General Question

Grabbins's avatar

What is the coolest fact you know?

Asked by Grabbins (87points) June 25th, 2008

One of my favorites is “a blue whale’s tongue can weigh the same as an elephant!”. Amazing.

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100 Answers

AstroChuck's avatar

That Kahlua and Amaretto taste great together.

Chawk80's avatar

Did you know the human head weighs eight pounds?
Did you know that bees and dogs can smell fear?
Did you know that my next door neighbor has three rabbits?
Jerry Maguire little kid quote sorry I couldn’t help myself. LOL.

beast's avatar

Polar bears can eat as many as 86 penguins in a single sitting.

Aardvarks are allergic to radishes, but only during summer months.

Cat’s urine glows under a black light.

Ants do not sleep.

AstroChuck's avatar

That the U.S. Constitution prohibits Dubya from stealing a third term.

tinyfaery's avatar

“All I know is that I know nothing.”

xxporkxsodaxx's avatar

Here are a few that my family knows

There is about 1,525,000,000 miles of telephone wire strung across america.
101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan are the only two Disney cartoon movies where one of the parents don’t die.
315 words in Webster’s Dictionary will be misspelled.
99% of the Solar system’s mass is in the Sun.
A whale’s penis is called a dork.
Bank robber John Dillinger played professional baseball
Q is the only letter that isn’t in the name of any state
Some toothpaste’s contain antifreeze
“Stewardesses” is the longest word that is typed only with the left hand
An average person is about 1/4 in. taller at night
The average person falls asleep in 7 minutes
Earth ways about 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons
The electric chair was invented by a dentist
The first toilet ever seen on TV was on “Leave it to Beaver”
The “L.L.” in L.L. Bean stands for Leon Leonwood
The oldest goldfish lived to be 41. It’s name was Fred
Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark
There is a town in Newfoundland called Dildo
Montpelier, Vermont is the only US capitol without a McDonald’s
The man who did the voice of Bugs Bunny was allergic to carrots
In Tokyo the sell toupees for dogs
February 1865 is the only month recorded to have no full moon

jlm11f's avatar

@ AC – that has to be the coolest fact for sure ;)

jrpowell's avatar

Making a lot of money won’t make someone a good father.

marinelife's avatar

The armadillo is the only creature other than human beings that can get leprosy. A person can catch leprosy from an armadillo by eating the stew or touching infected bone or hide. (watch out for those cool armadillo purses!)

beast's avatar

@xxporkxsodaxx

Here are your incorrect facts:
1) Disney parents death. No. I didn’t see anyone die in Toy Story?
2) There’s no state that begins with ‘X’
3) Earth weighs

AstroChuck's avatar

beast, Polar Bears and Penguins live on opposite sides of the Earth.

jlm11f's avatar

oh and i like this one. – “Facetious” is the only word that has all 5 vowels in alphabetical order. (watch someone tells me its not true now)

Grabbins's avatar

@beast he said Q is the only letter that isn’t in the name of any state, not begins with.

robmandu's avatar

Listing a car for sale on craigslist will generate two phone calls within 30 minutes of initial post.

It’s true. Happened to me tonite.

marinelife's avatar

@beast Technically, Toy Story was a Pixar film before Disney.

xxporkxsodaxx's avatar

@beast,
I said that no state contains the letter Q
Toy Story isn’t a cartoon, it’s computer animation
Earth:and thats my bad.

Seesul's avatar

For gail: The ratio of a mother cat to a kitten mirrors the ratio of a human to a full grown cat, which is why a cat likes to cuddle up next to you when you mimic the shape of a mother cat.

beast's avatar

I was saying that you spelled weighs wrong

@Chuck
The polar bear fact was rhetorical. If they DID live together, that’s how many penguins it could eat.

Another Disney movie w/o the parents dying? A Goofy Movie + An Extremely Goofy Movie.

elchoopanebre's avatar

@Robmandu

And after you sell it, you will get calls for weeks even if you take down the listing.

xxporkxsodaxx's avatar

I know, I thought I would be able to edit it but that link wasn’t there.

AstroChuck's avatar

A merkin is a toupeé for the pubic area.

Harp's avatar

How far you can roll your eyes back into your head is an excellent predictor of how easily you can be hypnotized.

AstroChuck's avatar

I don’t recall a parent dying in “Sleeping Beauty.”

Seesul's avatar

or Mary Poppins (partly animated) the guy did die laughing, but he wasn’t a parent, was he? (at least of the kids). Did a parent die in Fantasia?

xxporkxsodaxx's avatar

Hmm maybe it were the features, I don’t know I might be wrong.

marinelife's avatar

@Harp Elaborate, please. Does being able to roll back them a lot predict you are a good subject or a bad subject for hypnosis?

iCeskate's avatar

if you have worms they crawl out of your butt at night

AstroChuck's avatar

Bad, if you roll them back all the way. Unless you are hypnotizing someone to be dead.

