Random Facts

[Valentin the II]

Inspired by the "dumb laws" thread.
Food:
1.The white powder on chewing gum is actually sweetened marble dust.

2.Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.

3.It takes 548 peanuts to make a 12-ounce jar of peanut butter.

4.There are more than 1,000 chemicals in a cup of coffee. Of these, only 26 have been tested, and half caused cancer in rats.

5.When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle, it travels at a rate of 25 miles per year.

6.Smelling bananas and/or green apples (smelling, not eating) can help you lose weight!

7.Russia’s best selling candy bar: Snickers.

8.Pound for pound (kilo for kilo), hamburgers cost more than new cars. (WOW)

Law:
9.There is a lawsuit every 30 seconds in the U.S.

10.More than 50% of time spent in U.S courtrooms is over automobile cases.

Reptiles:
11.Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of ‘’Lorne Green’s Wild Kingdom.”

12.When snakes are born with two heads, they fight each other for food.

13.The distance between an alligator’s eyes, in inches, is directly proportional to the length of the alligator in feet.

14.The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung used by ancient Egyptians in 2000 BC.

mammels:
15.Murphy’s Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.

16.For the first time, the number of pet cats in the US now outnumbers the number of dogs, 60 million vs. 50 million.

17.The acid in a person’s stomach is corrosive enough to melt iron.

18.A female african elephant can be pregnant for almost 2 years.

19.Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.

20.The lips of a hippopotamus are nearly two feet wide.

21.Cats can make over 1,000 different vocal sounds, and dogs can make only about 10.

22.Giraffes have the same number of neck bones as humans: seven.

23.Some yaks’ milk is pink.



Just wierd:
25.Floccinaucinihilipilification, the declaration of an item being useless, is the longest non-medical term in the English language.

26.Goddessship is the only word in the English language with a triple letter.

27.The world’s longest-named lake has 45 letters (Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg).

28.in the U.S. there are 18 doctors called Dr. Doctor, and one called Dr. Surgeon. There is also a dermatologist named Dr. Rash, a psychiatrist called Dr. Couch and an anesthesiologist named Dr. Gass.

29.The longest word in the English language is ‘pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis’ which describes a lung disease caused by breathing in particles of volcanic matter or a similar fine dust.

Thats it for now.
Post some of your randome facts (not from this site).
Source

Edit: can a mod change the topic to just "random facts?

[RZZZA]

Lol, a lot of those are pretty disturbing.

"The lips of a hippopotamus are nearly two feet wide."

Eww.

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

Lol, a lot of those are pretty disturbing.

"The lips of a hippopotamus are nearly two feet wide."

Eww.

lol yes... disturbing is the word i was looking for =)

[Custor]

Do we have to guess how many are true or how many are totally nonsensical in themselves?

[Valentin the II]

Do we have to guess how many are true or how many are totally nonsensical in themselves?

They are all true.
And hier is another 1 (from discovery chanel):
31.A pigs orgasm lasts for 4 minutes .

EDIT:
Hier's another on before bed:

32.Desperate to increase veggie intake among children in Britain, researchers have developed chocolate-flavored carrots, pizza-flavored corn and baked-bean-flavored peas.

33.Thomas Edison was deaf, but it was not all because of his condition at birth. It is true that he was born partially deaf, but he actually became totally deaf when he was conducting an experiment on the back of a train caboose which caused the train’s conductor to become very upset. The conductor then “boxed” Edison’s ears, meaning that he hit both of Edison’s ears at the same time. This blow caused him to become totally deaf for the rest of his life.

34.Mr. Peanut was invented in 1916 by a Suffolk, Virginia, schoolchild who won $5 in a design contest sponsored by Planters Peanuts.

35.Ice-cream cones were first served in 1904 at the world’s fair in St. Louis, MO. US Patent # 3,477,070.

36.Thomas Edison, light bulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.

37.The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

38.Folding money was invented by the Chinese, it was made of deerskin.

