Total Trivia

[smotherman]

The world record for the number of body piercings on one individual is 702, which is held by Canadian Brent Moffat.

 

[smotherman]

The average human head weighs about eight pounds.

 

[smotherman]

The feet have approximately 250,000 sweat glands.

 

[smotherman]

Listening to music is good for digestion.

 

[fire_breeze]

Horses have no gag reflex and are incapable of throwing up. Sometimes their inability to throw up causes stomach upsets - which can be fatal.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The Blue Riband of the North Atlantic from 1862 to 1962. Officially known as the Hales Trophy, the Blue Riband was awarded to the fastest ship to sail across the Atlantic.

To gain this coveted trophy a liner had to beat both previous Eastward and Westward records, on the same voyage. The two points on either side of the Atlantic between which the race is run are Bishop Rock lightship off the Scilley Isles and the Ambrose light off New York harbour.

Until the thirties the winner was the ship which averaged the highest rate of knots on the voyage and many titles were hotly disputed, which led to the two-way rule and the introduction of an actual award, the Hales Trophy and the Blue Riband pennant itself, to be proudly flown by the title holder.

 

[DDgirl]

Some animal trivia:

A baby octopus is about the size of a flea when it is born.

An octopus has three hearts.

A catfish has about 100,000 taste buds.

A chameleon's tongue is as long as its body and head and can shoot out as fast as sixteen feet per second.

A crocodile can open and close its jaw but cannot move it side to side.

A crocodile can run up to a speed of 11 miles per hour.

A female ferret can die if she goes into heat and cannot find a mate.

A hedgehog's heart beats 190 times a minute on average and drops to only 20 beats per minute during hibernation.

A leech can gorge itself up to a maximum of five times its body weight.

A leech has 32 brains.

A mole can dig a tunnel three hundred feet long in a single night.

A slug has four noses.

A turtle can breathe through its butt.

Male goats will pee on each other in order to attract mates.

Some Ribbon worm will eat themselves if they cannot find food. This type of worm can still survive after eating up to 95% of its body weight.

 

[fire_breeze]

A leech has 32 brains.

32 brains?! I need to get me one of those!

 

[smotherman]

At lift off, US space shuttles weight about 4.5 million pounds.

 

[smotherman]

Before air conditioning was invented, white cotton slipcovers were put on furniture to keep the air cool.

 

[smotherman]

Bamboo plants can grow up to 36 inches in a day.

 

[smotherman]

When the Galileo Probe entered Jupiter's atmosphere, it was traveling at a speed of 106,000 miles per hour. This is the fastest impact speed ever achieved by a man-made object

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Manuel Uribe 43, the worlds' most obese man has lost his title since losing 518 pounds (235 kg) between March 2006 and May 2008 on a diet of grapefruits, egg-white omelets, fish, chicken and vegetables. He now weighs a mere 717 pounds (324 kg).

http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l323/GaiaLorraine/fattestman.jpg

 

[fire_breeze]

Apparently, in 1998, Sony accidently sold 700,000 camcorders that had the technology to see through people's clothes.

 

[fire_breeze]

Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal category.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The number of possible, unique chess games is far greater than the number of electrons in the universe! The number of electrons is estimated to be a mere 10 to the power of 79, while the number of unique chess games is 10 to the power of 120. In English, that's a thousand trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion games.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Lewis Carrol’s novel “Through the Looking Glass” was based on a chess game, much the way “Alice in Wonderland” was based on playing cards. The idea for picturing the countryside as a chess board came from Lewis Carrol’s days in Oxmoor, where his apartment overlooked a cultivated moor, separated into neat, rectangular farmer’s fields.

 

[smotherman]

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.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The Arabic world, the Chinese, and later the Europeans used the chessboard as a tool for calculating and a means for expressing mathematical concepts. In medieval England, financial accounts were settled on tables resembling chessboards. When the Normans created the royal office of collection for the crown, they called it the Exchequer, and its minister the “Chancellor of the Exchequer”, because the court originally used a checkered cloth to cover the table where judgments were made. Exchequer comes from Old French, where eschequier meant counting table, and eschec meant chess. This makes the "Chancellor of the Exchequer" literally the "Chancellor of the Chessboard!"

 

[smotherman]

4% people drink cold drinks daily.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Butterflies taste sensors are located in the feet, and by standing on their food, they can taste it.

 

[smotherman]

In Kentucky, it's the law that a person must take a bath once a year.


I hope it's more than once a year LOL

 

[smotherman]

In Utah, birds have the right of way on any public highway.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The humble Potato History


Potato ( Solanum tuberosum) originated in the highlands of South America in Peru, where it has been consumed for more than 8000 years. The South American Indians even measured time by the length of time it took to cook potatoes to various consistencies! Spanish explorers brought the plant to Europe in the late 16th century as a botanical curiosity.

By the 19th century potatoes were available throughout the European continent, providing cheap and abundant food for the workers of the Industrial Revolution. Irish peasants were eating a daily average of ten potatoes per person – making up 80% of their diet. Devastation struck however when a blight known as ‘PhytophthoraInfestans’ struck the potato harvest three years in a row. The blight resulted in over 1 million deaths in Ireland , and masses of Irish people emigrating to the shores of America to flee hunger and starvation.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The Potatochip Tale

In 1853 a chef called George Crumb working at the upmarket American Saratoga Springs hotel was enraged when one of his guests – a rich railway magnate called Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt returned his portion of potatoes to the kitchen, declaring that they were far too thick for his liking.

“How dare this man criticise my potatoes!” yelled George Crumb. He set about getting his own back on his guest by sarcastically slicing the second portion of potatoes into incredibly thin slices, frying them in hot oil and throwing salt all over them before sending them back to the haughty customer. To everyone's amazement, the mighty Vanderbilt absolutely loved his "Saratoga Crunch Chips" and potato chips have been a big hit ever since.