Code Zero------------------------------Officer safety issue, use caution.
For example, if another officer knows the person you're contacting, he may say, "use code
zero, he's combative."
Code One---------------------------------------I need a cover car quickly (less serious than a code
eight)
Code Two--------------------------------------Normal response, no emergency equipment
Code Three------------------------------------Respond with lights and sirens
Code Four-------------------------------------I'm okay or Are you okay?
Code Four for now---------------------------I'm okay for the moment, keep a cover car coming.
Code Five-------------------------------------Person with a warrant of some kind.
Code Six--------------------------------------Busy doing something. For example, "I'm code six with
a suspicious vehicle at the corner of 38 and Kipling."
Code Seven-----------------------------------Out of service for lunch. Lunch is referred to as
"taking a code 7."
Code Eight------------------------------------Officer calling for help.
Code Nine-------------------------------------Traffic stop. Referred to as "going code 9 with a
vehicle."
Code Ten--------------------------------------Only essential radio traffic on a given channel. For
example, if there is an armed robbery in progress, the dispatcher will announce that there is a
code 10 on channel one. Only officers responding to the robbery may speak on that channel.
Code Eleven-----------------------------------I've arrived on scene.
Code Twelve----------------------------------I've left the scene and I'm back in service.
Code Thirteen---------------------------------I'm at the Police Department. Also used in the form
of a question: "Can you code 13 for a walk in report?"
Friday, October 16, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Top 8 Best Ways To Make Money Online
Here is a collection of 8 best and legit. money making programs.
1. Google Adsense
Definitely its the best way to earn money online. Google displays ads in your website and you get get whenever a visitor clicks those ads.
2. BidVertiser
Try this program which is similar to Adsense but has a minimum payout. It will pay you once you have accumulated 10 dollars. It pays via PayPal or cheque.
3. LinkBucks
Do you send a lot of links to others? Then this might be perfect for you. They will pay you whenever a user clicks a link sent by you. Personally, this is my favourite. They will pay you when you have accumulated 5 dollars. They pay via PayPal.
4. Webhost affiliate
Webhost affiliates are probably the highest paying systems in the world. This webhost provides you will all necessary banners, forum posts etc to get you up and running. It pays you 5 dollar per refferal. Since the service it provides is totally free, most of the visitors will definitely signup. It pays once you have made 100 dollars via PayPal.
5. Online Surveys
Online surveys are also one of cool methods of earning money online. You get paid 1 to 6 dollars per survey you take depending the time it takes. Some of free survey sites are:
SurveyHead
Palm Research
6. Referring Free Domain
People are tired of having sub-domains, so refer them for a free domain name. It pays 0.10$ per signup and pays when you have acquired 2$. It pays via PayPal.
7. Creating Your Own Free WebHosting Company
Create your own free hosting company and display your Adsense or any ads on users webpage. This way you will be displaying ads on many pages and earn more revenue.
8. FreeLancing
Get A Freelancer is a global outsourcing solution and freelance jobs website. Signup and bid on the tasks provided by others. If you have some knowledge in computer and internet then go on.
1. Google Adsense
Definitely its the best way to earn money online. Google displays ads in your website and you get get whenever a visitor clicks those ads.
2. BidVertiser
Try this program which is similar to Adsense but has a minimum payout. It will pay you once you have accumulated 10 dollars. It pays via PayPal or cheque.
3. LinkBucks
Do you send a lot of links to others? Then this might be perfect for you. They will pay you whenever a user clicks a link sent by you. Personally, this is my favourite. They will pay you when you have accumulated 5 dollars. They pay via PayPal.
4. Webhost affiliate
Webhost affiliates are probably the highest paying systems in the world. This webhost provides you will all necessary banners, forum posts etc to get you up and running. It pays you 5 dollar per refferal. Since the service it provides is totally free, most of the visitors will definitely signup. It pays once you have made 100 dollars via PayPal.
5. Online Surveys
Online surveys are also one of cool methods of earning money online. You get paid 1 to 6 dollars per survey you take depending the time it takes. Some of free survey sites are:
SurveyHead
Palm Research
6. Referring Free Domain
People are tired of having sub-domains, so refer them for a free domain name. It pays 0.10$ per signup and pays when you have acquired 2$. It pays via PayPal.
7. Creating Your Own Free WebHosting Company
Create your own free hosting company and display your Adsense or any ads on users webpage. This way you will be displaying ads on many pages and earn more revenue.
8. FreeLancing
Get A Freelancer is a global outsourcing solution and freelance jobs website. Signup and bid on the tasks provided by others. If you have some knowledge in computer and internet then go on.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Top 20 Old Age Benifits
1. Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
2. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.
3. No one expects you to run into a burning building.
4. People call at 9 p.m. and ask, "Did I wake you?"
5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
6. There's nothing left to learn the hard way.
7. Things you buy now won't wear out.
8. You can eat dinner at 4 p.m.
9. You can live without sex (but not without glasses).
10. You enjoy hearing about other people's operations.
11. You get into a heated argument about pension plans.
12. You have a party and the neighbours don't even realize it.
13. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
14. You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.
15. You sing along with the elevator music.
16. Your eyes won't get much worse.
17. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.
18. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the National Weather Service.
19. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either.
20. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to a manageable size.
2. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.
3. No one expects you to run into a burning building.
4. People call at 9 p.m. and ask, "Did I wake you?"
5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
6. There's nothing left to learn the hard way.
7. Things you buy now won't wear out.
8. You can eat dinner at 4 p.m.
9. You can live without sex (but not without glasses).
10. You enjoy hearing about other people's operations.
11. You get into a heated argument about pension plans.
12. You have a party and the neighbours don't even realize it.
13. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
14. You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.
15. You sing along with the elevator music.
16. Your eyes won't get much worse.
17. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.
18. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the National Weather Service.
19. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either.
20. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to a manageable size.
Top 10 Most Expensive Shoes
Top 10 Ten Of The Most Expensive Shoes In The World
The Top 10 Most Expensive Shoes in the World Billionaire and millionaire fashionistas living at the top of the economic heaps in society want to shine their best from top to toe. They need something dazzling and stunning to adorn their feet in keeping with the magnificence of their million dollar designer outfits. Many topnotch shoe designers have unveiled their sumptuous creations to help them reach the utmost height of style and sophistication.
10. Diamond-Encrusted Custom Nikes
Encrusted with a string of chocolate-colored diamonds of 11 carats along the edge, this Custom Nikes edition claims to be the fame of your feet. Among the fancy and fashion accessories to not only cover but also decorate your feet, this exclusive launch of Nikes costs $50,000.
9. Nizam Sikandar Jah Slippers
With sparkles of rubies and dazzles of diamonds, the slippers of Nizam Sikandar Jah the Indian prince of Hyderabad were the symbol of royalty in the eighteen century. In 2006, these diamond slippers (costing around $160,000) were robbed from the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Canada.
8. Stuart Weitzman’s “Diamond Dream” Stilettos
Stuart Weitzman shoe designer joined hands with jeweler Kwiat to make his dream of diamond shoes come true as Stilettos. With 1,420 well-cut Kwiat colorless diamonds set in platinum, the shoes cost an obscene amount of $500,000. At the 2007 Oscars, Anika Noni made all turn their eyes at her steps in “Diamond Dream” on the red carpet.
7. Ruby Slippers from “The Wizard of Oz”
With bugle beads, glass rhinestones and three large red glass jewels in silver settings, Ruby Slippers matches with the most exclusive designer outfit. Wearing these shoes makes your mighty presence felt in parties of highly aristocratic society. It was auctioned for $666,000 in 2000.
6. Stuart Weitzman “Retro Rose” Pumps
Fixed to dusty gold high heels as in the 1940s, Retro Rose features its elegant embellishment. The delicate design of these shoes dazzles with 100 carats of 1,800 Kwiat diamonds. Stuart Weitzman has selected Diablo Cody to set the red carpet of the 2008 Oscar on fire with his one million dollar creation.
5. Stuart Weitzman “Platinum Guild” Stilettos
These strappy stilettos by Stuart Weitzman flaunt 464 Kwiat round and pear shaped diamonds in its platinum make. Laura Harring was the first Cinderella of the designer to display his diamond wonder at the 2002 Oscar Academy Awards. Tagged at $1,090,000, it enhanced her star appearance by multiple times.
4. Stuart Weitzman “Ruby Slippers”
With 642 oval and round rubies in its possession, Ruby Slippers are designed by Stuart Weitzman to adorn the feet of celebrities from the top of economic heap. With the shine of rubies set in pure platinum, these red satin stilettos claim to be a $1,600,000 craze with well-heeled fashion flaunters.
3. Stuart Weitzman Tanzanite Heels
Stuart Weitzman collaborated with Le Vian to turn up with two million dollars Tanzanite Heels. These astonishing shoes steal the show with 28 carats of diamonds and well cut 185 carats of quality tanzanite. Encrusted with 595 carats of Kwiat diamonds on platinum, the 4½ inch heels are the most spectacular part of these stilettos.
2. Stuart Weitzman’s Rita Hayworth Heels
The most creative of the creations and the most delicate of the designs by Stuart Weitzman, Rita Hayworth Heels flaunts sapphires, rubies and diamonds in its make. Movie legend Rita Hayworth’s a pair of earrings laden with precious jewels are the making of these $3 million satin open toe stilettos.
1. Harry Winston’s Ruby Slippers
Ruby Slippers the most spectacular and splendid slippers in the world are the most accomplished achievement of Ronald Winston, the reputed designer of the House of Harry Winston. The delicacy and beauty of design with 4,600 rubies of 1,350 carats in the make of the shoes leaves the viewers breathless to have a glimpse of them. This $3 million singular creation has adorned the graceful feet of Judy Garland.
Original Content
The Top 10 Most Expensive Shoes in the World Billionaire and millionaire fashionistas living at the top of the economic heaps in society want to shine their best from top to toe. They need something dazzling and stunning to adorn their feet in keeping with the magnificence of their million dollar designer outfits. Many topnotch shoe designers have unveiled their sumptuous creations to help them reach the utmost height of style and sophistication.
10. Diamond-Encrusted Custom Nikes
Encrusted with a string of chocolate-colored diamonds of 11 carats along the edge, this Custom Nikes edition claims to be the fame of your feet. Among the fancy and fashion accessories to not only cover but also decorate your feet, this exclusive launch of Nikes costs $50,000.
9. Nizam Sikandar Jah Slippers
With sparkles of rubies and dazzles of diamonds, the slippers of Nizam Sikandar Jah the Indian prince of Hyderabad were the symbol of royalty in the eighteen century. In 2006, these diamond slippers (costing around $160,000) were robbed from the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Canada.
8. Stuart Weitzman’s “Diamond Dream” Stilettos
Stuart Weitzman shoe designer joined hands with jeweler Kwiat to make his dream of diamond shoes come true as Stilettos. With 1,420 well-cut Kwiat colorless diamonds set in platinum, the shoes cost an obscene amount of $500,000. At the 2007 Oscars, Anika Noni made all turn their eyes at her steps in “Diamond Dream” on the red carpet.
7. Ruby Slippers from “The Wizard of Oz”
With bugle beads, glass rhinestones and three large red glass jewels in silver settings, Ruby Slippers matches with the most exclusive designer outfit. Wearing these shoes makes your mighty presence felt in parties of highly aristocratic society. It was auctioned for $666,000 in 2000.
6. Stuart Weitzman “Retro Rose” Pumps
Fixed to dusty gold high heels as in the 1940s, Retro Rose features its elegant embellishment. The delicate design of these shoes dazzles with 100 carats of 1,800 Kwiat diamonds. Stuart Weitzman has selected Diablo Cody to set the red carpet of the 2008 Oscar on fire with his one million dollar creation.
5. Stuart Weitzman “Platinum Guild” Stilettos
These strappy stilettos by Stuart Weitzman flaunt 464 Kwiat round and pear shaped diamonds in its platinum make. Laura Harring was the first Cinderella of the designer to display his diamond wonder at the 2002 Oscar Academy Awards. Tagged at $1,090,000, it enhanced her star appearance by multiple times.
4. Stuart Weitzman “Ruby Slippers”
With 642 oval and round rubies in its possession, Ruby Slippers are designed by Stuart Weitzman to adorn the feet of celebrities from the top of economic heap. With the shine of rubies set in pure platinum, these red satin stilettos claim to be a $1,600,000 craze with well-heeled fashion flaunters.
3. Stuart Weitzman Tanzanite Heels
Stuart Weitzman collaborated with Le Vian to turn up with two million dollars Tanzanite Heels. These astonishing shoes steal the show with 28 carats of diamonds and well cut 185 carats of quality tanzanite. Encrusted with 595 carats of Kwiat diamonds on platinum, the 4½ inch heels are the most spectacular part of these stilettos.
2. Stuart Weitzman’s Rita Hayworth Heels
The most creative of the creations and the most delicate of the designs by Stuart Weitzman, Rita Hayworth Heels flaunts sapphires, rubies and diamonds in its make. Movie legend Rita Hayworth’s a pair of earrings laden with precious jewels are the making of these $3 million satin open toe stilettos.
1. Harry Winston’s Ruby Slippers
Ruby Slippers the most spectacular and splendid slippers in the world are the most accomplished achievement of Ronald Winston, the reputed designer of the House of Harry Winston. The delicacy and beauty of design with 4,600 rubies of 1,350 carats in the make of the shoes leaves the viewers breathless to have a glimpse of them. This $3 million singular creation has adorned the graceful feet of Judy Garland.
Original Content
Most sold albums worldwide
Michael Jackson - Thriller (65 million copies sold)
AC/DC - Back In Black (45 million)
Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell (43 million)
Eagles - Greatest Hits (42 million)
Dirty Dancing soundtrack (42 million)
Whitney Houston - The Bodyguard (42 million)
AC/DC - Back In Black (45 million)
Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell (43 million)
Eagles - Greatest Hits (42 million)
Dirty Dancing soundtrack (42 million)
Whitney Houston - The Bodyguard (42 million)
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Top 10 Worst Computer Viruses
1. The Morris worm
In 1998 Robert Morris, a university student, unleashed a worm which affected 10 per cent of all the computers connected to the internet (at the time the net was estimated to consist of 60,000 computers), slowing them down to a halt. Morris is now an associate professor at MIT.
2. The Concept virus
The Concept virus, accidentally shipped on a CD-ROM supplied by Microsoft in 1995, was the first virus to infect Microsoft Word documents. Within days it became the most widespread virus the world had ever seen, taking advantage of the fact that computer users shared documents via email.
3. CIH
The Chernobyl virus (also known as CIH) triggers on April 26 each year, the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It overwrites a chip inside PCs effectively paralysing the entire computer. Its author, Chen Ing Hau, was caught by the authorities in Taiwan.
4. The Anna Kournikova worm
The Anna Kournikova worm posed as a picture of the tennis player, but was in fact a virus written by Jan de Wit, an obsessed admirer from the Netherlands. He ended up receiving a community service sentence.
5. ILOVEYOU
The Love Bug flooded internet users with ILOVEYOU messages in May 2000, forwarding itself to everybody in the user's address book. It was designed to steal internet access passwords for its Filipino creator.
6. The Melissa virus
The Melissa virus, written by David L Smith in homage to a Florida stripper, was the first successful email-aware virus and inserted a quote from The Simpsons in to Word documents. Smith was later sentenced to jail for causing over $80 million worth of damage.
7. The Blaster Worm
The Blaster worm launched a denial of service attack against Microsoft's website in 2003, and infected millions of computers around the world by exploiting a security hole in Microsoft's software. Its author has never been found.