39.The Roller Coaster was invented in the 17th century in Russia. (those crazy comies)
Irony: russians call roler costers "american hills".

40.Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung!

[removeduser_426582376423734]

The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

EDIT: Very true...

[RZZZA]

Its possible, people couldnt figure out what material to make the match out of, early matches were dangerous because the same materil that caused them to combust also caused them to spontaneously combust in peoples pockets due to friction. It took a while to invent the modern match, which only combusts when rubbed against a certain substance on the side of the matchbox.

[Valentin the II]

Ceep this thread moving people!
If we do this right TWC will have one of the largest libraries of usles facts in the world.
Its preaty informative :original: .
And heer is another dose of usles facts:
anciant times:
41.Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone.

42.In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

43.In ancient times strangers shook hands to show that they were unarmed.

44.In ancient China doctors would only receive fees if the patient stayed in good health. Sometimes if the patients health became to bad, the doctor had to pay them.

45.Married women could not view the Olympic Games in ancient Greece under penalty of death.

Animals:
46.A zebra is white with black stripes.

47.Hummingbirds are the only animal that can also fly backwards.

48.Insects do not make noises with their voices. The noise of bees, mosquitoes and other buzzing insects is caused by rapidly moving their wings.

49.The cockroach is the fastest animal on 6 legs covering a meter a second.

50.The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning it's head are the rabbit and the parrot.

51.A hippopotamus can run faster than a man.

60.A snail can sleep for 3 years. ( wow, lucky chap eh ? )

Just randome:
61.All the planets in our solar system rotate anticlockwise, except Venus. It is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

62.The word "listen" contains the same letters as the word "silent".

63.A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

64.India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.

65.India never invaded any country in her last 10000 years of history.

66.'Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia' is the fear of long words.

67.Phobatrivaphobia is a fear of trivia about phobias !!

68.It is impossible to lick your elbow.

69.The names of the continents all end with the same letter with which they start

70.The fustest animal in the world is a bittle (size compared to speed).
To be fuster then a bittle a man will have to run faster then 6000 kmph! (from discovery)

Idea: I want to reach the goal of 500 random facts. So some facts will realy be apriciated :original: .

EDIT:
Please ceep this moving.
More facts:
71.In 1883 the explosion of the volcano Krakatoa put so much dust into the earth's atmosphere that sunsets appeared green and the moon appeared blue around the world for almost two years.

72.Twenty-Four-Karat Gold is not pure gold since there is a small amount of copper in it. Absolutely pure gold is so soft that it can be molded with the hands.

73.Electricity doesn't move through a wire but through a field around the wire.

74.The whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound.

75.chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system; a few ounces are enough to kill a small dog.

76.At an estimated population of 40 million, there are more than twice as many kangaroos as people in Australia.

77.An elephant can smell water three miles away.

78.If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

79.The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet.

80.On average people fear spiders more than they do death.

81.The strongest muscle in the body is the TONGUE.

82.you are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider

83.Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do (yey!)

84.The king of hearts is the only king without a moustache.

85.No piece of square dry paper can be folded more than 7 times in half.

86.The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

87.Polar bears are left handed.

88.The flea can jump 350 times its body length, that is like a human jumping the length of a football field.

89.Flies and Butterflies taste with their feet.

90.A cat's urine glows under a black light.

91.An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.

92.Starfishes haven't got brains.

[Britisocialist]

Don't know if you want me to add but: the colouring in red smarties is beetle blood (process called cochineal).

[HappeR]

The world record for passing gas was set on Japanese television, 3,000 times in a row.

The wingspan of a Boeing 747 jet is longer than the Wright Brothers’ first flight.

The house where Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence was replaced with a hamburger stand.

The first toilet ever seen on television was on “Leave It To Beaver”.

In most advertisements the time displayed on an analog watch is 10:10.

In ancient Egypt, people used to shave their eyebrows to mourn the death of their cats.

Kermit the frog has 11 points on his collar around his neck.

A crocodile cannot stick out its tongue.

