became known as Play-Doh.
# Every year in the fall, Niagara Falls is shut down for maintenance for 24 hours. The flow is diverted using a massive series of pipes and spigots built for this purpose in 1837.
# The rare Chilean hummingbird has been known to suck blood from animals like a giant mosquito.
# Tap dancers frequently forget to breathe normally during difficult routines, resulting in an average of 200 tap dancing-related tragedies per year.

22 reasons why the English language is hard to learn...

The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse
We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections my jaw got number.
Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
A mother walks into her daughters room holding a condom in her hand, "I found this while cleaning your room today.... Are you sexually active?" To which the daughter replies, "No, I just lay there."

Language Facts

--According to Illinois state law, it is illegal to speak English. The officially recognized language is "American."
---Widow is the only female form in the English language that is shorter than its corresponding male term (widower).
---There is only ONE word in the English language with THREE CONSECUTIVE SETS OF DOUBLE LETTERS.... Bookkeeper
---There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs five times: "indivisibility."
---There are only 4 words in the English language which end in "duos": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
---Rudyard Kipling was fired as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. His dismissal letter was reported to have said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language. This isn't a kindergarten for amateur writers."
---Of all the words in the English language, the word "set" has the most definitions.
---"The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English.

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