Seesul's avatar

Cats have the largest eyes of any mammal in relation to their body size.

Mtl_zack's avatar

about the disney movies. those are the only ones when someone does not die or is not already dead. in goofy, the mother was already dead, in mary poppins mary mentions her dead husband i think. in sleeping beauty, didnt the witch die and in some interpretations or altered scripts, the witch was the mother?

Adina1968's avatar

The average person drives in reverse less than a mile each year.
If you pull through you parking space so that you can leave going forward instead of reversing it cuts your chances of having an accident by 50%.

babiturtle36's avatar

Your tongue is the strongest muscle in your body.

breedmitch's avatar

A giraffe’s tounge is long enough to lick his own ears.

Seesul's avatar

and breedmitch, when a baby giraffe is born, it just drops out of the (standing up) mom, hits its head on the ground and the fall breaks the cord. The tongue is blue and don’t stand under one, because they glop stuff that looks like slim from their mouths. The ones at the San Diego Zoo smell like eucalyptus because that’s what they eat and sleep in.

Seesul's avatar

Cotton is the only natural fiber that is stronger wet than dry (example: Shanghai Noon escape from jail scene)

robmandu's avatar

< < Wishes he had three alternate identities to award more GQ lurve.

xxporkxsodaxx's avatar

If it’s the movie I am thinking of, when Jackie Chan peed on a silk cloth, not cotton, and even then on Mythbusters they were not able to break the bars.

AstroChuck's avatar

Seesul, no way. Bush Babies, Lemurs, and marmosets have much larger eyes in proportion of their bodies than cats.

Seesul's avatar

Silk will rip when wet, especially if you put your body weight on it. Wet cotton isn’t strong enough to break the bars, that was exaggeration, but it will hold body weight better if wet than dry. If the bars had been rusty, however, they might have had a chance, but hey, this is the movies. I just assumed it was cotton, since they were using the wet it trick. Did they imply it was silk? I’ll have to pay more attention the next time I watch it.

AstroChuck's avatar

zack, both of Princess Aurora’s (Sleeping Beauty) parents are alive throughout the movie.

Seesul's avatar

Okay, then if you say so, oh AC of very big brain. (I’m gonna have a talk with the vet the next time I see him). BUT ostriches have bigger eyes than brains…and believe me, I’ve stared a few ostriches down!!!!
didn’t look that way in Shrek I and II

xxporkxsodaxx's avatar

Well I don’t know if they implies it was silk, but the Mythbusters said it was so I was just going by them

@AC, I don’t know where I got that from, but I must have missed something, like after a certain year until another year, but who knows?

MikeMcG's avatar

The big bang created equal amounts of matter and anti-matter in the universe. We live in a very large pocket of matter, therefore there is a very large pocket of anti-matter out there somewhere. Although, the idea that the big bang created equal amounts of matter and antimatter is still up for debate.

delirium's avatar

No notable parent died in The Emperors New Groove, Mulan (I think), Pocahontas (I think), three caballeros, alice in wonderland, Lady and the tramp, The Aristocats, Robin Hood, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules…... need I go on?

xxporkxsodaxx's avatar

As I said I must have missed something, there must have been dates that were specified that I forgot. Or some certain guidelines.

playthebanjo's avatar

king lapu lapu of mactan island is a phillipean national hero because he killed Ferdinand Magellan.

AstroChuck's avatar

The liver is the only internal organ that can repair itself.
And, I might add, is great with some fava beans and a nice bottle of chianti. thpthpthpthpthp.

xxporkxsodaxx's avatar

Well actually when you sleep your brain goes into a stage of repair.

