18WT 044: More Stupid Knowledge Facts
- The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to
the body to squirt blood 30 feet. (So, basically, Monty Python and Quentin
Tarantino got it right.)
- In the time it took for you to read this sentence, around
50,000 cells in your body died and were replaced by new ones.
- When you blush, the lining of your stomach also turns red.
- Teeth are the only part of the human body that lacks the
capability to heal itself.
- The surface area of both lungs is roughly the same size as a
tennis court.
- By the age of 60, most people lose half of their taste buds.
- People can get goosebumps on their faces.
- Girls have more taste buds than boys.
- The human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
- If your entire fingernail was removed, it would take about
six months to grow from its base to tip.
- Messages from your brain travel along nerves at up to 200
miles per hour.
- Your eyes move about 80 times per second.
- In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the
world's nuclear weapons combined.
- On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every
year. (This never happened back when we used feather quills on parchment.)
- On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.
(Especially that big hairy thing behind my dryer that pops out when I change
loads. Yikes!)
- Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads or
online apps for dating are already married. And, men are three times more
likely to use them as women.
- Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
- Women blink nearly twice as much as men. (Research has shown
that dumbfounded wives blink at five times their husbands' rate after he has
done something idiotic.)
- The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch
every year because engineers failed to account for the weight of all the books
that it would eventually hold. (In other news, there's probably no truth to the
rumor that you can enroll in the IU School of Engineering for $1.99 per credit
hour.)
- Ping Pong balls can travel off the paddle at speeds up to 160
km/hr. That's just under 100 mph.
- A dentist invented the electric chair. (I think he didn't
have many repeat patients.)
- In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their
bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes. (Any modern woman that has
attempted to pluck a man's eyebrows only to hear him scream like a toddler finds
this fact unbelievable.)
- TYPEWRITER is the longest word you can type using only the
letters on one row of the keyboard. (And no … QWERTYUIOP is not a word!)
- "Go." is the shortest complete sentence in the
English language. (However, scientists found that virtually every woman on the
planet just has to give her significant other "The Look," and they
don't even have to use the word, "go." It's pretty much understood.)
- Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously. (Be
careful next time you visit Grandma during the holidays. I'm just sayin'….)
- Honey is the only natural food made without destroying any
life. What about milk, you say?
- No word in the English language rhymes with
"MONTH."
- Cephalacaudal recapitulation is the reason our extremities
develop faster than the rest of us. (I'm not sure what this is, but I'm ready
to kick your butt in our next game of Scrabble®, Grandma! Hey … is that nutmeg I smell?)
- The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
- Americans, on average, eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
(Don't look at me … I can only do a couple of slices these days.)
- The "pound" key on your keyboard (#) is called an
octotroph. (Freak Millennials out by saying "Octotroph" instead of
"Hashtag" the next time you're trying to be hip. Such as "Octotroph
BlowingMyMind!")
- The "dot" over the letter "i" is called a
tittle. (Yep … I had to read that twice
to make sure it wasn't what I thought it was at first … Lol)
- Spiral staircases in medieval castles run 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 trouble, except left-handed people could
never become knights because they were assumed to be descendants of the devil.
- The slogan on New Hampshire license plates is "Live Free
or Die." Ironically, prisoners at the State Penitentiary in Concord make
the state's license plates!
- Hydrogen gas is the least dense substance in the world, at
0.08988g/cc.
- There is debate on what is the densest substance in the
world. Some say it's hydrogen solids at 70.6g/cc, while others say it is
Osmium, with a density of 22.61 g/cm3. (I
can confirm that the densest thing in the world is my brother-in-law, Wayne.)
- The house fly hums in the middle octave key of F. (No word on
how lovely its' singing voice is, however.)
- Betelgeuse, a giant red star, has a diameter longer than
Earth's orbit around the sun. (Fun Fact: Say the red star's name three times,
and Michael Keaton will appear in your living room.)
- The longest name of a place still in use is a hill in New
Zealand:
Taumatawhakatangihangaoauauotameteaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu—(that's
92 letters. I counted so you wouldn't have to. Obviously, mail envelopes in NZ
are freaking HUGE!)
- 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 tachyon, which is
supposed to go faster than light. This means if you fire a tachyon beam, it
travels before you fire it. Octotroph BlowingMyMindAgain
- If you yelled for eight years, seven months, and six days,
you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. (Hardly
seems worth it. Unless it's a Monday, of course!)
- If you passed gas consistently for six years and nine months,
you would produce enough gas to create an atomic bomb's energy. (I ain't
touching this one!!!)
Weird Facts About Animals
- A Great Dane named Juliana peed on an incendiary bomb during
World War II, earning her a Blue Cross Medal!
- One species of jellyfish, Turritopsis dohrnii, is “immortal.”
In response to physical damage or any other trauma, they can revert back in
their development process to a polyp.
- A cat's jaw cannot move sideways. (Probably why cats got left
out of the Bible.)
- Hummingbirds are the only animals that can fly backward.
- Chinese Crested dogs can get acne. (Puppy Clearasil is
probably big in China.)
- The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the
cat.
- A snail can sleep for three years.
- A cow has to eat grass to produce milk, and the grass is
living. There you go …
- A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. (Which is only a
problem for pre-teen crocs when their parents ask them to do chores.)
- It's possible to lead a cow upstairs…but not downstairs.
(Which explains why the phrase "You can lead a cow upstairs …." never
caught on like leading a horse to water.)
- Not a cat fan? You would have loved Pope Gregory IV. In the
13th century, he declared war on cats because he believed they were instruments
of Satan.
- Dolphins may seem like happy-go-lucky creatures, but they
actually sleep with one eye open.
- Snails have been known to sleep up to three years if the
weather isn’t moist enough to meet their needs.
- Honeybees flap their wings 230 times every second.
- At birth, a panda cub is smaller than a mouse and weighs only
four ounces.
- Horses and cows can sleep standing up, but they can only
dream when lying down.
- Koala fingerprints are almost indistinguishable from humans’
— so much so, they can taint crime scenes!
- Think your stomach growls? Ghost crabs literally growl using
teeth in their stomachs.
- The tusk of a narwhal is actually an “inside out” tooth.
- Sperm whales in the Caribbean have a different accent than
other whales in the ocean.
- Glow-in-the-dark sharks are a thing! The swell shark, which
dwells 1700 feet beneath the ocean’s surface, emits a fluorescent glow.
Granted, it’s typically only visible to other swell sharks — but scientists
have figured out a way to detect the glow using filters.