Expanding ur knowledge of the world

slightlycrazy

Don't know if this will take off or not or if its been done before. Bascically post up facts about something that u think the majority of people don't know about. I wish i had something interesting to start this off but my minds a blank at the moment.

Tar.Aldarion

The center of a super massive black hole is the size of a spec of dust. But, that spec of dust weighs 3 million times more than our sun. There was also an expired super nova that weighed one billion pounds per teaspoon.

We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the bottom of the ocean.

Italy- A dolphin helped a drowning 14-year old boy. The dolphin pushed the boy to the nearest boat and swam away. Now the dolphin is known as Flippo.

Baboons and Chimps dig for clean water when the surface water is polluted. Chimps even use sticks for digging tools.

Ravens can learn to open a box to get a treat, and then teach others to do the same.

A shrimps heart is in its head.

Penguins can jump 6 feet high.

A cockroach can live for several weeks without its head. Amazingly, it only dies of starvation.

A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.

The electric chair was invented by a dentist. And the first one was built partly by a prison inmate. He later died in it for murder.

If ribbon worms can't find any food, they will eat themselves.

The oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old.

Americans choke on toothpicks more that anything else

Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson."

A blue whales tounge weighs more than an elephant.

Di Vinci spent 12 years painting Mona Lisa's lips.

Megatron

Elephants are the only mamal who can't jump.

Due to have fused Ankle Bones.


( Whales do "Jump" out of the water from tiem to time.)

monkeyfudge

Ginger kids don't have souls.

Loomis

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

T
Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson."

A blue whales tounge weighs more than an elephant.

Di Vinci spent 12 years painting Mona Lisa's lips.

Hey I knew the Holmes one
The other two are just cool!


The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.

Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.

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

The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.

Binomate

monkeyfudge wrote:

Ginger kids don't have souls.

Hahahahahaha!

Amazotheamazing

Ginger kids don't have friends either.

jaggeh

james T. Kirk never said 'beam me up scotty' in the originalseries of star trek.

Loomis

Binomate wrote:

Hahahahahaha!

That was hilarious but didn't want to bring the thread off topic as some of these things are really interesting:

Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.

The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.

Richard Milhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal."
The second?
William Jefferson Clinton

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.

Pearls melt in vinegar.

Binomate

The bumps around your nipples are called Montgomery glands or Montgomeries.

Lady_Macbeth

melted cheese tastes nicer than non-melted cheese because the heat begins to break up the long bonds into glucose, which tastes sweeter. mmmm cheese....

humanji

Don't know if it's true or not, but I heard that Mr Ed was actually a bred of zebra that has very faint white and tan lines instead of black and white. Sounds like rubbish, but on a few sites that debunk urban legends, they say it's true. And anything on the internet must be true!!

Also, the saying "You can't have you cake and eat it." is a miss-quote. You can, of course, have your cake and eat it! The actual saying is "You can't eat you cake and have it!"

cooperguy

Super glue is so strong because of crosslinking. this means that the chains of atoms join together at a number of different points along the chain

TerrorFirmer

Several red haired people in times of emergency can be harnessed to create a source of energy twice as powerful as the sun.

humanji

cooperguy wrote:

Super glue is so strong because of crosslinking. this means that the chains of atoms join together at a number of different points along the chain

Aparently super glue was invented to help keep wounds together in war zones.

Post-its were invented by the wife of a man who tried to create a very powerful glue. But the glue was so weak that it was useless. That is until his wife came upon the idea of using it to temporarily stick reminder notes to things.

Cigarette lighters were invented before matches.

BoozyBabe

Can't sneeze without blinking

Can't put on mascara with your mouth closed
(but I'd imagine there's someone out there who can (but prob get the mascara on their skin))

LeNNoX

It is Year 4703 by the Chinese calendar..... we're still in the year of the Rooster & on Feb 9th of this year,
it'll be Chinese New Year which will bring us into the year of the Dog..

http://www.chinapage.com/newyear.html

Crucifix

Michael Nesmith's (guitarist in The Monkees) mother invented correction fluid (Tipp-ex).

tbh

BoozyBabe wrote:

Can't sneeze without blinking

I did that once, pretty sure I could do it again, *if* I wanted to.

