Rihanna
Susan Boyle
LeBron James
Iced Tea Recipes
Retirement Planning
Stanley Cup Playoff…
Lincoln Memorial
Pushing Daisies
Canon PowerShot A48…
Baby Gift Baskets
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Top 10's Amazing Facts About Planets
Uranus' axis is at 97 degrees. which means that it orbits on its side. (Most of the planets spin on an axis nearly perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic but Uranus' axis is almost parallel to the ecliptic.)
The three most recently discovered planets were Uranus in 1781, Neptune in 1846, and Pluto in 1930.
Mercury is the only planet whose orbit is coplanar with its equator. Venus and Uranus are the only planets that rotate opposite to the direction of their orbit.
Jupiter has the shortest day of all the planets. Although it has a circumference of 280,000 miles compared with Earth's 25,000 Jupiter manages to make one turn in 9 hours and 55 minutes.
If you are having problems remembering the planets in their correct order, just remember this sentence "My very educated mother justed served us nine pickles," Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.
According to scientists, Gold exists on Mars, Mercury, and Venus.
The three most recently discovered planets were Uranus in 1781, Neptune in 1846, and Pluto in 1930.
Mercury is the only planet whose orbit is coplanar with its equator. Venus and Uranus are the only planets that rotate opposite to the direction of their orbit.
Jupiter has the shortest day of all the planets. Although it has a circumference of 280,000 miles compared with Earth's 25,000 Jupiter manages to make one turn in 9 hours and 55 minutes.
If you are having problems remembering the planets in their correct order, just remember this sentence "My very educated mother justed served us nine pickles," Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.
According to scientists, Gold exists on Mars, Mercury, and Venus.
Top 10's Amazing Facts About Google
1. Google receives daily search requests from all over the world, including Antarctica.
2. Google’s Home Page Has 63 Validation Errors. Don’t believe me?: Check Google Validation
3. The Google search engine receives about a billion search requests per day.
4. The infamous “I’m feeling lucky” button is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button.
5. Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked ‘Whats up?’ to which they replied “We are waiting for the rest of it”. To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker.
6. The name ‘Google’ was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for ‘Googol’.
7. Google has the largest network of translators in the world.
8. Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of projects that grew from this working model.
9. Google consists of over 450,000 servers, racked up in clusters located in data centers around the world.
10. Google started in January, 1996 as a research project at Stanford University, by Ph.D. candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were 24 years old and 23 years old respectively.
11. Google is a mathematical term 1 followed by one hundred zeroes. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasne.
12. Number of languages in which you can have the Google home page set up, including Urdu, Latin and Klingon: 88
13. Google translates billions of HTML web pages into a display format for WAP and i-mode phones and wireless handheld devices.
2. Google’s Home Page Has 63 Validation Errors. Don’t believe me?: Check Google Validation
3. The Google search engine receives about a billion search requests per day.
4. The infamous “I’m feeling lucky” button is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button.
5. Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked ‘Whats up?’ to which they replied “We are waiting for the rest of it”. To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker.
6. The name ‘Google’ was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for ‘Googol’.
7. Google has the largest network of translators in the world.
8. Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of projects that grew from this working model.
9. Google consists of over 450,000 servers, racked up in clusters located in data centers around the world.
10. Google started in January, 1996 as a research project at Stanford University, by Ph.D. candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were 24 years old and 23 years old respectively.
11. Google is a mathematical term 1 followed by one hundred zeroes. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasne.
12. Number of languages in which you can have the Google home page set up, including Urdu, Latin and Klingon: 88
13. Google translates billions of HTML web pages into a display format for WAP and i-mode phones and wireless handheld devices.
Top 10's Amazing Facts V
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
Each Jelly Belly jelly belly bean has 4 calories
The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
Only 55 percent of all Americans know that the sun is a star
Kissing can aid in reducing tooth decay. This is because the extra saliva helps in keeping the mouth clean
There is a place called Hell, Michigan. It is about 50 miles from Detroit, Michigan
In 1929, the Coca-Cola slogan was "The Pause That Refreshes."
Bamboo plants can grow up to 36 inches in a day.
Since the United Nations was founded in 1945, there have been 140 wars
Goat meat contains up to 45 percent less saturated fat than chicken meat
Chef Boyardee is actually a real person. His real name is Hector Boiardi and he was born in northern Italy in 1898
Bill Bowerman, the co-founder of the shoe company Nike, got his first shoe idea after staring at a waffle iron. This gave him the idea of using squared spikes to make the shoes lighter
In 1989, the space shuttle Discovery carried 32 fertilized chicken eggs into orbit
The most recycled product in the world is the automobile.
Before the 17th century, carrots used to be the colour purple
William Taft who was the U.S. president between 1909-1913 once got stuck in the White House bathtub
If all the Oreo cookies ever sold were stacked on top of one another, they would be as high as 13.3 million Sears Towers
Ancient Egyptians kissed with their noses instead of with their lips
Krispy Kreme make five million doughnut a day
The only real person to be a Pez head was Betsy Ross
There were no red colored M&Ms from 1976 to 1987
In 1681, the last dodo bird died
There are over 600 different pasta shapes
Some people start to sneeze if they are exposed to sunlight or have a light shined into their eye
In 1989, twenty-three people were hired in Jacksonville Florida just to flush toilets so the pipes would not freeze
Lake Baikal is the oldest freshwater lake on Earth, having formed between 20 and 25 million years ago
From 1939 to 1942, there was a undersea post office in the Bahamas
An owl has three eyelids
Instead of a birthday cake, many children in Russia are given a birthday pie
Atlantic salmon can jump as high as 4.5 meters out of the water
Although the outsides of a bone are hard, they are generally light and soft inside. They are about 75% water
Each nostril of a human being register smell in a different way. Smells that are made from the right nostril are more pleasant than the left. However, smells can be detected more accurately when made by the left nostril
Children who are breast fed tend to have an IQ seven points higher than children who are not
Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king fromhistory. Spades - King David; Clubs - Alexander the Great; Hearts -Charlemagne;and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
There are no ants in Iceland, Antarctica and Greenland
In the United States, approximately 135 million cars travel every day on the streets, roads, and interstates.
A salmon with two mouths, two sets of teeth and two tongues was caught by Bob Bateman of Canada
There is a "cemetery town" in California named Colma. Concerns about the public health, crime, and the need for space forced the city of San Francisco to outlaw burials in 1902. The city of Colma, which is five miles south of San Francisco, was established to bury the dead. The ratio of dead to living people is 750 to 1
Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors
In Belgium, there is a museum that is just for strawberries
The most reproduced image in the world is Mickey Mouse, which can be found on over 7,500 different items
On average a person passes gas 14 times a day
Vasaloppet, which is located in Sweden is the oldest, longest, and the biggest cross-country ski race in the world. Every year, 14,000 people compete in the race
The clown fish has the ability to change its sex. If a breeding female dies, the male fish will change its sex and mate with another male
Bats sleep during the day and feed at night. The place that bats sleep in is called the "roost."
The puma and the leopard are the highest jumping mammals. They are able to reach a height of 16.5 feet
The chances of getting a cavity is higher if candy is eaten slowly throughout the day compared to eating it all at once and then brushing your teeth
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building
On average, a car driver will swear or blashpheme 32,025 times in their lifetime while driving
The average ear grows 0.01 inches in length every year
The first penny candy to be wrapped in America was the Tootsie Roll in 1896
Buckingham Palace has over six hundred rooms
Male owls weigh less and are smaller than female owls
Hypnotism is banned by public schools in San Diego
The city of Las Vegas has the most hotel rooms in the world
Cows drink anywhere from 25-50 gallons of water each day
In the United Kingdom, three million people play bingo every year
Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms oftheir hands.
Every square inch of the human body has about 19,000,000 skin cells
In 1994, 7-Eleven coined the term "brain freeze." The word was developed to explain the feeling people get when drinking a Slurpee.
A swordfish can live as long as 25 years and weigh up to 1,200 pounds
Due to eating habits in the USA, one in three children born in the year 2000 have a chance of getting type II diabetes
The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.
Each honeycomb in Honeycomb cereal has seven holes
The Nile river is 6,690 kilometers long
By law, information collected in a U.S. census must remain confidential for seventy-two years
Eighty percent of 10 year old girls in the USA go on a diet
97% of all paper money in the US contains traces of cocaine
The name "Grey Poupon" used for mustard comes from two people: Maurice Grey and Auguste Poupon. Grey was the inventor of a machine that mass produced fine textured mustard, and Poupon was an already established maker of mustard. In 1886 the Grey-Poupon firm was formed
The Faberge, "Winter Egg" was sold in 1994 for $5.6 million. This is the most expensive decorative egg that has ever been sold
The name "Tonka" trucks was named after Lake Minnetonka located in Minnesota. Tonka means "great" in Sioux
18% of an Americans income is spent on transportation
Feb 1865 and Feb 1999 are the only months in recorded history not to have a full moon
Turkeys have a wingspan of approximately 4.5 feet
The first music video ever played on MTV Europe was by Dire Straits, "Money For Nothing."
Arnold Palmer was the first player to win $1 million on the PGA Tour
Three years after a person quits smoking, there chance of having a heart attack is the same as someone who has never smoked before
In a year, the average Americans eats approximately 18 pounds of Turkey
The household wrench was invented by boxing heavyweight champion Jack Johnson in 1922
Squids move through the ocean using a jet of water forced out of the body by a siphon
Back in 1796, dimes were called dismes
Pilgrims did not eat with forks. They only used spoons, knives and their fingers
The average human has about 20 square feet of skin weighing about 6 pounds
Mass murderer Charles Manson recorded an album titled "Lie."
On average, each American consumes approximately two hundred and sixty pounds of meat in a year
The term "The Big Apple" was coined by touring jazz musicians of the 1930s who used the slang expression "apple" for any town or city. Therefore, to play New York City is to play the big time - The Big Apple
An apple, potato, and onion all taste the same if you eat them with your nose plugged. They all taste sweet
The United States has paved enough roads to circle the Earth over 150 times.
Decaffeinated coffee is not 100% caffeine free. When coffee is being decaffeinated, 2% of the caffeine still remains in it
Sales of antacids increase by as much as 20% the day after the Superbowl
Automobile building is the largest manufacturing industry in the world.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes
Polar bears can eat as much as ten percent of their body weight in less than one hour
Marlboro was the first cigarette company to market a cigarette that had a red filter called "beauty tip." This was done to hide the lipstick marks left on the filter from women smokers
In Japan, the number four is considered to be unlucky because the Japanese word for four sounds very similar to the word death
The life expectancy of a $100 bill is nine years
Each Jelly Belly jelly belly bean has 4 calories
The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
Only 55 percent of all Americans know that the sun is a star
Kissing can aid in reducing tooth decay. This is because the extra saliva helps in keeping the mouth clean
There is a place called Hell, Michigan. It is about 50 miles from Detroit, Michigan
In 1929, the Coca-Cola slogan was "The Pause That Refreshes."
Bamboo plants can grow up to 36 inches in a day.
Since the United Nations was founded in 1945, there have been 140 wars
Goat meat contains up to 45 percent less saturated fat than chicken meat
Chef Boyardee is actually a real person. His real name is Hector Boiardi and he was born in northern Italy in 1898
Bill Bowerman, the co-founder of the shoe company Nike, got his first shoe idea after staring at a waffle iron. This gave him the idea of using squared spikes to make the shoes lighter
In 1989, the space shuttle Discovery carried 32 fertilized chicken eggs into orbit
The most recycled product in the world is the automobile.
Before the 17th century, carrots used to be the colour purple
William Taft who was the U.S. president between 1909-1913 once got stuck in the White House bathtub
If all the Oreo cookies ever sold were stacked on top of one another, they would be as high as 13.3 million Sears Towers
Ancient Egyptians kissed with their noses instead of with their lips
Krispy Kreme make five million doughnut a day
The only real person to be a Pez head was Betsy Ross
There were no red colored M&Ms from 1976 to 1987
In 1681, the last dodo bird died
There are over 600 different pasta shapes
Some people start to sneeze if they are exposed to sunlight or have a light shined into their eye
In 1989, twenty-three people were hired in Jacksonville Florida just to flush toilets so the pipes would not freeze
Lake Baikal is the oldest freshwater lake on Earth, having formed between 20 and 25 million years ago
From 1939 to 1942, there was a undersea post office in the Bahamas
An owl has three eyelids
Instead of a birthday cake, many children in Russia are given a birthday pie
Atlantic salmon can jump as high as 4.5 meters out of the water
Although the outsides of a bone are hard, they are generally light and soft inside. They are about 75% water
Each nostril of a human being register smell in a different way. Smells that are made from the right nostril are more pleasant than the left. However, smells can be detected more accurately when made by the left nostril
Children who are breast fed tend to have an IQ seven points higher than children who are not
Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king fromhistory. Spades - King David; Clubs - Alexander the Great; Hearts -Charlemagne;and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
There are no ants in Iceland, Antarctica and Greenland
In the United States, approximately 135 million cars travel every day on the streets, roads, and interstates.
A salmon with two mouths, two sets of teeth and two tongues was caught by Bob Bateman of Canada
There is a "cemetery town" in California named Colma. Concerns about the public health, crime, and the need for space forced the city of San Francisco to outlaw burials in 1902. The city of Colma, which is five miles south of San Francisco, was established to bury the dead. The ratio of dead to living people is 750 to 1
Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors
In Belgium, there is a museum that is just for strawberries
The most reproduced image in the world is Mickey Mouse, which can be found on over 7,500 different items
On average a person passes gas 14 times a day
Vasaloppet, which is located in Sweden is the oldest, longest, and the biggest cross-country ski race in the world. Every year, 14,000 people compete in the race
The clown fish has the ability to change its sex. If a breeding female dies, the male fish will change its sex and mate with another male
Bats sleep during the day and feed at night. The place that bats sleep in is called the "roost."
The puma and the leopard are the highest jumping mammals. They are able to reach a height of 16.5 feet
The chances of getting a cavity is higher if candy is eaten slowly throughout the day compared to eating it all at once and then brushing your teeth
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building
On average, a car driver will swear or blashpheme 32,025 times in their lifetime while driving
The average ear grows 0.01 inches in length every year
The first penny candy to be wrapped in America was the Tootsie Roll in 1896
Buckingham Palace has over six hundred rooms
Male owls weigh less and are smaller than female owls
Hypnotism is banned by public schools in San Diego
The city of Las Vegas has the most hotel rooms in the world
Cows drink anywhere from 25-50 gallons of water each day
In the United Kingdom, three million people play bingo every year
Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms oftheir hands.
Every square inch of the human body has about 19,000,000 skin cells
In 1994, 7-Eleven coined the term "brain freeze." The word was developed to explain the feeling people get when drinking a Slurpee.
A swordfish can live as long as 25 years and weigh up to 1,200 pounds
Due to eating habits in the USA, one in three children born in the year 2000 have a chance of getting type II diabetes
The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.
Each honeycomb in Honeycomb cereal has seven holes
The Nile river is 6,690 kilometers long
By law, information collected in a U.S. census must remain confidential for seventy-two years
Eighty percent of 10 year old girls in the USA go on a diet
97% of all paper money in the US contains traces of cocaine
The name "Grey Poupon" used for mustard comes from two people: Maurice Grey and Auguste Poupon. Grey was the inventor of a machine that mass produced fine textured mustard, and Poupon was an already established maker of mustard. In 1886 the Grey-Poupon firm was formed
The Faberge, "Winter Egg" was sold in 1994 for $5.6 million. This is the most expensive decorative egg that has ever been sold
The name "Tonka" trucks was named after Lake Minnetonka located in Minnesota. Tonka means "great" in Sioux
18% of an Americans income is spent on transportation
Feb 1865 and Feb 1999 are the only months in recorded history not to have a full moon
Turkeys have a wingspan of approximately 4.5 feet
The first music video ever played on MTV Europe was by Dire Straits, "Money For Nothing."
Arnold Palmer was the first player to win $1 million on the PGA Tour
Three years after a person quits smoking, there chance of having a heart attack is the same as someone who has never smoked before
In a year, the average Americans eats approximately 18 pounds of Turkey
The household wrench was invented by boxing heavyweight champion Jack Johnson in 1922
Squids move through the ocean using a jet of water forced out of the body by a siphon
Back in 1796, dimes were called dismes
Pilgrims did not eat with forks. They only used spoons, knives and their fingers
The average human has about 20 square feet of skin weighing about 6 pounds
Mass murderer Charles Manson recorded an album titled "Lie."
On average, each American consumes approximately two hundred and sixty pounds of meat in a year
The term "The Big Apple" was coined by touring jazz musicians of the 1930s who used the slang expression "apple" for any town or city. Therefore, to play New York City is to play the big time - The Big Apple
An apple, potato, and onion all taste the same if you eat them with your nose plugged. They all taste sweet
The United States has paved enough roads to circle the Earth over 150 times.
Decaffeinated coffee is not 100% caffeine free. When coffee is being decaffeinated, 2% of the caffeine still remains in it
Sales of antacids increase by as much as 20% the day after the Superbowl
Automobile building is the largest manufacturing industry in the world.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes
Polar bears can eat as much as ten percent of their body weight in less than one hour
Marlboro was the first cigarette company to market a cigarette that had a red filter called "beauty tip." This was done to hide the lipstick marks left on the filter from women smokers
In Japan, the number four is considered to be unlucky because the Japanese word for four sounds very similar to the word death
The life expectancy of a $100 bill is nine years
Top 10's Amazing Facts IV
In one day, 230 marriage licenses are issued in Las Vegas
Every second there are 418 Kit Kat fingers eaten in the world
The Great Comet of 1843 had a tail that was over 300 kilometres long.