8. Netsky and Sasser
Sven Jaschan, a German teenager, was found guilty of writing the Netsky and Sasser worms. Jaschan was found to be responsible for 70 per cent of all the malware seen spreading over the internet at the time, but escaped prison and was eventually hired by a security company as an "ethical hacker".
9. OSX/RSPlug Trojan
In November 2007, the first example of financially-motivated malware for Apple Macs was discovered in the wild. The launch of the OSX/RSPlug Trojan increased fears that Apple's platform may be targeted more by hackers in the future.
10. Storm worm
The Storm worm, originally posing as breaking news of bad weather hitting Europe, infected computers around the world in 2007. Millions of infected PCs were taken over by hackers and used to spread spam and steal identities.
Information courtesy of Sophos
In 1998 Robert Morris, a university student, unleashed a worm which affected 10 per cent of all the computers connected to the internet (at the time the net was estimated to consist of 60,000 computers), slowing them down to a halt. Morris is now an associate professor at MIT.
2. The Concept virus
The Concept virus, accidentally shipped on a CD-ROM supplied by Microsoft in 1995, was the first virus to infect Microsoft Word documents. Within days it became the most widespread virus the world had ever seen, taking advantage of the fact that computer users shared documents via email.
3. CIH
The Chernobyl virus (also known as CIH) triggers on April 26 each year, the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It overwrites a chip inside PCs effectively paralysing the entire computer. Its author, Chen Ing Hau, was caught by the authorities in Taiwan.
4. The Anna Kournikova worm
The Anna Kournikova worm posed as a picture of the tennis player, but was in fact a virus written by Jan de Wit, an obsessed admirer from the Netherlands. He ended up receiving a community service sentence.
5. ILOVEYOU
The Love Bug flooded internet users with ILOVEYOU messages in May 2000, forwarding itself to everybody in the user's address book. It was designed to steal internet access passwords for its Filipino creator.
6. The Melissa virus
The Melissa virus, written by David L Smith in homage to a Florida stripper, was the first successful email-aware virus and inserted a quote from The Simpsons in to Word documents. Smith was later sentenced to jail for causing over $80 million worth of damage.
7. The Blaster Worm
The Blaster worm launched a denial of service attack against Microsoft's website in 2003, and infected millions of computers around the world by exploiting a security hole in Microsoft's software. Its author has never been found.
8. Netsky and Sasser
Sven Jaschan, a German teenager, was found guilty of writing the Netsky and Sasser worms. Jaschan was found to be responsible for 70 per cent of all the malware seen spreading over the internet at the time, but escaped prison and was eventually hired by a security company as an "ethical hacker".
9. OSX/RSPlug Trojan
In November 2007, the first example of financially-motivated malware for Apple Macs was discovered in the wild. The launch of the OSX/RSPlug Trojan increased fears that Apple's platform may be targeted more by hackers in the future.
10. Storm worm
The Storm worm, originally posing as breaking news of bad weather hitting Europe, infected computers around the world in 2007. Millions of infected PCs were taken over by hackers and used to spread spam and steal identities.
Information courtesy of Sophos
Top 10's Funny Science Quotes
"We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming."
— Werner von Braun
"If I could remember the names of all these particles, I'd be a botanist."
— Albert Einstein
"Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions."
— Evan Esar, Esar's Comic Dictionary
"Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything."
— Greg Easterbrook
"If your result needs a statistician then you should design a better experiment."
— Ernest Rutherford
"When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction."
— Steven Wright
"Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month."
— Wernher von Braun
"The Union of Concerned Scientists says the Bush administration manipulates and suppresses science. The administration points out that the Union of Bought and Paid for Scientists disagrees."
— fark.com
"No one should approach the temple of science with the soul of a money changer."
— Thomas Browne (1605-82), English physician and writer
"Should we force science down the throats of those that have no taste for it? Is it our duty to drag them kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century ? I am afraid that it is."
— George Porter (1920- ), British chemist
"Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it."
— Stephen Leacock
"Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?"
— Kelvin Throop III
"When science finally locates the center of the universe, some people will be surprised to learn they're not it."
— Bernard Bailey
"Every generation of humans believed it had all the answers it needed, except for a few mysteries they assumed would be solved at any moment. And they all believed their ancestors were simplistic and deluded. What are the odds that you are the first generation of humans who will understand reality?"
— Scott Adams (Dilbert)
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
"When you are courting a nice girl, an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder, a second seems like an hour. That's relativity."
— Albert Einstein
"Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment."
— R. Buckminster Fuller
"There comes a time when every scientist, even God, has to write off an experiment."
— P. D. James
"The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry, and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers."
— Lewis Thomas
"Before a war, military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war, it seems more like astrology."
— Rebecca West
"The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it."
— Frank Herbert, author of Dune
"Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is to provide long words to cover the errors of the rich."
— G. K. Chesterton
"We have lost the art of living, and in the most important science of all, the science of daily life, the science of behavior, we are complete ignoramuses. We have psychology instead."
— D.H. Lawrence
"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
— Albert Einstein
"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views... which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering."
— Doctor Who
"The farther the experiment is from theory, the closer it is to the Nobel Prize."
— Frederic Joliot-Curie
"The essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to a pertinent answer."
— Jacob Bronowski
"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."
— Albert Einstein
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
— E. W. Dijkstra
"Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof."
— Ashley Montague
"The great tragedy of Science: the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact."
— Thomas H. Huxley
"I didn't think; I experimented."
— Anthony Burgess
"Shall I refuse my dinner because I do not fully understand the process of digestion?"
— Oliver Heaviside, English physicist
"There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea."
— Percy Williams Bridgman, US physicist
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge in the field of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
— Albert Einstein
"Some things need to be believed to be seen."
— Guy Kawasaki
— Werner von Braun
"If I could remember the names of all these particles, I'd be a botanist."
— Albert Einstein
"Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions."
— Evan Esar, Esar's Comic Dictionary
"Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything."
— Greg Easterbrook
"If your result needs a statistician then you should design a better experiment."
— Ernest Rutherford
"When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction."
— Steven Wright
"Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month."
— Wernher von Braun
"The Union of Concerned Scientists says the Bush administration manipulates and suppresses science. The administration points out that the Union of Bought and Paid for Scientists disagrees."
— fark.com
"No one should approach the temple of science with the soul of a money changer."
— Thomas Browne (1605-82), English physician and writer
"Should we force science down the throats of those that have no taste for it? Is it our duty to drag them kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century ? I am afraid that it is."
— George Porter (1920- ), British chemist
"Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it."
— Stephen Leacock
"Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?"
— Kelvin Throop III
"When science finally locates the center of the universe, some people will be surprised to learn they're not it."
— Bernard Bailey
"Every generation of humans believed it had all the answers it needed, except for a few mysteries they assumed would be solved at any moment. And they all believed their ancestors were simplistic and deluded. What are the odds that you are the first generation of humans who will understand reality?"
— Scott Adams (Dilbert)
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
"When you are courting a nice girl, an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder, a second seems like an hour. That's relativity."
— Albert Einstein
"Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment."
— R. Buckminster Fuller
"There comes a time when every scientist, even God, has to write off an experiment."
— P. D. James
"The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry, and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers."
— Lewis Thomas
"Before a war, military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war, it seems more like astrology."
— Rebecca West
"The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it."
— Frank Herbert, author of Dune
"Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is to provide long words to cover the errors of the rich."
— G. K. Chesterton
"We have lost the art of living, and in the most important science of all, the science of daily life, the science of behavior, we are complete ignoramuses. We have psychology instead."
— D.H. Lawrence
"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
— Albert Einstein
"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views... which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering."
— Doctor Who
"The farther the experiment is from theory, the closer it is to the Nobel Prize."
— Frederic Joliot-Curie
"The essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to a pertinent answer."
— Jacob Bronowski
"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."
— Albert Einstein
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
— E. W. Dijkstra
"Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof."
— Ashley Montague
"The great tragedy of Science: the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact."
— Thomas H. Huxley
"I didn't think; I experimented."
— Anthony Burgess
"Shall I refuse my dinner because I do not fully understand the process of digestion?"
— Oliver Heaviside, English physicist
"There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea."
— Percy Williams Bridgman, US physicist
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge in the field of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
— Albert Einstein
"Some things need to be believed to be seen."
— Guy Kawasaki
Top 10's Funny Mathematics Quotes
“Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.” -- Bertrand Russell
“Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.”
“Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.” -- J. H. Poincare
“Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives.”
"Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper." -- David Hilbert
"Mathematics consists in proving the most obvious thing in the least obvious way." -- George Polya
"In mathematics, you don't understand things. You just get used to them." -- Johann von Neumann
"A tragedy of mathematics is a beautiful conjecture ruined by an ugly fact.”
“Mathematics is like love; a simple idea, but it can get complicated.”
"If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is."
“Mathematics is like checkers in being suitable for the young, not too difficult, amusing, and without peril to the state.” -- Plato
"The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple." -- S. Gudder
"There are two ways to do great mathematics. The first is to be smarter than everybody else. The second way is to be stupider than everybody else -- but persistent." -- Raoul Bott
"Obvious is the most dangerous word in mathematics." -- E.T. Bell
"Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes." -- Mickey Mouse
"The greatest unsolved theorem in mathematics is why some people are better at it than others." -- Adrian Mathesis
"Mathematics is not a deductive science Рthat's a clich̩. When you try to prove a theorem, you don't just list the hypotheses, and then start to reason. What you do is trial and error, experimentation, guesswork." -- Paul Halmos
“The different branches of Arithmetic are Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.” – Lewis Caroll
"Mathematics is written for mathematicians." – Copernicus
"Mathematics should be fun." -- Peter J. Hilton
"Small minds discuss persons. Average minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas. Really great minds discuss mathematics."
"But in the new (math) approach, the important thing is to understand what you're doing, rather than to get the right answer." -- Tom Lehrer
“Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.”
“Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.” -- J. H. Poincare
“Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives.”
"Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper." -- David Hilbert
"Mathematics consists in proving the most obvious thing in the least obvious way." -- George Polya
"In mathematics, you don't understand things. You just get used to them." -- Johann von Neumann
"A tragedy of mathematics is a beautiful conjecture ruined by an ugly fact.”
“Mathematics is like love; a simple idea, but it can get complicated.”
"If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is."
“Mathematics is like checkers in being suitable for the young, not too difficult, amusing, and without peril to the state.” -- Plato
"The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple." -- S. Gudder
"There are two ways to do great mathematics. The first is to be smarter than everybody else. The second way is to be stupider than everybody else -- but persistent." -- Raoul Bott
"Obvious is the most dangerous word in mathematics." -- E.T. Bell
"Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes." -- Mickey Mouse
"The greatest unsolved theorem in mathematics is why some people are better at it than others." -- Adrian Mathesis
"Mathematics is not a deductive science Рthat's a clich̩. When you try to prove a theorem, you don't just list the hypotheses, and then start to reason. What you do is trial and error, experimentation, guesswork." -- Paul Halmos
“The different branches of Arithmetic are Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.” – Lewis Caroll
"Mathematics is written for mathematicians." – Copernicus
"Mathematics should be fun." -- Peter J. Hilton
"Small minds discuss persons. Average minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas. Really great minds discuss mathematics."
"But in the new (math) approach, the important thing is to understand what you're doing, rather than to get the right answer." -- Tom Lehrer
Top 20 Funny One Liners
1 I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.
2 Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
3 I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather.. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.
4 The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.
5 Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer.
6 Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake a whole relationship.
7 We live in a society where pizza gets to your house before the police.
8 Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand.
9 We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
10 Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.
11 Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
12 War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
13 If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong.
14 The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
15 Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason.
16 Children: You spend the first 2 years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next 16 years telling them to sit down and shut-up.
17 If sex is a pain in the ass, then you're doing it wrong...
18 Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
19 A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station..
20 Evening news is where they begin with 'Good evening', and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.
2 Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
3 I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather.. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.
4 The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.
5 Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer.
6 Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake a whole relationship.
7 We live in a society where pizza gets to your house before the police.
8 Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand.
9 We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
10 Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.
11 Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
12 War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
13 If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong.
14 The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
15 Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason.
16 Children: You spend the first 2 years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next 16 years telling them to sit down and shut-up.
17 If sex is a pain in the ass, then you're doing it wrong...
18 Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
19 A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station..
20 Evening news is where they begin with 'Good evening', and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.
Top 10's Ten Worst Airplane Crashs
1. March 27, 1977. Two Boeing 747s, operated by KLM and Pan Am, collide on a foggy runway at Tenerife, in Spain’s Canary Islands killing 583 people. The KLM jet departed without permission and struck the Pan Am jet as it taxied along the same runway. Confusion over instructions and a blockage of radio transmissions contributed to the crash.
2. August 12, 1985. A Japan Air Lines 747 crashes near Mt. Fuji after takeoff from Tokyo on a domestic flight killing 520. The rupture of an aft bulkhead, which had undergone faulty repairs following a mishap seven years earlier, caused destruction of part of the airplane’s tail and rendered the jet uncontrollable. A JAL maintenance supervisor later committed suicide, while the president of the airline resigned, accepting full, formal responsibility for the crash and visiting victims’ families to offer a personal apology.
3. November 12, 1996. An Ilyushin IL-76 cargo plane from Kazakhstan collides in midair with a Saudia 747 near Delhi; all 349 aboard both planes are killed. The Kazakh crew had disobeyed instructions, and neither airplane was equipped with collision-avoidance technology.
4. March 3, 1974. In one of the most notorious and gruesome crashes ever, a THY (Turkish Airlines) DC-10 crashes near Orly airport killing all 346 passengers and crew. A poorly designed cargo door had burst from its latches, and the subsequent depressurization caused failure of the cabin floor and impairment of cables to the rudders and elevators. Out of control, the plane slammed into the woods northeast of Paris. McDonnell Douglas, maker of the DC-10, which would see even more controversy later, was forced to redesign its cargo door system.
5. June 23, 1985. A bomb planted by a Sikh extremist blows up an Air India 747 enroute between Toronto and Bombay (with stops in Montreal and London). The airplane fell into the sea east of Ireland killing 329. Investigators in Canada cited shortcomings in baggage screening procedures, screening equipment, and employee training. A second bomb, intended to blow up another Air India 747 on the same day, detonated prematurely in a luggage facility in Tokyo before being loaded aboard.
6. August 19, 1980. A Saudia L-1011 bound for Karachi returns to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, following an in-flight fire that broke out just after departure. For reasons never understood, the crew takes its time after a safe touchdown and rolls to the far end of the runway before finally stopping. No evacuation is commenced, and the airplane then sits with its engines running for more than three minutes. Before any doors can be opened by the inadequately-equipped rescue workers at Riyadh, all 301 people on the widebody die as the passenger cabin is consumed by a flash-fire.
7. July 3, 1988. An Airbus A300 operated by Iran Air is shot down over the Straits of Hormuz by the US Navy destroyer Vincennes. The crew of the Vincennes, distracted by an ongoing gunbattle, mistakes the A300 for a hostile military aircraft and destroys it with two surface-to-air missiles. None of the 290 occupants survived.
8. May 25, 1979. As an American Airlines DC-10 lifts from the runway at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, an engine detaches and seriously damages a wing. Before its crew can make sense of the situation, the airplane rolls 90 degrees and disintegrates in a huge fireball about a mile beyond the runway. With 273 fatalities, this remains the worst-ever crash on US soil. Both the engine pylon design and airline maintenance procedures were faulted by NTSB investigators, and all DC-10s were temporarily grounded.
9. December 21, 1988. Two Libyan agents are later held responsible (one is convicted) for planting a bomb aboard Pan American flight 103, which blows up in the night sky over Lockerbie, Scotland killing 270 people, including 11 on the ground.