Chuck Norris doesn't sleep, he waits.

Apols to the poster who had that as their custom message, I love it and I'm nicking it.

LeNNoX

The dance /party drug yabba which is popular in Thailand,
will give you a massive energy rush & keep you
awake /alert for several hours & kill your appetite at the same time.

The Germans gave it to their soldiers during WWI to keep them awake & alert for hours on end...

Doper Than U

jomanji wrote:

Don't know if it's true or not, but I heard that Mr Ed was actually a bred of zebra that has very faint white and tan lines instead of black and white. Sounds like rubbish, but on a few sites that debunk urban legends, they say it's true. And anything on the internet must be true!!

That is absolutely not true. Even if you ignore the lack of stripes, the anatomy should give it away -- Mr Ed was Equus Caballus (a horse) and not any other species of equine. Also if one were to actually read Snopes' article on that particular piece, they would find out that it was actually a fake article written by Snopes themselves to show how gullible people can be, and to highlight how important it is NOT to believe everything you read on the internet.


Some entertaining facts:

Horses cannot vomit.

Domestic animals get their wide range of colours and patterns from the process of domestication itself. It was found that in trying to breed tame foxes, the colours and patterns of their coats changed from being just one colour to having lots of different colours (eg, black, white, spotted, parti-coloured, brindle, blue eyed etc etc).

There is no such thing as an Albino horse. This gene does not exist in equids.

Not only can elephants not jump, they are the only mammal with four knees.

Women are able to withstand G-forces better than men.

cooperguy

Dentists are only allowed give somebody amalgam fillings(the one most commonly used) if they are aged between 16 and 65 and also are not likely to become pregnant(which rules out woman between 16 and ~40) This is because amalgam has mercury in it which is poisonous. But I garantee you that your dentist has ignored that particular EU directive. Look at your fillings if there the grey type ones then thats amalgam!!!

rubadub

LeNNoX wrote:

The dance /party drug yabba which is popular in Thailand,
will give you a massive energy rush & keep you
awake /alert for several hours & kill your appetite at the same time.

The Germans gave it to their soldiers during WWI to keep them awake & alert for hours on end...

yabba is the name for methamphetamine, its red colour comes from the red phosophorous used in its making, it is usually gotten from fireworks factories, it is not very refined so still has the red colouring, signifying a cheap product.
methamphetamine is known as "P" in new zealand.

Cows milk contains morphine, so does human breast milk. Technically nursing mothers are breaking the law pushing illegal drugs on young kids, and your milkman is a dealer.

Salvia divinorum was used for centuries but no accounts were noted of its smoking until the 90's (it was formerly only chewed). The plant was hidden from westerners in remote ravines by shamans to stop it being exploited, it is thought there are many other secret species of hallucinogenic plants out there. The salvia most people smoke is a cutting of a cutting of a cutting... of a plant picked by Albert Hofmann in 1962, the guy who discovered LSD.

There is a rumour of a mutant cannabis plant in existance propagated only by cuttings in south america, it is supposed to be extremely high in resin and is kept secret by the natives.

Shamans usually lie about their age to hide the beneficial effects of the hallucinogens on the immune system so they are not exploited. Many live to be 100+

The common "toad stool" aka fly agaric aka amanita muscaria is a large mushroom with white stem and red cap with white spots. It causes hallucinations enabling people to have visions of things being too big or too small, hence the myth of elves in forests, and why toadstools have such a place in fairytales. The mushrooms were often fed to reindeers who ate them up, buckets were strapped to the reindeers and their urine was collected. The reindeers liver filters out the toxic chemicals and passes the active substances through almost intact. The siberians then drink the urine for a high. Beggars would call to the door of rich men to collect their piss in bowls. At mushroom festivals a few mushrooms could last many days due to the recycling of urine. The myth of santa claus is said to come from these regions, the red and white suit relating to the mushroom colour, and santa drinking the reindeers urine and thinking he can fly. There are also historians who believe the fly agaric was the fruit from the garden of eden, in some bible translations it was described as a red fruit bore from no tree.

