Useless facts

[arrrrrpirates]

stolen from http://www.bbc.co.uk/teens/lads/bear...ts/user7.shtml

I bloody love useless facts!! Soon I'll be on Mastermind - specialist chosen subject: information of no value at all!

ET Phone a Lawyer
•Paula, 13 says: "In Wales there are more sheep than humans."

•Chloe, 14 says: "It used to be illegal to sell ET dolls in France because there was a law against selling dolls without human faces."

•Jimbo, 15 says: "4,000 people a year are attacked by rabbits."

•Bob, 14 says: "Of all the British nationalities, the Irish are most likely to get in a fight, then the Scots, then the English and lastly the Welsh."

•Alex Flatt, 20 says: "For every one human being their are 26 million insects."

•Sasha, 14 says: "The average woman uses 5 bucketfuls of lipstick in her lifetime."

•Chloe, 14 says: "Americans eat 18 acres of pizza every day."

•Dave, 12 says: "Cats are the only animals that can hold their tails completely vertical."

•Lolla, 15 says: "Once comfortable, it takes the average person 7 minutes to fall asleep."

•Freya, 12 a says: "Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' toilet during a dance!"

•Freya, 12 says "You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider!"

•Freya, 12 says: "If Barbie were life size, her measurements would be 39-23-33 and she'd have a neck twice the length of a normal human's neck!"

•Freya, 12 says: "A flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field!"

•Sean Lowe, 15 says: "In nature, nearly every measurement is relative to another by a factor of 1.61 (which is half of pi)."

•Stephen, 14 says: "Two rats can produce over one million baby rats in 18 months."

•Stephen, 14 says: "People in the city have more earwax than people who live in the country."

•Stephen, 14 says: "If you drive, you spend two weeks of your life at traffic lights!"


"American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class."
Hannah's Facts
•Mosquito repellents don't repel, they hide you! The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there!

•Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet from the toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.

•Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.

•The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.

•Marilyn Monroe had six toes.

•The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.

Sarah's Facts
•Gloucestershire airport used to blast Tina Turner songs on the runways to scare birds away.

•The average person spends two weeks of their life kissing.

•Coconuts kill more people than sharks. Approximately 150 people are killed by coconuts each year.

•The Koala bear is not really a bear at all. Rather it is related to the kangaroo and the wombat.

•Billie Jean by Michael Jackson was the first video to air on MTV by a black artist.

•It is impossible to tickle yourself. The cerebellum (a part of the brain) tells the rest of the brain that you are about to tickle yourself. Since your brain knows this, it ignores the resulting sensation.

•The oldest known disease in the world is leprosy.

[The Jacket]

The more you know..

[malamute face]

Gloucestershire airport used to blast Tina Turner songs on the runways to scare birds away.

[arrrrrpirates]

can't link to this one b/c it's angelfire and will probably go down, but google useless facts if u really want it

A recent study conducted by the Shyness Clinic in Menlo Park, California, revealed that almost 90 percent of Americans label themselves as shy.

About 24 percent of alcoholics die in accidents, falls, fires, and suicides.

About 25 percent of all male Americans between the ages of ten and fifteen were "gainfully employed" at the turn of the century. By 1970, so few in that age bracket were employed that the U.S. Census Bureau did not bother to make inquiries about them.

About 60 percent of all American babies are named after close relatives.

August is the month when most baby's are born.

About 10 percent of the workforce in Egypt is under 12 years of age. Although laws protecting children are on the books, they are not well enforced, partly because many poverty-stricken parents feel forced to send their children out to help support the family.

Most humans can guess someone's sex with 95 percent accuracy just by smelling their breath.

Half of all men start to lose their hair by the time they turn 30. Everybody loses dozens of hairs a day - the key thing is whether or not they grow back. More than 40 percent of men wind up with significant hair loss.

According to one U.S. study, about 25 percent of all adolescent and adult males never use deodorant.

Focus group information compiled by CalComp revealed that 50 percent of computer users do not like using a mouse.

One in five American households move in a given year. The average American moves 11 times. But most of us - 61 percent - still live in the state we were born in. And big corporations report increasing resistance to transfers to new cities...with many people turning down promotions in order to stay put.

Before the Chinese take-over of Tibet in 1952, 25 percent of the males in the country were Buddhist monks.

By the end of the U.S. Civil War, 33 percent of all U.S. paper currency in circulation was counterfeit. This was a devastating situation for a nation struggling to recover economically from such a destructive war. On July 5, 1865, the Secret Service was created as a part of the Department of the Treasury to help suppress counterfeit currency.

Cold pizza is fairly popular. A survey found 15 percent actually PREFER pizza this way, suggesting that the number who love hot pizza but don't mind eating the leftovers cold the next day must be quite high indeed.