The dumbest dog in the world is the Afghan Hounds
There are no blossoms on the branches of a fig tree, instead it is inside the fruit
The largest chicken egg ever laid weighed a pound and had a double yolk and shell
Billiards used to be so popular at one time that cigarette cards were issued featuring players
Chewing gum has rubber as an ingredient
An orca whale can hold its breath for up to 15 minutes
Alexander the Great was an epileptic
Wood frogs can be frozen solid and then thawed, and continue living. They use the glucose in their body to protect their vital organs while they are in a frozen state
Canadians eat more Kraft Dinner (Macaroni and Cheese) per capita than any other country in the world
In a day, a mature oak tree can draw approximately 50 gallons of water
The reason why bubble gum is pink is because the inventor only had pink colouring left. Ever since then, the colour of bubble gum has been predominantly pink
Emilio Marco Palma was the first person born in Antarctica in 1978
A top freestyle swimmer achieves a speed of only 4 miles per hour. Fish, in contrast, have been clocked at 68 mph
Every single hamster in the United States today comes from a single litter captured in Syria in 1930
Research on pigs led to the development of CAT scans.
The Hundred Years War lasted for 116 years
Some dolphins can swim up to 40 kilometers an hour
In the last 30 years, only seven people have been killed by a polar bear in Canada
The longest U.S. highway is Route 20, which is over 3,365 miles
The largest LEGO castle that was ever built was built with 400,000 LEGO bricks and was 4.45 m x 5.22 m
In the U.S. there are approximately 65.8 million cats
One of the steepest main streets in Canada is located in Saint John, New Brunswick. Over a distance of two blocks the street rises about 80 feet
Avery Laser Labels are named after company founder R. Stanton Avery
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado
On September 9, 1950 dubbed laughter was used for the first time on television. It was used for the sitcom "The Hank McCune Show."
A violin actually contains 70 separate pieces of wood
The human heart can create enough pressure that it could squirt blood at a distance of thirty feet
One out of four American households own a cat
Queen Lydia Liliuokalani was the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian Islands. She was also the only Queen the United States ever had
Every day 2,700 people die of heart disease
There are 10 million bacteria at the place where you rest your hands at a desk
The quills of a porcupine are soft when they are born
An average American child watches approximately 28 hours of television in one week
Quality standards for pasta were set in the 13th century by the Pope
The A.A. Milne character of Winnie the Pooh made his animated film debut in 1966 in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree
People have the tendency to chew the food on the side that they most often use their hand
Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any country
The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as isnecessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the ste of Virginia stillhad segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks andwhites.
The Lemon shark grows about 24,000 new teeth a year. A new set of teeth grow approximately every 14 days
One billion seconds is about 32 years
An average American eats approximately 60 hot dogs per year
Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation
The water displacement product, WD-40, can be found in 80% of American homes
Dexter is the smallest type of cow. This cow was bred to be a small size for household living
As part of the original design, the names of 72 French scientists and other famous people is imprinted on the sides of the Eiffel tower
The first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com
Thirty to 40 gallons of sugar maple sap must be boiled down to make just one gallon of maple syrup
The most frequent season for most suicides to occur is in the spring. The winter months have the lowest number of suicides
A seven year old boy was the first person to survive the Horeshoe Falls (Niagara Falls) in just a life jacket
The longest punt return for a touchdown was 103 yards
The most popular Hot Wheels vehicle sold is the Corvette
A giraffe is able to clean its ears with its own tongue
The slowest growing finger nail is on the thumb nail and the fastest growing is the finger nail on the middle finger
Flu shots only work about 70% of the time
People of Salt Lake City eat the most lime-flavoured gelatin Jell-O in the United States
In a survey conducted in 2000 by Kimberly-Clark, it was found that men prefer to fold their toilet paper, and women like to wad it
On average, a person has two million sweat glands
Every second there are 418 Kit Kat fingers eaten in the world
The Great Comet of 1843 had a tail that was over 300 kilometres long.
The dumbest dog in the world is the Afghan Hounds
There are no blossoms on the branches of a fig tree, instead it is inside the fruit
The largest chicken egg ever laid weighed a pound and had a double yolk and shell
Billiards used to be so popular at one time that cigarette cards were issued featuring players
Chewing gum has rubber as an ingredient
An orca whale can hold its breath for up to 15 minutes
Alexander the Great was an epileptic
Wood frogs can be frozen solid and then thawed, and continue living. They use the glucose in their body to protect their vital organs while they are in a frozen state
Canadians eat more Kraft Dinner (Macaroni and Cheese) per capita than any other country in the world
In a day, a mature oak tree can draw approximately 50 gallons of water
The reason why bubble gum is pink is because the inventor only had pink colouring left. Ever since then, the colour of bubble gum has been predominantly pink
Emilio Marco Palma was the first person born in Antarctica in 1978
A top freestyle swimmer achieves a speed of only 4 miles per hour. Fish, in contrast, have been clocked at 68 mph
Every single hamster in the United States today comes from a single litter captured in Syria in 1930
Research on pigs led to the development of CAT scans.
The Hundred Years War lasted for 116 years
Some dolphins can swim up to 40 kilometers an hour
In the last 30 years, only seven people have been killed by a polar bear in Canada
The longest U.S. highway is Route 20, which is over 3,365 miles
The largest LEGO castle that was ever built was built with 400,000 LEGO bricks and was 4.45 m x 5.22 m
In the U.S. there are approximately 65.8 million cats
One of the steepest main streets in Canada is located in Saint John, New Brunswick. Over a distance of two blocks the street rises about 80 feet
Avery Laser Labels are named after company founder R. Stanton Avery
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado
On September 9, 1950 dubbed laughter was used for the first time on television. It was used for the sitcom "The Hank McCune Show."
A violin actually contains 70 separate pieces of wood
The human heart can create enough pressure that it could squirt blood at a distance of thirty feet
One out of four American households own a cat
Queen Lydia Liliuokalani was the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian Islands. She was also the only Queen the United States ever had
Every day 2,700 people die of heart disease
There are 10 million bacteria at the place where you rest your hands at a desk
The quills of a porcupine are soft when they are born
An average American child watches approximately 28 hours of television in one week
Quality standards for pasta were set in the 13th century by the Pope
The A.A. Milne character of Winnie the Pooh made his animated film debut in 1966 in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree
People have the tendency to chew the food on the side that they most often use their hand
Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any country
The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as isnecessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the ste of Virginia stillhad segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks andwhites.
The Lemon shark grows about 24,000 new teeth a year. A new set of teeth grow approximately every 14 days
One billion seconds is about 32 years
An average American eats approximately 60 hot dogs per year
Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation
The water displacement product, WD-40, can be found in 80% of American homes
Dexter is the smallest type of cow. This cow was bred to be a small size for household living
As part of the original design, the names of 72 French scientists and other famous people is imprinted on the sides of the Eiffel tower
The first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com
Thirty to 40 gallons of sugar maple sap must be boiled down to make just one gallon of maple syrup
The most frequent season for most suicides to occur is in the spring. The winter months have the lowest number of suicides
A seven year old boy was the first person to survive the Horeshoe Falls (Niagara Falls) in just a life jacket
The longest punt return for a touchdown was 103 yards
The most popular Hot Wheels vehicle sold is the Corvette
A giraffe is able to clean its ears with its own tongue
The slowest growing finger nail is on the thumb nail and the fastest growing is the finger nail on the middle finger
Flu shots only work about 70% of the time
People of Salt Lake City eat the most lime-flavoured gelatin Jell-O in the United States
In a survey conducted in 2000 by Kimberly-Clark, it was found that men prefer to fold their toilet paper, and women like to wad it
On average, a person has two million sweat glands
Top 10's Amazing Facts III
The fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth is called Arachibutyrophobia
Men in their early twenties shave an average of four times a week
Colour is not an indicator for the taste or ripeness in cranberries
Each year there are approximately 20 billion coconuts produced worldwide
A chicken with red earlobes will produce brown eggs, and a chicken with white earlobes will produce white eggs
Not all polar bears hibernate; only pregnant females polar bears do
There is a restaurant in Stockholm that only offers all-garlic products. They even have a garlic cheesecake
Serving ice cream on cherry pie was once illegal in Kansas
Superman The Escape rollercoaster, located in California at Six Flags Magic Mountain, goes from 0 to 100 miles per hour in only 7 seconds
Five thousandths of a millimeter is the tolerance of accuracy at the LEGO mould factories
2.5 cans of Spam are consumed every second in the United States
In 1836, Mexican General Santa Anna held an elaborate state funeral for his amputated leg. updated
A meteor has only destroyed one satellite, which was the European Space Agency's Olympus in 1993.
The Koala bear is not really a bear, but is really related to the kangaroo and the wombat.
One gallon of pure maple syrup weighs 11 pounds
Instead of a Birthday Cake, many Russian children are given a Birthday Pie
The largest employer in the world is the Indian railway system in India, employing over 1.6 million people
The word "comet" comes from the Greek word "kometes" meaning long hair and referring to the tail
The average price for a major league baseball game in 2004 is $19.82
The hydra, which is related to the jellyfish, can grow its body back in a couple of days if it is cut in half
The deepest mine in the world is the East Rand mine, which goes to a depth of about 3,585 metres
Native Indians have been known to paint their doors blue, which they believe keeps the bad spirits out
Before air conditioning was invented, white cotton slipcovers were put on furniture to keep the air cool.
It would take about fourteen and half million notes of currency to build a mile high stack
Chinese Crested dogs can get acne
It costs about 3 cents to make a $1 bill in the United States
Colgate faced a big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking countries. Colgate translates into the command "go hang yourself."
The cross bow was invented by the Chinese and records of its usage goes back to as far as the Three Kingdom Period (220 a.d.-280 a.d.).
It is estimated that by the end of 2000, there has been 142,600 tonnes of gold mined in the world
One-third pound stalk of broccoli contains more vitamin C than 204 apples
Men in their early twenties shave an average of four times a week
Colour is not an indicator for the taste or ripeness in cranberries
Each year there are approximately 20 billion coconuts produced worldwide
A chicken with red earlobes will produce brown eggs, and a chicken with white earlobes will produce white eggs
Not all polar bears hibernate; only pregnant females polar bears do
There is a restaurant in Stockholm that only offers all-garlic products. They even have a garlic cheesecake
Serving ice cream on cherry pie was once illegal in Kansas
Superman The Escape rollercoaster, located in California at Six Flags Magic Mountain, goes from 0 to 100 miles per hour in only 7 seconds
Five thousandths of a millimeter is the tolerance of accuracy at the LEGO mould factories
2.5 cans of Spam are consumed every second in the United States
In 1836, Mexican General Santa Anna held an elaborate state funeral for his amputated leg. updated
A meteor has only destroyed one satellite, which was the European Space Agency's Olympus in 1993.
The Koala bear is not really a bear, but is really related to the kangaroo and the wombat.
One gallon of pure maple syrup weighs 11 pounds
Instead of a Birthday Cake, many Russian children are given a Birthday Pie
The largest employer in the world is the Indian railway system in India, employing over 1.6 million people
The word "comet" comes from the Greek word "kometes" meaning long hair and referring to the tail
The average price for a major league baseball game in 2004 is $19.82
The hydra, which is related to the jellyfish, can grow its body back in a couple of days if it is cut in half
The deepest mine in the world is the East Rand mine, which goes to a depth of about 3,585 metres
Native Indians have been known to paint their doors blue, which they believe keeps the bad spirits out
Before air conditioning was invented, white cotton slipcovers were put on furniture to keep the air cool.
It would take about fourteen and half million notes of currency to build a mile high stack
Chinese Crested dogs can get acne
It costs about 3 cents to make a $1 bill in the United States
Colgate faced a big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking countries. Colgate translates into the command "go hang yourself."
The cross bow was invented by the Chinese and records of its usage goes back to as far as the Three Kingdom Period (220 a.d.-280 a.d.).
It is estimated that by the end of 2000, there has been 142,600 tonnes of gold mined in the world
One-third pound stalk of broccoli contains more vitamin C than 204 apples
Top 10's Amazing Facts II
The Tonle Sap River in Cambodia flows north for almost half the year and then south for the rest of the year
Japanese research has concluded that moderate drinking can boost IQ levels
For more than 3,000 years, Carpenter ants have been used to close wounds in India, Asia and South America
Baskin Robbins plain vanilla ice cream is the number one selling flavour and accounts for a quarter of their sales
Elizabeth Taylor has appeared on the cover of Life magazine more than anyone else
The typical lead pencil can draw a line that is thirty five miles long
The word "toy" comes from an old English word that means "tool."
Smokers are twice as likely to develop lower back pain than non-smokers
Humans are born with 300 bones in their body, however when a person reaches adulthood they only have 206 bones. This occurs because many of them join together to make a single bone
The reason why hair turns gray as we age is because the pigment cells in the hair follicle start to die, which is responsible for producing "melanin" which gives the hair colour
In 1960 there were 16,067 gambling slots in Nevada. By 1999, this number rose to 205,726 slots which would be one slot for every 10 people residing there
It takes the Hubble telescope about 97 minutes to complete an orbit of the Earth. On average, the Hubble uses the equivilent amount of energy as 30 household light bulbs to complete an orbit.
The two factories of the Jelly Belly Candy Company produces approximately 100,000 pounds of jelly beans a day. this amounts to about 1,250,000 jelly beans an hour
Pucks hit by hockey sticks have reached speeds of up to 150 miles per hour
The "naked recreation and travel" industry has grown by 233% in the past decade
The Planters Peanut Company mascot, Mr. Peanut, was created during a contest for schoolchildren in 1916
Most lipstick contains fish scales
The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the english language
The expression cooked "al dente" means "to the tooth." What this means is that the pasta should be somewhat firm, and offer some resistance to the tooth, but should also be tender
Of married couples, 70% of men and 60% of women have cheated on their spouse
No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes
The first couple to be shown on a sitcom sleeping in the same bed was "Mary Kay and Johnny."
Asthma affects one in fifteen children under the age of eighteen
A one ounce milk chocolate bar has 6 mg of caffeine
Throughout the South, peanuts were known as "Monkey Nuts," and "Goober peas," before the civil war
Scallops have approximately 100 eyes around the edge of its shell
In 1810, Peter Durand invented the tin can for preserving food
Japanese research has concluded that moderate drinking can boost IQ levels
For more than 3,000 years, Carpenter ants have been used to close wounds in India, Asia and South America
Baskin Robbins plain vanilla ice cream is the number one selling flavour and accounts for a quarter of their sales
Elizabeth Taylor has appeared on the cover of Life magazine more than anyone else
The typical lead pencil can draw a line that is thirty five miles long
The word "toy" comes from an old English word that means "tool."
Smokers are twice as likely to develop lower back pain than non-smokers
Humans are born with 300 bones in their body, however when a person reaches adulthood they only have 206 bones. This occurs because many of them join together to make a single bone
The reason why hair turns gray as we age is because the pigment cells in the hair follicle start to die, which is responsible for producing "melanin" which gives the hair colour
In 1960 there were 16,067 gambling slots in Nevada. By 1999, this number rose to 205,726 slots which would be one slot for every 10 people residing there
It takes the Hubble telescope about 97 minutes to complete an orbit of the Earth. On average, the Hubble uses the equivilent amount of energy as 30 household light bulbs to complete an orbit.
The two factories of the Jelly Belly Candy Company produces approximately 100,000 pounds of jelly beans a day. this amounts to about 1,250,000 jelly beans an hour
Pucks hit by hockey sticks have reached speeds of up to 150 miles per hour
The "naked recreation and travel" industry has grown by 233% in the past decade
The Planters Peanut Company mascot, Mr. Peanut, was created during a contest for schoolchildren in 1916
Most lipstick contains fish scales
The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the english language
The expression cooked "al dente" means "to the tooth." What this means is that the pasta should be somewhat firm, and offer some resistance to the tooth, but should also be tender
Of married couples, 70% of men and 60% of women have cheated on their spouse
No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes
The first couple to be shown on a sitcom sleeping in the same bed was "Mary Kay and Johnny."
Asthma affects one in fifteen children under the age of eighteen
A one ounce milk chocolate bar has 6 mg of caffeine
Throughout the South, peanuts were known as "Monkey Nuts," and "Goober peas," before the civil war
Scallops have approximately 100 eyes around the edge of its shell
In 1810, Peter Durand invented the tin can for preserving food
Top 10's Amazing Facts
In 2002, the most popular boat name in the U.S. was Liberty
One out of 20 people have an extra rib
44% of kids watch television before they go to sleep
In 1865, the U.S. Secret Service was first established for the specific purpose to combat the counterfeiting of money
Istanbul, Turkey is the only city in the world located on two continents
In 1967, the IMAX film system was invented by Canadian Ivan Grame Ferguson to premier at Expo 67.
Approximately 40% of the U.S. paper currency in circulation was counterfeit by the end of the Civil War
Every three days a human stomach gets a new lining
In 1873, Colgate made a toothpaste that was available in a jar
The Kodiak, which is native to Alaska, is the largest bear and can measure up to eight feet and weigh as much as 1,700 pounds
The three best-known western names in China: Jesus Christ, Richard Nixon, and Elvis Presley
Mars is the home of Olympus Mons, the largest known volcano in our solar system
The Gastric Flu can cause projectile vomiting
The second best selling game of all time is Jenga. Jenga is a Swahili word, meaning "to build."
Cinderella is known as Rashin Coatie in Scotland, Zezolla in Italy, and Yeh-hsien in China
The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
The fur of the binturong, also known as the "Asian Bear Cat," smells like popcorn. The scent is believed to come from a gland located near the tail
In 1894 the first big Coke sign was found on the side of a building located in Cartersville, Georgia, and still exists today
The longest distance a deepwater lobster has been recorded to travel is 225 miles
Orcas (killer whales), when traveling in groups, breathe in unison
The Great Pyramids used to be as white as snow because they were encased in a bright limestone that has worn off over the years
NASCAR stands for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing
Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again: 80%
Paul Hunn holds the record for the loudest burp, which was 118.1 decibels, which is as loud as a chainsaw
A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana
There are six million parts in the Boeing 747-400.
The first TONKA truck was made in 1947
In the U.S., over one million gallons of cosmetics, drinks, and lotions are sold that contain aloe in them per year
Sugar Bear (the mascot for Golden Crisps cereal) was born in 1963
One out of 20 people have an extra rib
44% of kids watch television before they go to sleep
In 1865, the U.S. Secret Service was first established for the specific purpose to combat the counterfeiting of money
Istanbul, Turkey is the only city in the world located on two continents
In 1967, the IMAX film system was invented by Canadian Ivan Grame Ferguson to premier at Expo 67.