Witches brooms were not for sweeping, they made potions from hallucinogenic plants and rubbed them a smooth stick, then a mixture of hallucinogenic plants were tied to the stick including deadly nightshade, henbane, mandrake. The witch then rubbed the broom against her genitals absorbing the drugs through the thin walls of the vagina into the bloodstream, while the herbs tied to the stick were set alight and inhaled at the same time. The witch would fall unconcious in a deep sleep and dream of visions that appeared to last for days or months, the drugs induce a state where most people dream of flying. This is why witches are said to fly on broomsticks, and in authentic older drawings the broom bushy end always points forward (the newer pictures are simply trying to be aerodynamic!). Witch hunters would spy on women, they knew about rubbing ointments into the gentials, any woman found masturbating was deemed a witch so women would go to great lengths to avoid detection and deny it at all costs, it was a taboo subject and has continued into modern times to be a taboo subject for many women who do not realise the real reason why.

slipss

People will think I'm just making this one up but I swear that for some reason studies were done and this was one of the observations I'll try to find the link to the journal it was published in - Ants will always fall to their left when intoxicated. I don't know why but I love that one.

If the population of china walked past you in single file the line would never end(due to the rate of reproduction.)

Its impossible to lick your own elbow (90% of people that read this will try to lick thier elbow)

Your foot is the same size as the distance between the crook of your elbow and the top of your wrist.

Woodlice aren't insects, there crustacions like crabs and lobsters

Banana trees walk across the ground with the movement of the Sun

Alexander Grahm Bell didn't invent the telephone, Antonio Meucci did, Bell just stole Meuccis invention and patented it.

To remove permanent marker, colour over it in washable marker and the two marks can then easily be removed.

Cows like grass

Dogs like dogfood

Toothpaste will relieve the pain of bee, wasp, and ant stings

Gorrilas build nests

For every disease scientists have discover a cure for in the last hundred years 19 new ones have been discovered.

The current actually flows from the negative end of a battery and is taken in at the positive, but this cannot be corrected on wiring diagrams because too many were in circulation when this was discovered an it was judged too dangerous.

There are three people who claim to have the genuine testicles of Napolean, the question here is not which are the real ones, but which poor bastards did the other two sets belong too.

Clowns are scarry

My socks today are blue.

Nalz

slipss wrote:

Your foot is the same size as the distance between the crook of your elbow and the top of your wrist.

Eh NO!!! not for us all mate!

There are 9 million bicycles in Beijing according to Katie Melua

I reckon she's lyin though

monkeyfudge

Dr. William Moulton Marston came up with the idea of testing systolic blood pressure to detect deception which is used to this day in the polygraph test.

He was also the creator of Wonderwoman.... Remember her lasso was a lie detector as well? yes?

sionnach

Theodore Roosevelt was the first and only US president to knife fight a cougar

bluto63

the odds of you injuring yourself by a toilet in your lifetime is 6500:1

computer games increase your hand-eye co-ordination

Commissar

slipss wrote:

Toothpaste will relieve the pain of bee, wasp, and ant stings

I'm pretty sure that wasps and bees have very different stings, one being acidic and the other basic. Toothpaste is basic so will only neutralize the sting of the ... wasp (50/50 shot here). For bee stings you need an acidic substance such as vinegar.



And now that I've gone and declared this to everyone it's probably time to check if I have the slightest clue what I'm talking about.

Edit: "For example, wasp stings are alkaline but bee stings are acidic. So if you get stung you need to put bicarbonate of soda on a bee sting and vinegar on a wasp sting."

Well I was half right.

http://www.york.ac.uk/res/sots/downloads/theacidtest.pdf

Commissar

Commissar wrote:

I'm pretty sure that wasps and bees have very different stings, one being acidic and the other basic. Toothpaste is basic so will only neutralize the sting of the ... wasp (50/50 shot here). For bee stings you need an acidic substance such as vinegar.