10. September 1, 1983. Korean Air Lines flight KL007, a 747 carrying 269 passengers and crew from New York to Seoul (with a technical stop in Anchorage) is shot down by a Soviet fighter after drifting off course — and into Soviet airspace — near Sakhalin Island in the North Pacific. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) later attributes the mysterious deviation to “A considerable degree of lack of alertness and attentiveness on the part of the flight crew.”
Original Content
2. August 12, 1985. A Japan Air Lines 747 crashes near Mt. Fuji after takeoff from Tokyo on a domestic flight killing 520. The rupture of an aft bulkhead, which had undergone faulty repairs following a mishap seven years earlier, caused destruction of part of the airplane’s tail and rendered the jet uncontrollable. A JAL maintenance supervisor later committed suicide, while the president of the airline resigned, accepting full, formal responsibility for the crash and visiting victims’ families to offer a personal apology.
3. November 12, 1996. An Ilyushin IL-76 cargo plane from Kazakhstan collides in midair with a Saudia 747 near Delhi; all 349 aboard both planes are killed. The Kazakh crew had disobeyed instructions, and neither airplane was equipped with collision-avoidance technology.
4. March 3, 1974. In one of the most notorious and gruesome crashes ever, a THY (Turkish Airlines) DC-10 crashes near Orly airport killing all 346 passengers and crew. A poorly designed cargo door had burst from its latches, and the subsequent depressurization caused failure of the cabin floor and impairment of cables to the rudders and elevators. Out of control, the plane slammed into the woods northeast of Paris. McDonnell Douglas, maker of the DC-10, which would see even more controversy later, was forced to redesign its cargo door system.
5. June 23, 1985. A bomb planted by a Sikh extremist blows up an Air India 747 enroute between Toronto and Bombay (with stops in Montreal and London). The airplane fell into the sea east of Ireland killing 329. Investigators in Canada cited shortcomings in baggage screening procedures, screening equipment, and employee training. A second bomb, intended to blow up another Air India 747 on the same day, detonated prematurely in a luggage facility in Tokyo before being loaded aboard.
6. August 19, 1980. A Saudia L-1011 bound for Karachi returns to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, following an in-flight fire that broke out just after departure. For reasons never understood, the crew takes its time after a safe touchdown and rolls to the far end of the runway before finally stopping. No evacuation is commenced, and the airplane then sits with its engines running for more than three minutes. Before any doors can be opened by the inadequately-equipped rescue workers at Riyadh, all 301 people on the widebody die as the passenger cabin is consumed by a flash-fire.
7. July 3, 1988. An Airbus A300 operated by Iran Air is shot down over the Straits of Hormuz by the US Navy destroyer Vincennes. The crew of the Vincennes, distracted by an ongoing gunbattle, mistakes the A300 for a hostile military aircraft and destroys it with two surface-to-air missiles. None of the 290 occupants survived.
8. May 25, 1979. As an American Airlines DC-10 lifts from the runway at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, an engine detaches and seriously damages a wing. Before its crew can make sense of the situation, the airplane rolls 90 degrees and disintegrates in a huge fireball about a mile beyond the runway. With 273 fatalities, this remains the worst-ever crash on US soil. Both the engine pylon design and airline maintenance procedures were faulted by NTSB investigators, and all DC-10s were temporarily grounded.
9. December 21, 1988. Two Libyan agents are later held responsible (one is convicted) for planting a bomb aboard Pan American flight 103, which blows up in the night sky over Lockerbie, Scotland killing 270 people, including 11 on the ground.
10. September 1, 1983. Korean Air Lines flight KL007, a 747 carrying 269 passengers and crew from New York to Seoul (with a technical stop in Anchorage) is shot down by a Soviet fighter after drifting off course — and into Soviet airspace — near Sakhalin Island in the North Pacific. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) later attributes the mysterious deviation to “A considerable degree of lack of alertness and attentiveness on the part of the flight crew.”
Original Content
Thursday, July 9, 2009
50 Fascinating Facts About Dollar Bills
1. Larger bills ($50, $100) can last in circulation up to 8 years
2. The average life of a dollar bill is just 18 months
3. 97% of all paper money contains traces of cocaine
4. Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, is said to use $2 notes from sheets of bills
purchased from the U.S. Treasury – he apparently has them bound into book form with the bills as tear-off "pages"
5. The number 172 can be seen on the back of the U.S. $5 dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial
6. $20 bills last in circulation for approximately 2 years
7. $5 bills last in circulation for around 15 months
8. In 1960, the Federal Reserve had $177.41 in cash circulating for every person living in the US. In 1990, that amount increased to $1,062.86 per capita
9. The security thread and micro printing found in most currency today were first used in 1990 in the $50 and $100 bills
10. In 1865, the Department of the Treasury issued Gold Certificates, which were backed by gold and bullion deposits. These certificates stayed in circulation until 1933
11. On the $1 bill the Latin above the pyramid, ANNUIT COEPTIS, means "God has favored our undertaking”
12. The Latin below the pyramid on the $1 bill, NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM, means "a new order for the ages”
13. At the base of the pyramid on the $1 bill you will find “1776” in Roman Numerals
14. On the $1 bill, you can see an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield," while a spider is hidden in the front upper right-hand corner
15. On the new $100 bill, the clock tower of Independence Hall in Philadelphia is shown with the time set at 4:10. According to the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing, “there are no records explaining why that particular time was chosen”
16. In 1929, US currency was standardized to include portraits on the front and emblems and monuments on the back of all bills.
17. The first paper notes were printed in denominations of 1 cent, 5 cents, 25 cents, and 50 cents. The government first issued paper currency in 1862 to finance the Civil War and to make up for a shortage of coins stemming from the fact that people hoarded gold and silver coins to achieve a sense of financial security
18. Almost half, 48 percent, of the notes printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing are $1 notes
19. Present currency measures 2.61 inches wide by 6.14 inches long, and the thickness is 0.0043 inches. Larger sized notes in circulation before 1929 measured 3.125 inches by 7.4218 inches
20. Martha Washington is the only woman whose portrait has appeared on a U.S. currency note. It appeared on the face of the $1 Silver Certificate of 1886 and 1891, along with the back of the $1 Silver Certificate issued in 1896
21. If you had $10 billion and spent $1 every second of every day, it would take 317 years for you to go broke
22. The $20 bill is sometimes called a "double-sawbuck”
23. The elm tree on back of the $20 bill near the White House represents a real tree in this same location. However, the tree is no longer on the White House grounds because it succumbed to rain-softened ground in 2006
24. While he appears on the $20 bill, Andrew Jackson actually preferred coins to paper currency
25. There are no pictures of African-Americans printed on US currency, though five African Americans have had their signatures on currency (as Registers of the Treasury and Treasurer of the United States)
26. In 1963, the $2 bill and the Federal Reserve Note were changed by adding the motto “IN GOD WE TRUST” to the reverse and removing “WILL PAY TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND” from the front. Also, the obligation on the Federal Reserve Note was changed to its current wording: “THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE”
27. The $2 bill was last issued in 2003
28. You'd need to fold a bill of any denomination about 8,000 times (first forward and then backwards) before it will tear
29. Most people save $2 bills, thinking they are rare and therefore valuable; they're actually worth... $2
30. Apparently, enough people go to banks and other businesses to find $2 bills that there’s a name for it: Tom Crawl
31. The number 13 (corresponding to the 13 colonies) figures prominently on the $1 bill. The number of letters/digits in 1776 (4) and its Roman Numeral equivalent MDCCLXXVI (9) adds up to 13
32. The dollar has 13 stars above the eagle
33. There are 13 steps on the Pyramid
34. There are 13 letters in ANNUIT COEPTIS
35. E PLURIBUS UNUM contains 13 letters
36. There are 13 vertical bars on the shield
37. The top of the shield has 13 horizontal stripes
38. You can count 13 leaves on the olive branch
39. There are 13 berries on the olive branch
40. The dollar bill also features 13 arrows and 13 hats
41. The Secretary of the Treasury usually selects the designs shown on US currency, unless
otherwise specified by an Act of Congress
42. A world record of $2,255,000 was paid in December 2006 for an 1890 $1000 United States
Treasury note. The note features a portrait of Civil War-era General George Gordon Meade, who commanded Union Army troops at the Battle of Gettysburg
43. Pocahontas appeared on the back of the $20 bill in 1875
44. Money isn't made out of paper, it's actually made out of linen
45. A fifty dollar bill is often called a Grant because it features a portrait of Ulysses S. Grant
46. A $100 bill has many nicknames: C-note, Hundo, Hunksy, Franklin, Ben, Benjy, Benny, Big
one, and my favorite: 100 bones
47. High-denomination bills ($500-$100,000 notes) are technically legal tender, but were last printed in 1945 and officially discontinued on Jul 14, 1969 by the Federal Reserve System
48. President Richard Nixon halted the circulation of these high-denomination bills in 1969 by Executive Order, in an effort to fight organized crime
49. The security thread in bills $5 and higher will turn blue if they are held under ultraviolet light
50. The $1 bill’s famous nickname of “Greenback” derives from the Demand Note dollars created by Abraham Lincoln in the late 1800s to finance the Civil War. These notes were printed in black and green on the back side
2. The average life of a dollar bill is just 18 months
3. 97% of all paper money contains traces of cocaine
4. Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, is said to use $2 notes from sheets of bills
purchased from the U.S. Treasury – he apparently has them bound into book form with the bills as tear-off "pages"
5. The number 172 can be seen on the back of the U.S. $5 dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial
6. $20 bills last in circulation for approximately 2 years
7. $5 bills last in circulation for around 15 months
8. In 1960, the Federal Reserve had $177.41 in cash circulating for every person living in the US. In 1990, that amount increased to $1,062.86 per capita
9. The security thread and micro printing found in most currency today were first used in 1990 in the $50 and $100 bills
10. In 1865, the Department of the Treasury issued Gold Certificates, which were backed by gold and bullion deposits. These certificates stayed in circulation until 1933
11. On the $1 bill the Latin above the pyramid, ANNUIT COEPTIS, means "God has favored our undertaking”
12. The Latin below the pyramid on the $1 bill, NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM, means "a new order for the ages”
13. At the base of the pyramid on the $1 bill you will find “1776” in Roman Numerals
14. On the $1 bill, you can see an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield," while a spider is hidden in the front upper right-hand corner
15. On the new $100 bill, the clock tower of Independence Hall in Philadelphia is shown with the time set at 4:10. According to the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing, “there are no records explaining why that particular time was chosen”
16. In 1929, US currency was standardized to include portraits on the front and emblems and monuments on the back of all bills.
17. The first paper notes were printed in denominations of 1 cent, 5 cents, 25 cents, and 50 cents. The government first issued paper currency in 1862 to finance the Civil War and to make up for a shortage of coins stemming from the fact that people hoarded gold and silver coins to achieve a sense of financial security
18. Almost half, 48 percent, of the notes printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing are $1 notes
19. Present currency measures 2.61 inches wide by 6.14 inches long, and the thickness is 0.0043 inches. Larger sized notes in circulation before 1929 measured 3.125 inches by 7.4218 inches
20. Martha Washington is the only woman whose portrait has appeared on a U.S. currency note. It appeared on the face of the $1 Silver Certificate of 1886 and 1891, along with the back of the $1 Silver Certificate issued in 1896
21. If you had $10 billion and spent $1 every second of every day, it would take 317 years for you to go broke
22. The $20 bill is sometimes called a "double-sawbuck”
23. The elm tree on back of the $20 bill near the White House represents a real tree in this same location. However, the tree is no longer on the White House grounds because it succumbed to rain-softened ground in 2006
24. While he appears on the $20 bill, Andrew Jackson actually preferred coins to paper currency
25. There are no pictures of African-Americans printed on US currency, though five African Americans have had their signatures on currency (as Registers of the Treasury and Treasurer of the United States)
26. In 1963, the $2 bill and the Federal Reserve Note were changed by adding the motto “IN GOD WE TRUST” to the reverse and removing “WILL PAY TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND” from the front. Also, the obligation on the Federal Reserve Note was changed to its current wording: “THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE”
27. The $2 bill was last issued in 2003
28. You'd need to fold a bill of any denomination about 8,000 times (first forward and then backwards) before it will tear
29. Most people save $2 bills, thinking they are rare and therefore valuable; they're actually worth... $2
30. Apparently, enough people go to banks and other businesses to find $2 bills that there’s a name for it: Tom Crawl
31. The number 13 (corresponding to the 13 colonies) figures prominently on the $1 bill. The number of letters/digits in 1776 (4) and its Roman Numeral equivalent MDCCLXXVI (9) adds up to 13
32. The dollar has 13 stars above the eagle
33. There are 13 steps on the Pyramid
34. There are 13 letters in ANNUIT COEPTIS
35. E PLURIBUS UNUM contains 13 letters
36. There are 13 vertical bars on the shield
37. The top of the shield has 13 horizontal stripes
38. You can count 13 leaves on the olive branch
39. There are 13 berries on the olive branch
40. The dollar bill also features 13 arrows and 13 hats
41. The Secretary of the Treasury usually selects the designs shown on US currency, unless
otherwise specified by an Act of Congress
42. A world record of $2,255,000 was paid in December 2006 for an 1890 $1000 United States
Treasury note. The note features a portrait of Civil War-era General George Gordon Meade, who commanded Union Army troops at the Battle of Gettysburg
43. Pocahontas appeared on the back of the $20 bill in 1875
44. Money isn't made out of paper, it's actually made out of linen
45. A fifty dollar bill is often called a Grant because it features a portrait of Ulysses S. Grant
46. A $100 bill has many nicknames: C-note, Hundo, Hunksy, Franklin, Ben, Benjy, Benny, Big
one, and my favorite: 100 bones
47. High-denomination bills ($500-$100,000 notes) are technically legal tender, but were last printed in 1945 and officially discontinued on Jul 14, 1969 by the Federal Reserve System
48. President Richard Nixon halted the circulation of these high-denomination bills in 1969 by Executive Order, in an effort to fight organized crime
49. The security thread in bills $5 and higher will turn blue if they are held under ultraviolet light
50. The $1 bill’s famous nickname of “Greenback” derives from the Demand Note dollars created by Abraham Lincoln in the late 1800s to finance the Civil War. These notes were printed in black and green on the back side
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Top 10's Amazing Wartime Facts
Amazing Wartime Facts from WWII
The first German serviceman killed in the war was killed by the Japanese (China, 1937)
The first American serviceman killed was killed by the Russians (Finland 1940).
The highest ranking American killed was Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair, killed by the US Army Air Corps.
The youngest US serviceman was 12 year old Calvin Graham, USN. He was wounded in combat and given a Dishonorable Discharge for lying about his age. (His benefits were later restored by act of Congress).
At the time of Pearl Harbor, the top US Navy command was called CINCUS (pronounced “sink us”), the shoulder patch of the US Army’s 45th Infantry division was the Swastika, and Hitler’s private train was named “Amerika”. All three were soon changed for PR purposes.
More US servicemen died in the Air Corps that the Marine Corps. While completing the required 30 missions, your chance of being killed was 71%. Not that bombers were helpless. A B-17 carried 4 tons of bombs and 1.5 tons of machine gun ammo. The US 8th Air Force shot down 6,098 fighter planes, 1 for every 12,700 shots fired.
Germany’s power grid was much more vulnerable than realized. One estimate is that if just 1% of the bombs dropped on German industry had instead been dropped on power plants, German industry would have collapsed.
Generally speaking, there was no such thing as an average fighter pilot. You were either an ace or a target. For instance, Japanese ace Hiroyoshi Nishizawa shot down over 80 planes. He died while a passenger on a cargo plane.