Approximately 40% of the U.S. paper currency in circulation was counterfeit by the end of the Civil War
Every three days a human stomach gets a new lining
In 1873, Colgate made a toothpaste that was available in a jar
The Kodiak, which is native to Alaska, is the largest bear and can measure up to eight feet and weigh as much as 1,700 pounds
The three best-known western names in China: Jesus Christ, Richard Nixon, and Elvis Presley
Mars is the home of Olympus Mons, the largest known volcano in our solar system
The Gastric Flu can cause projectile vomiting
The second best selling game of all time is Jenga. Jenga is a Swahili word, meaning "to build."
Cinderella is known as Rashin Coatie in Scotland, Zezolla in Italy, and Yeh-hsien in China
The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
The fur of the binturong, also known as the "Asian Bear Cat," smells like popcorn. The scent is believed to come from a gland located near the tail
In 1894 the first big Coke sign was found on the side of a building located in Cartersville, Georgia, and still exists today
The longest distance a deepwater lobster has been recorded to travel is 225 miles
Orcas (killer whales), when traveling in groups, breathe in unison
The Great Pyramids used to be as white as snow because they were encased in a bright limestone that has worn off over the years
NASCAR stands for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing
Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again: 80%
Paul Hunn holds the record for the loudest burp, which was 118.1 decibels, which is as loud as a chainsaw
A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana
There are six million parts in the Boeing 747-400.
The first TONKA truck was made in 1947
In the U.S., over one million gallons of cosmetics, drinks, and lotions are sold that contain aloe in them per year
Sugar Bear (the mascot for Golden Crisps cereal) was born in 1963
Top 10's Funny Facts
# More babies are born in September than in any other month
# 53% of Americans think they are paid the right amount.
# About 8,000 Americans are injured by musical instruments each year.
# One in twelve Americans alphabetize their spice rack.
# 95% of the creatures on earth are smaller than a chicken egg.
# 57% of women would rather go on a shopping spree than have sex.
# 63% of pet owners sleep with their pets.
# There are twice as many billionares in the U.S. today as there were 10 years ago.
# 25% of the fish you eat are raised on fish farms.
# 1 in 4 people admit to searching in their host’s medicine cabinets.
# 48% of men think balding has a negative effect on business and social relationships.
# The average American dog will cost its owner $14,600 in its lifetime.
# The Ratio of people to T.V. in the world is 6 to 1.
# 58% of school kids say pizza is their favorite cafeteria food.
# 32% of singles polled think they will meet their future mate online.
# In 1948, 2.3% of American households had televisions. Today 99% do.
# In 1998, 58% of American adults were married and living with their spouses, an all time low.
# The top three products for coupon redemption are cold cereal, soap, and deodorant.
# One in three dog owners say they have talked to their pets on the phone.
# 46% of violence on T.V. occurs in cartoons.
# Only about 5% of people dream in color.
# 80% of high school atheletes, male and female, say they have been hazed.
# 65% of American adolescents get acne.
# 1 in 6 employees say they got so mad at a co#worker last year that “they felt like hitting them but didn’t.”
# The average American drinks 3.4 cups of coffee a day.
# 85% of parents use child safety seats incorrectly.
# The average American kid catches 6 colds a year, the average kid in daycare catches 10.
# The average American male laughs 69 times a day where the average woman laughs 55 times a day.
# 85% of obscene calls are made by males.
# 5% of Americans never get married.
# 60% of the county of Leichtenstein’s GDP is generated from the sale of false teeth.
# If a girl owns one barbie, she most likely owns seven.
# 50% of American adults attended an arts activity in 1997.
# People aged 24#35 worry less than adults of other age groups.
# 5% of Americans say they “never” make their beds.
# The average person moves their residence 11 times in their life, about once every 6 years.
# 35% of people watching T.V. yell at it.
# One in seven Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a map.
# American office workers send an average of 36 e#mails per day.
# 23% of workers said they would work harder if their employer offered a “$1,000 shopping spree at a store of their choice.”
# Only 30% of U.S. adults actually have dandruff while 50% are “self consious about it.”
# 32% of women and 8% of men say they are better at doing laundry than their spouse.
# 13% of the letters in a given book are “e”.
# The average age kids begin to use a microwave is seven.
# The average American uses 730 crayons by the age of 10.
# 63% of American adults will rent at least 1 video this month.
# The average sleeper rolls over 12 times in bed per night.
# The Pentagon uses an average of 666 rolls of toilet paper each day.
# More babies are conceived in December than any other month.
# Your left hand does an average of 56% of your typing.
# It takes an average person seven minutes to fall asleap on an average night.
# About 8% of the students at the Dunkin Doughnuts training center fail the six week course.
# The avarage speed of a golf ball in flight during the PGA tour is 160 mph.
# 85% of phone calls are conducted in the English language.
# The Earth is turning to desert at a rate of 40 square miles per day.
# 99% of India’s truck drivers can’t read road signs.
# 80% of deaths in U.S. casinos are caused by sudden heart attacks.
# 12% of U.S. businessmen wear their ties so tight that they restrict the blood flow to their brain.
# 3% of all photos taken in the U.S. are taken at Disney Land or Disney World.
# Nearly 6% of all marriage proposals are made over the telephone.
# 53% of Americans think they are paid the right amount.
# About 8,000 Americans are injured by musical instruments each year.
# One in twelve Americans alphabetize their spice rack.
# 95% of the creatures on earth are smaller than a chicken egg.
# 57% of women would rather go on a shopping spree than have sex.
# 63% of pet owners sleep with their pets.
# There are twice as many billionares in the U.S. today as there were 10 years ago.
# 25% of the fish you eat are raised on fish farms.
# 1 in 4 people admit to searching in their host’s medicine cabinets.
# 48% of men think balding has a negative effect on business and social relationships.
# The average American dog will cost its owner $14,600 in its lifetime.
# The Ratio of people to T.V. in the world is 6 to 1.
# 58% of school kids say pizza is their favorite cafeteria food.
# 32% of singles polled think they will meet their future mate online.
# In 1948, 2.3% of American households had televisions. Today 99% do.
# In 1998, 58% of American adults were married and living with their spouses, an all time low.
# The top three products for coupon redemption are cold cereal, soap, and deodorant.
# One in three dog owners say they have talked to their pets on the phone.
# 46% of violence on T.V. occurs in cartoons.
# Only about 5% of people dream in color.
# 80% of high school atheletes, male and female, say they have been hazed.
# 65% of American adolescents get acne.
# 1 in 6 employees say they got so mad at a co#worker last year that “they felt like hitting them but didn’t.”
# The average American drinks 3.4 cups of coffee a day.
# 85% of parents use child safety seats incorrectly.
# The average American kid catches 6 colds a year, the average kid in daycare catches 10.
# The average American male laughs 69 times a day where the average woman laughs 55 times a day.
# 85% of obscene calls are made by males.
# 5% of Americans never get married.
# 60% of the county of Leichtenstein’s GDP is generated from the sale of false teeth.
# If a girl owns one barbie, she most likely owns seven.
# 50% of American adults attended an arts activity in 1997.
# People aged 24#35 worry less than adults of other age groups.
# 5% of Americans say they “never” make their beds.
# The average person moves their residence 11 times in their life, about once every 6 years.
# 35% of people watching T.V. yell at it.
# One in seven Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a map.
# American office workers send an average of 36 e#mails per day.
# 23% of workers said they would work harder if their employer offered a “$1,000 shopping spree at a store of their choice.”
# Only 30% of U.S. adults actually have dandruff while 50% are “self consious about it.”
# 32% of women and 8% of men say they are better at doing laundry than their spouse.
# 13% of the letters in a given book are “e”.
# The average age kids begin to use a microwave is seven.
# The average American uses 730 crayons by the age of 10.
# 63% of American adults will rent at least 1 video this month.
# The average sleeper rolls over 12 times in bed per night.
# The Pentagon uses an average of 666 rolls of toilet paper each day.
# More babies are conceived in December than any other month.
# Your left hand does an average of 56% of your typing.
# It takes an average person seven minutes to fall asleap on an average night.
# About 8% of the students at the Dunkin Doughnuts training center fail the six week course.
# The avarage speed of a golf ball in flight during the PGA tour is 160 mph.
# 85% of phone calls are conducted in the English language.
# The Earth is turning to desert at a rate of 40 square miles per day.
# 99% of India’s truck drivers can’t read road signs.
# 80% of deaths in U.S. casinos are caused by sudden heart attacks.
# 12% of U.S. businessmen wear their ties so tight that they restrict the blood flow to their brain.
# 3% of all photos taken in the U.S. are taken at Disney Land or Disney World.
# Nearly 6% of all marriage proposals are made over the telephone.
Top 10's Funny SMS IV
It is deaf and it wants to have sex with you...................... What do you say?
Do you know that you would look great with two pounds less ... in my opinion those clothes weigh exactly two pounds !
You are just like a Bounty ... a piece of paradise on earth!
You're eyes are soft en tender,as sweet as they can be.There's one thing you must remember, you are the one for me!!!
There are so many people in the world but in my world there's only one and that's you!!!
I want to share everything with you, your sadness, your happy moments, every single second of the day.
Do your feet never hurt ???? ... You are wondering around my thoughts all day long....
Love is in the air... shit if only I had a plane right now ...
When the night comes, look at the sky. If you see a falling star, don't wonder why,just make a wish. Trust me it will come true,'cause I did it and I found you.
I do not think much, I do not think often, but when I do think, I think of you.
I love all the stars in the sky, but they are nothing compared to the ones in your eyes!
You can fall from a mountain,you can fall from a tree,but the best way to fall,is to fall in love with me.
If flowers were dreams that would last for ever, I would pick the most beautiful ones to send to you.
Be smart, be clever, put me in your heart, 4-ever.
Don't listen to your mind. Listen always to your heart!
Do you know that you would look great with two pounds less ... in my opinion those clothes weigh exactly two pounds !
You are just like a Bounty ... a piece of paradise on earth!
You're eyes are soft en tender,as sweet as they can be.There's one thing you must remember, you are the one for me!!!
There are so many people in the world but in my world there's only one and that's you!!!
I want to share everything with you, your sadness, your happy moments, every single second of the day.
Do your feet never hurt ???? ... You are wondering around my thoughts all day long....
Love is in the air... shit if only I had a plane right now ...
When the night comes, look at the sky. If you see a falling star, don't wonder why,just make a wish. Trust me it will come true,'cause I did it and I found you.
I do not think much, I do not think often, but when I do think, I think of you.
I love all the stars in the sky, but they are nothing compared to the ones in your eyes!
You can fall from a mountain,you can fall from a tree,but the best way to fall,is to fall in love with me.
If flowers were dreams that would last for ever, I would pick the most beautiful ones to send to you.
Be smart, be clever, put me in your heart, 4-ever.
Don't listen to your mind. Listen always to your heart!
Top 10's Funny SMS III
If being ugly would hurt, you would be in pain all day long.
If you have picture where you look old, keep them. In twenty years you can prove that you have not changed a bit.
If you really ressemble the picture on your ID, you are not fit enough to travel.
Ik would like to be a volcano... smoke all day and people say ... look he is working!
In case of fire read this message.....................................I SAID IN CASE OF FIRE YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!
I wanted to send u something nice that would make u smile but the postman told me to get out of the mailbox!
This message was sent exclusively for the handsome and the beautiful. We have obviously sent it to the wrong number.We are truly sorry for the inconvenience
Ur cute gorgeous fine & dandy.really sexy u make me randy.ur good wiv ur mouth & also in bed …oops sorry wrong number 4get wot I said!
I saw sumthing in da shop window 2day.It was stunning sexy cute beautiful & adorable.I was supposed 2buy it4u till i realised it was my own REFLECTION
It is charming, incredibly handsome, extremely good, well shaped, horny,an animal in bed and it knows one French word ... MOI!!
Love me or leave me. Hey,where is everybody going ???
Mobile sex: push 1 for oral, 2 for anal, 3 for normal, 4 for a trio, 5 for SM and for everything ... dial my number!
My feelings for you are like the sea. " Wild and romantic ? " "No, they make me sick."
My mother in law walks five miles every day, I wonder where she is at this moment...
Nice perfume... but do you really need to marinate in it?
If you have picture where you look old, keep them. In twenty years you can prove that you have not changed a bit.
If you really ressemble the picture on your ID, you are not fit enough to travel.
Ik would like to be a volcano... smoke all day and people say ... look he is working!
In case of fire read this message.....................................I SAID IN CASE OF FIRE YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!
I wanted to send u something nice that would make u smile but the postman told me to get out of the mailbox!
This message was sent exclusively for the handsome and the beautiful. We have obviously sent it to the wrong number.We are truly sorry for the inconvenience
Ur cute gorgeous fine & dandy.really sexy u make me randy.ur good wiv ur mouth & also in bed …oops sorry wrong number 4get wot I said!
I saw sumthing in da shop window 2day.It was stunning sexy cute beautiful & adorable.I was supposed 2buy it4u till i realised it was my own REFLECTION
It is charming, incredibly handsome, extremely good, well shaped, horny,an animal in bed and it knows one French word ... MOI!!
Love me or leave me. Hey,where is everybody going ???
Mobile sex: push 1 for oral, 2 for anal, 3 for normal, 4 for a trio, 5 for SM and for everything ... dial my number!
My feelings for you are like the sea. " Wild and romantic ? " "No, they make me sick."
My mother in law walks five miles every day, I wonder where she is at this moment...
Nice perfume... but do you really need to marinate in it?
Top 10's Funny SMS II
Birdy birdy in the sky, left a poopie in my eye. Me don't care, me don't cry, me just happy that a cow can't fly!!
Braindetector activated, calibrating, now searching.........still searching......get a good grip of your mobile....still searching.......no brains found.
Did I not see you yesterday at the mall, with a grey jacket? No? O, than it was a rubbish bag after all!
Do not disturb, I am enough disturbed as it is . . .
Don't feel sad, don't feel glue, Einstein was ugly too !
E man pays $.2,00 for a $.1,00 item that he needs, a woman pays $.1,00 for $.2,00 item that she does not need.
Excessive use of alcohol can lead to a pregnancy.
For you I would go as far as the end of the world. Do you promise to stay here ?"
God created the earth, God created the woods, God created you too, but yes, even God makes mistakes!
God created the universe, the earth, nature, the eggs, man and saw that it was good and beautiful. God also created woman and thought : ‘I hope she will make herself up’!
HeLLO, this is your mobile. There is no particular problem. I just wanted to leave your pocket, want the smell is unbearable!!!
Hello I am a virus and I am entering your brain right now..... sorry I will leave, I can't find a brain.
Hello, this is GOD. I make few bad creations but you are the worst monster I ever realised. My apologies on behalf of the whole world..
How would you like your egg for breakfast.... hard-boiled or impregnated?
I am a killer,I kill people for money.....But because you are my friend,I'll kill you for nothing!
Braindetector activated, calibrating, now searching.........still searching......get a good grip of your mobile....still searching.......no brains found.
Did I not see you yesterday at the mall, with a grey jacket? No? O, than it was a rubbish bag after all!
Do not disturb, I am enough disturbed as it is . . .
Don't feel sad, don't feel glue, Einstein was ugly too !
E man pays $.2,00 for a $.1,00 item that he needs, a woman pays $.1,00 for $.2,00 item that she does not need.
Excessive use of alcohol can lead to a pregnancy.
For you I would go as far as the end of the world. Do you promise to stay here ?"
God created the earth, God created the woods, God created you too, but yes, even God makes mistakes!
God created the universe, the earth, nature, the eggs, man and saw that it was good and beautiful. God also created woman and thought : ‘I hope she will make herself up’!
HeLLO, this is your mobile. There is no particular problem. I just wanted to leave your pocket, want the smell is unbearable!!!
Hello I am a virus and I am entering your brain right now..... sorry I will leave, I can't find a brain.
Hello, this is GOD. I make few bad creations but you are the worst monster I ever realised. My apologies on behalf of the whole world..
How would you like your egg for breakfast.... hard-boiled or impregnated?
I am a killer,I kill people for money.....But because you are my friend,I'll kill you for nothing!
Top 10's Funny SMS
I know why I am single, my parents-in-law were not able to have kids...
I am not your type ... I am not inflatable.
I like to compare you with a nice cold glass of beer, beautiful colour, perfect taste, really perfect and when the glass is empty i just take the next one!
I once sniffed Coke, but the icecubes blocked my nostrils...
Jesus says to John come forth ill give you eternal life. John came fifth he won a toaster
A girl phoned me the other day and said..."Come on over, there's nobody home." I went over. Nobody was home
At dis moment in time 10 million people r having sex.5 million people r drinking coffee.100 million people r sleeping & 1 stupid fool is reading my text!pass on
The rain makes all things beautiful.The grass & flowers 2. If rain makes all things beautiful why doesn’t it rain on you?
i want u 2 know dat our friendship means alot 2 me.U cry i cry.U lauf i lauf.U jump out of da window... I look down & den... i lauf again
20% of the population is now drinking coffee, 60% is having sex, 19% is watching television and one yokel is now holding his mobile in his hand
A woman likes to have four animals in the house: a jaguar in front of the doorway, a fox in the closet, a bull in bed, and a numbskulll to pay for this all.
Are these your eyes, I found them between my brests!
Be friendly with your kids, they choose your home when you are old!
Be nice to the ones who smoke.. every cigarette might be their last.
BEEB! Send this message to 5 of your friends and you will have unbelievable sex tonight! If you break this chain, you'll never have multiple orgasms again!
I am not your type ... I am not inflatable.
I like to compare you with a nice cold glass of beer, beautiful colour, perfect taste, really perfect and when the glass is empty i just take the next one!
I once sniffed Coke, but the icecubes blocked my nostrils...
Jesus says to John come forth ill give you eternal life. John came fifth he won a toaster
A girl phoned me the other day and said..."Come on over, there's nobody home." I went over. Nobody was home
At dis moment in time 10 million people r having sex.5 million people r drinking coffee.100 million people r sleeping & 1 stupid fool is reading my text!pass on
The rain makes all things beautiful.The grass & flowers 2. If rain makes all things beautiful why doesn’t it rain on you?
i want u 2 know dat our friendship means alot 2 me.U cry i cry.U lauf i lauf.U jump out of da window... I look down & den... i lauf again
20% of the population is now drinking coffee, 60% is having sex, 19% is watching television and one yokel is now holding his mobile in his hand
A woman likes to have four animals in the house: a jaguar in front of the doorway, a fox in the closet, a bull in bed, and a numbskulll to pay for this all.