And now that I've gone and declared this to everyone it's probably time to check if I have the slightest clue what I'm talking about.

"For example, wasp stings are alkaline but bee stings are acidic. So if you get stung you need to put bicarbonate of soda on a bee sting and vinegar on a wasp sting."

Well I was half right.

http://www.york.ac.uk/res/sots/downloads/theacidtest.pdf

Capt'n Midnight

Megatron wrote:

Elephants are the only mamal who can't jump.

Due to have fused Ankle Bones.


( Whales do "Jump" out of the water from tiem to time.)

Manatees and Dugongs ?

Capt'n Midnight

rubadub wrote:

Cows milk contains morphine, so does human breast milk. Technically nursing mothers are breaking the law pushing illegal drugs on young kids, and your milkman is a dealer.

Technically speaking it would be illegal to carry a container of human breast milk across state lines in the US due to the carcinogens in it.

In the permian there were glaciers with 10 degrees of the equator.

The sea used to be brown before the blue-green algae came along !

At least one other species on this planet built a nuclear reactor before us.

Zebra3

Napolean discovered the cravet (derived from the word Croat) while in the Balkans and made it popular in western Europe upon his return.

Ian Fleming who created James Bond also wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

dr zoidberg

Alfred Nobel creator of the Nobel peace prize also invented dynamite.

monroe

Authentic ginger kids dont look ginga................................

but deep down they have the beeeest sex lives ....guaranteed


If you haven't have red..........................................

monroe

oh yeah ..

and Mairlyn Monroe did comit suicide sadly..........

I'll fight that one out with anyone

humanji

slipss wrote:

Its impossible to lick your own elbow (90% of people that read this will try to lick thier elbow)

Actually this isn't true. We had this discussion a few weeks ago and three people in the room could lick their elbows. It depends on how flexible your arm is and how long a tongue you have.

On average, every chocolate bar contains at least three insect legs.

Dave

The Australian Military is the only military in the world not have dogs in it. The reason... dogs don't pass the minimum IQ requirements of 90, as they were tested and came in at 85.

It's true! I love that QI! show.

Peteee

You are more likely to be kicked to death by a mule then to die in a plane crash

phantom_lord

Doper Than U wrote:

Horses cannot vomit.

Actually...they can..it's just rare and very difficult for them.

MorningStar

Temple Bar in Dublin is named after the land owner (Templer)and not due to a ban of Jewish people as suggested by many. It was also most likely helped along by an area in London with a similar name. Bar was the name for a bank of land i.e shore bank

Marino (Dublin) street layout was based on a spinning wheel as the area was originally known for keeping sheep for wool.

Edison did not invent the first long lasting electric light bulb Sir Joseph Wilson Swan did.

The number of the beast is 612 not 666

Linoge

dr zoidberg wrote:

Alfred Nobel creator of the Nobel peace prize also invented dynamite.

He invented the Nobel Peace Prize BECAUSE he invented dynamite btw.

Peteee wrote:

You are more likely to be kicked to death by a mule then to die in a plane crash

Thats not true, the statistics are swayed. You are actually more likely to die in a plane than a car based on the number of trips taken.

Why must I ruin everything beautiful:(

Sleepy

The idea of the "virgin" Mary only came about because of a mistranslation. The word in Aramaic meant a girl who hadn't begun to menstruate...

At least one other species on this planet built a nuclear reactor before us.

WTF?

Tar.Aldarion

Humans were not the first to have nuclear capabilities, other organisms beat us.
The first known Nuclear reactor was developed by heat loving bacteria two billion years ago in Oklo to generate heat.
The bacteria associated with the site may have selectively accumulated certain isotopes of uranium which caused fission to heat them and their surroundings. These bacteria were probably thermotropic and liked the heat which would have killed off competitiors.
Also in 1972, French physicist Francis Perrin declared that nature had beaten humans to the punch by creating the world’s first nuclear reactors.He argued, nature had a two-billion-year head start. Fifteen natural fission reactors have been found in three different ore deposits at the Oklo mine in Gabon, West Africa. These are collectively known as the Oklo Fossil Reactors.