The word ‘condom’ comes from Dr. Charles Condom (1630 - 1685)

Over 1000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.

Rain falls at an average speed of 22 mph.

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.

In England, in the 1880’s, “Pants” was considered a dirty word.

The Bible is the most shoplifted book in the United States.

Sharks have no air bladders, so they must swim constantly or they’ll sink.

A shrimp’s heart is located in it’s head.

Starfish have no brain.

There are more than 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building.

The average adult male shaves off 1 lb of beard per year.

An estimated one in five Americans - some 38 million - don’t like sex.

The average American spends six months at red lights throughout his or her life.

More Monopoly money is printed in a year, than real money printed throughout the world!

A banana is about 75 percent water.

The hurricane plant has holes in its leaves, which keep it from being destroyed by wind.

A newborn kangaroo is small enough to fit into a teaspoon.

In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients would die.


Bird droppings are the chief export of Nauru, an island nation in the western Pacific.


If you pet a cat 70 million times, you will have developed enough static electricity to light a 60-watt light bulb for one minute.

[Valentin the II]

Sanks Happer!
This makes it a total of 120 random facts.
Only 420 left!
Il add some more:

121.There are more chickens in the world than people

122.Pinocchio was made of pine.

123.Every year, Alaska has about 5,000 earthquakes.

124.The hundred billionth Crayola crayon ever produced was Perriwinkle Blue.

125The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth.

126.Strawberries have more vitamin c than oranges.

127.More people in China speak English than in the United States.

128.An ostrich egg would take four hours to hard boil.

129.An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.

130.Until the 1960's men with long hair were not allowed to enter Disneyland.

131.Another name for the card game "Solitaire" is "Patience".

132.Saturday was named for the planet saturn.

133.The best beaches for surfing face west.

134.Wheat is the worlds most grown, and the world's most eaten food

135.Gibraltar is the only place in Europe were you can find wild monkeys.

134.An elephant raises it's trunk when it senses danger.

135.The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds

136.Pigs can run a mile in 7 ½ minutes

137.If you sleep in a cold room, you are more likely to have a bad dream.

138.After eating too much food, your hearing becomes less sharp.

139.Jack is the most common name in a fairy tale.

140.A grasshopper can leap 20 times the length of its own body.

141.45% of dollar bills you'll ever own have been in a stripper's g-string.

142.After the "Popeye" comic strip started in 1931, spinach consumption went up by thirty-three percent in the United States.

143.The largest recorded kidney stone weighed 1.36 kg.

144.Kidney stones range in color.

145.The U.S. Government will not allow portraits of living persons to appear on stamps.

146.The average person laughs 13 times a day.

147.The Earth weighs around 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.

148.Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.

149.Australia is the only continent without an active volcanoe.

150.The average North-American will eat 35,000 cookies in during their life span.

151.Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

152.Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

153.40,000 Americans are injured by toilets each year.

154.Frogs do not drink water.

155.There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.

156.A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat evaporates before a person realizes it's there, though.

157.Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.

158.In one day an average person will take about 18,000 steps.

159.The two most commonly sold items in grocery stores are breakfast cereals and soda.

160.On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.

161.A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

162.A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.

163.The average person spends 30 years mad at a family member.

164.There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

165.There are three golf balls sitting on the moon.

166.It was so cold that in the winter of 1932, Niagra Falls froze completly solid!

167.The average American spends 6 years in the bathroom, and 6 months at a stoplight.

168.Babies have no kneecaps when they are born.

169.No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.

170.The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

171.Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.

172.In 10 minutes, a hurrican releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons
combined.

173.If you toss a penny 10000 times, it will not be heads 5000 times, but more like 4950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom.

174.King Kong was Adolf Hitler's favorite movie.

176.The name for Oz in the "Wizard of Oz" was thought up when the creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z, hence "Oz."

177.Male hospital patients fall out of bed twice as often as female hospital patients.

178.Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.

179.30% of people asked to participate in an opinion poll refuse.