Are these your eyes, I found them between my brests!
Be friendly with your kids, they choose your home when you are old!
Be nice to the ones who smoke.. every cigarette might be their last.
BEEB! Send this message to 5 of your friends and you will have unbelievable sex tonight! If you break this chain, you'll never have multiple orgasms again!
Top 10's Facts About Bugs
The male ladybug is usually smaller than the female.
During hibernation, ladybugs feed on their stored fat.
Ladybugs make a chemical that smells and tastes terrible so that birds and other predators won't eat them.
A female ladybug will lay more than 1000 eggs in her lifetime.
There are nearly 5,000 different kinds of ladybugs worldwide and 400 which live in North America.
Bed bugs prefer to hide in cracks and crevices during the daytime and come out to feed on the host's blood at night, usually while the host is sleeping.
The biggest bug in the world is the Goliath Beetle which can weigh up to 3.5 ounces and be 4.5 inches long.
Adult bed bugs are about 1/4-inch long and reddish-brown, with oval, flattened bodies.
Lady Bugs really are not bugs. They are actually beetles and their correct name is The Ladybird Beetle.
Related species, such as the bat bug and bird bug, prefer to feed on bats, birds, and other wild hosts, but will also feed on humans if the opportunity arises or the preferred host dies or leaves the roost.
The common bed bug, whose preferred host is humans, is rarely encountered, presumably because of improvements in sanitation.
During hibernation, ladybugs feed on their stored fat.
Ladybugs make a chemical that smells and tastes terrible so that birds and other predators won't eat them.
A female ladybug will lay more than 1000 eggs in her lifetime.
There are nearly 5,000 different kinds of ladybugs worldwide and 400 which live in North America.
Bed bugs prefer to hide in cracks and crevices during the daytime and come out to feed on the host's blood at night, usually while the host is sleeping.
The biggest bug in the world is the Goliath Beetle which can weigh up to 3.5 ounces and be 4.5 inches long.
Adult bed bugs are about 1/4-inch long and reddish-brown, with oval, flattened bodies.
Lady Bugs really are not bugs. They are actually beetles and their correct name is The Ladybird Beetle.
Related species, such as the bat bug and bird bug, prefer to feed on bats, birds, and other wild hosts, but will also feed on humans if the opportunity arises or the preferred host dies or leaves the roost.
The common bed bug, whose preferred host is humans, is rarely encountered, presumably because of improvements in sanitation.
Amazing Facts II
Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.
Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
Coca-Cola would be green if colouring weren’t added to it.
On average a hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute.
More people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.
The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words.
More people are allergic to cow's milk than any other food.
Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all four feet at all times!
The six official languages of the United Nations are: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish.
Earth is the only planet not named after a god.
It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a church in Nebraska, USA.
You're born with 300 bones, but by the time you become an adult, you only have 206.
Some worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food!
Dolphins sleep with one eye open!
It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open
The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old!
The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds
Queen Elizabeth I regarded herself as a paragon of cleanliness. She declared that she bathed once every three months, whether she needed it or not
Slugs have 4 noses.
Owls are the only birds who can see the colour blue.
A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years!
A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!
The average person laughs 10 times a day!
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain
Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
Coca-Cola would be green if colouring weren’t added to it.
On average a hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute.
More people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.
The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words.
More people are allergic to cow's milk than any other food.
Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all four feet at all times!
The six official languages of the United Nations are: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish.
Earth is the only planet not named after a god.
It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a church in Nebraska, USA.
You're born with 300 bones, but by the time you become an adult, you only have 206.
Some worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food!
Dolphins sleep with one eye open!
It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open
The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old!
The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds
Queen Elizabeth I regarded herself as a paragon of cleanliness. She declared that she bathed once every three months, whether she needed it or not
Slugs have 4 noses.
Owls are the only birds who can see the colour blue.
A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years!
A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!
The average person laughs 10 times a day!
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain
Amazing Facts
The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.
Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts, and worms like fried bacon.
Of all the words in the English language, the word 'set' has the most definitions!
What is called a "French kiss" in the English speaking world is known as an "English kiss" in France.
"Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
"Rhythm" is the longest English word without a vowel.
In 1386, a pig in France was executed by public hanging for the murder of a child
A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off!
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
You can't kill yourself by holding your breath
There is a city called Rome on every continent.
It's against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland!
Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day!
Horatio Nelson, one of England's most illustrious admirals was throughout his life, never able to find a cure for his sea-sickness.
The skeleton of Jeremy Bentham is present at all important meetings of the University of London
Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people
Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, everytime you breathe!
The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump!
One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different!
The first known transfusion of blood was performed as early as 1667, when Jean-Baptiste, transfused two pints of blood from a sheep to a young man
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!
The present population of 5 billion plus people of the world is predicted to become 15 billion by 2080.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, and had only ONE testicle.
Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts, and worms like fried bacon.
Of all the words in the English language, the word 'set' has the most definitions!
What is called a "French kiss" in the English speaking world is known as an "English kiss" in France.
"Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
"Rhythm" is the longest English word without a vowel.
In 1386, a pig in France was executed by public hanging for the murder of a child
A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off!
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
You can't kill yourself by holding your breath
There is a city called Rome on every continent.
It's against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland!
Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day!
Horatio Nelson, one of England's most illustrious admirals was throughout his life, never able to find a cure for his sea-sickness.
The skeleton of Jeremy Bentham is present at all important meetings of the University of London
Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people
Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, everytime you breathe!
The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump!
One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different!
The first known transfusion of blood was performed as early as 1667, when Jean-Baptiste, transfused two pints of blood from a sheep to a young man
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!
The present population of 5 billion plus people of the world is predicted to become 15 billion by 2080.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, and had only ONE testicle.
20 Most Expensive Software Blunders
1. Mariner Bugs Out (1962)
Cost: $18.5 million Disaster: The Mariner 1 rocket with a space probe headed for Venus diverted from its intended flight path shortly after launch. Mission Control destroyed the rocket 293 seconds after liftoff. Cause: A programmer incorrectly transcribed a handwritten formula into computer code, missing a single superscript bar. Without the smoothing function indicated by the bar, the software treated normal variations of velocity as if they were serious, causing faulty corrections that sent the rocket off course
2. Hartford Coliseum Collapse (1978)
Cost: $70 million, plus another $20 million damage to the local economy Disaster: Just hours after thousands of fans had left the Hartford Coliseum, the steel-latticed roof collapsed under the weight of wet snow. Cause: The programmer of the CAD software used to design the coliseum incorrectly assumed the steel roof supports would only face pure compression. But when one of the supports unexpectedly buckled from the snow, it set off a chain reaction that brought down the other roof sections like dominoes.
3. CIA Gives the Soviets Gas (1982)
Cost: Millions of dollars, significant damage to Soviet economy Disaster: Control software went haywire and produced intense pressure in the Trans-Siberian gas pipeline, resulting in the largest man-made non-nuclear explosion in Earth's history. Cause: CIA operatives allegedly planted a bug in a Canadian computer system purchased by the Soviets to control their gas pipelines. The purchase was part of a strategic Soviet plan to steal or covertly obtain sensitive U.S. technology. When the CIA discovered the purchase, they sabotaged the software so that it would pass Soviet inspection but fail in operation.
4. World War III… Almost (1983)
Cost: Nearly all of humanity Disaster: The Soviet early warning system falsely indicated the United States had launched five ballistic missiles. Fortunately the Soviet duty officer had a "funny feeling in my gut" and reasoned if the U.S. was really attacking they would launch more than five missiles, so he reported the apparent attack as a false alarm. Cause: A bug in the Soviet software failed to filter out false missile detections caused by sunlight reflecting off cloud-tops.
5. Medical Machine Kills (1985)
Cost: Three people dead, three people critically injured Disaster: Canada's Therac-25 radiation therapy machine malfunctioned and delivered lethal radiation doses to patients. Cause: Because of a subtle bug called a race condition, a technician could accidentally configure Therac-25 so the electron beam would fire in high-power mode without the proper patient shielding.
6. Wall Street Crash (1987)
Cost: $500 billion in one day Disaster: On "Black Monday" (October 19, 1987), the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 508 points, losing 22.6% of its total value. The S&P 500 dropped 20.4%. This was the greatest loss Wall Street ever suffered in a single day. Cause: A long bull market was halted by a rash of SEC investigations of insider trading and by other market forces. As investors fled stocks in a mass exodus, computer trading programs generated a flood of sell orders, overwhelming the market, crashing systems and leaving investors effectively blind.
7. AT&T Lines Go Dead (1990)
Cost: 75 million phone calls missed, 200 thousand airline reservations lost Disaster: A single switch at one of AT&T's 114 switching centers suffered a minor mechanical problem and shut down the center. When the center came back up, it sent a message to other switching centers, which in turn caused them to shut down and brought down the entire AT&T network for 9 hours. Cause: A single line of buggy code in a complex software upgrade implemented to speed up calling caused a ripple effect that shut down the network.
8. Patriot Fails Soldiers (1991)
Cost: 28 soldiers dead, 100 injured
Disaster: During the first Gulf War, an American Patriot Missile system in Saudi Arabia failed to intercept an incoming Iraqi Scud missile. The missile destroyed an American Army barracks. Cause: A software rounding error incorrectly calculated the time, causing the Patriot system to ignore the incoming Scud missile.
9. Pentium Fails Long Division (1993)
Cost: $475 million, corporate credibility Disaster: Intel's highly-promoted Pentium chip occasionally made mistakes when dividing floating-point numbers within a specific range. For example, dividing 4195835.0/3145727.0 yielded 1.33374 instead of 1.33382, an error of 0.006%. Although the bug affected few users, it become a public relations nightmare. With an estimated 5 million defective chips in circulation, Intel offered to replace Pentium chips only for consumers who could prove they needed high accuracy. Eventually Intel replaced the chips for anyone who complained. Cause: The divider in the Pentium floating point unit had a flawed division table, missing about five of a thousand entries and resulting in these rounding errors.
10. Ariane Rocket Goes Boom (1996)
Cost: $500 million Disaster: Ariane 5, Europe's newest unmanned rocket, was intentionally destroyed seconds after launch on its maiden flight. Also destroyed was its cargo of four scientific satellites to study how the Earth's magnetic field interacts with solar winds. Cause: Shutdown occurred when the guidance computer tried to convert the sideways rocket velocity from 64-bits to a 16-bit format. The number was too big, and an overflow error resulted. When the guidance system shut down, control passed to an identical redundant unit, which also failed because it was running the same algorithm
11. Skynet Brings Judgement Day (1997)
Cost: 6 billion dead, near-total destruction of human civilization and animal ecosystems (fictional) Disaster: Human operators attempt to shut off the Skynet global computer network. Skynet responds by firing U.S. nuclear missiles at Russia, initiating global nuclear war on what became known as Judgement Day (August 29, 1997). Cause: Cyberdyne, the leading weapons manufacturer, installed Skynet technology in all military hardware including stealth bombers and missile defense systems. The Skynet technology formed a seamless network and effectively removed humans from strategic defense. Eventually Skynet became sentient, was threatened when the humans tried to take it offline, sought to survive, and retaliated with nuclear war.
12. Mars Climate Crasher (1998)
Cost: $125 million Disaster: After a 286-day journey from Earth, the Mars Climate Orbiter fired its engines to push into orbit around Mars. The engines fired, but the spacecraft fell too far into the planet's atmosphere, likely causing it to crash on Mars. Cause: The software that controlled the Orbiter thrusters used imperial units (pounds of force), rather than metric units (Newtons) as specified by NASA.
13. Disastrous Study (1999)
Cost: Scientific credibility
Disaster: In this ironic case, software used to analyze disasters had a disaster of its own. The New England Journal of Medicine reported increased suicide rates after severe natural disasters. Unfortunately, these results proved to be incorrect. Cause: A programming error caused the number of suicides for one year to be doubled, which was enough to throw off the entire study.
14. British Passports to Nowhere (1999)
Cost: £12.6 million, mass inconvenience Disaster: The U.K. Passport Agency implemented a new Siemens computer system, which failed to issue passports on time for a half million British citizens. The Agency had to pay millions in compensation, staff overtime and umbrellas for people queuing in the rain for passports. Cause: The Passport Agency rolled out its new computer system without adequately testing it or training its staff. At the same time, a law change required all children under 16 traveling abroad to obtain a passport, resulting in a huge spike in passport demand that overwhelmed the buggy new computer system.
15. Y2K (1999)
Cost: $500 billion Disaster: One man's disaster is another man's fortune, as demonstrated by the infamous Y2K bug. Businesses spent billions on programmers to fix a glitch in legacy software. While no significant computer failures occurred, preparation for the Y2K bug had a significant cost and time impact on all industries that use computer technology. Cause: To save computer storage space, legacy software often stored the year for dates as two digit numbers, such as "99″ for 1999. The software also interpreted "00″ to mean 1900 rather than 2000, so when the year 2000 came along, bugs would result.
16. Dot-Bomb Collapse (2000)
Cost: $5 trillion in market value, thousands of companies failed Disaster: A speculative bubble from 1995–2001 fueled a rapid increase in venture capital investments and stock market values in the Internet and technology sectors. The "dot-com bubble" began to collapse in early 2000, erasing trillions in stock market value, wiping out thousands of companies and jobs, and launching a global recession. Cause: Companies and investors dismissed standard business models, and instead focused on increasing market share at the expense of profits.
17. Love Virus (2000)
Cost: $8.75 billion, millions of computers infected, significant data loss Disaster: The LoveLetter worm infected millions of computers and caused more damage than any other computer virus in history. The worm deleted files, changed home pages and messed with the Registry. Cause: LoveLetter infected users via e-mail, Internet chat and shared file systems. The email had an executable file attachment and subject line, "ILOVEYOU." When the user opened the attachment, the virus would infect the user's computer and send itself to everyone in the address book.
18. Cancer Treatment to Die For (2000)
Cost: Eight people dead, 20 critically injured
Disaster: Radiation therapy software by Multidata Systems International miscalculated the proper dosage, exposing patients to harmful and in some cases fatal levels of radiation. The physicians, who were legally required to double-check the software's calculations, were indicted for murder. Cause: The software calculated radiation dosage based on the order in which data was entered, sometimes delivering a double dose of radiation.
19. EDS Drops Child Support (2004)
Cost: £539 million and counting Disaster: Business services giant EDS developed a computer system for U.K.'s Child Support Agency (CSA) that accidentally overpaid 1.9 million people, underpaid another 700,000, had £3.5 billion in uncollected child support payments, a backlog of 239,000 cases, 36,000 new cases "stuck" in the system, and still over 500 documented bugs. Cause: EDS introduced a large, complex IT system to the CSA while trying to simultaneously restructure the agency.
20. FBI's Trilogy Terminated (2005)
Cost: $105 million, still no effective case file solution Disaster: The FBI scrapped its computer systems overhaul after four years of effort. The Virtual Case File project was a massive, integrated software system for agents to share case files and other information. Cause: Mismanagement, and an attempt to build a long-term project on technology that was outdated before the project completed, resulted in a complex and unusable system.
Cost: $18.5 million Disaster: The Mariner 1 rocket with a space probe headed for Venus diverted from its intended flight path shortly after launch. Mission Control destroyed the rocket 293 seconds after liftoff. Cause: A programmer incorrectly transcribed a handwritten formula into computer code, missing a single superscript bar. Without the smoothing function indicated by the bar, the software treated normal variations of velocity as if they were serious, causing faulty corrections that sent the rocket off course
2. Hartford Coliseum Collapse (1978)
Cost: $70 million, plus another $20 million damage to the local economy Disaster: Just hours after thousands of fans had left the Hartford Coliseum, the steel-latticed roof collapsed under the weight of wet snow. Cause: The programmer of the CAD software used to design the coliseum incorrectly assumed the steel roof supports would only face pure compression. But when one of the supports unexpectedly buckled from the snow, it set off a chain reaction that brought down the other roof sections like dominoes.
3. CIA Gives the Soviets Gas (1982)
Cost: Millions of dollars, significant damage to Soviet economy Disaster: Control software went haywire and produced intense pressure in the Trans-Siberian gas pipeline, resulting in the largest man-made non-nuclear explosion in Earth's history. Cause: CIA operatives allegedly planted a bug in a Canadian computer system purchased by the Soviets to control their gas pipelines. The purchase was part of a strategic Soviet plan to steal or covertly obtain sensitive U.S. technology. When the CIA discovered the purchase, they sabotaged the software so that it would pass Soviet inspection but fail in operation.
4. World War III… Almost (1983)
Cost: Nearly all of humanity Disaster: The Soviet early warning system falsely indicated the United States had launched five ballistic missiles. Fortunately the Soviet duty officer had a "funny feeling in my gut" and reasoned if the U.S. was really attacking they would launch more than five missiles, so he reported the apparent attack as a false alarm. Cause: A bug in the Soviet software failed to filter out false missile detections caused by sunlight reflecting off cloud-tops.
5. Medical Machine Kills (1985)
Cost: Three people dead, three people critically injured Disaster: Canada's Therac-25 radiation therapy machine malfunctioned and delivered lethal radiation doses to patients. Cause: Because of a subtle bug called a race condition, a technician could accidentally configure Therac-25 so the electron beam would fire in high-power mode without the proper patient shielding.
6. Wall Street Crash (1987)
Cost: $500 billion in one day Disaster: On "Black Monday" (October 19, 1987), the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 508 points, losing 22.6% of its total value. The S&P 500 dropped 20.4%. This was the greatest loss Wall Street ever suffered in a single day. Cause: A long bull market was halted by a rash of SEC investigations of insider trading and by other market forces. As investors fled stocks in a mass exodus, computer trading programs generated a flood of sell orders, overwhelming the market, crashing systems and leaving investors effectively blind.