Tobias Greeshman

rubadub wrote:

Cows milk contains morphine, so does human breast milk. Technically nursing mothers are breaking the law pushing illegal drugs on young kids, and your milkman is a dealer.

Just driving back from lunch and seen a very shady looking sort driving a milk van, lucky I don't get my milk delivered! :eek:

The one that reads the news on todayfm (I think tully is her surname), her mother used to do the voice of Bosco

If you could stretch out all the nerves in your body in a straightline it would stretch for 60 miles.

If you divide the length from your longest finger to your shoulder and your shoulder to you elbow the value would be the same as dividing the length of your leg by the distance from your foot to knee. This value is 1.66 also called the greek letter phi (circle with a line going through it).

BaZmO*

In the first verse of James Blunt's song "Beautiful" he states that he has a plan, but if you listen the the complete song it is quite clear that he in fact doesn't.

Amazotheamazing

Crucifix wrote:

Michael Nesmith's (guitarist in The Monkees) mother invented correction fluid (Tipp-ex).

Michael Mesmith also helped create country-rock but you don't hear hm brag about it.

Sam Vimes

o connell bridge is the only bridge in europe thats wider than it is long. fire up google earth and measure if you don't believe me

the qwerty keyboard was designed because people were typing too fast on the original typewriters and the mechanism kept sticking. they made the keyboard counter intuitive and inefficient to slow people down

typewriter is the longest word that can be typed with only the top row of the keyboard

the peter's map is a considerably more accurate map of the world than the standard mercator one http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/resourcebank/maps/page9.html

A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.

Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.

the way they made ET's walk was they had a kid with no legs in the suit. this is definitely true. i saw it on tv a few weeks ago

None of the so-called Dublin Mountains is high enough to meet the criteria required to claim mountain status. The Sugarloaf is the tallest 'Dublin Mountain' yet measures a mere 1389 feet above sea level.

In 1761 a family of itinerants from Navan were refused entry to Dublin.The family settled on the outskirts of the city and created the town of Rush. Two hundred and fifty years later, almost the entire population of Rush can still trace their roots back to this one family.

jaggeh wrote:

james T. Kirk never said 'beam me up scotty' in the originalseries of star trek.

you bastard i was going to post that :v:

MorningStar

Amazotheamazing wrote:

Michael Mesmith also helped create country-rock but you don't hear hm brag about it.

Actually he did come up with the idea of a music vox pop that he developed and sold to Warner Brother that became MTV.

The first Video on Mtv was The Buggles "Video Killed the Radeo Star"

Trevor Horn Of The Buggles produced many top 80s acts and songs. "relax" being the best well known which has very little of the actual band on the single. Trevor horn was a member of Yes and The Art of Noise


Mickey from the Monekes created a UK childrens tv series that was successful in the 80's called "Metal Mickey" . He also voiced many kids cartoon shows

David Jones was on the the same tv show the night The Beatles first appeared on US television.

Peter Tork is a recovering alcoholic

Amazotheamazing

I was being serious, some tracks he wrote and recorded with the Monkees are among the earliest country-rock tracks, predating Gram Parsons, The Byrds and Dylan's efforts. He's won a few grammys as an country singer I think.

Didn't Trevor Horn produce Do they know it's Christmas? also?

MorningStar

Amazotheamazing wrote:

I was being serious, some tracks he wrote and recorded with the Monkees are among the earliest country-rock tracks, predating Gram Parsons, The Byrds and Dylan's efforts. He's won a few grammys as an country singer I think.

Didn't Trevor Horn produce Do they know it's Christmas? also?

I know he was important and he is also very collectable on record as a result.

As he didn't predate the Gratefull Dead he looses out as the creator. Country Rock was around for quite a while in fairness. A whole genere of music is really impossible to claim creation of with the a few noticable exceptions.

You are right about Mr. Horn though. And underrated talent in popular media.