It is estimated that 60 percent of home smoke detectors in use do not work because they don't have a battery in them or the battery in the detector no longer has any potency.

Two-thirds of men wear briefs, 22 percent wear boxers, and six percent don't wear underwear (I assume 6% did not answer).

Nearly 87 percent of the 103 people polled in 1977 were unable to identify correctly an unlabeled copy of the Declaration of Independence.

According to a major hotel chain, approximately the same numbers of men and women are locked out of their rooms. 32 percent are less than fully dressed.

The population divides approximately in half between AM and PM people. But early-birds have the edge - 56 percent routinely rise early while 44 percent stay up late. Medical studies, by the way, find that people tend to work more productively in the morning.

A recent Gallup survey showed that in the United States 8 percent of kissers kept their eyes open, but more than 20 percent confessed to an occasional peek. Forty-one percent said they experienced their first serious smooch when they were age thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen; 36 percent between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. The most memorable kiss in a motion picture was in "Gone With The Wind" according to 25 percent of those polled.

Residential buildings use about 35 percent of all available electricity.

The one extra room new-home shoppers want the most is the laundry room, at 95 percent. Only 66 percent of new-home buyers request an extra room to use as an office.

Spaghetti is the favorite pasta shape, with 38 percent favoring it over other pasta shapes. The second favorite shape is elbow macaroni, at 16 percent.

In the United States, more than 25 percent of women's fashion dollars are spent on sizes 16 and up.

More than 50 percent of adults surveyed said that children should not be paid money for getting good grades in school.

More than a third of all adults hit their alarm clock's "snooze" button each morning, an average of three times before they get up. Those most guilty of snatching some extra sleep are those in the 25-34 age bracket, at 57 percent.

Ninety percent of U.S. households have at lease one remote control for the television; 8 out of 10 report losing it.

Canada is the largest importer of American cars.

Chocolate manufacturers use 40 percent of the world's almonds.

Each year approximately 250,000 American husbands are physically attacked and beaten by their wives

[my ass got raped]

John Vanbiesbrouck is the only goalie in NHL history with all 5 vowels in his last name.

[logie]

Originally Posted by The Jacket

The more you know..

[arrrrrpirates]

The English-language alphabet originally had only 24 letters. One missing letter was J, which was the last letter to be added to the alphabet. The other latecomer to the alphabet was U.

"Fan" is an abbreviation for the word "fanatic." Toward the turn of the 19th century, various media referred to football enthusiasts first as "football fanatics," and later as a "football fan."

The proper name of our sole natural satellite is "the Moon" and therefore...it should be capitalized. The 60-odd natural satellites of other planets, however are called "moons" (in lower case) because each has been given a proper name, such as Deimos, Amalthea, Hyperion, Miranda, Larissa, or Charon.

The word "snorkel" comes from the German word "schnoerkel", which was a tube used by German submarine crews in WW2. The subs used an electric battery when traveling underwater, which had to be recharged using diesel engines, which needed air to run. To avoid the hazard of surfacing to run the engines, the Germans used the schnoerkel to feed air from the surface into the engines.

The name "fez" is Turkish for "Hat".

The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful plough man strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

"The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.

"Jerkwater" is a railroad term. Until about fifty years ago, most trains were pulled by thirsty steam engines that needed to refill their boilers from water towers next to the tracks. But some towns were so small and inconsequential that they lacked a water tower. When trains stopped in those places, the crew had to find a nearby stream or well and, bucket-brigade style, "jerk" the water to the train. Those little dots on the map became known as jerkwater towns.

Malcolm Lowry had pnigophobia—the fear of choking on fish bones.

Augustus Caesar had achluophobia—the fear of sitting in the dark.

Androphobia is a fear of men.

Caligynephobia is a fear of beautiful women.

Pentheraphobia is a fear of a mother-in-law.

Scopophobia is a fear of being looked at.

Phobophobia is a fear of fearing.

Mageiricophobia is the intense fear of having to cook.

Papaphobia is the fear of Popes.

Taphephobia is the fear of being buried alive.

Clinophobia is the fear of beds.

Incredible means not believable. Incredulous means not believing. When someone's story is truly incredible, you ought to be incredulous.

The terms "prime minister," "premier" and "chancellor" all refer to the leading minister of a government, and any differences from nation to nation stem from different systems of government, not from title definitions.

Tennis pro Evonne Goolagong's last name means "kangaroo's nose" in Australia's aboriginal language.

A "sysygy" occurs when all the planets of the our Solar System line up.

The most common letters in the English language are R S T L N E. Sound familiar? Watch an episode of "Wheel of Fortune"...