xxporkxsodaxx's avatar

1,525,000,000 miles of telephone wire a strung across the U.S.
101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan (Wendy) are the only two Disney cartoon features with both parents that are present and don’t die throughout the movie.
111,111,111×111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
123,000,000 cars are being driven down the U.S’s highways.
160 cars can drive side by side on the Monumental Axis in Brazil, the world’s widest road.
166,875,000,000 pieces of mail are delivered each year in the U.S.
27% of U.S. male college students believe life is “A meaningless existential hell.”
315 entries in Webster’s Dictionary will be misspelled.
5% of Canadians don’t know the first 7 words of the Canadian anthem, but know the first 9 of the American anthem.
56,000,000 people go to Major League baseball each year.
7% of Americans don’t know the first 9 words of the American anthem, but know the first 7 of the Canadian anthem.
85,000,000 tons of paper are used each year in the U.S.
99% of the solar systems mass is concentrated in the sun.
A 10-gallon hat barely holds 6 pints.
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off.
A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate.
A cow produces 200 times more gas a day than a person.
A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.
A fully loaded supertanker travelling at normal speed takes a least twenty minutes to stop.
A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.
A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat evaporates before a person realizes it’s there.
A hedgehog’s heart beats 300 times a minute on average.
A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.
A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
A jellyfish is 95 percent water.
A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
A jumbo jet uses 4,000 gallons of fuel to take off.
A male emperor moth can smell a female emperor moth up to 7 miles away.
A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 6 years. Wow.
A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night.
A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana.
A pig’s orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn’t give her coffee.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove.
A shark can detect one part of blood in 100 million parts of water.
A skunk can spray its stinky scent more than 10 feet.
A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans!
A walla-walla scene is one where extras pretend to be talking in the background—when they say “walla-walla” it looks like they are actually talking.
A whale’s penis is called a dork.
About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30.
About 70% of Americans who go to college do it just to make more money. [The rest of us are avoiding reality for four more years.]
According to a British law passed in 1845, attempting to commit suicide was a capital offense. Offenders could be hanged for trying.
Actor Tommy Lee Jones and former vice-president Al Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.
Al Capone’s business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
All of the clocks in the movie “Pulp Fiction” are stuck on 4:20.
All porcupines float in water.
Almonds are a member of the peach family.
Almost a quarter of the land area of Los Angeles is taken up by automobiles.
America once issued a 5-cent bill.
America’s first nudist organization was founded in 1929, by 3 men.
Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone.
An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.
An average person laughs about 15 times a day.
An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.
An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.
Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always all the same sex.
Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.
Aztec emperor Montezuma had a nephew, Cuitlahac, whose name meant “plenty of excrement.”
Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under is cap to keep him cool. He changed it every 2 innings.
Babies are born without knee caps. They don’t appear until the child reaches 2–6 years of age.
Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day.
Back in the mid to late 1980’s, an IBM-compatible computer wasn’t considered a hundred percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft’s Flight Simulator.
Bank robber John Dillinger played professional baseball.
Barbie’s measurements if she were life size: 39–23-33.
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
Ben and Jerry’s send the waste from making ice cream to local pig farmers to use as feed. Pigs love the stuff, except for one flavor: Mint Oreo.
Bird droppings are the chief export of Nauru, an island nation in the Western Pacific.
Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan.
Bubble gum contains rubber.
Camel’s milk does not curdle.
Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
Canada is an Indian word meaning “Big Village”.
Cat’s urine glows under a blacklight.
Cats can produce over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs can only produce about ten.
Charles Lindbergh took only four sandwiches with him on his famous transatlantic flight.
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them use to burn their houses down – hence the expression “to get fired.”
Cleo and Caesar were the early stage names of Cher and Sonny Bono.
Columbia University is the second largest landowner in New York City, after the Catholic Church.
David Prowse was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all of Vader’s lines, and didn’t know that he was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie.
Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?
Dogs and cats consume almost $7 billion worth of pet food a year.
Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn’t wear pants.
Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was the physician who set the leg of Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth… and whose shame created the expression for ignominy, “His name is Mudd.”
Dr. Seuss pronounced “Seuss” such that it rhymed with “rejoice.”
“Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt.”
Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
During your lifetime, you’ll eat about 60,000 pounds of food, that’s the weight of about 6 elephants.
Einstein couldn’t speak fluently when he was nine. His parents thought he might be retarded.
Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
Eskimo ice cream is neither icy, or creamy.
Even if you cut off a cockroach’s head, it can live for several weeks.
Every person has a unique tongue print.
Every time Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured ice water over his head.
Every time you lick a stamp, you’re consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning “containing arsenic.”
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.
Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung.
Gilligan of Gilligan’s Island had a first name that was only used once, on the never-aired pilot show. His first name was Willy. The skipper’s real name on Gilligan’s Island is Jonas Grumby. It was mentioned once in the first episode on their radio’s newscast about the wreck.
Giraffes have no vocal cords.
Goethe couldn’t stand the sound of barking dogs and could only write if he had an apple rotting in the drawer of his desk.
Hang On Sloopy is the official rock song of Ohio.
Hershey’s Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it’s kissing the conveyor belt.
Honeybees have hair on their eyes.
Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks.
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
Hydroxydesoxycorticosterone and hydroxydeoxycorticosterones are the largest anagrams.