It was a common practice on fighter planes to load every 5th found with a tracer round to aid in aiming. That was a mistake. The tracers had different ballistics so (at long range) if your tracers were hitting the target, 80% of your rounds were missing. Worse yet, the tracers instantly told your enemy he was under fire and from which direction. Worst of all was the practice of loading a string of tracers at the end of the belt to tell you that you were out of ammo. That was definitely not something you wanted to tell the enemy. Units that stopped using tracers saw their success rate nearly double and their loss rate go down.
When allied armies reached the Rhine, the first thing men did was pee in it. This was pretty universal from the lowest private to Winston Churchill (who made a big show of it) and Gen. Patton (who had himself photographed in the act). Don't believe me? Take a look at this.
German Me-264 bombers were capable of bombing New York City but it wasn’t worth the effort.
A number of air crewmen died of farts. (ascending to 20,000 ft. in an un-pressurized aircraft causes intestinal gas to expand 300%!)
The Russians destroyed over 500 German aircraft by ramming them in midair (they also sometimes cleared minefields by marching over them). “It takes a brave man not to be a hero in the Red Army”. Joseph Stalin
The US Army had more ships than the US Navy.
The German Air Force had 22 infantry divisions, 2 armor divisions, and 11 paratroop divisions. None of them were capable of airborne operations. The German Army had paratroops who WERE capable of airborne operations.
When the US Army landed in North Africa, among the equipment brought ashore were 3 complete Coca Cola bottling plants.
Among the first “Germans” captured at Normandy were several Koreans. They had been forced to fight for the Japanese Army until they were captured by the Russians and forced to fight for the Russian Army until they were captured by the Germans and forced to fight for the German Army until they were capture by the US Army.
The Graf Spee never sank, The scuttling attempt failed and the ship was bought by the British. On board was Germany’s newest radar system.
One of Japan’s methods of destroying tanks was to bury a very large artillery shell with on ly the nose exposed. When a tank came near the enough a soldier would whack the shell with a hammer. “Lack of weapons is no excuse for defeat.” – Lt. Gen. Mataguchi
Following a massive naval bombardment, 35,000 US and Canadian troops stormed ashore at Kiska. 21 troops were killed in the fire-fight. It would have been worse if there had been Japanese on the island.
The MISS ME was an unarmed Piper Cub. While spotting for US artillery her pilot saw a similar German plane doing the same thing. He dove on the German plane and he and his co-pilot fired their pistols damaging the German plane enough that it had to make a forced landing. Whereupon they landed and took the Germans prisoner. It is unknown where they put them since the MISS ME only had two seats.
Most members of the Waffen SS were not German.
The only nation that Germany declared was on was the USA.
During the Japanese attack on Hong Kong, British officers objected to Canadian infantrymen taking up positions in the officer’s mess. No enlisted men allowed!
Nuclear physicist Niels Bohr was rescued in the nick of time from German occupied Denmark. While Danish resistance fighters provided covering fire he ran out the back door of his home stopping momentarily to grab a beer bottle full of precious “heavy water”. He finally reached England still clutching the bottle, which contained beer. Perhaps some German drank the heavy water…
Contributed by Ronald Padavan, LTC, CAP MIWG Chief of Staff MSGT, USAF (Ret.) Past President Lodge 143, Fraternal Order of Police
As printed in, The Victory Division News. No. 4. December, 2000.
The first German serviceman killed in the war was killed by the Japanese (China, 1937)
The first American serviceman killed was killed by the Russians (Finland 1940).
The highest ranking American killed was Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair, killed by the US Army Air Corps.
The youngest US serviceman was 12 year old Calvin Graham, USN. He was wounded in combat and given a Dishonorable Discharge for lying about his age. (His benefits were later restored by act of Congress).
At the time of Pearl Harbor, the top US Navy command was called CINCUS (pronounced “sink us”), the shoulder patch of the US Army’s 45th Infantry division was the Swastika, and Hitler’s private train was named “Amerika”. All three were soon changed for PR purposes.
More US servicemen died in the Air Corps that the Marine Corps. While completing the required 30 missions, your chance of being killed was 71%. Not that bombers were helpless. A B-17 carried 4 tons of bombs and 1.5 tons of machine gun ammo. The US 8th Air Force shot down 6,098 fighter planes, 1 for every 12,700 shots fired.
Germany’s power grid was much more vulnerable than realized. One estimate is that if just 1% of the bombs dropped on German industry had instead been dropped on power plants, German industry would have collapsed.
Generally speaking, there was no such thing as an average fighter pilot. You were either an ace or a target. For instance, Japanese ace Hiroyoshi Nishizawa shot down over 80 planes. He died while a passenger on a cargo plane.
It was a common practice on fighter planes to load every 5th found with a tracer round to aid in aiming. That was a mistake. The tracers had different ballistics so (at long range) if your tracers were hitting the target, 80% of your rounds were missing. Worse yet, the tracers instantly told your enemy he was under fire and from which direction. Worst of all was the practice of loading a string of tracers at the end of the belt to tell you that you were out of ammo. That was definitely not something you wanted to tell the enemy. Units that stopped using tracers saw their success rate nearly double and their loss rate go down.
When allied armies reached the Rhine, the first thing men did was pee in it. This was pretty universal from the lowest private to Winston Churchill (who made a big show of it) and Gen. Patton (who had himself photographed in the act). Don't believe me? Take a look at this.
German Me-264 bombers were capable of bombing New York City but it wasn’t worth the effort.
A number of air crewmen died of farts. (ascending to 20,000 ft. in an un-pressurized aircraft causes intestinal gas to expand 300%!)
The Russians destroyed over 500 German aircraft by ramming them in midair (they also sometimes cleared minefields by marching over them). “It takes a brave man not to be a hero in the Red Army”. Joseph Stalin
The US Army had more ships than the US Navy.
The German Air Force had 22 infantry divisions, 2 armor divisions, and 11 paratroop divisions. None of them were capable of airborne operations. The German Army had paratroops who WERE capable of airborne operations.
When the US Army landed in North Africa, among the equipment brought ashore were 3 complete Coca Cola bottling plants.
Among the first “Germans” captured at Normandy were several Koreans. They had been forced to fight for the Japanese Army until they were captured by the Russians and forced to fight for the Russian Army until they were captured by the Germans and forced to fight for the German Army until they were capture by the US Army.
The Graf Spee never sank, The scuttling attempt failed and the ship was bought by the British. On board was Germany’s newest radar system.
One of Japan’s methods of destroying tanks was to bury a very large artillery shell with on ly the nose exposed. When a tank came near the enough a soldier would whack the shell with a hammer. “Lack of weapons is no excuse for defeat.” – Lt. Gen. Mataguchi
Following a massive naval bombardment, 35,000 US and Canadian troops stormed ashore at Kiska. 21 troops were killed in the fire-fight. It would have been worse if there had been Japanese on the island.
The MISS ME was an unarmed Piper Cub. While spotting for US artillery her pilot saw a similar German plane doing the same thing. He dove on the German plane and he and his co-pilot fired their pistols damaging the German plane enough that it had to make a forced landing. Whereupon they landed and took the Germans prisoner. It is unknown where they put them since the MISS ME only had two seats.
Most members of the Waffen SS were not German.
The only nation that Germany declared was on was the USA.
During the Japanese attack on Hong Kong, British officers objected to Canadian infantrymen taking up positions in the officer’s mess. No enlisted men allowed!
Nuclear physicist Niels Bohr was rescued in the nick of time from German occupied Denmark. While Danish resistance fighters provided covering fire he ran out the back door of his home stopping momentarily to grab a beer bottle full of precious “heavy water”. He finally reached England still clutching the bottle, which contained beer. Perhaps some German drank the heavy water…
Contributed by Ronald Padavan, LTC, CAP MIWG Chief of Staff MSGT, USAF (Ret.) Past President Lodge 143, Fraternal Order of Police
As printed in, The Victory Division News. No. 4. December, 2000.
Top 10's Facts About Computer Storage
The magnetic HDD is 50 years old (#). In 1956 IBM introduced 305 RAMAC (random access method of accounting and control), which is like the great-great-great grandfather of today’s disks. It was the size of a refrigerator, and stored a total of 4.4 megabytes on 50 doubled-sided, two-foot-diameter disks. The disk had a density of 2,000 bits of data per square inch and had a purchase price of $10,000,000 per Gbyte.
Today’s laptop drives are typically 2.5 inches and are a size of a deck of cards, and can store upto 160 gigabytes – or 131 billion bits per square inch. Price is less than $1 per gigabyte.
Consumers bought 739.7 million gigabytes of hard-drive storage space last year. That is 11 times what they bought in 2003. (NYT)
In the U.S. alone, $600 million worth of external hard drives were sold in 2006, up 53% from 2005, The NPD Group, a market research firm, says. (NYT)
External hard drive prices declined 28.4% from $197 in 2003 to $141 in 2006 and the amount of storage space on the drives doubled.(NYT)
Per Gigabyte retail price of hard disk drive storage in 2003 was $2.04, but in 2006 it was 77 cents, according to The NPD Group.
The recording density for data — aka capacity — has increased 60,000,000-fold in 50 years.
The amount of worldwide information is projected to grow from 161 exabytes in 2006 to 988 exabytes in 2010. An Exabyte is a million terabytes.(WWD)
By 2010, the total amount of data will overwhelm the total amount of digital storage by a factor of nearly 2 to 1. 2007 is the year that our ability to stuff bits into the digital universe will outstrip our ability to store them.(WWD)
Research shows that in large-scale IT installations, the annual disk replacement rates typically exceed 1%, with 2-4% common and up to 13% observed on some systems.
Today’s laptop drives are typically 2.5 inches and are a size of a deck of cards, and can store upto 160 gigabytes – or 131 billion bits per square inch. Price is less than $1 per gigabyte.
Consumers bought 739.7 million gigabytes of hard-drive storage space last year. That is 11 times what they bought in 2003. (NYT)
In the U.S. alone, $600 million worth of external hard drives were sold in 2006, up 53% from 2005, The NPD Group, a market research firm, says. (NYT)
External hard drive prices declined 28.4% from $197 in 2003 to $141 in 2006 and the amount of storage space on the drives doubled.(NYT)
Per Gigabyte retail price of hard disk drive storage in 2003 was $2.04, but in 2006 it was 77 cents, according to The NPD Group.
The recording density for data — aka capacity — has increased 60,000,000-fold in 50 years.
The amount of worldwide information is projected to grow from 161 exabytes in 2006 to 988 exabytes in 2010. An Exabyte is a million terabytes.(WWD)
By 2010, the total amount of data will overwhelm the total amount of digital storage by a factor of nearly 2 to 1. 2007 is the year that our ability to stuff bits into the digital universe will outstrip our ability to store them.(WWD)
Research shows that in large-scale IT installations, the annual disk replacement rates typically exceed 1%, with 2-4% common and up to 13% observed on some systems.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Lessons Learned from Movies: Movie Lessons
Lessons Learned from Movies: Movie Lessons
We all love a good film, right? If your parents were anything like mine, movies made great after school distractions, weekend entertainment, and even a decent babysitter every now and again. It is no wonder that I have ended up using movies as my source for information about the world. Thanks to Romero I’m solid if zombies ever show up at my door, and I know all the attractions I need to hit next time I’m in Tokyo thanks to Godzilla. Movies have taught me some valuable lessons over the years, and hopefully I can pass on some of the wisdom I’ve gleaned to you. Who knows, maybe that goateed fellow behind you is your evil twin…
Things I would never know if it wasn’t for movies:
Large, loft-style apartments in New York City are well within the price range of most people–whether they are employed or not.
At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil.
Should you decide to defuse a bomb, don’t worry which wire to cut. You will always choose the right one.
Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading alien society.
It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts–your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.
When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your bedroom will still be clearly visible, just slightly bluish.
Radiation cause interesting mutations–not to your future children, but to you, right then and there.
If you are blonde and pretty, it is possible to become a world expert on nuclear fission at the age of 22.
Honest and hard working policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before their retirement.
Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their archenemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gasses, lasers, and man-eating sharks, which will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.
During all police investigations. it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.
Most dogs are immortal.
All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets that reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.
All grocery shopping bags contain at least one loaf of French bread.
It’s easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
Once applied, lipstick will never rub off–even while scuba diving.
The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building you want without difficulty.
You’re very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.
Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do.
The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.
A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.
If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will be thrown through it before long.
Kitchens don’t have light switches.
If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises in their most revealing underwear.
Word processors never display a cursor on screen but will always say: Enter Password Now.
Any person waking from a nightmare will bolt upright and pant.
It is not necessary to say hello or goodbye when beginning or ending phone conversations.
Even when driving down a perfectly straight road, it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.
All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they’re going to go off.
A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.
If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.
Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their total opposite.
When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.
An electric fence, powerful enough to kill a dinosaur will cause no lasting damage to an eight-year-old child.
Television news bulletins usually contain a story that affects you personally at that precise moment.
We all love a good film, right? If your parents were anything like mine, movies made great after school distractions, weekend entertainment, and even a decent babysitter every now and again. It is no wonder that I have ended up using movies as my source for information about the world. Thanks to Romero I’m solid if zombies ever show up at my door, and I know all the attractions I need to hit next time I’m in Tokyo thanks to Godzilla. Movies have taught me some valuable lessons over the years, and hopefully I can pass on some of the wisdom I’ve gleaned to you. Who knows, maybe that goateed fellow behind you is your evil twin…
Things I would never know if it wasn’t for movies:
Large, loft-style apartments in New York City are well within the price range of most people–whether they are employed or not.
At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil.
Should you decide to defuse a bomb, don’t worry which wire to cut. You will always choose the right one.
Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading alien society.
It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts–your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.
When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your bedroom will still be clearly visible, just slightly bluish.
Radiation cause interesting mutations–not to your future children, but to you, right then and there.
If you are blonde and pretty, it is possible to become a world expert on nuclear fission at the age of 22.
Honest and hard working policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before their retirement.
Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their archenemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gasses, lasers, and man-eating sharks, which will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.
During all police investigations. it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.
Most dogs are immortal.
All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets that reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.
All grocery shopping bags contain at least one loaf of French bread.
It’s easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
Once applied, lipstick will never rub off–even while scuba diving.
The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building you want without difficulty.
You’re very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.
Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do.
The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.
A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.
If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will be thrown through it before long.
Kitchens don’t have light switches.
If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises in their most revealing underwear.
Word processors never display a cursor on screen but will always say: Enter Password Now.
Any person waking from a nightmare will bolt upright and pant.
It is not necessary to say hello or goodbye when beginning or ending phone conversations.
Even when driving down a perfectly straight road, it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.
All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they’re going to go off.
A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.
If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.
Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their total opposite.
When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.
An electric fence, powerful enough to kill a dinosaur will cause no lasting damage to an eight-year-old child.
Television news bulletins usually contain a story that affects you personally at that precise moment.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Top 100 Weird Facts About Human Body
The human body is an incredibly complex and intricate system, one that still baffles doctors and
researchers on a regular basis despite thousands of years of medical knowledge. As a result, it
shouldn’t be any surprise that even body parts and functions we deal with every day have bizarre or unexpected facts and explanations behind them. From sneezes to fingernail growth, here are 100 weird, wacky, and interesting facts about the human body.
The Brain
The human brain is the most complex and least understood part of the human anatomy. There
may be a lot we don’t know, but here are a few interesting facts that we’ve got covered.
1. Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour. Ever
wonder how you can react so fast to things around you or why that stubbed toe hurts right
away? It’s due to the superspeedy
movement of nerve impulses from your brain to the
rest of your body and vice versa, bringing reactions at the speed of a high powered luxury
sports car.