7. AT&T Lines Go Dead (1990)
Cost: 75 million phone calls missed, 200 thousand airline reservations lost Disaster: A single switch at one of AT&T's 114 switching centers suffered a minor mechanical problem and shut down the center. When the center came back up, it sent a message to other switching centers, which in turn caused them to shut down and brought down the entire AT&T network for 9 hours. Cause: A single line of buggy code in a complex software upgrade implemented to speed up calling caused a ripple effect that shut down the network.
8. Patriot Fails Soldiers (1991)
Cost: 28 soldiers dead, 100 injured
Disaster: During the first Gulf War, an American Patriot Missile system in Saudi Arabia failed to intercept an incoming Iraqi Scud missile. The missile destroyed an American Army barracks. Cause: A software rounding error incorrectly calculated the time, causing the Patriot system to ignore the incoming Scud missile.
9. Pentium Fails Long Division (1993)
Cost: $475 million, corporate credibility Disaster: Intel's highly-promoted Pentium chip occasionally made mistakes when dividing floating-point numbers within a specific range. For example, dividing 4195835.0/3145727.0 yielded 1.33374 instead of 1.33382, an error of 0.006%. Although the bug affected few users, it become a public relations nightmare. With an estimated 5 million defective chips in circulation, Intel offered to replace Pentium chips only for consumers who could prove they needed high accuracy. Eventually Intel replaced the chips for anyone who complained. Cause: The divider in the Pentium floating point unit had a flawed division table, missing about five of a thousand entries and resulting in these rounding errors.
10. Ariane Rocket Goes Boom (1996)
Cost: $500 million Disaster: Ariane 5, Europe's newest unmanned rocket, was intentionally destroyed seconds after launch on its maiden flight. Also destroyed was its cargo of four scientific satellites to study how the Earth's magnetic field interacts with solar winds. Cause: Shutdown occurred when the guidance computer tried to convert the sideways rocket velocity from 64-bits to a 16-bit format. The number was too big, and an overflow error resulted. When the guidance system shut down, control passed to an identical redundant unit, which also failed because it was running the same algorithm
11. Skynet Brings Judgement Day (1997)
Cost: 6 billion dead, near-total destruction of human civilization and animal ecosystems (fictional) Disaster: Human operators attempt to shut off the Skynet global computer network. Skynet responds by firing U.S. nuclear missiles at Russia, initiating global nuclear war on what became known as Judgement Day (August 29, 1997). Cause: Cyberdyne, the leading weapons manufacturer, installed Skynet technology in all military hardware including stealth bombers and missile defense systems. The Skynet technology formed a seamless network and effectively removed humans from strategic defense. Eventually Skynet became sentient, was threatened when the humans tried to take it offline, sought to survive, and retaliated with nuclear war.
12. Mars Climate Crasher (1998)
Cost: $125 million Disaster: After a 286-day journey from Earth, the Mars Climate Orbiter fired its engines to push into orbit around Mars. The engines fired, but the spacecraft fell too far into the planet's atmosphere, likely causing it to crash on Mars. Cause: The software that controlled the Orbiter thrusters used imperial units (pounds of force), rather than metric units (Newtons) as specified by NASA.
13. Disastrous Study (1999)
Cost: Scientific credibility
Disaster: In this ironic case, software used to analyze disasters had a disaster of its own. The New England Journal of Medicine reported increased suicide rates after severe natural disasters. Unfortunately, these results proved to be incorrect. Cause: A programming error caused the number of suicides for one year to be doubled, which was enough to throw off the entire study.
14. British Passports to Nowhere (1999)
Cost: £12.6 million, mass inconvenience Disaster: The U.K. Passport Agency implemented a new Siemens computer system, which failed to issue passports on time for a half million British citizens. The Agency had to pay millions in compensation, staff overtime and umbrellas for people queuing in the rain for passports. Cause: The Passport Agency rolled out its new computer system without adequately testing it or training its staff. At the same time, a law change required all children under 16 traveling abroad to obtain a passport, resulting in a huge spike in passport demand that overwhelmed the buggy new computer system.
15. Y2K (1999)
Cost: $500 billion Disaster: One man's disaster is another man's fortune, as demonstrated by the infamous Y2K bug. Businesses spent billions on programmers to fix a glitch in legacy software. While no significant computer failures occurred, preparation for the Y2K bug had a significant cost and time impact on all industries that use computer technology. Cause: To save computer storage space, legacy software often stored the year for dates as two digit numbers, such as "99″ for 1999. The software also interpreted "00″ to mean 1900 rather than 2000, so when the year 2000 came along, bugs would result.
16. Dot-Bomb Collapse (2000)
Cost: $5 trillion in market value, thousands of companies failed Disaster: A speculative bubble from 1995–2001 fueled a rapid increase in venture capital investments and stock market values in the Internet and technology sectors. The "dot-com bubble" began to collapse in early 2000, erasing trillions in stock market value, wiping out thousands of companies and jobs, and launching a global recession. Cause: Companies and investors dismissed standard business models, and instead focused on increasing market share at the expense of profits.
17. Love Virus (2000)
Cost: $8.75 billion, millions of computers infected, significant data loss Disaster: The LoveLetter worm infected millions of computers and caused more damage than any other computer virus in history. The worm deleted files, changed home pages and messed with the Registry. Cause: LoveLetter infected users via e-mail, Internet chat and shared file systems. The email had an executable file attachment and subject line, "ILOVEYOU." When the user opened the attachment, the virus would infect the user's computer and send itself to everyone in the address book.
18. Cancer Treatment to Die For (2000)
Cost: Eight people dead, 20 critically injured
Disaster: Radiation therapy software by Multidata Systems International miscalculated the proper dosage, exposing patients to harmful and in some cases fatal levels of radiation. The physicians, who were legally required to double-check the software's calculations, were indicted for murder. Cause: The software calculated radiation dosage based on the order in which data was entered, sometimes delivering a double dose of radiation.
19. EDS Drops Child Support (2004)
Cost: £539 million and counting Disaster: Business services giant EDS developed a computer system for U.K.'s Child Support Agency (CSA) that accidentally overpaid 1.9 million people, underpaid another 700,000, had £3.5 billion in uncollected child support payments, a backlog of 239,000 cases, 36,000 new cases "stuck" in the system, and still over 500 documented bugs. Cause: EDS introduced a large, complex IT system to the CSA while trying to simultaneously restructure the agency.
20. FBI's Trilogy Terminated (2005)
Cost: $105 million, still no effective case file solution Disaster: The FBI scrapped its computer systems overhaul after four years of effort. The Virtual Case File project was a massive, integrated software system for agents to share case files and other information. Cause: Mismanagement, and an attempt to build a long-term project on technology that was outdated before the project completed, resulted in a complex and unusable system.
Friday, May 29, 2009
10 Things You Didn't Know About Death
1. SORRY, YOU CAN’T GO BACK. Medically, death is usually defined as the event when an organism’s life functions stop: an irreversible cessation of brain and body activities.
In practical terms, death comes when our heart stops beating; we stop breathing, and all higher brain functions turn off. All systems are no-go. There are legal issues regard-ing more precise definitions, such as exactly when death is death and not a persistent vegetative state, in which the body is kept artificially “alive” in the sense of cellular exchange and the continuance of lower life functions.
2. MANY WAYS TO SAY GOODBYE. How we handle our departed varies greatly from culture to culture, as do attitudes and cus-toms surrounding our farewells. Every culture has rituals for the respectful disposition and memorialization of its deceased. No true civilization casually throws its dead away.
Funerals are for the living. They provide a way to say goodbye. All cultures share principles for this goodbye. All follow group ritual; all have sacred burial or disposal places; all memorialize the departed. Even the Neanderthals (50,000—60,000 B.C.) had burial grounds with bodies deco-rated with animal horns or antlers and the remains of flowers.
A funeral confirms the reality and finality of an individ-ual’s existence. It gives us a chance to express grief, to create a temporary community of sorrow, uniting those left behind into one family—perhaps for the only time in their lives.
Funerals provide an opportunity for family and friends to share emotional support, and they teach mourners to face their loss by expressing their feelings.
3. TRADITION, TRADITION. In ancient Greek, Jewish, and Ro-man funerals, the deceased was not embalmed but washed in warm water, sometimes with olive oil. Often the cleansing was done by women of the family. Romans and Greeks might mod-estly adorn the deceased. But in Jewish tradition, the deceased was (and usually still is) wrapped unadorned in a simple white shroud and buried in a plain pine coffin. All three cultures prac-ticed burial in ground that was considered holy. Romans pre-pared their dead for burial by first closing their eyes and placing coins on them, and placing a coin in the mouth to guarantee fare across the River Styx. Then—depending on social class and level of wealth—family members or slaves washed the body for several days with warm water and anointed it with olive oil and perfumes. In the fourth century B.C., cremation became more common than burial. Funerals were often held at night to re-duce the likelihood of unwanted crowds or rowdiness.
4. DEATH AMERICAN STYLE. Sometimes called the father of modern embalming, Dr. Thomas Holmes of New York was an Army Medical Corps captain during the Civil War. He and his staff embalmed some 4,000 KIAs. President Lincoln appreciated the role embalming played in returning the Union dead home in a dignified and sanitary manner. Em-balming was rare for Confederate dead.
Dr. Holmes quickly saw potential in the funeral business, and he left the military to provide civilian embalming ser-vices at $100 a pop—far better than Army pay. Historical aside: Once the war was over, since there were far fewer dead people—and also fewer trained embalmers—many under-takers reverted to preserving corpses with ice.
5. BURN MY WIFE—PLEASE. In some cultures, suicide was re-spectful funeral etiquette. In ancient Japan, slaves committed seppuku (ritual suicide) to honor their dead master. (Clearly, employee retention was not a high priority.) In Fiji, besides wives and slaves, friends of the deceased were strangled to join him in death. To Western eyes, the Hindu custom of suttee (wife burning) seems really sick—even for those of us who have had difficult marriages. The widow had to don her finest outfit, then recline alongside her late husband on the funeral pyre while their eldest son torched them to paradise.
Fire has a close connection with death. Primitive tribes often burned bodies to destroy evil spirits lurking therein. Zulus even burn possessions of the deceased to keep evil spirits away. Other tribes set a ring of fire around the de-ceased to scorch death spirits and prevent them from attack-ing mourners. Zoroastrians—fire lovers—preferred to let their dead rot or even be eaten by vultures. Fire was too sacred to use for a lowly purpose; burying a decaying corpse was considered insulting to Mother Earth.
6. GENDER DISCRIMINATION AFTER DEATH. For better or worse, dead males in some cultures have been treated differ-ently from dead females. Primitive examples: the Cochieans buried women but hung men from trees. The Ghonds buried women and cremated men. The Bongas buried men facing north, women facing south. OK, have you ever heard of Co-chieans, Ghonds, or Bongas? Clue.
We have inherited many funeral customs from distant ancestors, including wardrobe hints. Some ancient societies, when saying farewell to their fellows, thought they could keep death spirits away from themselves with clever disguises. If they really believed they could fool the spirits with a quick change of clothes, pagans must have considered them either stupid or myopic.
The face is where eating and breathing happen, so most ancient cultures assumed that our life force leaves through the mouth. When someone became gravely ill, they sometimes tried to trap the life spirit inside the patient by clamping his mouth and nose shut—which surely killed far more people than it helped. Bad bedside manner.
7. RELIVING THE PAST. Overeating at funerals began in an-cient times, when food offerings were made as an affirma-tion of life. Wakes echo the custom of watching over the deceased, hoping they will “wake” and come back to life. Candles are a variation of the use of fire to protect the living from the spirits. Bell-ringing stems from a medieval belief that spirits are frightened away by the ringing of a conse-crated bell.
Military funerals include a rif le volley fired over the de-ceased hero. What are they shooting at? Probably the same evil spirits that our ancestors tried to chase away by heaving spears or shooting arrows. And why do we offer wreaths at funerals? To wrap around the spirit of the dead and keep it from entering us. Why a determined Death would be so eas-ily fooled by flowers has never been explained.
8. MUMMY DEAREST. The historian Cassius wrote that the Egyptians developed embalming as a solution to the problem of the regular Nile River f loods, which would exhume the dead. They apparently understood—although they had no specific knowledge of pathogens—that f loating cadavers caused illness and death.
Egyptian embalmers were priests, whose embalming success was due largely to Egypt’s hot dry climate. Flesh decomposes via bacterial action, and heat and aridity thwart bacterial survival and growth.
The Egyptians practiced three methods of embalming (too gruesome to outline here) based on the wealth of the individual—not unlike funeral directors today. All after-life functions took place within the necropolis (“city of the dead”), a walled enclosure that was off limits to the average Hosep. Within those walls were the embalmers, coffin mak-ers, cosmetic artists, and burial crypts.
9. WHY EMBALM? The main reason is to avoid infection and disease spread through decomposition. Although some patho-gens die soon after their host, others survive for long periods in dead tissue. Anyone touching an unembalmed body can become infected. Also, flies and worms can be vectors to spread disease among humans with whom they come in contact.
Embalming also protects the deceased from putrefaction while arrangements are completed for burial, cremation, or entombment. Unembalmed corpses are not good company. There is also the issue of restoration, which offers the psy-chological value of emotional closure for friends and relatives who want one last look at the departed in a state of natural-looking peacefulness.
10.MORE THAN YOU WANT TO KNOW. Once embalmers became competent, there was much less rush to burial. Mourners had more time for funeral arrangements. Early embalming prepara-tions were arsenic solutions, later replaced by formaldehyde.
Just as they do today, nineteenth and early twentieth-cen-tury drug reps ran wild across the country. Embalming fluid companies sent salesmen to give one- or two-day seminars on their product. Anyone who took the training sessions and agreed to buy a certain amount of the embalming fluid was automatically certified as a qualified embalmer. This snake-oil approach to mortuary science lasted well into the twentieth century, when states took over the licensing process.
In practical terms, death comes when our heart stops beating; we stop breathing, and all higher brain functions turn off. All systems are no-go. There are legal issues regard-ing more precise definitions, such as exactly when death is death and not a persistent vegetative state, in which the body is kept artificially “alive” in the sense of cellular exchange and the continuance of lower life functions.
2. MANY WAYS TO SAY GOODBYE. How we handle our departed varies greatly from culture to culture, as do attitudes and cus-toms surrounding our farewells. Every culture has rituals for the respectful disposition and memorialization of its deceased. No true civilization casually throws its dead away.
Funerals are for the living. They provide a way to say goodbye. All cultures share principles for this goodbye. All follow group ritual; all have sacred burial or disposal places; all memorialize the departed. Even the Neanderthals (50,000—60,000 B.C.) had burial grounds with bodies deco-rated with animal horns or antlers and the remains of flowers.
A funeral confirms the reality and finality of an individ-ual’s existence. It gives us a chance to express grief, to create a temporary community of sorrow, uniting those left behind into one family—perhaps for the only time in their lives.
Funerals provide an opportunity for family and friends to share emotional support, and they teach mourners to face their loss by expressing their feelings.
3. TRADITION, TRADITION. In ancient Greek, Jewish, and Ro-man funerals, the deceased was not embalmed but washed in warm water, sometimes with olive oil. Often the cleansing was done by women of the family. Romans and Greeks might mod-estly adorn the deceased. But in Jewish tradition, the deceased was (and usually still is) wrapped unadorned in a simple white shroud and buried in a plain pine coffin. All three cultures prac-ticed burial in ground that was considered holy. Romans pre-pared their dead for burial by first closing their eyes and placing coins on them, and placing a coin in the mouth to guarantee fare across the River Styx. Then—depending on social class and level of wealth—family members or slaves washed the body for several days with warm water and anointed it with olive oil and perfumes. In the fourth century B.C., cremation became more common than burial. Funerals were often held at night to re-duce the likelihood of unwanted crowds or rowdiness.
4. DEATH AMERICAN STYLE. Sometimes called the father of modern embalming, Dr. Thomas Holmes of New York was an Army Medical Corps captain during the Civil War. He and his staff embalmed some 4,000 KIAs. President Lincoln appreciated the role embalming played in returning the Union dead home in a dignified and sanitary manner. Em-balming was rare for Confederate dead.
Dr. Holmes quickly saw potential in the funeral business, and he left the military to provide civilian embalming ser-vices at $100 a pop—far better than Army pay. Historical aside: Once the war was over, since there were far fewer dead people—and also fewer trained embalmers—many under-takers reverted to preserving corpses with ice.
5. BURN MY WIFE—PLEASE. In some cultures, suicide was re-spectful funeral etiquette. In ancient Japan, slaves committed seppuku (ritual suicide) to honor their dead master. (Clearly, employee retention was not a high priority.) In Fiji, besides wives and slaves, friends of the deceased were strangled to join him in death. To Western eyes, the Hindu custom of suttee (wife burning) seems really sick—even for those of us who have had difficult marriages. The widow had to don her finest outfit, then recline alongside her late husband on the funeral pyre while their eldest son torched them to paradise.
Fire has a close connection with death. Primitive tribes often burned bodies to destroy evil spirits lurking therein. Zulus even burn possessions of the deceased to keep evil spirits away. Other tribes set a ring of fire around the de-ceased to scorch death spirits and prevent them from attack-ing mourners. Zoroastrians—fire lovers—preferred to let their dead rot or even be eaten by vultures. Fire was too sacred to use for a lowly purpose; burying a decaying corpse was considered insulting to Mother Earth.
6. GENDER DISCRIMINATION AFTER DEATH. For better or worse, dead males in some cultures have been treated differ-ently from dead females. Primitive examples: the Cochieans buried women but hung men from trees. The Ghonds buried women and cremated men. The Bongas buried men facing north, women facing south. OK, have you ever heard of Co-chieans, Ghonds, or Bongas? Clue.
We have inherited many funeral customs from distant ancestors, including wardrobe hints. Some ancient societies, when saying farewell to their fellows, thought they could keep death spirits away from themselves with clever disguises. If they really believed they could fool the spirits with a quick change of clothes, pagans must have considered them either stupid or myopic.
The face is where eating and breathing happen, so most ancient cultures assumed that our life force leaves through the mouth. When someone became gravely ill, they sometimes tried to trap the life spirit inside the patient by clamping his mouth and nose shut—which surely killed far more people than it helped. Bad bedside manner.