A "necropsy" is an autopsy on animals.

EEG stands for Electroencephalogram.

The English word pajamas has it's origin in Persian. It is a combination of the Persian words pa (leg) and jamah (garment).

The ZIP in zip code stands for "Zone Improvement Plan."

Yucatan, as in the peninsula, is from Maya "u" + "u" + "uthaan" meaning "listen how they speak," and is what the Maya said when they first heard the Spaniards.

Punctuation was not invented until the 1500's.

[Selj]

Originally Posted by arrrrrpirates

stolen from
•Marilyn Monroe had six toes.

hoof?

[arrrrrpirates]

Medical researchers contend that no disease ever identified has been completely eradicated.

The attachment of the human skin to muscles is what causes dimples.

No one seems to know why people blush.

In 1972, a group of scientists reported that you could cure the common cold by freezing the big toe.

The number one cause of blindness in the United States is diabetes.

The adult human heart weighs about ten ounces.

People who laugh a lot are much healthier than those who don't. Dr. Lee Berk at the Loma Linda School of Public Health in California found that laughing lowers levels of stress hormones, and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-olds have it best - they laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.

People who have a tough time handling the stress of money woes are twice as likely to develop severe gum disease, a new study finds.

Between 25% to 33% of the population sneeze when they are exposed to light.

Of the 206 bones in the average human adult's body, 106 are in the hands and feet. (54 in the hands and 52 in the feet)

In 1815 French chemist Michael Eugene Chevreul realized the first link between diabetes and sugar metabolism when he discovered that the urine of a diabetic was identical to grape sugar.

Approximately 16 Canadians have their appendices removed, when not required, every day.

Sumerians (from 5000 BC) thought that the liver made blood and the heart was the center of thought.

Men have more blood than women. Men have 1.5 gallons for men versus 0.875 gallons for women.

The first Band-Aid Brand Adhesive Bandages were three inches wide and eighteen inches long. You made your own bandage by cutting off as much as you needed.

The human brain stops growing at the age of 18.

In 1977, a 13 year old child found a tooth growing out of his left foot.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 18 million courses of antibiotics are prescribed for the common cold in the United States per year. Research shows that colds are caused by viruses. 50 million unnecessary antibiotics are prescribed for viral respiratory infections.

It takes an interaction of 72 different muscles to produce human speech.

The first known heart medicine was discovered in an English garden. In 1799, physician John Ferriar noted the effect of dried leaves of the common plant, digitalis purpurea, on heart action. Still used in heart medications, digitalis slows the pulse and increases the force of heart contractions and the amount of blood pumped per heartbeat.

Blood is red only in the arteries after it has left the heart and is full of oxygen. Blood is a purplish, blue color in the veins as it returns to the heart, thanks to having picked up carbon dioxide and other wastes from the body's cells. In fact, your blood is red throughout only half your body. When cut, of course, the blood always appears red because it is instantly exposed to oxygen outside the body.

Contrary to popular belief, hemophiliacs do NOT bleed to death from minor cuts. This rare disease, which affects only males (it is carried by females, but they don't exhibit symptoms), involves an impairment in blood clotting—not an absolute inability to clot. Hemophiliacs today may take clotting serums and often lead fairly normal lives.

During his or her lifetime, the average human will grow 590 miles of hair.

The average Human bladder can hold 13 ounces of liquid.

You lose enough dead skin cells in your lifetime to fill eight five-pound flour bags.

Your thumb is the same length as your nose.

The storage capacity of human brain exceeds 4 Terrabytes.

The Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland was a symbolic character for the hat makers in towns of the late 1800's. The large felt hats of the day had supports made out of lead. The lead caused an organic form of psychosis (brain damage) to develop in the hat makers causing them to be declared crazy.

Although your system cannot digest gum like other foods, it won't be stuck inside of you forever. It comes out with other waste your body can't use.

The substance that human blood resembles most closely in terms of chemical composition is sea water

[Gruggster]

Originally Posted by Selj

hoof?

lol

edit: i wish i had 6 toes

[zoopnazi]

Originally Posted by Reilly311

John Vanbiesbrouck is the only goalie in NHL history with all 5 vowels in his last name.

:hah:
Wow! That is usless!

[arrrrrpirates]

Originally Posted by arrrrrpirates

The human brain stops growing at the age of 18.

saw an article recently about how the brain doesnt reach full maturity as soon as we thought it once did

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/...in682074.shtml

[marflord]

Originally Posted by arrrrrpirates

stolen from http://www.bbc.co.uk/teens/lads/bear...ts/user7.shtml
•Marilyn Monroe had six toes.

shouldn't that say 11 toes

[cunt-inflamed]

I wish those things came with references.. you never know which ones are true and which ones are total .