2. The brain operates on the same amount of power as 10watt
light bulb. The cartoon
image of a light bulb over your head when a great thought occurs isn’t too far off the
mark. Your brain generates as much energy as a small light bulb even when you’re
sleeping.
3. The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the Encyclopedia
Britannica. Or any other encyclopedia for that matter. Scientists have yet to settle on a
definitive amount, but the storage capacity of the brain in electronic terms is thought to
be between 3 or even 1,000 terabytes. The National Archives of Britain, containing over
900 years of history, only takes up 70 terabytes, making your brain’s memory power
pretty darn impressive.
4. Your brain uses 20% of the oxygen that enters your bloodstream. The brain only
makes up about 2% of our body mass, yet consumes more oxygen than any other organ in
the body, making it extremely susceptible to damage related to oxygen deprivation. So
breathe deep to keep your brain happy and swimming in oxygenated cells.
5. The brain is much more active at night than during the day. Logically, you would
think that all the moving around, complicated calculations and tasks and general
interaction we do on a daily basis during our working hours would take a lot more brain
power than, say, lying in bed. Turns out, the opposite is true. When you turn off your
brain turns on. Scientists don’t yet know why this is but you can thank the hard work of
your brain while you sleep for all those pleasant dreams.
6. Scientists say the higher your I.Q. the more you dream. While this may be true, don’t
take it as a sign you’re mentally lacking if you can’t recall your dreams. Most of us don’t
remember many of our dreams and the average length of most dreams is only 23
seconds–barely long enough to register.
7. Neurons continue to grow throughout human life. For years scientists and doctors
thought that brain and neural tissue couldn’t grow or regenerate. While it doesn’t act in
the same manner as tissues in many other parts of the body, neurons can and do grow
throughout your life, adding a whole new dimension to the study of the brain and the
illnesses that affect it.
8. Information travels at different speeds within different types of neurons. Not all
neurons are the same. There are a few different types within the body and transmission
along these different kinds can be as slow as 0.5 meters/sec or as fast as 120 meters/sec.
9. The brain itself cannot feel pain. While the brain might be the pain center when you cut
your finger or burn yourself, the brain itself does not have pain receptors and cannot feel
pain. That doesn’t mean your head can’t hurt. The brain is surrounded by loads of tissues,
nerves and blood vessels that are plenty receptive to pain and can give you a pounding
headache.
10. 80% of the brain is water. Your brain isn’t the firm, gray mass you’ve seen on TV.
Living brain tissue is a squishy, pink and jellylike
organ thanks to the loads of blood and
high water content of the tissue. So the next time you’re feeling dehydrated get a drink to
keep your brain hydrated.
Hair and Nails
While they’re not a living part of your body, most people spend a good amount of time caring for
their hair and nails. The next time you’re heading in for a haircut or manicure, think of these
facts.
11. Facial hair grows faster than any other hair on the body. If you’ve ever had a
covering of stubble on your face as you’re clocking out at 5 o’clock you’re probably
pretty familiar with this. In fact, if the average man never shaved his beard it would grow
to over 30 feet during his lifetime, longer than a killer whale.
12. Every day the average person loses 60100 strands of hair. Unless you’re already
bald, chances are good that you’re shedding pretty heavily on a daily basis. Your hair loss
will vary in accordance with the season, pregnancy, illness, diet and age.
13. Women’s hair is about half the diameter of men’s hair. While it might sound strange,
it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that men’s hair should be coarser than that of
women. Hair diameter also varies on average between races, making hair plugs on some
men look especially obvious.
14. One human hair can support 3.5 ounces. That’s about the weight of two full size candy
bars, and with hundreds of thousands of hairs on the human head, makes the tale of
Rapunzel much more plausible.
15. The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger. And the nail on the middle finger of
your dominant hand will grow the fastest of all. Why is not entirely known, but nail
growth is related to the length of the finger, with the longest fingers growing nails the
fastest and shortest the slowest.
16. There are as many hairs per square inch on your body as a chimpanzee. Humans are
not quite the naked apes that we’re made out to be. We have lots of hair, but on most of
us it’s not obvious as a majority of the hairs are too fine or light to be seen.
17. Blondes have more hair. They’re said to have more fun, and they definitely have more
hair. Hair color determines how dense the hair on your head is. The average human has
100,000 hair follicles, each of which is capable of producing 20 individual hairs during a
person’s lifetime. Blondes average 146,000 follicles while people with black hair tend to
have about 110,000 follicles. Those with brown hair fit the average with 100,000 follicles
and redheads have the least dense hair, with about 86,000 follicles.
18. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails. If you notice that you’re
trimming your fingernails much more frequently than your toenails you’re not just
imagining it. The nails that get the most exposure and are used most frequently grow the
fastest. On average, nails on both the toes and fingers grow about onetenth
of an inch each month.
19. The lifespan of a human hair is 3 to 7 years on average. While you quite a few hairs
each day, your hairs actually have a pretty long life providing they aren’t subject to any
trauma. Your hairs will likely get to see several different haircuts, styles, and even
possibly decades before they fall out on their own.
20. You must lose over 50% of your scalp hairs before it is apparent to anyone. You lose
hundreds of hairs a day but you’ll have to lose a lot more before you or anyone else will
notice. Half of the hairs on your pretty little head will have to disappear before your
impending baldness will become obvious to all those around you.
21. Human hair is virtually indestructible. Aside from it’s flammability, human hair
decays at such a slow rate that it is practically nondisintegrative.
If you’ve ever wondered how your how clogs up your pipes so quick consider this: hair cannot be destroyed by cold, change of climate, water, or other natural forces and it is resistant to
many kinds of acids and corrosive chemicals.
Internal Organs
Though we may not give them much thought unless they’re bothering us, our internal organs are what allow us to go on eating, breathing and walking around. Here are some things to consider the next time you hear your stomach growl.
22. The largest internal organ is the small intestine. Despite being called the smaller of the
two intestines, your small intestine is actually four times as long as the average adult is
tall. If it weren’t looped back and forth upon itself it wouldn’t fit inside the abdominal
cavity.
23. The human heart creates enough pressure to squirt blood 30 feet. No wonder you can
feel your heartbeat so easily. Pumping blood through your body quickly and efficiently
takes quite a bit of pressure resulting in the strong contractions of the heart and the thick
walls of the ventricles which push blood to the body.
24. The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razorblades. While you
certainly shouldn’t test the fortitude of your stomach by eating a razorblade or any other
metal object for that matter, the acids that digest the food you eat aren’t to be taken
lightly. Hydrochloric acid, the type found in your stomach, is not only good at dissolving
the pizza you had for dinner but can also eat through many types of metal.
25. The human body is estimated to have 60,000 miles of blood vessels. To put that in
perspective, the distance around the earth is about 25,000 miles, making the distance your
blood vessels could travel if laid end to end more than two times around the earth.
26. You get a new stomach lining every three to four days. The mucuslike
cells lining the walls of the stomach would soon dissolve due to the strong digestive acids in your
stomach if they weren’t constantly replaced. Those with ulcers know how painful it can
be when stomach acid takes its toll on the lining of your stomach.
27. The surface area of a human lung is equal to a tennis court. In order to more
efficiently oxygenate the blood, the lungs are filled with thousands of branching bronchi
and tiny, grapelike alveoli. These are filled with microscopic capillaries which oxygen
and carbon dioxide. The large amount of surface area makes it easier for this exchange to
take place, and makes sure you stay properly oxygenated at all times.
28. Women’s hearts beat faster than men’s.The main reason for this is simply that on
average women tend to be smaller than men and have less mass to pump blood to. But
women’s and men’s hearts can actually act quite differently, especially when
experiencing trauma like a heart attack, and many treatments that work for men must be
adjusted or changed entirely to work for women.
29. Scientists have counted over 500 different liver functions. You may not think much
about your liver except after a long night of drinking, but the liver is one of the body’s
hardest working, largest and busiest organs. Some of the functions your liver performs
are: production of bile, decomposition of red blood cells, plasma protein synthesis, and
detoxification.
30. The aorta is nearly the diameter of a garden hose. The average adult heart is about the
size of two fists, making the size of the aorta quite impressive. The artery needs to be so
large as it is the main supplier of rich, oxygenated blood to the rest of the body.
31. Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart. For most
people, if they were asked to draw a picture of what the lungs look like they would draw
both looking roughly the same size. While the lungs are fairly similar in size, the human
heart, though located fairly centrally, is tilted slightly to the left making it take up more
room on that side of the body and crowding out that poor left lung.
32. You could remove a large part of your internal organs and survive. The human body
may appear fragile but it’s possible to survive even with the removal of the stomach, the
spleen, 75 percent of the liver, 80 percent of the intestines, one kidney, one lung, and
virtually every organ from the pelvic and groin area. You might not feel too great, but the
missing organs wouldn’t kill you.
33. The adrenal glands change size throughout life. The adrenal glands, lying right above
the kidneys, are responsible for releasing stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. In
the seventh month of a fetus’ development, the glands are roughly the same size as the
kidneys. At birth, the glands have shrunk slightly and will continue to do so throughout
life. In fact, by the time a person reaches old age, the glands are so small they can hardly
be seen.
Bodily Functions
We may not always like to talk about them, but everyone has to deal with bodily functions on a
daily basis. These are a few facts about the involuntary and sometimes unpleasant actions of our
bodies.
34. Sneezes regularly exceed 100 mph. There’s a good reason why you can’t keep your
eyes open when you sneeze–that sneeze is rocketing out of your body at close to 100
mph. This is, of course, a good reason to cover your mouth when you sneeze.
35. Coughs clock in at about 60 mph. Viruses and colds get spread around the office and
the classroom quickly during cold and flu season. With 60 mph coughs spraying germs
far and wide, it’s no wonder.
36. Women blink twice as many times as men do. That’s a lot of blinking every day. The
average person, man or woman, blinks about 13 times a minute.
37. A full bladder is roughly the size of a soft ball. No wonder you have to run to bathroom
when you feel the call of the wild. The average bladder holds about 400800
cc of fluid but most people will feel the urge to go long before that at 250 to 300 cc.
38. Approximately 75% of human waste is made of water. While we might typically think
that urine is the liquid part of human waste products, the truth is that what we consider
solid waste is actually mostly water as well. You should be thankful that most waste is
fairly waterfilled, as drier harder stools are what cause constipation and are much harder
and sometimes painful to pass.
39. Feet have 500,000 sweat glands and can produce more than a pint of sweat a day.
With that kind of sweatproducing power it’s no wonder that your gym shoes have a
stench that can peel paint. Additionally, men usually have much more active sweat glands
than women.
40. During your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools.
Saliva plays an important part in beginning the digestive process and keeping the mouth
lubricated, and your mouth produces quite a bit of it on a daily basis.
41. The average person expels flatulence 14 times each day. Even if you’d like to think
you’re too dignified to pass gas, the reality is that almost everyone will at least a few
times a day. Digestion causes the body to release gases which can be painful if trapped in
the abdomen and not released.
42. Earwax production is necessary for good ear health. While many people find earwax
to be disgusting, it’s actually a very important part of your ear’s defense system. It
protects the delicate inner ear from bacteria, fungus, dirt and even insects. It also cleans
and lubricates the ear canal.
Sex and Reproduction
As taboo as it may be in some places, sex is an important part of human life as a facet of
relationships and the means to reproduce. Here are a few things you might not have known.
43. On any given day, sexual intercourse takes place 120 million times on earth. Humans
are a quickly proliferating species, and with about 4% of the world’s population having
sex on any given day, it’s no wonder that birth rates continue to increase in many places
all over the world.
44. The largest cell in the human body is the female egg and the smallest is the male
sperm. While you can’t see skin cells or muscle cells, the ovum is typically large enough
to be seen with the naked eye with a diameter of about a millimeter. The sperm cell, on
the other hand, is tiny, consisting of little more than nucleus.
45. The three things pregnant women dream most of during their first trimester are
frogs, worms and potted plants. Pregnancy hormones can cause mood swings, cravings
and many other unexpected changes. Oddly enough, hormones can often affect the types
of dreams women have and their vividness. The most common are these three types, but
many women also dream of water, giving birth or even have violent or sexually charged
dreams.
46. Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born. While few babies are born
with teeth in place, the teeth that will eventually push through the gums of young children
are formed long before the child even leaves the womb. At 9 to 12 weeks the fetus starts
to form the teeth buds that will turn into baby teeth.
47. Babies are always born with blue eyes. The color of your eyes depends on the genes
you get from your parents, but at birth most babies appear to have blue eyes. The reason
behind this is the pigment melanin. The melanin in a newborn’s eyes often needs time
after birth to be fully deposited or to be darkened by exposure to ultraviolet light, later
revealing the baby’s true eye color.
48. Babies are, pound for pound, stronger than an ox. While a baby certainly couldn’t
pull a covered wagon at its present size, if the child were the size of an oxen it just might
very well be able to. Babies have especially strong and powerful legs for such tiny
creatures, so watch out for those kicks.
49. One out of every 2,000 newborn infants has a tooth when they are born. Nursing
mothers may cringe at this fact. Sometimes the tooth is a regular baby tooth that has
already erupted and sometimes it is an extra tooth that will fall out before the other set of
choppers comes in.
50. A fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of three months. When only a small fraction
of the way through its development, a fetus will have already developed one of the most
unique human traits: fingerprints. At only 613 weeks of development, the whorls of what
will be fingerprints have already developed. Oddly enough, those fingerprints will not
change throughout the person’s life and will be one of the last things to disappear after
death.
51. Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell. All life has to begin
somewhere, and even the largest humans spent a short part of their lives as a single celled
organism when sperm and egg cells first combine. Shortly afterward, the cells begin
rapidly dividing and begin forming the components of a tiny embryo.
52. Most men have erections every hour to hour and a half during sleep. Most people’s
bodies and minds are much more active when they’re sleeping than they think. The
combination of blood circulation and testosterone production can cause erections during
sleep and they’re often a normal and necessary part of REM sleep.
Senses
The primary means by which we interact with the world around us is through our senses. Here
are some interesting facts about these five sensory abilities.
53. After eating too much, your hearing is less sharp. If you’re heading to a concert or a
musical after a big meal you may be doing yourself a disservice. Try eating a smaller
meal if you need to keep your hearing pitch perfect.
54. About one third of the human race has 2020 vision. Glasses and contact wearers are
hardly alone in a world where two thirds of the population have less than perfect vision.
The amount of people with perfect vision decreases further as they age.
55. If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it. In order for foods, or anything
else, to have a taste, chemicals from the substance must be dissolved by saliva. If you
don’t believe it, try drying off your tongue before tasting something.
56. Women are born better smellers than men and remain better smellers over life.
Studies have shown that women are more able to correctly pinpoint just what a smell is.
Women were better able to identify citrus, vanilla, cinnamon and coffee smells. While
women are overall better smellers, there is an unfortunate 2% of the population with no
sense of smell at all.
57. Your nose can remember 50,000 different scents. While a bloodhound’s nose may be a
million times more sensitive than a human’s, that doesn’t mean that the human sense of
smell is useless. Humans can identify a wide variety of scents and many are strongly tied
to memories.
58. Even small noises cause the pupils of the eyes to dilate. It is believed that this is why
surgeons, watchmakers and others who perform delicate manual operations are so
bothered by uninvited noise. The sound causes their pupils to change focus and blur their
vision, making it harder to do their job well.
59. Everyone has a unique smell, except for identical twins. Newborns are able to
recognize the smell of their mothers and many of us can pinpoint the smell of our
significant others and those we are close to. Part of that smell is determined by genetics,
but it’s also largely do to environment, diet and personal hygiene products that create a
unique chemistry for each person.