7. RELIVING THE PAST. Overeating at funerals began in an-cient times, when food offerings were made as an affirma-tion of life. Wakes echo the custom of watching over the deceased, hoping they will “wake” and come back to life. Candles are a variation of the use of fire to protect the living from the spirits. Bell-ringing stems from a medieval belief that spirits are frightened away by the ringing of a conse-crated bell.
Military funerals include a rif le volley fired over the de-ceased hero. What are they shooting at? Probably the same evil spirits that our ancestors tried to chase away by heaving spears or shooting arrows. And why do we offer wreaths at funerals? To wrap around the spirit of the dead and keep it from entering us. Why a determined Death would be so eas-ily fooled by flowers has never been explained.
8. MUMMY DEAREST. The historian Cassius wrote that the Egyptians developed embalming as a solution to the problem of the regular Nile River f loods, which would exhume the dead. They apparently understood—although they had no specific knowledge of pathogens—that f loating cadavers caused illness and death.
Egyptian embalmers were priests, whose embalming success was due largely to Egypt’s hot dry climate. Flesh decomposes via bacterial action, and heat and aridity thwart bacterial survival and growth.
The Egyptians practiced three methods of embalming (too gruesome to outline here) based on the wealth of the individual—not unlike funeral directors today. All after-life functions took place within the necropolis (“city of the dead”), a walled enclosure that was off limits to the average Hosep. Within those walls were the embalmers, coffin mak-ers, cosmetic artists, and burial crypts.
9. WHY EMBALM? The main reason is to avoid infection and disease spread through decomposition. Although some patho-gens die soon after their host, others survive for long periods in dead tissue. Anyone touching an unembalmed body can become infected. Also, flies and worms can be vectors to spread disease among humans with whom they come in contact.
Embalming also protects the deceased from putrefaction while arrangements are completed for burial, cremation, or entombment. Unembalmed corpses are not good company. There is also the issue of restoration, which offers the psy-chological value of emotional closure for friends and relatives who want one last look at the departed in a state of natural-looking peacefulness.
10.MORE THAN YOU WANT TO KNOW. Once embalmers became competent, there was much less rush to burial. Mourners had more time for funeral arrangements. Early embalming prepara-tions were arsenic solutions, later replaced by formaldehyde.
Just as they do today, nineteenth and early twentieth-cen-tury drug reps ran wild across the country. Embalming fluid companies sent salesmen to give one- or two-day seminars on their product. Anyone who took the training sessions and agreed to buy a certain amount of the embalming fluid was automatically certified as a qualified embalmer. This snake-oil approach to mortuary science lasted well into the twentieth century, when states took over the licensing process.
10 Things You Didn't Know About Your Body
1. YOUR BODY IS A WALKING CHEMISTRY LAB. It contains over 40 elements, 99% of them carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxy-gen. (Hydrogen and oxygen alone are 87% of your body mass— body cells are mostly water—mixed hydrogen and oxygen.)
2. OXYGEN CAN KILL YOU. We need it to live. In fact, adult humans need to inhale about 88 pounds of oxygen every day. But concentrated doses for extended periods destroy lung cells, leading to coma and death. Same with water. It’s the basis of life, but too much too soon dilutes the bloodstream and impairs electrolyte balance, possibly leading to cardiac arrest. So breathe and drink responsibly.
Oddities worth noting:
•Women feel more pain than men.
•Human brains continue to generate electrical impulses for more than a day after death.
•Human bones have the same tensile strength as steel but are roughly 50 times lighter.
•You are born with adult-size eyes, but your ears and nose keep growing throughout your life.
3. YOUR LIVER IS YOUR LARGEST INTERNAL ORGAN. (Skin is the largest organ overall.) An adult male liver is—espe-cially on Monday nights—about the size of a football. It weighs 3 pounds and lurks in your upper right abdomen, protected by ribs. Other than the brain, it’s your most com-plex, versatile organ. Think of it as the body’s chemical processing plant.
Liver function affects almost every bodily process. It filters toxins (purifying a liter of blood every minute), regulates fat digestion, aids hormonal balance. It’s also an efficient packager of nutrients, storing and distributing what you need for growth and maintenance. One exam-ple: it absorbs glucose from digested food, sends what is needed into the bloodstream, then converts and “shelves” the rest as glycogen for future use. When your body needs more fuel to burn, your liver reconverts that glycogen into glucose.
4. YOUR HEART IS IN THE RIGHT PLACE. But that isn’t on the left side of your chest. It’s near the center, between the lungs. It angles slightly left, which is where you notice its beating. In most adults, the heart is about twice the size of a fist.
A normal heart beats about 100,000 times a day—35 million times a year. Assuming an average life span, your heart will beat between 2.5 and 3.0 billion times, pumping some 55,000,000 gallons of blood! An industrious little mus-cle indeed. About 6 quarts of blood circulate through your entire system every 20 seconds. Each 24 hours, that blood travels 12,000 miles. Your heart muscle uses about the same force to pump blood as you’d use to squeeze a tennis ball, which can squirt a stream of blood about 30 feet.
The aorta, the largest artery in the body, is as wide as a gar-den hose. If you were to unravel all the blood vessels, including capillaries, in your body, they’d stretch 62,000 miles, about two and a half times around the Earth. Capillaries are so tiny that 10 of them braided together could fit inside a human hair.
The human heart continues to beat even when removed from the body or cut to pieces.
5. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. How long your body lasts depends partly on where your body is living. According to a World Bank survey, worldwide average life expectancy has risen to 67. Japan’s expected age is 81; public-health, AIDS-challenged Swaziland a mere 32.6.
A report ranking more than 170 countries according to various factors revealed that the best places to live were over-whelmingly Western societies. For the fourth straight year, Norway topped the list, followed closely by Sweden, Aus-tralia, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Iceland, the U.S., Japan, and Ireland. Most endangered: Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Sierra Leone. Norwegians born between 2000 and 2005 have an estimated life of 78.9 years; Zambians born those same years can expect only 32.4.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the following “healthiest places” have universal health care progams: Norway, Sweden, Aus-tralia, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Japan, and Ireland. The U.S. and Iceland seem uninterested in that social ser-vice.
6. ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MINERAL. Your body is made up of about 100 trillion cells, most of which are microbes: fungi, bacteria, viruses, and other alien particles. Your skin alone hosts more living organisms than the total human population of Earth.
Your gut is home to about 2.2 pounds of bacteria—even before the chili down at Paco’s. There are more bacteria than human cells in and on your body. Every square inch contains an average of 32 million bacteria. In fact, about 10% of your dry weight is from bacteria, so consider personal hygiene when dieting. There are more bacteria in your mouth than people in North America.
7. IT AIN’T NECESSARILY SO. Despite the biblical story of Adam trading a rib for a wife, men have the same number of ribs as women. In each case, 24. One of every 20 humans has one pair more or less.
8. YOU’RE PROBABLY NOT MULTITASKING AS WELL AS YOU THINK. Neurological research shows that most people should not try to do too much at once. Distractions impede perfor-mance because of human cognitive limits.
Driving while talking on a cell phone, even with a head-set, reduces awareness levels and cuts response time up to a full second—lethal at 60 mph.
Young brains fire faster. But they’re easily distracted, and they take longer to regain efficiency, according to Oxford University researchers. Test groups of 18 to 21-year-olds and 35 to 39-year-olds were given 90 seconds to code images into numbers. The youngsters were 10% more efficient when not interrupted. But after interruptions to both groups, they per-formed no better than the oldies.
9. LEFT-LEANING? About 17% of us are left-handed—50% more males than females. (True of gorillas and chimps also!) Lefties are better at sports that require keen spatial judgment and fast reaction. But there’s no evidence that they are smarter or more creative than right-handers. Left-handedness is as-sociated both with high achievement and with neurological disorders like Down’s syndrome, dyslexia, and autism.
It starts early. Whichever thumb an embryo sucks usually correlates with the child’s subsequent handedness. Some the-orize a connection between left-handedness and high uterine testosterone levels; others suggest that right-brain emphasis implied by left-handedness may incline babies toward artistic creativity.
People tend to chew their food on the same side as their dominant hand. Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe have the most lefties in the world. It is comparatively uncommon among Europeans and Africans. Right-handers live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people. (Maybe partly because left-handed people are injured or killed using machinery or implements designed for right-handed people?)
10. YOU’RE ALL WET. According to some water industry esti-mates, the average American uses 3,000 gallons of water a month for all purposes. That means 12,000 for a family of four. Over a typical lifetime, we will each generate about 10,000 gallons of saliva and 12,000 gallons of urine.
We lose water through 2,000,000 sweat glands (250,000 in our feet alone), also via exhaled breath and elimination of waste.
Water is the only substance naturally present in all three states of matter—liquid, solid (ice), and gas (water vapor or steam). It’s present in two of those forms in your body. For your sake we hope there’s neither ice nor steam. Your brain is 75% water, 22% bones, over 80% blood. Less than 3% of all water on Earth is drinkable; 90% of it is in Antarctica—for the moment. Be very worried.
2. OXYGEN CAN KILL YOU. We need it to live. In fact, adult humans need to inhale about 88 pounds of oxygen every day. But concentrated doses for extended periods destroy lung cells, leading to coma and death. Same with water. It’s the basis of life, but too much too soon dilutes the bloodstream and impairs electrolyte balance, possibly leading to cardiac arrest. So breathe and drink responsibly.
Oddities worth noting:
•Women feel more pain than men.
•Human brains continue to generate electrical impulses for more than a day after death.
•Human bones have the same tensile strength as steel but are roughly 50 times lighter.
•You are born with adult-size eyes, but your ears and nose keep growing throughout your life.
3. YOUR LIVER IS YOUR LARGEST INTERNAL ORGAN. (Skin is the largest organ overall.) An adult male liver is—espe-cially on Monday nights—about the size of a football. It weighs 3 pounds and lurks in your upper right abdomen, protected by ribs. Other than the brain, it’s your most com-plex, versatile organ. Think of it as the body’s chemical processing plant.
Liver function affects almost every bodily process. It filters toxins (purifying a liter of blood every minute), regulates fat digestion, aids hormonal balance. It’s also an efficient packager of nutrients, storing and distributing what you need for growth and maintenance. One exam-ple: it absorbs glucose from digested food, sends what is needed into the bloodstream, then converts and “shelves” the rest as glycogen for future use. When your body needs more fuel to burn, your liver reconverts that glycogen into glucose.
4. YOUR HEART IS IN THE RIGHT PLACE. But that isn’t on the left side of your chest. It’s near the center, between the lungs. It angles slightly left, which is where you notice its beating. In most adults, the heart is about twice the size of a fist.
A normal heart beats about 100,000 times a day—35 million times a year. Assuming an average life span, your heart will beat between 2.5 and 3.0 billion times, pumping some 55,000,000 gallons of blood! An industrious little mus-cle indeed. About 6 quarts of blood circulate through your entire system every 20 seconds. Each 24 hours, that blood travels 12,000 miles. Your heart muscle uses about the same force to pump blood as you’d use to squeeze a tennis ball, which can squirt a stream of blood about 30 feet.
The aorta, the largest artery in the body, is as wide as a gar-den hose. If you were to unravel all the blood vessels, including capillaries, in your body, they’d stretch 62,000 miles, about two and a half times around the Earth. Capillaries are so tiny that 10 of them braided together could fit inside a human hair.
The human heart continues to beat even when removed from the body or cut to pieces.
5. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. How long your body lasts depends partly on where your body is living. According to a World Bank survey, worldwide average life expectancy has risen to 67. Japan’s expected age is 81; public-health, AIDS-challenged Swaziland a mere 32.6.
A report ranking more than 170 countries according to various factors revealed that the best places to live were over-whelmingly Western societies. For the fourth straight year, Norway topped the list, followed closely by Sweden, Aus-tralia, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Iceland, the U.S., Japan, and Ireland. Most endangered: Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Sierra Leone. Norwegians born between 2000 and 2005 have an estimated life of 78.9 years; Zambians born those same years can expect only 32.4.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the following “healthiest places” have universal health care progams: Norway, Sweden, Aus-tralia, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Japan, and Ireland. The U.S. and Iceland seem uninterested in that social ser-vice.
6. ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MINERAL. Your body is made up of about 100 trillion cells, most of which are microbes: fungi, bacteria, viruses, and other alien particles. Your skin alone hosts more living organisms than the total human population of Earth.
Your gut is home to about 2.2 pounds of bacteria—even before the chili down at Paco’s. There are more bacteria than human cells in and on your body. Every square inch contains an average of 32 million bacteria. In fact, about 10% of your dry weight is from bacteria, so consider personal hygiene when dieting. There are more bacteria in your mouth than people in North America.
7. IT AIN’T NECESSARILY SO. Despite the biblical story of Adam trading a rib for a wife, men have the same number of ribs as women. In each case, 24. One of every 20 humans has one pair more or less.
8. YOU’RE PROBABLY NOT MULTITASKING AS WELL AS YOU THINK. Neurological research shows that most people should not try to do too much at once. Distractions impede perfor-mance because of human cognitive limits.
Driving while talking on a cell phone, even with a head-set, reduces awareness levels and cuts response time up to a full second—lethal at 60 mph.
Young brains fire faster. But they’re easily distracted, and they take longer to regain efficiency, according to Oxford University researchers. Test groups of 18 to 21-year-olds and 35 to 39-year-olds were given 90 seconds to code images into numbers. The youngsters were 10% more efficient when not interrupted. But after interruptions to both groups, they per-formed no better than the oldies.
9. LEFT-LEANING? About 17% of us are left-handed—50% more males than females. (True of gorillas and chimps also!) Lefties are better at sports that require keen spatial judgment and fast reaction. But there’s no evidence that they are smarter or more creative than right-handers. Left-handedness is as-sociated both with high achievement and with neurological disorders like Down’s syndrome, dyslexia, and autism.
It starts early. Whichever thumb an embryo sucks usually correlates with the child’s subsequent handedness. Some the-orize a connection between left-handedness and high uterine testosterone levels; others suggest that right-brain emphasis implied by left-handedness may incline babies toward artistic creativity.
People tend to chew their food on the same side as their dominant hand. Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe have the most lefties in the world. It is comparatively uncommon among Europeans and Africans. Right-handers live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people. (Maybe partly because left-handed people are injured or killed using machinery or implements designed for right-handed people?)
10. YOU’RE ALL WET. According to some water industry esti-mates, the average American uses 3,000 gallons of water a month for all purposes. That means 12,000 for a family of four. Over a typical lifetime, we will each generate about 10,000 gallons of saliva and 12,000 gallons of urine.
We lose water through 2,000,000 sweat glands (250,000 in our feet alone), also via exhaled breath and elimination of waste.
Water is the only substance naturally present in all three states of matter—liquid, solid (ice), and gas (water vapor or steam). It’s present in two of those forms in your body. For your sake we hope there’s neither ice nor steam. Your brain is 75% water, 22% bones, over 80% blood. Less than 3% of all water on Earth is drinkable; 90% of it is in Antarctica—for the moment. Be very worried.
10 Things You Didn't Know About Birth
1. COUNTING THE MINUTES. From conception to delivery of a new human takes about 38 weeks. That’s 266 days or 6,384 hours. Only about 5% of births occur on the “due date.” That’s because it’s the baby, not the doctor or the calendar, who decides when it’s time.
2. FEWER AMERICANS? For a dozen years the U.S. birth rate declined, though it now appears to be stabilizing.
There are about 80.5 million mothers in the United States. The most common birth month is August—with odds favoring a Tuesday (see #8) afternoon. (The fewest American deaths happen in August.) Our lengthening life span results in a smaller proportion of women of childbear-ing age. Birth rates for prime reproductive ages have also plunged. Rates for the 20s and early 30s are generally down, but in mothers 35 to 44 they have trended up and become stable (though not great in numbers) for women over 45.
3. SENDING IN REPLACEMENTS. It takes 2.1 births per mother to replace the population in Europe. The current average is 1.5 children per woman. Hitting 1.0 would rep-resent cutting the population in half. Japan has one of the world’s lowest birth rates at 1.32. South Korea claims the lowest—1.08—according to that country’s National Statis-tical Office.
The world birth rate is about 20 per 1,000 persons. The highest national rates are mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Niger leads with an incredible 50.16 per thousand, Mali at 49.61 per thousand, and Uganda 48.12 (then Afghanistan at 46.21). In general, the developing world’s rates hover in the 40s, 30s, and 20s. Europe, the developed West, and East Asia clump in the teens and under.
4. HEY, A BABY’S A BABY. Statistics from 2006 show out-of-wedlock births at an all-time high—37% that year. Usually associated with teenage mothers, the U.S. teen birth rate is lower than ever. More babies are emerging from the 20-somethings.
Out-of-wedlock births have risen since the late 1990s. Some 4.1 million babies were born in the United States in 2005, more than 1.5 million of those to unmarried women.
This mushrooming of out-of-wedlock children parallels the rise in couples delaying marriage or eschewing it alto-gether. Birth statistics in the 20s age cohort are consistent across ethnic groups, although the percentage rose most sharply among Hispanics.
5. THE UNKINDEST CUT? Thirty percent of U.S. mothers give birth by Caesarean section, with a growing number choosing that method.
More than 80,000 American women a year have elective, pre-planned C-sections.
The National Institutes of Health is studying the risk-to-benefit ratio of what is, after all, major abdominal surgery. The side effects are rare but can include hemorrhage, blood clots, and infections. Women having C-sections also risk complications with future pregnancies.
Caesareans are a potentially life-saving alternative in some high-risk pregnancies. Fetal distress, multiple births, or the presence of certain diseases are important reasons to have one.
But for some women (and doctors!) it’s about convenience— scheduling the birth to fit busy lives. Plan ahead for visiting relatives and friends. Some women fear that something might go wrong with vaginal birth and prefer a planned C-section to an emergency one. Others who live far from a hospital worry that when their water breaks they might not arrive in time.
6. GIMME THAT OLD-TIME BIRTHING. More women are choosing alternative approaches to childbirth. In this century, more women are choosing water birth, Lamaze, acupressure, yoga breathing, hypnosis, and acupuncture to deal with birth pangs.
For generations the norm—especially in big cities—has been to medicate Mom in a hospital maternity ward. But critics remind us that birth is natural, so we should help mothers cope with the pain and view it as work, not simply mask it by doping them up.