180.Most productive day of the workweek: Tuesday.

181.The higher the income, the more likely an American man will cheat on his wife.

182.Cleopatra wasn't Egyptian; she was Greek. (Doy)

[Spork Wielding Spartans]

Sanks Happer!

132.Saturday was named for the planet saturn.

182.Cleopatra wasn't Egyptian; she was Greek. (Doy)

Saturday was named for the Roman God Saturn, as was the planet.

Also there were many Cleopatras, most of whom were Macedonian not Greek.

[Valentin the II]

You should realy create a critics comeety and start investigating if the facts are true or not.
I bet only about 2%-8% are falce :wink: .

Why did start reading the first few and then minutes later reading them all

Yeh its adicive.

Not strictly true. Their nervous/cerebral system stretches across their body. Dont know why I felt like disproving this one really

A nervous/cerebral system does not count as a brain .

Now we have 206 facts. With 3 wrong or enacurate.
Here are some more:
207. 81% of women believe that ood looks can contribute to career success.

208. Scientific research has been found to be a leading cause of cancer in rats!

209. In the past few decades 90% of the big fish in the oceans have been eaten, or otherwise disposed of.

210. The majority of beer drinkers die from dropsie. (whats drposie?)

211. For all the americans out there: The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-Star Game.

212. Chewing gum while cutting onions will prevent crying

213. Of 200 Anglican priests polled only 68 could name all Ten Commandments. Half, however, said they believed in space aliens.

214. The hummingbird, the loon, the swift, the kingfisher, and the grebe are all birds that cannot walk.

215. A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.

216 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. (stupid engeniers)

217. Water is currently the most commonly used renewable energy resource, providing enough power to meet the needs of 28.3 million consumers.

218. Unlike most fish, electric eels cannot get enough oxygen from water. Approximately every five minutes, they must surface to breathe, or they will drown. Unlike most fish, they can swim both backwards and forwards.

219. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

220. Since the first power plant lit up 800 light bulbs in 1882, the electric utility industry has grown to generate over 2.5 million gigawatt-hours annually, the equivalent of lighting 4.8 billion 60-watt light bulbs for a year

Note: I'v found an awesome site that has not only facts but other stuf to: Deep thoughts
And ceep this thread alive .

[Last Roman]

Also there were many Cleopatras, most of whom were Macedonian not Greek.

but Cleopatra is derived from a very ancient Greek name, and means "her fathers fame" and is similar to Patocleos (which should sound familiar if you know your Homer)

[almeja]

Saturday was named for the Roman God Saturn, as was the planet.

Also there were many Cleopatras, most of whom were Macedonian not Greek.

Macedonians were Greeks... there is a very common misconception between the two... It's just another ethnic branch of Greeks. But they did not contain themselves just in one city, as Athenians, or Spartans etc, which is why one can easily misunderstand the term. Trust me on that because I am a macedonian Greek, I know.

[Spork Wielding Spartans]

Macedonians were Greeks... there is a very common misconception between the two... It's just another ethnic branch of Greeks. But they did not contain themselves just in one city, as Athenians, or Spartans etc, which is why one can easily misunderstand the term. Trust me on that because I am a macedonian Greek, I know.

Yes, I know, but Macedonian is more precise then just Greek (differentiating from Athenians, Corinthians, Spartans, Minoans, etc). I thought the distinction was at least as imporant as pointingout that several female members of the Ptolemic Dynasty in Eygpt weren't technically Egyptian despite ruling there for almost 300 years.

[DimondLight]

134.Wheat is the worlds most grown, and the world's most eaten food

And I'm allergic to it.

[Stalins Ghost]

Starfish have no brain.

Not strictly true. Their nervous/cerebral system stretches across their body. Dont know why I felt like disproving this one really

[krazykarl]

183. In most places (in North America at least) bottled water costs more per liter then gas

[RZZZA]

"63.A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second."

lol


"68.It is impossible to lick your elbow."

gah, damn you, nothing is impossible! I will one day succeed....