Aging and Death
From the very young to the very old, aging is a necessary and unavoidable part of life. Learn
about the process with these interesting, if somewhat strange facts.
60. The ashes of a cremated person average about 9 pounds. A big part of what gives the
human body weight is the water trapped in our cells. Once cremated, that water and a
majority of our tissues are destroyed, leaving little behind.
61. Nails and hair do not continue to grow after we die. They do appear longer when we
die, however, as the skin dehydrates and pulls back from the nail beds and scalp.
62. By the age of 60, most people will have lost about half their taste buds. Perhaps you
shouldn’t trust your grandma’s cooking as much as you do. Older individuals tend to lose
their ability to taste, and many find that they need much more intense flavoring in order
to be able to fully appreciate a dish.
63. Your eyes are always the same size from birth but your nose and ears never stop
growing. When babies look up at you with those big eyes, they’re the same size that
they’ll be carrying around in their bodies for the rest of their lives. Their ears and nose,
however, will grow throughout their lives and research has shown that growth peaks in
seven year cycles.
64. By 60 years of age, 60percent of men and 40percent of women will snore. If you’ve
ever been kept awake by a snoring loved one you know the sound can be deafening.
Normal snores average around 60 decibels, the noise level of normal speech, intense
snores can reach more than 80 decibels, the approximate level caused by a jackhammer
breaking up concrete.
65. A baby’s head is onequarter of it’s total length, but by age 25 will only be oneeighth
of its total length. As it turns out, our adorably oversized baby heads won’t
change size as drastically as the rest of our body. The legs and torso will lengthen, but the
head won’t get much longer.
Disease and Injury
Most of us will get injured or sick at some point in our lives. Here are some facts on how the
human body reacts to the stresses and dangers from the outside world.
66. Monday is the day of the week when the risk of heart attack is greatest. Yet another
reason to loathe Mondays! A ten year study in Scotland found that 20% more people die
of heart attacks on Mondays than any other day of the week. Researchers theorize that it’s
a combination of too much fun over the weekend with the stress of going back to work
that causes the increase.
67. Humans can make do longer without food than sleep. While you might feel better
prepared to stay up all night partying than to give up eating, that feeling will be relatively
short lived. Provided there is water, the average human could survive a month to two
months without food depending on their body fat and other factors. Sleep deprived
people, however, start experiencing radical personality and psychological changes after
only a few sleepless days. The longest recorded time anyone has ever gone without sleep
is 11 days, at the end of which the experimenter was awake, but stumbled over words,
hallucinated and frequently forgot what he was doing.
68. A simple, moderately severe sunburn damages the blood vessels extensively. How
extensively? Studies have shown that it can take four to fifteen months for them to return
to their normal condition. Consider that the next time you’re feeling too lazy to apply
sunscreen before heading outside.
69. Over 90% of diseases are caused or complicated by stress. That high stress job you
have could be doing more than just wearing you down each day. It could also be
increasing your chances of having a variety of serious medical conditions like depression,
high blood pressure and heart disease.
70. A human head remains conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it is been
decapitated. While it might be gross to think about, the blood in the head may be enough
to keep someone alive and conscious for a few seconds after the head has been separated
from the body, though reports as to the accuracy of this are widely varying.
Muscles and Bones
Muscles and Bones provide the framework for our bodies and allow us to jump, run or just lie on
the couch. Here are a few facts to ponder the next time you’re lying around.
71. It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown. Unless you’re trying to give your face a
bit of a workout, smiling is a much easier option for most of us. Anyone who’s ever
scowled, squinted or frowned for a long period of time knows how it tires out the face
which doesn’t do a thing to improve your mood.
72. Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood the number is reduced to 206. The
reason for this is that many of the bones of children are composed of smaller component
bones that are not yet fused like those in the skull. This makes it easier for the baby to
pass through the birth canal. The bones harden and fuse as the children grow.
73. We are about 1 cm taller in the morning than in the evening. The cartilage between
our bones gets compressed by standing, sitting and other daily activities as the day goes
on, making us just a little shorter at the end of the day than at the beginning.
74. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. While you may not be able to
bench press much with your tongue, it is in fact the strongest muscle in your body in
proportion to its size. If you think about it, every time you eat, swallow or talk you use
your tongue, ensuring it gets quite a workout throughout the day.
75. The hardest bone in the human body is the jawbone. The next time someone suggests
you take it on the chin, you might be well advised to take their advice as the jawbone is
one of the most durable and hard to break bones in the body.
76. You use 200 muscles to take one step. Depending on how you divide up muscle groups,
just to take a single step you use somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 muscles. That’s
a lot of work for the muscles considering most of us take about 10,000 steps a day.
77. The tooth is the only part of the human body that can’t repair itself. If you’ve ever
chipped a tooth you know just how sadly true this one is. The outer layer of the tooth is
enamel which is not a living tissue. Since it’s not alive, it can’t repair itself, leaving your
dentist to do the work instead.
78. It takes twice as long to lose new muscle if you stop working out than it did to gain
it. Lazy people out there shouldn’t use this as motivation to not work out, however. It’s
relatively easy to build new muscle tissue and get your muscles in shape, so if anything,
this fact should be motivation to get off the couch and get moving.
79. Bone is stronger than some steel. This doesn’t mean your bones can’t break of course,
as they are much less dense than steel. Bone has been found to have a tensile strength of
20,000 psi while steel is much higher at 70,000 psi. Steel is much heavier than bone,
however, and pound for pound bone is the stronger material.
80. The feet account for one quarter of all the human body’s bones. You may not give
your feet much thought but they are home to more bones than any other part of your
body. How many? Of the two hundred or so bones in the body, the feet contain a
whopping 52 of them.
Microscopic Level
Much of what takes place in our bodies happens at a level that we simply can’t see with the
naked eye. These facts will show you that sometimes that might be for the best.
81. About 32 million bacteria call every inch of your skin home. Germaphobes don’t need
to worry however, as a majority of these are entirely harmless and some are even helpful
in maintaining a healthy body.
82. Humans shed and regrow outer skin cells about every 27 days. Skin protects your
delicate internal organs from the elements and as such, dries and flakes off completely
about once a month so that it can maintain its strength. Chances are that last month’s skin
is still hanging around your house in the form of the dust on your bookshelf or under the
couch.
83. Three hundred million cells die in the human body every minute. While that sounds
like a lot, it’s really just a small fraction of the cells that are in the human body. Estimates
have placed the total number of cells in the body at 1050
trillion so you can afford to lose a few hundred million without a hitch.
84. Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour. You may not think much
about losing skin if yours isn’t dry or flaky or peeling from a sunburn, but your skin is
constantly renewing itself and shedding dead cells.
85. Every day an adult body produces 300 billion new cells. Your body not only needs
energy to keep your organs up and running but also to constantly repair and build new
cells to form the building blocks of your body itself.
86. Every tongue print is unique. If you’re planning on committing a crime, don’t think
you’ll get away with leaving a tongue print behind. Each tongue is different and yours
could be unique enough to finger you as the culprit.
87. Your body has enough iron in it to make a nail 3 inches long. Anyone who has ever
tasted blood knows that it has a slightly metallic taste. This is due to the high levels of
iron in the blood. If you were to take all of this iron out of the body, you’d have enough
to make a small nail and very severe anemia.
88. The most common blood type in the world is Type O. Blood banks find it valuable as
it can be given to those with both type A and B blood. The rarest blood type, AH
or Bombay blood due to the location of its discovery, has been found in less than hundred
people since it was discovered.
89. Human lips have a reddish color because of the great concentration of tiny
capillaries just below the skin. The blood in these capillaries is normally highly
oxygenated and therefore quite red. This explains why the lips appear pale when a person
is anemic or has lost a great deal of blood. It also explains why the lips turn blue in very
cold weather. Cold causes the capillaries to constrict, and the blood loses oxygen and
changes to a darker color.
Miscellaneous
Here are a few things you might not have known about all different parts of your anatomy.
90. The colder the room you sleep in, the better the chances are that you’ll have a bad
dream. It isn’t entirely clear to scientists why this is the case, but if you are opposed to
having nightmares you might want to keep yourself a little toastier at night.
91. Tears and mucus contain an enzyme (lysozyme) that breaks down the cell wall of
many bacteria. This is to your advantage, as the mucus that lines your nose and throat,
as well as the tears that wet your eyes are helping to prevent bacteria from infecting those
areas and making you sick.
92. Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon of water to a
boil. If you’ve seen the Matrix you are aware of the energy potentially generated by the
human body. Our bodies expend a large amount of calories keeping us at a steady 98.6
degrees, enough to boil water or even cook pasta.
93. Your ears secrete more earwax when you are afraid than when you aren’t. The
chemicals and hormones released when you are afraid could be having unseen effects on
your body in the form of earwax. Studies have suggested that fear causes the ears to
produce more of the sticky substance, though the reasons are not yet clear.
94. It is not possible to tickle yourself. Even the most ticklish among us do not have the
ability to tickle ourselves. The reason behind this is that your brain predicts the tickle
from information it already has, like how your fingers are moving. Because it knows and
can feel where the tickle is coming from, your brain doesn’t respond in the same way as it
would if someone else was doing the tickling.
95. The width of your armspan stretched out is the length of your whole body. While not
exact down to the last millimeter, your armspan is a pretty good estimator of your height.
96. Humans are the only animals to produce emotional tears. In the animal world,
humans are the biggest crybabies, being the only animals who cry because they’ve had a
bad day, lost a loved one, or just don’t feel good.
97. Righthanded people live, on average, nine years longer than lefthanded
people do. This doesn’t have a genetic basis, but is largely due to the fact that a majority of the
machines and tools we use on a daily basis are designed for those who are right handed,
making them somewhat dangerous for lefties to use and resulting in thousands of
accidents and deaths each year.
98. Women burn fat more slowly than men, by a rate of about 50 calories a day. Most
men have a much easier time burning fat than women. Women, because of their
reproductive role, generally require a higher basic body fat proportion than men, and as a
result their bodies don’t get rid of excess fat at the same rate as men.
99. Koalas and primates are the only animals with unique fingerprints. Humans, apes
and koalas are unique in the animal kingdom due to the tiny prints on the fingers of their
hands. Studies on primates have suggested that even cloned individuals have unique
fingerprints.
100. The indentation in the middle of the area between the nose and the upper lip
has a name. It is called the philtrum. Scientists have yet to figure out what purpose this
indentation serves, though the ancient Greeks thought it to be one of the most erogenous
places on the body.
researchers on a regular basis despite thousands of years of medical knowledge. As a result, it
shouldn’t be any surprise that even body parts and functions we deal with every day have bizarre or unexpected facts and explanations behind them. From sneezes to fingernail growth, here are 100 weird, wacky, and interesting facts about the human body.
The Brain
The human brain is the most complex and least understood part of the human anatomy. There
may be a lot we don’t know, but here are a few interesting facts that we’ve got covered.
1. Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour. Ever
wonder how you can react so fast to things around you or why that stubbed toe hurts right
away? It’s due to the superspeedy
movement of nerve impulses from your brain to the
rest of your body and vice versa, bringing reactions at the speed of a high powered luxury
sports car.
2. The brain operates on the same amount of power as 10watt
light bulb. The cartoon
image of a light bulb over your head when a great thought occurs isn’t too far off the
mark. Your brain generates as much energy as a small light bulb even when you’re
sleeping.
3. The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the Encyclopedia
Britannica. Or any other encyclopedia for that matter. Scientists have yet to settle on a
definitive amount, but the storage capacity of the brain in electronic terms is thought to
be between 3 or even 1,000 terabytes. The National Archives of Britain, containing over
900 years of history, only takes up 70 terabytes, making your brain’s memory power
pretty darn impressive.
4. Your brain uses 20% of the oxygen that enters your bloodstream. The brain only
makes up about 2% of our body mass, yet consumes more oxygen than any other organ in
the body, making it extremely susceptible to damage related to oxygen deprivation. So
breathe deep to keep your brain happy and swimming in oxygenated cells.
5. The brain is much more active at night than during the day. Logically, you would
think that all the moving around, complicated calculations and tasks and general
interaction we do on a daily basis during our working hours would take a lot more brain
power than, say, lying in bed. Turns out, the opposite is true. When you turn off your
brain turns on. Scientists don’t yet know why this is but you can thank the hard work of
your brain while you sleep for all those pleasant dreams.
6. Scientists say the higher your I.Q. the more you dream. While this may be true, don’t
take it as a sign you’re mentally lacking if you can’t recall your dreams. Most of us don’t
remember many of our dreams and the average length of most dreams is only 23
seconds–barely long enough to register.
7. Neurons continue to grow throughout human life. For years scientists and doctors
thought that brain and neural tissue couldn’t grow or regenerate. While it doesn’t act in
the same manner as tissues in many other parts of the body, neurons can and do grow
throughout your life, adding a whole new dimension to the study of the brain and the
illnesses that affect it.
8. Information travels at different speeds within different types of neurons. Not all
neurons are the same. There are a few different types within the body and transmission
along these different kinds can be as slow as 0.5 meters/sec or as fast as 120 meters/sec.
9. The brain itself cannot feel pain. While the brain might be the pain center when you cut
your finger or burn yourself, the brain itself does not have pain receptors and cannot feel
pain. That doesn’t mean your head can’t hurt. The brain is surrounded by loads of tissues,
nerves and blood vessels that are plenty receptive to pain and can give you a pounding
headache.
10. 80% of the brain is water. Your brain isn’t the firm, gray mass you’ve seen on TV.
Living brain tissue is a squishy, pink and jellylike
organ thanks to the loads of blood and
high water content of the tissue. So the next time you’re feeling dehydrated get a drink to
keep your brain hydrated.
Hair and Nails
While they’re not a living part of your body, most people spend a good amount of time caring for
their hair and nails. The next time you’re heading in for a haircut or manicure, think of these
facts.
11. Facial hair grows faster than any other hair on the body. If you’ve ever had a
covering of stubble on your face as you’re clocking out at 5 o’clock you’re probably
pretty familiar with this. In fact, if the average man never shaved his beard it would grow
to over 30 feet during his lifetime, longer than a killer whale.
12. Every day the average person loses 60100 strands of hair. Unless you’re already
bald, chances are good that you’re shedding pretty heavily on a daily basis. Your hair loss
will vary in accordance with the season, pregnancy, illness, diet and age.
13. Women’s hair is about half the diameter of men’s hair. While it might sound strange,
it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that men’s hair should be coarser than that of
women. Hair diameter also varies on average between races, making hair plugs on some
men look especially obvious.
14. One human hair can support 3.5 ounces. That’s about the weight of two full size candy
bars, and with hundreds of thousands of hairs on the human head, makes the tale of
Rapunzel much more plausible.
15. The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger. And the nail on the middle finger of
your dominant hand will grow the fastest of all. Why is not entirely known, but nail
growth is related to the length of the finger, with the longest fingers growing nails the
fastest and shortest the slowest.
16. There are as many hairs per square inch on your body as a chimpanzee. Humans are
not quite the naked apes that we’re made out to be. We have lots of hair, but on most of
us it’s not obvious as a majority of the hairs are too fine or light to be seen.
17. Blondes have more hair. They’re said to have more fun, and they definitely have more
hair. Hair color determines how dense the hair on your head is. The average human has
100,000 hair follicles, each of which is capable of producing 20 individual hairs during a
person’s lifetime. Blondes average 146,000 follicles while people with black hair tend to
have about 110,000 follicles. Those with brown hair fit the average with 100,000 follicles
and redheads have the least dense hair, with about 86,000 follicles.
18. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails. If you notice that you’re
trimming your fingernails much more frequently than your toenails you’re not just
imagining it. The nails that get the most exposure and are used most frequently grow the
fastest. On average, nails on both the toes and fingers grow about onetenth
of an inch each month.
19. The lifespan of a human hair is 3 to 7 years on average. While you quite a few hairs
each day, your hairs actually have a pretty long life providing they aren’t subject to any
trauma. Your hairs will likely get to see several different haircuts, styles, and even
possibly decades before they fall out on their own.
20. You must lose over 50% of your scalp hairs before it is apparent to anyone. You lose
hundreds of hairs a day but you’ll have to lose a lot more before you or anyone else will
notice. Half of the hairs on your pretty little head will have to disappear before your
impending baldness will become obvious to all those around you.
21. Human hair is virtually indestructible. Aside from it’s flammability, human hair
decays at such a slow rate that it is practically nondisintegrative.
If you’ve ever wondered how your how clogs up your pipes so quick consider this: hair cannot be destroyed by cold, change of climate, water, or other natural forces and it is resistant to
many kinds of acids and corrosive chemicals.
Internal Organs
Though we may not give them much thought unless they’re bothering us, our internal organs are what allow us to go on eating, breathing and walking around. Here are some things to consider the next time you hear your stomach growl.
22. The largest internal organ is the small intestine. Despite being called the smaller of the
two intestines, your small intestine is actually four times as long as the average adult is
tall. If it weren’t looped back and forth upon itself it wouldn’t fit inside the abdominal
cavity.
23. The human heart creates enough pressure to squirt blood 30 feet. No wonder you can
feel your heartbeat so easily. Pumping blood through your body quickly and efficiently
takes quite a bit of pressure resulting in the strong contractions of the heart and the thick
walls of the ventricles which push blood to the body.
24. The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razorblades. While you
certainly shouldn’t test the fortitude of your stomach by eating a razorblade or any other
metal object for that matter, the acids that digest the food you eat aren’t to be taken
lightly. Hydrochloric acid, the type found in your stomach, is not only good at dissolving
the pizza you had for dinner but can also eat through many types of metal.
25. The human body is estimated to have 60,000 miles of blood vessels. To put that in
perspective, the distance around the earth is about 25,000 miles, making the distance your
blood vessels could travel if laid end to end more than two times around the earth.
26. You get a new stomach lining every three to four days. The mucuslike
cells lining the walls of the stomach would soon dissolve due to the strong digestive acids in your
stomach if they weren’t constantly replaced. Those with ulcers know how painful it can
be when stomach acid takes its toll on the lining of your stomach.
27. The surface area of a human lung is equal to a tennis court. In order to more
efficiently oxygenate the blood, the lungs are filled with thousands of branching bronchi
and tiny, grapelike alveoli. These are filled with microscopic capillaries which oxygen
and carbon dioxide. The large amount of surface area makes it easier for this exchange to
take place, and makes sure you stay properly oxygenated at all times.
28. Women’s hearts beat faster than men’s.The main reason for this is simply that on
average women tend to be smaller than men and have less mass to pump blood to. But
women’s and men’s hearts can actually act quite differently, especially when
experiencing trauma like a heart attack, and many treatments that work for men must be
adjusted or changed entirely to work for women.
29. Scientists have counted over 500 different liver functions. You may not think much
about your liver except after a long night of drinking, but the liver is one of the body’s
hardest working, largest and busiest organs. Some of the functions your liver performs
are: production of bile, decomposition of red blood cells, plasma protein synthesis, and
detoxification.
30. The aorta is nearly the diameter of a garden hose. The average adult heart is about the
size of two fists, making the size of the aorta quite impressive. The artery needs to be so
large as it is the main supplier of rich, oxygenated blood to the rest of the body.
31. Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart. For most
people, if they were asked to draw a picture of what the lungs look like they would draw
both looking roughly the same size. While the lungs are fairly similar in size, the human
heart, though located fairly centrally, is tilted slightly to the left making it take up more
room on that side of the body and crowding out that poor left lung.
32. You could remove a large part of your internal organs and survive. The human body
may appear fragile but it’s possible to survive even with the removal of the stomach, the
spleen, 75 percent of the liver, 80 percent of the intestines, one kidney, one lung, and
virtually every organ from the pelvic and groin area. You might not feel too great, but the
missing organs wouldn’t kill you.
33. The adrenal glands change size throughout life. The adrenal glands, lying right above
the kidneys, are responsible for releasing stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. In
the seventh month of a fetus’ development, the glands are roughly the same size as the
kidneys. At birth, the glands have shrunk slightly and will continue to do so throughout
life. In fact, by the time a person reaches old age, the glands are so small they can hardly
be seen.
Bodily Functions
We may not always like to talk about them, but everyone has to deal with bodily functions on a
daily basis. These are a few facts about the involuntary and sometimes unpleasant actions of our
bodies.
34. Sneezes regularly exceed 100 mph. There’s a good reason why you can’t keep your
eyes open when you sneeze–that sneeze is rocketing out of your body at close to 100
mph. This is, of course, a good reason to cover your mouth when you sneeze.
35. Coughs clock in at about 60 mph. Viruses and colds get spread around the office and
the classroom quickly during cold and flu season. With 60 mph coughs spraying germs
far and wide, it’s no wonder.
36. Women blink twice as many times as men do. That’s a lot of blinking every day. The
average person, man or woman, blinks about 13 times a minute.
37. A full bladder is roughly the size of a soft ball. No wonder you have to run to bathroom
when you feel the call of the wild. The average bladder holds about 400800
cc of fluid but most people will feel the urge to go long before that at 250 to 300 cc.
38. Approximately 75% of human waste is made of water. While we might typically think
that urine is the liquid part of human waste products, the truth is that what we consider
solid waste is actually mostly water as well. You should be thankful that most waste is
fairly waterfilled, as drier harder stools are what cause constipation and are much harder
and sometimes painful to pass.
39. Feet have 500,000 sweat glands and can produce more than a pint of sweat a day.
With that kind of sweatproducing power it’s no wonder that your gym shoes have a
stench that can peel paint. Additionally, men usually have much more active sweat glands
than women.
40. During your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools.
Saliva plays an important part in beginning the digestive process and keeping the mouth
lubricated, and your mouth produces quite a bit of it on a daily basis.
41. The average person expels flatulence 14 times each day. Even if you’d like to think
you’re too dignified to pass gas, the reality is that almost everyone will at least a few
times a day. Digestion causes the body to release gases which can be painful if trapped in
the abdomen and not released.
42. Earwax production is necessary for good ear health. While many people find earwax
to be disgusting, it’s actually a very important part of your ear’s defense system. It
protects the delicate inner ear from bacteria, fungus, dirt and even insects. It also cleans
and lubricates the ear canal.
Sex and Reproduction
As taboo as it may be in some places, sex is an important part of human life as a facet of
relationships and the means to reproduce. Here are a few things you might not have known.
43. On any given day, sexual intercourse takes place 120 million times on earth. Humans
are a quickly proliferating species, and with about 4% of the world’s population having
sex on any given day, it’s no wonder that birth rates continue to increase in many places
all over the world.
44. The largest cell in the human body is the female egg and the smallest is the male
sperm. While you can’t see skin cells or muscle cells, the ovum is typically large enough
to be seen with the naked eye with a diameter of about a millimeter. The sperm cell, on
the other hand, is tiny, consisting of little more than nucleus.
45. The three things pregnant women dream most of during their first trimester are
frogs, worms and potted plants. Pregnancy hormones can cause mood swings, cravings
and many other unexpected changes. Oddly enough, hormones can often affect the types
of dreams women have and their vividness. The most common are these three types, but
many women also dream of water, giving birth or even have violent or sexually charged
dreams.
46. Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born. While few babies are born
with teeth in place, the teeth that will eventually push through the gums of young children
are formed long before the child even leaves the womb. At 9 to 12 weeks the fetus starts
to form the teeth buds that will turn into baby teeth.
47. Babies are always born with blue eyes. The color of your eyes depends on the genes
you get from your parents, but at birth most babies appear to have blue eyes. The reason
behind this is the pigment melanin. The melanin in a newborn’s eyes often needs time
after birth to be fully deposited or to be darkened by exposure to ultraviolet light, later
revealing the baby’s true eye color.
48. Babies are, pound for pound, stronger than an ox. While a baby certainly couldn’t
pull a covered wagon at its present size, if the child were the size of an oxen it just might
very well be able to. Babies have especially strong and powerful legs for such tiny
creatures, so watch out for those kicks.
49. One out of every 2,000 newborn infants has a tooth when they are born. Nursing
mothers may cringe at this fact. Sometimes the tooth is a regular baby tooth that has
already erupted and sometimes it is an extra tooth that will fall out before the other set of
choppers comes in.
50. A fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of three months. When only a small fraction
of the way through its development, a fetus will have already developed one of the most
unique human traits: fingerprints. At only 613 weeks of development, the whorls of what
will be fingerprints have already developed. Oddly enough, those fingerprints will not
change throughout the person’s life and will be one of the last things to disappear after
death.
51. Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell. All life has to begin
somewhere, and even the largest humans spent a short part of their lives as a single celled
organism when sperm and egg cells first combine. Shortly afterward, the cells begin
rapidly dividing and begin forming the components of a tiny embryo.
52. Most men have erections every hour to hour and a half during sleep. Most people’s
bodies and minds are much more active when they’re sleeping than they think. The
combination of blood circulation and testosterone production can cause erections during
sleep and they’re often a normal and necessary part of REM sleep.
Senses
The primary means by which we interact with the world around us is through our senses. Here
are some interesting facts about these five sensory abilities.
53. After eating too much, your hearing is less sharp. If you’re heading to a concert or a
musical after a big meal you may be doing yourself a disservice. Try eating a smaller
meal if you need to keep your hearing pitch perfect.
54. About one third of the human race has 2020 vision. Glasses and contact wearers are
hardly alone in a world where two thirds of the population have less than perfect vision.
The amount of people with perfect vision decreases further as they age.
55. If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it. In order for foods, or anything
else, to have a taste, chemicals from the substance must be dissolved by saliva. If you
don’t believe it, try drying off your tongue before tasting something.
56. Women are born better smellers than men and remain better smellers over life.
Studies have shown that women are more able to correctly pinpoint just what a smell is.
Women were better able to identify citrus, vanilla, cinnamon and coffee smells. While
women are overall better smellers, there is an unfortunate 2% of the population with no
sense of smell at all.
57. Your nose can remember 50,000 different scents. While a bloodhound’s nose may be a
million times more sensitive than a human’s, that doesn’t mean that the human sense of
smell is useless. Humans can identify a wide variety of scents and many are strongly tied
to memories.
58. Even small noises cause the pupils of the eyes to dilate. It is believed that this is why
surgeons, watchmakers and others who perform delicate manual operations are so
bothered by uninvited noise. The sound causes their pupils to change focus and blur their
vision, making it harder to do their job well.
59. Everyone has a unique smell, except for identical twins. Newborns are able to
recognize the smell of their mothers and many of us can pinpoint the smell of our
significant others and those we are close to. Part of that smell is determined by genetics,
but it’s also largely do to environment, diet and personal hygiene products that create a
unique chemistry for each person.
Aging and Death
From the very young to the very old, aging is a necessary and unavoidable part of life. Learn
about the process with these interesting, if somewhat strange facts.
60. The ashes of a cremated person average about 9 pounds. A big part of what gives the
human body weight is the water trapped in our cells. Once cremated, that water and a
majority of our tissues are destroyed, leaving little behind.
61. Nails and hair do not continue to grow after we die. They do appear longer when we
die, however, as the skin dehydrates and pulls back from the nail beds and scalp.
62. By the age of 60, most people will have lost about half their taste buds. Perhaps you
shouldn’t trust your grandma’s cooking as much as you do. Older individuals tend to lose
their ability to taste, and many find that they need much more intense flavoring in order
to be able to fully appreciate a dish.
63. Your eyes are always the same size from birth but your nose and ears never stop
growing. When babies look up at you with those big eyes, they’re the same size that
they’ll be carrying around in their bodies for the rest of their lives. Their ears and nose,
however, will grow throughout their lives and research has shown that growth peaks in
seven year cycles.
64. By 60 years of age, 60percent of men and 40percent of women will snore. If you’ve
ever been kept awake by a snoring loved one you know the sound can be deafening.
Normal snores average around 60 decibels, the noise level of normal speech, intense
snores can reach more than 80 decibels, the approximate level caused by a jackhammer
breaking up concrete.
65. A baby’s head is onequarter of it’s total length, but by age 25 will only be oneeighth
of its total length. As it turns out, our adorably oversized baby heads won’t
change size as drastically as the rest of our body. The legs and torso will lengthen, but the
head won’t get much longer.
Disease and Injury
Most of us will get injured or sick at some point in our lives. Here are some facts on how the
human body reacts to the stresses and dangers from the outside world.
66. Monday is the day of the week when the risk of heart attack is greatest. Yet another
reason to loathe Mondays! A ten year study in Scotland found that 20% more people die
of heart attacks on Mondays than any other day of the week. Researchers theorize that it’s
a combination of too much fun over the weekend with the stress of going back to work
that causes the increase.
67. Humans can make do longer without food than sleep. While you might feel better
prepared to stay up all night partying than to give up eating, that feeling will be relatively
short lived. Provided there is water, the average human could survive a month to two
months without food depending on their body fat and other factors. Sleep deprived
people, however, start experiencing radical personality and psychological changes after
only a few sleepless days. The longest recorded time anyone has ever gone without sleep
is 11 days, at the end of which the experimenter was awake, but stumbled over words,
hallucinated and frequently forgot what he was doing.
68. A simple, moderately severe sunburn damages the blood vessels extensively. How
extensively? Studies have shown that it can take four to fifteen months for them to return
to their normal condition. Consider that the next time you’re feeling too lazy to apply
sunscreen before heading outside.
69. Over 90% of diseases are caused or complicated by stress. That high stress job you
have could be doing more than just wearing you down each day. It could also be
increasing your chances of having a variety of serious medical conditions like depression,
high blood pressure and heart disease.
70. A human head remains conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it is been
decapitated. While it might be gross to think about, the blood in the head may be enough
to keep someone alive and conscious for a few seconds after the head has been separated
from the body, though reports as to the accuracy of this are widely varying.
Muscles and Bones
Muscles and Bones provide the framework for our bodies and allow us to jump, run or just lie on
the couch. Here are a few facts to ponder the next time you’re lying around.
71. It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown. Unless you’re trying to give your face a
bit of a workout, smiling is a much easier option for most of us. Anyone who’s ever
scowled, squinted or frowned for a long period of time knows how it tires out the face
which doesn’t do a thing to improve your mood.
72. Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood the number is reduced to 206. The
reason for this is that many of the bones of children are composed of smaller component
bones that are not yet fused like those in the skull. This makes it easier for the baby to
pass through the birth canal. The bones harden and fuse as the children grow.
73. We are about 1 cm taller in the morning than in the evening. The cartilage between
our bones gets compressed by standing, sitting and other daily activities as the day goes
on, making us just a little shorter at the end of the day than at the beginning.
74. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. While you may not be able to
bench press much with your tongue, it is in fact the strongest muscle in your body in
proportion to its size. If you think about it, every time you eat, swallow or talk you use
your tongue, ensuring it gets quite a workout throughout the day.
75. The hardest bone in the human body is the jawbone. The next time someone suggests
you take it on the chin, you might be well advised to take their advice as the jawbone is
one of the most durable and hard to break bones in the body.
76. You use 200 muscles to take one step. Depending on how you divide up muscle groups,
just to take a single step you use somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 muscles. That’s
a lot of work for the muscles considering most of us take about 10,000 steps a day.