In the early 1990s, only two large American hospitals (and a few birthing centers) had water-birthing facilities. By the mid-2000s, about 250 U.S. hospitals and 70% of birth centers were including it.
7. WHEN THINGS GO WRONG. The March of Dimes notes that each year 150,000 babies are born with birth defects, while the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says that 3% of all babies born in the U.S. have some abnormality. Most babies born with congenital defects have two normal, healthy parents.
8. WEEKENDS OFF? Uterine contractions are triggered by hormones, not by calendars. Therefore, absent physician in-tervention, births should be evenly distributed across seven days—about 14% on any given day. Not so. In the U.S., more babies are born during the work week—slightly more than 14% from Monday through Friday! Only 12% come on Saturday, and a mere 10% are Sunday babies.
Tuesday is the day most babies were born in 2004.
9. BEYOND TULIPS AND CHEESE. A Dutch study says that women who work high-stress jobs during pregnancy risk their babies’ having low birth weight, crying more, and pos-sibly contracting diabetes and heart disease. A researcher recommends working no more than 24 hours a week.
Some employers would like pregnant women to work zero hours a week. Pregnancy discrimination and improper dismissal suits are on the rise. Suits filed with the Equal Em-ployment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) shot up 39% between 1992 and 2003.
10. AS YOUNG AS YOU FEEL. In 2007, psychologist Frieda Birnbaum of New Jersey became the oldest woman (60) in the
U.S. ever to bear twins. Both were born via C-section. She went for in vitro fertilization at a South African center special-izing in older women. Her 3 other children are 33, 29, and 6.
In 2006 a 59-year-old New Jersey woman gave birth to twins. An Austrian woman became a first-time mom at age 61, then bore her second child at 66. The oldest mother in the world to give birth was a 67-year-old Spanish woman.
2. FEWER AMERICANS? For a dozen years the U.S. birth rate declined, though it now appears to be stabilizing.
There are about 80.5 million mothers in the United States. The most common birth month is August—with odds favoring a Tuesday (see #8) afternoon. (The fewest American deaths happen in August.) Our lengthening life span results in a smaller proportion of women of childbear-ing age. Birth rates for prime reproductive ages have also plunged. Rates for the 20s and early 30s are generally down, but in mothers 35 to 44 they have trended up and become stable (though not great in numbers) for women over 45.
3. SENDING IN REPLACEMENTS. It takes 2.1 births per mother to replace the population in Europe. The current average is 1.5 children per woman. Hitting 1.0 would rep-resent cutting the population in half. Japan has one of the world’s lowest birth rates at 1.32. South Korea claims the lowest—1.08—according to that country’s National Statis-tical Office.
The world birth rate is about 20 per 1,000 persons. The highest national rates are mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Niger leads with an incredible 50.16 per thousand, Mali at 49.61 per thousand, and Uganda 48.12 (then Afghanistan at 46.21). In general, the developing world’s rates hover in the 40s, 30s, and 20s. Europe, the developed West, and East Asia clump in the teens and under.
4. HEY, A BABY’S A BABY. Statistics from 2006 show out-of-wedlock births at an all-time high—37% that year. Usually associated with teenage mothers, the U.S. teen birth rate is lower than ever. More babies are emerging from the 20-somethings.
Out-of-wedlock births have risen since the late 1990s. Some 4.1 million babies were born in the United States in 2005, more than 1.5 million of those to unmarried women.
This mushrooming of out-of-wedlock children parallels the rise in couples delaying marriage or eschewing it alto-gether. Birth statistics in the 20s age cohort are consistent across ethnic groups, although the percentage rose most sharply among Hispanics.
5. THE UNKINDEST CUT? Thirty percent of U.S. mothers give birth by Caesarean section, with a growing number choosing that method.
More than 80,000 American women a year have elective, pre-planned C-sections.
The National Institutes of Health is studying the risk-to-benefit ratio of what is, after all, major abdominal surgery. The side effects are rare but can include hemorrhage, blood clots, and infections. Women having C-sections also risk complications with future pregnancies.
Caesareans are a potentially life-saving alternative in some high-risk pregnancies. Fetal distress, multiple births, or the presence of certain diseases are important reasons to have one.
But for some women (and doctors!) it’s about convenience— scheduling the birth to fit busy lives. Plan ahead for visiting relatives and friends. Some women fear that something might go wrong with vaginal birth and prefer a planned C-section to an emergency one. Others who live far from a hospital worry that when their water breaks they might not arrive in time.
6. GIMME THAT OLD-TIME BIRTHING. More women are choosing alternative approaches to childbirth. In this century, more women are choosing water birth, Lamaze, acupressure, yoga breathing, hypnosis, and acupuncture to deal with birth pangs.
For generations the norm—especially in big cities—has been to medicate Mom in a hospital maternity ward. But critics remind us that birth is natural, so we should help mothers cope with the pain and view it as work, not simply mask it by doping them up.
In the early 1990s, only two large American hospitals (and a few birthing centers) had water-birthing facilities. By the mid-2000s, about 250 U.S. hospitals and 70% of birth centers were including it.
7. WHEN THINGS GO WRONG. The March of Dimes notes that each year 150,000 babies are born with birth defects, while the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says that 3% of all babies born in the U.S. have some abnormality. Most babies born with congenital defects have two normal, healthy parents.
8. WEEKENDS OFF? Uterine contractions are triggered by hormones, not by calendars. Therefore, absent physician in-tervention, births should be evenly distributed across seven days—about 14% on any given day. Not so. In the U.S., more babies are born during the work week—slightly more than 14% from Monday through Friday! Only 12% come on Saturday, and a mere 10% are Sunday babies.
Tuesday is the day most babies were born in 2004.
9. BEYOND TULIPS AND CHEESE. A Dutch study says that women who work high-stress jobs during pregnancy risk their babies’ having low birth weight, crying more, and pos-sibly contracting diabetes and heart disease. A researcher recommends working no more than 24 hours a week.
Some employers would like pregnant women to work zero hours a week. Pregnancy discrimination and improper dismissal suits are on the rise. Suits filed with the Equal Em-ployment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) shot up 39% between 1992 and 2003.
10. AS YOUNG AS YOU FEEL. In 2007, psychologist Frieda Birnbaum of New Jersey became the oldest woman (60) in the
U.S. ever to bear twins. Both were born via C-section. She went for in vitro fertilization at a South African center special-izing in older women. Her 3 other children are 33, 29, and 6.
In 2006 a 59-year-old New Jersey woman gave birth to twins. An Austrian woman became a first-time mom at age 61, then bore her second child at 66. The oldest mother in the world to give birth was a 67-year-old Spanish woman.
10 Things You Didn't Know About Bees
1. BEE FRUITFUL. There are at least 16,000 classified species of bees. Most are solitary insects; only about 5% are social, the most common being the honeybee. As many as 80,000 of them colonize a single hive.
Bees fly on every continent but Antarctica, and since an-cient times they have been used as a source of food. They feed on nectar and pollen
2. ALL THE QUEEN’S MEN. Drones—male honeybees—do no work whatsoever. They live only for mating with the queen. Hey, it’s a gig. But when there is a shortage of food in the hive, the workers kick the drones’ lazy gigolo asses out.
Hatched from unfertilized eggs, drones are the biggest hunks in the hive, f lourishing from late spring to summer. They have big heads, big bodies, no stinger. Because of their size, drones eat three times as well as workers—not unlike our own idle rich. So when cold weather comes or food supplies dwindle, the workers force the drones outside to starve. Workers of the hive, unite!
3. WHAT HAPPENS IN MID-AIR STAYS IN MID-AIR. Drones’ huge eyes (twice as big as the eyes of worker bees) make it easier to track Her Majesty during the mating flight. When they con-nect, it’s very clumsy, even by human mating standards. Pic-ture an Airborne Warning and Control System refueling in mid-air.
Drones don’t usually mate with a virgin queen from their own hive. Entomologists are unsure how mating areas are selected, but the virgin queen tends to mate some distance from her home hive, and she will be inseminated by several drones during the mating flight.
Caution: men may find the next sentence disturbing. Mating invariably kills the drone, since his entire phallic area is torn from his body to remain inside the queen. Talk about rough sex.
4. THAT HUSSY. The queen continues to mate until she col-lects more than 70 million sperm from multiple males—all suddenly dying or dead. Apparently drones are slow learners, or they don’t share information very well.
5. OOPS. The queen was known as the king until the late 1660s, when Dutch scientist Jan Swammerdam dissected the hive’s biggest bee and discovered ovaries.
6. WE DON’T ALL LOOK ALIKE TO THEM. Australian research-ers have discovered that honeybees can distinguish human faces. The insects were shown black-and-white photos and given treats whenever they recognized their subject.
As reported in the Journal of Experimental Biology on De-cember 15, 2005, honeybees were shown standard pictures used in human recognition tests. Testers put drops of sugar water on one and bitter liquid on the others. The bees soon learned to land on the “sweet” face. Interestingly, they also retained memory of that face, flying directly there with great accuracy (80%) for days after their initial experience. They even recognized faces that were quite similar, regardless of where the pictures were located. But, like humans, they per-formed less well when photos were upside down.
7. AIR SUPPORT FOR SNIFFER DOGS. Homeland Security, take heart. In the Stealthy Insect Sensor Project, Los Ala-mos scientists have trained bees to recognize explosives.
R&D scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are training bees to sniff out explosives like those carried by potential terrorists. The bees are conditioned to stick out their proboscis—the long snout used to suck up nectar—whenever they smell explosives. As in most animal training programs, the research is reward-based. Bees get sweet treats whenever they identify even microscopic traces of dynamite, C-4, or other explosives like those used for im-provised explosive devices (IEDs).
The detective bees would presumably be delivered to checkpoints in small hand-held detectors, and deployed by trained handlers as needed.
8. ANOTHER CUPPA MEAD, M’DEAR? The term “honeymoon” supposedly comes from a northern European custom in which newlyweds would—for a month (“moon”)—drink a daily or perhaps nightly cup of mead, the hearty intoxicant made from fermented honey. But there’s another less cutesy version.
According to the website hudsonvalleyweddings.com, the tradition of a post-wedding “honeymoon” is very different from today’s sweetness-and-light interpretation.
They point to origins in the Old Norse word Hjunotts-manathr—abduction of a bride from another tribe. The wife-swiper then played Hide the Bride, friends helping keep the connubial location secret, lest horned brothers track and whack the horny abductor. Some of this was clearly a game; after the bride’s kinfolk “abandoned the search” (probably a “moon” later), the couple returned openly to the groom’s vil-lage.
The tradition of kidnapping a girl and plying her with honeyed wine (to lessen the burden of sudden wifehood?) dates back to Attila the Hun in the fifth century. (Attila died of a nosebleed while seriously drunk—probably not on hon-eyed wine—during his wedding night.)
9. GREAT MOMENTS IN INSECT SLANG. The term “bee’s knees” was coined by American cartoonist Tad Dorgan, who was also responsible for “the cat’s pajamas,” “the f lea’s eyebrows,” “the canary’s tusks,” and “Yes, we have no ba-nanas.”
Every age hath its expressions, and the 1920s were no ex-ception. “Bee’s knees,” suggesting the dernier cri or something really cool and groovy, started around 1924. Some suggest that it may be a comical mispronunciation of “business.”
10. LICK THAT WOUND FOR YOU, SOLDIER? In ancient times, and as recently as World War I, honey was used to treat battlefield wounds because it attracts and absorbs moisture, making it a valuable healing agent.
Ancient medical records show that Egyptian doctors used honey as an active ingredient in many medicines. Greeks and Romans also spread honey on open wounds to quicken heal-ing. An organic substance with no caustic properties, honey contains vitamin and mineral elements that fight bacterial infection. Bacteria don’t seem to develop resistance to honey as they do to modern-day antibiotics! This may be due to a natural antibiotic agent produced in the bee’s system, which prevents honey from growing mold spores.
Plastic surgeons are known to use honey to speed the re-pair of post-operative scar tissue and to treat varicose ulcers.
Bees fly on every continent but Antarctica, and since an-cient times they have been used as a source of food. They feed on nectar and pollen
2. ALL THE QUEEN’S MEN. Drones—male honeybees—do no work whatsoever. They live only for mating with the queen. Hey, it’s a gig. But when there is a shortage of food in the hive, the workers kick the drones’ lazy gigolo asses out.
Hatched from unfertilized eggs, drones are the biggest hunks in the hive, f lourishing from late spring to summer. They have big heads, big bodies, no stinger. Because of their size, drones eat three times as well as workers—not unlike our own idle rich. So when cold weather comes or food supplies dwindle, the workers force the drones outside to starve. Workers of the hive, unite!
3. WHAT HAPPENS IN MID-AIR STAYS IN MID-AIR. Drones’ huge eyes (twice as big as the eyes of worker bees) make it easier to track Her Majesty during the mating flight. When they con-nect, it’s very clumsy, even by human mating standards. Pic-ture an Airborne Warning and Control System refueling in mid-air.
Drones don’t usually mate with a virgin queen from their own hive. Entomologists are unsure how mating areas are selected, but the virgin queen tends to mate some distance from her home hive, and she will be inseminated by several drones during the mating flight.
Caution: men may find the next sentence disturbing. Mating invariably kills the drone, since his entire phallic area is torn from his body to remain inside the queen. Talk about rough sex.
4. THAT HUSSY. The queen continues to mate until she col-lects more than 70 million sperm from multiple males—all suddenly dying or dead. Apparently drones are slow learners, or they don’t share information very well.
5. OOPS. The queen was known as the king until the late 1660s, when Dutch scientist Jan Swammerdam dissected the hive’s biggest bee and discovered ovaries.
6. WE DON’T ALL LOOK ALIKE TO THEM. Australian research-ers have discovered that honeybees can distinguish human faces. The insects were shown black-and-white photos and given treats whenever they recognized their subject.
As reported in the Journal of Experimental Biology on De-cember 15, 2005, honeybees were shown standard pictures used in human recognition tests. Testers put drops of sugar water on one and bitter liquid on the others. The bees soon learned to land on the “sweet” face. Interestingly, they also retained memory of that face, flying directly there with great accuracy (80%) for days after their initial experience. They even recognized faces that were quite similar, regardless of where the pictures were located. But, like humans, they per-formed less well when photos were upside down.
7. AIR SUPPORT FOR SNIFFER DOGS. Homeland Security, take heart. In the Stealthy Insect Sensor Project, Los Ala-mos scientists have trained bees to recognize explosives.
R&D scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are training bees to sniff out explosives like those carried by potential terrorists. The bees are conditioned to stick out their proboscis—the long snout used to suck up nectar—whenever they smell explosives. As in most animal training programs, the research is reward-based. Bees get sweet treats whenever they identify even microscopic traces of dynamite, C-4, or other explosives like those used for im-provised explosive devices (IEDs).
The detective bees would presumably be delivered to checkpoints in small hand-held detectors, and deployed by trained handlers as needed.
8. ANOTHER CUPPA MEAD, M’DEAR? The term “honeymoon” supposedly comes from a northern European custom in which newlyweds would—for a month (“moon”)—drink a daily or perhaps nightly cup of mead, the hearty intoxicant made from fermented honey. But there’s another less cutesy version.
According to the website hudsonvalleyweddings.com, the tradition of a post-wedding “honeymoon” is very different from today’s sweetness-and-light interpretation.
They point to origins in the Old Norse word Hjunotts-manathr—abduction of a bride from another tribe. The wife-swiper then played Hide the Bride, friends helping keep the connubial location secret, lest horned brothers track and whack the horny abductor. Some of this was clearly a game; after the bride’s kinfolk “abandoned the search” (probably a “moon” later), the couple returned openly to the groom’s vil-lage.
The tradition of kidnapping a girl and plying her with honeyed wine (to lessen the burden of sudden wifehood?) dates back to Attila the Hun in the fifth century. (Attila died of a nosebleed while seriously drunk—probably not on hon-eyed wine—during his wedding night.)
9. GREAT MOMENTS IN INSECT SLANG. The term “bee’s knees” was coined by American cartoonist Tad Dorgan, who was also responsible for “the cat’s pajamas,” “the f lea’s eyebrows,” “the canary’s tusks,” and “Yes, we have no ba-nanas.”
Every age hath its expressions, and the 1920s were no ex-ception. “Bee’s knees,” suggesting the dernier cri or something really cool and groovy, started around 1924. Some suggest that it may be a comical mispronunciation of “business.”
10. LICK THAT WOUND FOR YOU, SOLDIER? In ancient times, and as recently as World War I, honey was used to treat battlefield wounds because it attracts and absorbs moisture, making it a valuable healing agent.
Ancient medical records show that Egyptian doctors used honey as an active ingredient in many medicines. Greeks and Romans also spread honey on open wounds to quicken heal-ing. An organic substance with no caustic properties, honey contains vitamin and mineral elements that fight bacterial infection. Bacteria don’t seem to develop resistance to honey as they do to modern-day antibiotics! This may be due to a natural antibiotic agent produced in the bee’s system, which prevents honey from growing mold spores.
Plastic surgeons are known to use honey to speed the re-pair of post-operative scar tissue and to treat varicose ulcers.
10 Things You Didn't Know About Aliens
1. WELL, THAT NARROWS IT DOWN A BIT.
Astronomers Mar-garet Turnbull and Jill Tarter of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC, have compiled a list of 17,129 nearby stars most likely to have planets that could support complex life— not single cells but higher plants and animals. According to Turnbull, stars must be at least 3 billion years old for complex life to evolve. Planets where this is likely to happen must also have low mass and high levels of iron, since metals are needed to form earthlike planets.
It is not enough for a planet to have water and sufficient minerals and be within a certain temperature range. It also needs billions of years of consistent radiation from its star—a stable brightness—to incubate life beyond the unicellular level.
Bingo! In April 2007, astronomers discovered the “most earth-like planet yet” on one of the 100 stars closest to Earth, a mere 20.5 light years out. As galactic distances go, 120 tril-lion miles is a mere hop. The planet, dubbed “581-c” (third rock from “red dwarf ” star Gliese 581), has an estimated sur-face temperature between 32°F and 104°F—which means the possibility of water and life as we know it.