[arrrrrpirates]

In the Durango desert, in Mexico, there's a creepy spot called the "Zone of Silence." You can't pick up clear TV or radio signals. And locals say fireballs sometimes appear in the sky.

Ethernet is a registered trademark of Xerox, Unix is a registered trademark of AT&T.

Bill Gates' first business was Traff-O-Data, a company that created machines which recorded the number of cars passing a given point on a road.

Uranus' orbital axis is tilted at 90 degrees.

The final resting-place for Dr. Eugene Shoemaker - the Moon. The famed U.S. Geological Survey astronomer, trained the Apollo astronauts about craters, but never made it into space. Mr. Shoemaker had wanted to be an astronaut but was rejected because of a medical problem. His ashes were placed on board the Lunar Prospector spacecraft before it was launched on January 6, 1998. NASA crashed the probe into a crater on the moon in an attempt to learn if there is water on the moon.

Outside the USA, Ireland is the largest software producing country in the world.

The first fossilized specimen of Australopithecus afarenisis was named Lucy after the paleontologists' favorite song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," by the Beatles.

Figlet, an ASCII font converter program, stands for Frank, Ian and Glenn's LETters.

Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.

Every year about 98% of atoms in your body are replaced.

Hot water is heavier than cold.

Plutonium - first weighed on August 20th, 1942, by University of Chicago scientists Glenn Seaborg and his colleagues - was the first man-made element.

If you went out into space, you would explode before you suffocated because there's no air pressure.

The radioactive substance, Americanium - 241 is used in many smoke detectors.

The original IBM-PCs, that had hard drives, referred to the hard drives as Winchester drives. This is due to the fact that the original Winchester drive had a model number of 3030. This is, of course, a Winchester firearm.

Sound travels 15 times faster through steel than through the air.

On average, half of all false teeth have some form of radioactivity.

Only one satellite has been ever been destroyed by a meteor: the European Space Agency's Olympus in 1993.

Starch is used as a binder in the production of paper. It is the use of a starch coating that controls ink penetration when printing. Cheaper papers do not use as much starch, and this is why your elbows get black when you are leaning over your morning paper.

Sterling silver is not pure silver. Because pure silver is too soft to be used in most tableware it is mixed with copper in the proportion of 92.5 percent silver to 7.5 percent copper.

A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball of rubber. A ball of solid steel will bounce higher than one made entirely of glass.

A chip of silicon a quarter-inch square has the capacity of the original 1949 ENIAC computer, which occupied a city block.

An ordinary TNT bomb involves atomic reaction, and could be called an atomic bomb. What we call an A-bomb involves nuclear reactions and should be called a nuclear bomb.

At a glance, the Celsius scale makes more sense than the Fahrenheit scale for temperature measuring. But its creator, Anders Celsius, was an oddball scientist. When he first developed his scale, he made freezing 100 degrees and boiling 0 degrees, or upside down. No one dared point this out to him, so fellow scientists waited until Celsius died to change the scale.

At a jet plane's speed of 1,000 km (620mi) per hour, the length of the plane becomes one atom shorter than its original length.

The first full moon to occur on the winter solstice, Dec. 22, commonly called the first day of winter, happened in 1999. Since a full moon on the winter solstice occurred in conjunction with a lunar perigee (point in the moon's orbit that is closest to Earth), the moon appeared about 14% larger than it does at apogee (the point in it's elliptical orbit that is farthest from the Earth). Since the Earth is also several million miles closer to the sun at that time of the year than in the summer, sunlight striking the moon was about 7% stronger making it brighter. Also, this was the closest perigee of the Moon of the year since the moon's orbit is constantly deforming. In places where the weather was clear and there was a snow cover, even car headlights were superfluous.

According to security equipment specialists, security systems that utilize motion detectors won't function properly if walls and floors are too hot. When an infrared beam is used in a motion detector, it will pick up a person's body temperature of 98.6 degrees compared to the cooler walls and floor. If the room is too hot, the motion detector won't register a change in the radiated heat of that person's body when it enters the room and breaks the infrared beam. Your home's safety might be compromised if you turn your air conditioning off or set the thermostat too high while on summer vacation.

Western Electric successfully brought sound to motion pictures and introduced systems of mobile communications which culminated in the cellular telephone.

On December 23, 1947, Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., held a secret demonstration of the transistor which marked the foundation of modern electronics.

The wick of a trick candle has small amounts of magnesium in them. When you light the candle, you are also lighting the magnesium. When someone tries to blow out the flame, the magnesium inside the wick continues to burn and, in just a split second (or two or three), relights the wick.