77. The tooth is the only part of the human body that can’t repair itself. If you’ve ever
chipped a tooth you know just how sadly true this one is. The outer layer of the tooth is
enamel which is not a living tissue. Since it’s not alive, it can’t repair itself, leaving your
dentist to do the work instead.
78. It takes twice as long to lose new muscle if you stop working out than it did to gain
it. Lazy people out there shouldn’t use this as motivation to not work out, however. It’s
relatively easy to build new muscle tissue and get your muscles in shape, so if anything,
this fact should be motivation to get off the couch and get moving.
79. Bone is stronger than some steel. This doesn’t mean your bones can’t break of course,
as they are much less dense than steel. Bone has been found to have a tensile strength of
20,000 psi while steel is much higher at 70,000 psi. Steel is much heavier than bone,
however, and pound for pound bone is the stronger material.
80. The feet account for one quarter of all the human body’s bones. You may not give
your feet much thought but they are home to more bones than any other part of your
body. How many? Of the two hundred or so bones in the body, the feet contain a
whopping 52 of them.
Microscopic Level
Much of what takes place in our bodies happens at a level that we simply can’t see with the
naked eye. These facts will show you that sometimes that might be for the best.
81. About 32 million bacteria call every inch of your skin home. Germaphobes don’t need
to worry however, as a majority of these are entirely harmless and some are even helpful
in maintaining a healthy body.
82. Humans shed and regrow outer skin cells about every 27 days. Skin protects your
delicate internal organs from the elements and as such, dries and flakes off completely
about once a month so that it can maintain its strength. Chances are that last month’s skin
is still hanging around your house in the form of the dust on your bookshelf or under the
couch.
83. Three hundred million cells die in the human body every minute. While that sounds
like a lot, it’s really just a small fraction of the cells that are in the human body. Estimates
have placed the total number of cells in the body at 1050
trillion so you can afford to lose a few hundred million without a hitch.
84. Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour. You may not think much
about losing skin if yours isn’t dry or flaky or peeling from a sunburn, but your skin is
constantly renewing itself and shedding dead cells.
85. Every day an adult body produces 300 billion new cells. Your body not only needs
energy to keep your organs up and running but also to constantly repair and build new
cells to form the building blocks of your body itself.
86. Every tongue print is unique. If you’re planning on committing a crime, don’t think
you’ll get away with leaving a tongue print behind. Each tongue is different and yours
could be unique enough to finger you as the culprit.
87. Your body has enough iron in it to make a nail 3 inches long. Anyone who has ever
tasted blood knows that it has a slightly metallic taste. This is due to the high levels of
iron in the blood. If you were to take all of this iron out of the body, you’d have enough
to make a small nail and very severe anemia.
88. The most common blood type in the world is Type O. Blood banks find it valuable as
it can be given to those with both type A and B blood. The rarest blood type, AH
or Bombay blood due to the location of its discovery, has been found in less than hundred
people since it was discovered.
89. Human lips have a reddish color because of the great concentration of tiny
capillaries just below the skin. The blood in these capillaries is normally highly
oxygenated and therefore quite red. This explains why the lips appear pale when a person
is anemic or has lost a great deal of blood. It also explains why the lips turn blue in very
cold weather. Cold causes the capillaries to constrict, and the blood loses oxygen and
changes to a darker color.
Miscellaneous
Here are a few things you might not have known about all different parts of your anatomy.
90. The colder the room you sleep in, the better the chances are that you’ll have a bad
dream. It isn’t entirely clear to scientists why this is the case, but if you are opposed to
having nightmares you might want to keep yourself a little toastier at night.
91. Tears and mucus contain an enzyme (lysozyme) that breaks down the cell wall of
many bacteria. This is to your advantage, as the mucus that lines your nose and throat,
as well as the tears that wet your eyes are helping to prevent bacteria from infecting those
areas and making you sick.
92. Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon of water to a
boil. If you’ve seen the Matrix you are aware of the energy potentially generated by the
human body. Our bodies expend a large amount of calories keeping us at a steady 98.6
degrees, enough to boil water or even cook pasta.
93. Your ears secrete more earwax when you are afraid than when you aren’t. The
chemicals and hormones released when you are afraid could be having unseen effects on
your body in the form of earwax. Studies have suggested that fear causes the ears to
produce more of the sticky substance, though the reasons are not yet clear.
94. It is not possible to tickle yourself. Even the most ticklish among us do not have the
ability to tickle ourselves. The reason behind this is that your brain predicts the tickle
from information it already has, like how your fingers are moving. Because it knows and
can feel where the tickle is coming from, your brain doesn’t respond in the same way as it
would if someone else was doing the tickling.
95. The width of your armspan stretched out is the length of your whole body. While not
exact down to the last millimeter, your armspan is a pretty good estimator of your height.
96. Humans are the only animals to produce emotional tears. In the animal world,
humans are the biggest crybabies, being the only animals who cry because they’ve had a
bad day, lost a loved one, or just don’t feel good.
97. Righthanded people live, on average, nine years longer than lefthanded
people do. This doesn’t have a genetic basis, but is largely due to the fact that a majority of the
machines and tools we use on a daily basis are designed for those who are right handed,
making them somewhat dangerous for lefties to use and resulting in thousands of
accidents and deaths each year.
98. Women burn fat more slowly than men, by a rate of about 50 calories a day. Most
men have a much easier time burning fat than women. Women, because of their
reproductive role, generally require a higher basic body fat proportion than men, and as a
result their bodies don’t get rid of excess fat at the same rate as men.
99. Koalas and primates are the only animals with unique fingerprints. Humans, apes
and koalas are unique in the animal kingdom due to the tiny prints on the fingers of their
hands. Studies on primates have suggested that even cloned individuals have unique
fingerprints.
100. The indentation in the middle of the area between the nose and the upper lip
has a name. It is called the philtrum. Scientists have yet to figure out what purpose this
indentation serves, though the ancient Greeks thought it to be one of the most erogenous
places on the body.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Top 10's Funny Computer Jokes
TOP TEN MICROSOFT NON-MONOPOLISTIC SLOGANS
10) Competition is good. 90% market share is better.
9) We're disappointed that the US government failed to reach a reasonable settlement with Microsoft. We thought that our press release last year about Microsoft buying the US government took care of these little details.
8) We support a free marketplace. So long as our support is visibly branded everywhere, at any price.
7) The Road Ahead: Revised edition, "How to avoid the sink holes."
6) When in doubt, spend gobs of cash on ads in all the major newspapers on a one-day rampage against government. That always beats befriending politicians and bureaucrats.
5) We value our customers. That's why we only charge $75 per question on our toll-free tech support phone lines! (Hey, at least the phone call is free)!
4) Just because our marketing memos effectively caught us with our pants down and our hands in the cookie jar, doesn't mean we can't bully our way out of this mess.
3) We love the idea of competition. That's why we bought a huge chunk of Apple.
2) The US economy depends heavily on Microsoft's ability to release software patches on time. Yeah, and that also proves how insignificant and non-monopolistic we are as compared to our software competitors.
and finally,
1) No Netscape for you!
10) Competition is good. 90% market share is better.
9) We're disappointed that the US government failed to reach a reasonable settlement with Microsoft. We thought that our press release last year about Microsoft buying the US government took care of these little details.
8) We support a free marketplace. So long as our support is visibly branded everywhere, at any price.
7) The Road Ahead: Revised edition, "How to avoid the sink holes."
6) When in doubt, spend gobs of cash on ads in all the major newspapers on a one-day rampage against government. That always beats befriending politicians and bureaucrats.
5) We value our customers. That's why we only charge $75 per question on our toll-free tech support phone lines! (Hey, at least the phone call is free)!
4) Just because our marketing memos effectively caught us with our pants down and our hands in the cookie jar, doesn't mean we can't bully our way out of this mess.
3) We love the idea of competition. That's why we bought a huge chunk of Apple.
2) The US economy depends heavily on Microsoft's ability to release software patches on time. Yeah, and that also proves how insignificant and non-monopolistic we are as compared to our software competitors.
and finally,
1) No Netscape for you!
Top 10 DVD and HDD Camcorders
PC World Staff
10. VDR-D210 DVD-RAM CAMCORDER (SILVER)
Bottom Line: This novice-friendly model offers optical image stabilization, but its battery life is weak, and the lack of a USB port and a memory card slot limits its appeal.
PC World Rating: 72 (Good)
32X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
No video assist light
Mini DVD-RAM/-R/-RW/-R DL
Price when reviewed: $380
Last Rated: May 19, 2007
9. Hitachi DZHS300A
Bottom Line: This hybrid camcorder allows you to dub video from its hard drive to a mini-DVD disc without a PC. Low photo quality and mediocre battery life hurt its standing, however.
PC World Rating: 72 (Good)
25X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
Built-in video assist light
8GB hard drive, Mini DVD-RAM/-R/-RW, SD Card
Price when reviewed: $570
Last Rated: May 19, 2007
8. Panasonic VDR-D210
Bottom Line: This novice-friendly model offers optical image stabilization, but its battery life is weak, and the lack of a USB port and a memory card slot limits its appeal.
PC World Rating: 72 (Good)
32X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
No video assist light
Mini DVD-RAM/-R/-RW/-R DL
Price when reviewed: $380
Last Rated: May 19, 2007
7. Sony DCR-SR42 Handycam
Bottom Line: This HDD camcorder has a touch screen and a powerful zoom, and it delivers long battery life; however, you don't get a video light or white-balance calibration.
PC World Rating: 74 (Good)
40X optical zoom
2.5-inch wide-aspect LCD touch screen
No video assist light
30GB hard drive, Memory Stick Pro Duo card
Price when reviewed: $540
Last Rated: May 18, 2007
6. Panasonic SDR-H200
Bottom Line: Another three-CCD model, the SDR-H200 scored well with optical image stabilization and a good software package, but it carries a hefty price tag.
PC World Rating: 76 (Good)
10X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
Built-in video assist light
30GB hard drive, SD/SDHC Card
Price when reviewed: $270
Last Rated: May 18, 2007
5. JVC Everio GZ-MG555
Bottom Line: Dedicated buttons make DVD burning and file copying a breeze, and you get a microphone jack.For the high price, however, video quality was subpar.
PC World Rating: 79 (Good)
10X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
Built-in video assist light
30GB hard drive, SD Card
Price when reviewed: $900
Last Rated: May 18, 2007
4. Panasonic VDR-D310
Bottom Line: This three-CCD DVD-baased model has optical image stabilization, supports DVD-RAM, and comes with a microphone jack, but it lacks a full manual mode and a video light.
PC World Rating: 79 (Good)
10X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
No video assist light
Mini DVD-RAM/-R/-RW/-R DL, SD/SDHC Card
Price when reviewed: $630
Last Rated: May 18, 2007
3. JVC Everio GZ-MG155
Bottom Line: This model delivers high video quality and has dedicated buttons for burning DVDs without a PC and for copying files to a computer. Photos were disappointing, however.
PC World Rating: 82 (Very Good)
32X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
Built-in video assist light
30GB hard drive, SD Card
Price when reviewed: $600
Last Rated: May 17, 2007
2. Canon DC50
Bottom Line: The DC50 supplies optical image stabilization, top-notch image quality, and many specialized controls, though operation isn't always intuitive.
PC World Rating: 82 (Very Good)
10X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
Built-in video assist light
Mini DVD-R/-RW/-R DL, Mini SD Card
Price when reviewed: $720
Last Rated: May 17, 2007
1. Sony DCR-DVD408 DVD Handycam
Bottom Line: This sturdy, well-designed model offers easy one-handed operation and a touch screen for menu navigation, but it lacks white-balance calibration.
PC World Rating: 84 (Very Good)
10X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD touch screen
Built-in video assist light
Mini DVD-R/-RW/+RW/+R DL, Memory Stick Pro Duo card
Price when reviewed: $630
Last Rated: May 17, 2007
10. VDR-D210 DVD-RAM CAMCORDER (SILVER)
Bottom Line: This novice-friendly model offers optical image stabilization, but its battery life is weak, and the lack of a USB port and a memory card slot limits its appeal.
PC World Rating: 72 (Good)
32X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
No video assist light
Mini DVD-RAM/-R/-RW/-R DL
Price when reviewed: $380
Last Rated: May 19, 2007
9. Hitachi DZHS300A
Bottom Line: This hybrid camcorder allows you to dub video from its hard drive to a mini-DVD disc without a PC. Low photo quality and mediocre battery life hurt its standing, however.
PC World Rating: 72 (Good)
25X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
Built-in video assist light
8GB hard drive, Mini DVD-RAM/-R/-RW, SD Card
Price when reviewed: $570
Last Rated: May 19, 2007
8. Panasonic VDR-D210
Bottom Line: This novice-friendly model offers optical image stabilization, but its battery life is weak, and the lack of a USB port and a memory card slot limits its appeal.
PC World Rating: 72 (Good)
32X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
No video assist light
Mini DVD-RAM/-R/-RW/-R DL
Price when reviewed: $380
Last Rated: May 19, 2007
7. Sony DCR-SR42 Handycam
Bottom Line: This HDD camcorder has a touch screen and a powerful zoom, and it delivers long battery life; however, you don't get a video light or white-balance calibration.
PC World Rating: 74 (Good)
40X optical zoom
2.5-inch wide-aspect LCD touch screen
No video assist light
30GB hard drive, Memory Stick Pro Duo card
Price when reviewed: $540
Last Rated: May 18, 2007
6. Panasonic SDR-H200
Bottom Line: Another three-CCD model, the SDR-H200 scored well with optical image stabilization and a good software package, but it carries a hefty price tag.
PC World Rating: 76 (Good)
10X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
Built-in video assist light
30GB hard drive, SD/SDHC Card
Price when reviewed: $270
Last Rated: May 18, 2007
5. JVC Everio GZ-MG555
Bottom Line: Dedicated buttons make DVD burning and file copying a breeze, and you get a microphone jack.For the high price, however, video quality was subpar.
PC World Rating: 79 (Good)
10X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
Built-in video assist light
30GB hard drive, SD Card
Price when reviewed: $900
Last Rated: May 18, 2007
4. Panasonic VDR-D310
Bottom Line: This three-CCD DVD-baased model has optical image stabilization, supports DVD-RAM, and comes with a microphone jack, but it lacks a full manual mode and a video light.
PC World Rating: 79 (Good)
10X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
No video assist light
Mini DVD-RAM/-R/-RW/-R DL, SD/SDHC Card
Price when reviewed: $630
Last Rated: May 18, 2007
3. JVC Everio GZ-MG155
Bottom Line: This model delivers high video quality and has dedicated buttons for burning DVDs without a PC and for copying files to a computer. Photos were disappointing, however.
PC World Rating: 82 (Very Good)
32X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
Built-in video assist light
30GB hard drive, SD Card
Price when reviewed: $600
Last Rated: May 17, 2007
2. Canon DC50
Bottom Line: The DC50 supplies optical image stabilization, top-notch image quality, and many specialized controls, though operation isn't always intuitive.
PC World Rating: 82 (Very Good)
10X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD screen
Built-in video assist light
Mini DVD-R/-RW/-R DL, Mini SD Card
Price when reviewed: $720
Last Rated: May 17, 2007
1. Sony DCR-DVD408 DVD Handycam
Bottom Line: This sturdy, well-designed model offers easy one-handed operation and a touch screen for menu navigation, but it lacks white-balance calibration.
PC World Rating: 84 (Very Good)
10X optical zoom
2.7-inch wide-aspect LCD touch screen
Built-in video assist light
Mini DVD-R/-RW/+RW/+R DL, Memory Stick Pro Duo card
Price when reviewed: $630
Last Rated: May 17, 2007
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