Although hundreds of planets have been discovered in the past few years, none had a positive “Goldilocks effect”—all were too hot or too cold. But “581-c” is just right. This combination of life-giving water and life-supporting temperature makes it an intriguing target for further investigation. Stay tuned.
2. COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE.
A Gallup poll in the late 1990s revealed that about a third of all Americans believe aliens have visited us—an increase of 5% over the pre-vious decade. The Mutual UFO Network Web site states: "according to a Roper poll conducted in 2002 for the Sci-Fi Channel, one in seven Americans say they or someone they know has had an experience involving a UFO."
A U.S. population approaching 300 million means roughly 100,000,000 Americans who believe in visitors, and 43,000,000 who know someone with alleged first-hand or second-hand evidence.
But if aliens have made contact, when and where, and where are they now? Why don’t they stick around? There’s no convincing proof of visits—only stories, hints, suppositions. No artifacts, footprints, or indisputable photo evidence. Why leave no calling card unless they wished to remain unde-tected? (And why would they wish to remain undetected?)
3. CAN YOU DETECT ME NOW?
Among other notables, several U.S. presidents have either seen UFOs or had access to infor-mation about them. But so far none has made a definite statement yea or nay.
• Bill Holden, a steward on board Air Force One with John F. Kennedy, once asked JFK what he thought about UFOs. The president replied cannily, "I’d like to tell the public about the alien situation, but my hands are tied." By whom?
• Jimmy Carter said, at the 1976 Southern Governor’s Conference, "I don’t laugh at people . . . when they say they’ve seen UFOs. I’ve seen one myself. . . . It was big, it was very bright, it changed colors and was about the size of the moon." He promised to make all UFO
secrets available to the public if he ever became president. Well, he did . . . but then he didn’t. Why not?
• Ronald Reagan saw a UFO while he was governor of California. A bright white light accompanied his plane, zigzagging around it for several minutes before sud-denly whooshing straight up out of sight. Reagan re-ported the incident to his wife but never mentioned it publicly for fear of being labeled a nut case. Years later, during a private screening of ET, Reagan reportedly turned to Steven Spielberg and whispered, "Only a handful of people know the truth about this."
• The widow of legendary TV comedian and actor Jackie Gleason claims that Gleason, known for his obsession with UFOs, was invited by golfing buddy President Nixon for a secret late-night visit to Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. There, Gleason confided to friends, they saw the remains of some half dozen wizened child-size humanoids. Some were mauled, as if they had been in an accident. The creatures had three or four fingers. Gleason was disturbed and
excited by these beings, who were clearly "not human."
But he never understood why our government would
hide the aliens from the public.
4. WHAT’S THE FREQUENCY, FRANK?
Astronomer Frank Drake made the first scientific attempt to contact alien be-ings in 1960, with an 85-foot-radius dish at the National
Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia to listen to signals from two nearby sun-like stars. So far his search has turned up zilch.
But can we be sure? Maybe they’re cheerfully yammering at us in their version of the King’s English (the Xpptffl’s Bz-rkkfnn), but our sense organs cannot perceive the signals they are sending. Or if they do, we primitives don’t recognize it as language. We assume that our thinking matches extraterres-trial thinking. This presupposes—probably incorrectly—that logic and the grammar of perception are the same everywhere. SETI scientists keep scrubbing the skies for signals represent-ing prime numbers, the hydrogen molecule signature, and other "obvious" things we know. But ideas that are meaning-ful to us may be too primitive for (or irrelevant to) advanced minds.
5. NOSE JOB, BOOB JOB, INTELLIGENCE JOB.
If we make contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, how can we tell whether it is living, feeling, sentient organic being’s intelli-gence we are experiencing, or artificial intelligence?
We all receive auto-responses to phone calls and e-mails. "This is Dolores. I’m away until the twenty-fifth. Leave a message at the beep." If mere humans can create this re-sponse to an electronic stimulus, greatly advanced civiliza-tions may have greatly advanced programs designed for similar purposes. One can imagine civilizations so advanced that they are connected to a constantly expanding network of thousands, even millions, of others across the universe.
Most life on Earth is not even life as we know it. . . . Human life is a minuscule branch of the tree of life. —SA R A VI A , professor, University of Maryland
6. MAYBE HE KNOWS ZAGER AND EVANS.
Seth Shostak, se-nior astronomer at SETI, reckons—for reasons best known to him—that the 350-foot antenna Allen telescope array, now being built, "will trip across a signal by the year 2025."
Dr. Shostak, an imaginative lecturer and media personal-ity, is also noted in reference sources as the inventor of the electrical banana. We do not know what an electrical banana is or does. He is a skilled computer animator. These accom-plishments and others may have provided him with a predic-tive insight that exceeds the ordinary. It is unclear how he arrived at the year 2025.
7. WE’RE HIGH ON SPACE.
Astronomers are optimistic about the Allen Telescope Array, the latest advance in SETI, en-dowed by a grant from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. A joint operation of SETI and the Radio Astronomy Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, the ATA will enhance the search effort by a factor of one hundred by being available to SETI 24/7, instead of the limited time available on other galaxy tools.
Rather than one huge collector, the ATA, when com-pleted, will be an ingenious interconnection of 350 6.1-meter antennas, 2,135 cumulative meters in diameter, with a sig-nal scooping capacity of more than 7,000 feet (a mile and a third!) across.
Because it will scan many directions at once, the ATA’s collection potential is greater than that of any existing in-strument, even the giant 305-meter dish antenna in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Its wide-angle capability can target many stars simultaneously, boosting signal collection capacity from to-day’s 1,000 to 100,000—and eventually ONE MILLION star systems!
8. TRY THIS AT HOME.
You can download software from the SETI@home project (setiathome.berkeley.edu) to sift for alien signals from your home computer. Over 187,000 other people have already done so.
Connecting with alien signals requires huge computing power to allow searches to cover a wide range of radio fre-quencies. SETI needs all the computing power it can get.
Government funding and dedicated supercomputers are at a premium, so SETI seeks public help in the daily scut-work of data analysis. In 1995, David Gedye suggested orga
nizing a private array of home computers into a virtual supercomputer. Thus the SETI@home project, begun in May 1999, began to bring this vision to life.
SETI@home is privately funded, largely by the Planetary Society, a non-profit organization co-founded by Carl Sagan. Their search area is the 2.5-megahertz bandwidth, freeing up the rest of the vast radio spectrum to be searched by others.
9. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.
The most likely spots for alien life in our solar system is underground on Mars, the hot spot on Saturn’s moon Enceladus (its South Pole is dotted with geysers), and Jupiter’s moons Europa and Callisto, whose icy crusts may conceal vast underlying oceans of water.
Speaking of icy, one marine bacterium (Colwellia 34H) sporting around in the Arctic ocean not only survives but burns enough energy to reproduce—at MINUS 196 Celsius. Talk about sexual determination at the cellular level! That’s weather on the Martian surface, or in the liquid methane riv-ers of Saturn’s moon Titan. This little bug would be right at home either place, theorizes microbiologist Dr. Karen Junge of the University of Washington’s Department of Earth and Space Sciences and NASA’s Astrobiology Institute.
10. C’MON, GET IT OFF YOUR CHEST.
In Newfoundland, sleep paralysis is called the "old hag" because it is associated with visions of an elderly woman crouching on the sleeper’s chest. In the West Indies, the phenomenon is said to occur when a ghost baby bounces on the snoozer.
Aliens are the ghost or devil stories of modern times. All cultures have some version of the creature "pressing down" or "sitting on" the victim’s chest. But why are so many of these apparitions "hags" or old women?
Astronomers Mar-garet Turnbull and Jill Tarter of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC, have compiled a list of 17,129 nearby stars most likely to have planets that could support complex life— not single cells but higher plants and animals. According to Turnbull, stars must be at least 3 billion years old for complex life to evolve. Planets where this is likely to happen must also have low mass and high levels of iron, since metals are needed to form earthlike planets.
It is not enough for a planet to have water and sufficient minerals and be within a certain temperature range. It also needs billions of years of consistent radiation from its star—a stable brightness—to incubate life beyond the unicellular level.
Bingo! In April 2007, astronomers discovered the “most earth-like planet yet” on one of the 100 stars closest to Earth, a mere 20.5 light years out. As galactic distances go, 120 tril-lion miles is a mere hop. The planet, dubbed “581-c” (third rock from “red dwarf ” star Gliese 581), has an estimated sur-face temperature between 32°F and 104°F—which means the possibility of water and life as we know it.
Although hundreds of planets have been discovered in the past few years, none had a positive “Goldilocks effect”—all were too hot or too cold. But “581-c” is just right. This combination of life-giving water and life-supporting temperature makes it an intriguing target for further investigation. Stay tuned.
2. COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE.
A Gallup poll in the late 1990s revealed that about a third of all Americans believe aliens have visited us—an increase of 5% over the pre-vious decade. The Mutual UFO Network Web site states: "according to a Roper poll conducted in 2002 for the Sci-Fi Channel, one in seven Americans say they or someone they know has had an experience involving a UFO."
A U.S. population approaching 300 million means roughly 100,000,000 Americans who believe in visitors, and 43,000,000 who know someone with alleged first-hand or second-hand evidence.
But if aliens have made contact, when and where, and where are they now? Why don’t they stick around? There’s no convincing proof of visits—only stories, hints, suppositions. No artifacts, footprints, or indisputable photo evidence. Why leave no calling card unless they wished to remain unde-tected? (And why would they wish to remain undetected?)
3. CAN YOU DETECT ME NOW?
Among other notables, several U.S. presidents have either seen UFOs or had access to infor-mation about them. But so far none has made a definite statement yea or nay.
• Bill Holden, a steward on board Air Force One with John F. Kennedy, once asked JFK what he thought about UFOs. The president replied cannily, "I’d like to tell the public about the alien situation, but my hands are tied." By whom?
• Jimmy Carter said, at the 1976 Southern Governor’s Conference, "I don’t laugh at people . . . when they say they’ve seen UFOs. I’ve seen one myself. . . . It was big, it was very bright, it changed colors and was about the size of the moon." He promised to make all UFO
secrets available to the public if he ever became president. Well, he did . . . but then he didn’t. Why not?
• Ronald Reagan saw a UFO while he was governor of California. A bright white light accompanied his plane, zigzagging around it for several minutes before sud-denly whooshing straight up out of sight. Reagan re-ported the incident to his wife but never mentioned it publicly for fear of being labeled a nut case. Years later, during a private screening of ET, Reagan reportedly turned to Steven Spielberg and whispered, "Only a handful of people know the truth about this."
• The widow of legendary TV comedian and actor Jackie Gleason claims that Gleason, known for his obsession with UFOs, was invited by golfing buddy President Nixon for a secret late-night visit to Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. There, Gleason confided to friends, they saw the remains of some half dozen wizened child-size humanoids. Some were mauled, as if they had been in an accident. The creatures had three or four fingers. Gleason was disturbed and
excited by these beings, who were clearly "not human."
But he never understood why our government would
hide the aliens from the public.
4. WHAT’S THE FREQUENCY, FRANK?
Astronomer Frank Drake made the first scientific attempt to contact alien be-ings in 1960, with an 85-foot-radius dish at the National
Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia to listen to signals from two nearby sun-like stars. So far his search has turned up zilch.
But can we be sure? Maybe they’re cheerfully yammering at us in their version of the King’s English (the Xpptffl’s Bz-rkkfnn), but our sense organs cannot perceive the signals they are sending. Or if they do, we primitives don’t recognize it as language. We assume that our thinking matches extraterres-trial thinking. This presupposes—probably incorrectly—that logic and the grammar of perception are the same everywhere. SETI scientists keep scrubbing the skies for signals represent-ing prime numbers, the hydrogen molecule signature, and other "obvious" things we know. But ideas that are meaning-ful to us may be too primitive for (or irrelevant to) advanced minds.
5. NOSE JOB, BOOB JOB, INTELLIGENCE JOB.
If we make contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, how can we tell whether it is living, feeling, sentient organic being’s intelli-gence we are experiencing, or artificial intelligence?
We all receive auto-responses to phone calls and e-mails. "This is Dolores. I’m away until the twenty-fifth. Leave a message at the beep." If mere humans can create this re-sponse to an electronic stimulus, greatly advanced civiliza-tions may have greatly advanced programs designed for similar purposes. One can imagine civilizations so advanced that they are connected to a constantly expanding network of thousands, even millions, of others across the universe.
Most life on Earth is not even life as we know it. . . . Human life is a minuscule branch of the tree of life. —SA R A VI A , professor, University of Maryland
6. MAYBE HE KNOWS ZAGER AND EVANS.
Seth Shostak, se-nior astronomer at SETI, reckons—for reasons best known to him—that the 350-foot antenna Allen telescope array, now being built, "will trip across a signal by the year 2025."
Dr. Shostak, an imaginative lecturer and media personal-ity, is also noted in reference sources as the inventor of the electrical banana. We do not know what an electrical banana is or does. He is a skilled computer animator. These accom-plishments and others may have provided him with a predic-tive insight that exceeds the ordinary. It is unclear how he arrived at the year 2025.
7. WE’RE HIGH ON SPACE.
Astronomers are optimistic about the Allen Telescope Array, the latest advance in SETI, en-dowed by a grant from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. A joint operation of SETI and the Radio Astronomy Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, the ATA will enhance the search effort by a factor of one hundred by being available to SETI 24/7, instead of the limited time available on other galaxy tools.
Rather than one huge collector, the ATA, when com-pleted, will be an ingenious interconnection of 350 6.1-meter antennas, 2,135 cumulative meters in diameter, with a sig-nal scooping capacity of more than 7,000 feet (a mile and a third!) across.
Because it will scan many directions at once, the ATA’s collection potential is greater than that of any existing in-strument, even the giant 305-meter dish antenna in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Its wide-angle capability can target many stars simultaneously, boosting signal collection capacity from to-day’s 1,000 to 100,000—and eventually ONE MILLION star systems!
8. TRY THIS AT HOME.
You can download software from the SETI@home project (setiathome.berkeley.edu) to sift for alien signals from your home computer. Over 187,000 other people have already done so.
Connecting with alien signals requires huge computing power to allow searches to cover a wide range of radio fre-quencies. SETI needs all the computing power it can get.
Government funding and dedicated supercomputers are at a premium, so SETI seeks public help in the daily scut-work of data analysis. In 1995, David Gedye suggested orga
nizing a private array of home computers into a virtual supercomputer. Thus the SETI@home project, begun in May 1999, began to bring this vision to life.
SETI@home is privately funded, largely by the Planetary Society, a non-profit organization co-founded by Carl Sagan. Their search area is the 2.5-megahertz bandwidth, freeing up the rest of the vast radio spectrum to be searched by others.
9. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.
The most likely spots for alien life in our solar system is underground on Mars, the hot spot on Saturn’s moon Enceladus (its South Pole is dotted with geysers), and Jupiter’s moons Europa and Callisto, whose icy crusts may conceal vast underlying oceans of water.
Speaking of icy, one marine bacterium (Colwellia 34H) sporting around in the Arctic ocean not only survives but burns enough energy to reproduce—at MINUS 196 Celsius. Talk about sexual determination at the cellular level! That’s weather on the Martian surface, or in the liquid methane riv-ers of Saturn’s moon Titan. This little bug would be right at home either place, theorizes microbiologist Dr. Karen Junge of the University of Washington’s Department of Earth and Space Sciences and NASA’s Astrobiology Institute.
10. C’MON, GET IT OFF YOUR CHEST.
In Newfoundland, sleep paralysis is called the "old hag" because it is associated with visions of an elderly woman crouching on the sleeper’s chest. In the West Indies, the phenomenon is said to occur when a ghost baby bounces on the snoozer.
Aliens are the ghost or devil stories of modern times. All cultures have some version of the creature "pressing down" or "sitting on" the victim’s chest. But why are so many of these apparitions "hags" or old women?
Friday, May 1, 2009
Top 10 Insurance Companies
1. Allstate Online
2. State Farm
3. Prudential
4. The Travelers
5. Fidelity
6. MetLife
7. Farmers Insurance
8. AIG
9. Mass Mutual
10. The Hartford
2. State Farm
3. Prudential
4. The Travelers
5. Fidelity
6. MetLife
7. Farmers Insurance
8. AIG
9. Mass Mutual
10. The Hartford
Top 10 Best Selling Books
Bible 2.5 billion to more than 6 billion
(Quotations from Chairman Mao) (the Little Red Book) Quotations from Mao Zedong; 800 million to 6.5 billion
(The Qur’ān) (Koran) Traditional Muslim view: 800 million
(Xinhua Zidian) (Xinhua Dictionary) Chief editor: Wei Jiangong Chinese 1957 400 million
(Chairman Mao's Poems) Mao Zedong Chinese 1966 400 million
(Selected Articles of Mao Zedong) Mao Zedong Chinese 1966 252.5 million
A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens English 1859 200 million
Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship Robert Baden-Powell English 1908 150 million
The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien English 1954–1955 150 million
Book of Mormon Traditional Latter-Day-Saint view: Compilation by the prophet Mormon, revealed to Joseph Smith, Jr. English 1830 - 130 million
The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life Jehovah's Witnesses
(Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York) English 1968 107 million
(On the Three Representations) Jiang Zemin Chinese 2001 100 million
(Quotations from Chairman Mao) (the Little Red Book) Quotations from Mao Zedong; 800 million to 6.5 billion
(The Qur’ān) (Koran) Traditional Muslim view: 800 million
(Xinhua Zidian) (Xinhua Dictionary) Chief editor: Wei Jiangong Chinese 1957 400 million
(Chairman Mao's Poems) Mao Zedong Chinese 1966 400 million
(Selected Articles of Mao Zedong) Mao Zedong Chinese 1966 252.5 million
A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens English 1859 200 million
Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship Robert Baden-Powell English 1908 150 million
The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien English 1954–1955 150 million
Book of Mormon Traditional Latter-Day-Saint view: Compilation by the prophet Mormon, revealed to Joseph Smith, Jr. English 1830 - 130 million
The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life Jehovah's Witnesses
(Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York) English 1968 107 million
(On the Three Representations) Jiang Zemin Chinese 2001 100 million
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)