Hypnotism is banned by public schools in San Diego.
“I am.” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
If NASA sent birds into space they would soon die; they need gravity to swallow.
If you bring a raccoon’s head to the Henniker, New Hampshire town hall, you are entitled to receive $.10 from the town.
If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times, but more like 4,950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom.
If your eyes are six feet above the surface of the ocean, the horizon will be about three statute miles away.
In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients would die.
In 1980, there was only one country in the world with no telephones – Bhutan.
In 1983, a Japanese artist made a copy of the Mona Lisa completely out of toast.
In 1984, a Canadian farmer began renting ad space on his cows.
In 75% of American households, women manage the money and pay the bills.
In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals.
In England, in the 1880’s, “Pants” were considered a dirty word.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
In every episode of “Seinfeld” there is a Superman somewhere.
In Kentucky, 50 percent of the people who get married for the first time are teenagers.
In Los Angeles, there are fewer people than there are automobiles.
In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
In space, astronauts cannot cry, because there is no gravity, so the tears can’t flow.
In the 1940s, the FCC assigned television’s Channel 1 to mobile services (two-way radios in taxicabs, for instance) but did not re-number the other channel assignments. That is why your TV set has channels 2 and up, but no channel 1.
In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but only 6 people were injured.
In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
In the movie “Casablanca,” Humphrey Bogart never said “Play it again, Sam.”
In the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons.
In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs.
Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal category.
It takes a lobster approximately seven years to grow to be one pound.
It takes about a half a gallon of water to cook macaroni, and about a gallon to clean the pot.
It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up its stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of its mouth. Then the frog uses its forearms to dig out all of the stomach’s contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.
It was once against the law to have a pet dog in a city in Iceland.
It was once against the law to slam your car door in a city in Switzerland.
It’s against the law to burp, or sneeze in a certain church in Omaha, Nebraska.
It’s against the law to catch fish with your bare hands in Kansas.
It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (Don’t try this at home!)
Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been overmixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float. Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated ever since.
John Lennon’s first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.
“Kemo Sabe” means “soggy shrub” in Navajo.
Kotex was first manufactured as bandages, during WWI.
Lee Harvey Oswald’s cadaver tag sold at an auction for $6,600 in 1992.
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.
Like fingerprints, everyone’s tongue print is different.
Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright’s son.
Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of “Lorne Greene’s Wild Kingdom.”
Los Angeles’s full name is “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula” and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its original size: “L.A.”
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.
Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
Millie the White House dog earned more than 4 times as much as President Bush in 1991.
Money isn’t made out of paper, it’s made out of cotton.
Montpelier, VT is the only U.S. state capital without a McDonalds.
More Monopoly money is printed in a year, than real money printed throughout the world.
More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.
More people use blue toothbrushes, than red ones.
Mosquitoes have teeth.
Most Americans’ car horns beep in the key of F.
Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
Most lipstick contains fish scales.
Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
Murphy’s Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously
On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament Building is an American flag.
On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the “1” encased in the “shield” and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner.
One in every 4 americans has appeared on television.
One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the 1930’s lobbied against hemp farmers—they saw it as competition. It is not as chemically addictive as is nicotine, alcohol, or caffeine.
One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet.
Only 55% of all Americans know that the sun is a star.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn’t added until 5 years later.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
Over 1000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.
Owls are one of the only birds who can see the color blue.
Pamela Anderson Lee is Canada’s Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on the centennial anniversary of Canada’s independence.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air.
Pinocchio is Italian for “pine head.”
Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII. If captured, they could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape.
Polar Bears trying to blend in with the ice will sometimes cover up their black nose with their paws.
Pollsters say that 40 percent of dog and cat owners carry pictures of the pets in their wallets.
Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States.
Recycling one glass jar, saves enough energy to watch T.V for 3 hours.
Reindeer like to eat bananas.
Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have recently eaten bananas.
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
Sherlock Holmes never said “Elementary, my dear Watson.”
Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.
Since 1896, the beginning of the modern Olympics, only Greece and Australia have participated in every Games.
Slugs have 4 noses.
Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they can’t find any food.
Some toothpaste’s contain antifreeze.
Spotted skunks do handstands before they spray.
“Stewardesses” is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself.
Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar with “Midnight Cowboy.” Her entire role lasted only six minutes.
Texas is also the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.
The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the “American Pie.” (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)
The average American drinks about 600 sodas a year.
The average American will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year.
The average bank teller loses about $250 every year.
The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.
The average person is about a quarter of an inch taller at night.
The average person laughs 15 times a day.
The average person’s left hand does 56% of the typing.
The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland’s baby daughter, Ruth.
The band Duran Duran got their name from an astronaut in the 1968 Jane Fonda movie “Barbarella.
The blesbok, a South African antelope, is almost the same color as grapejuice.
The Boston University Bridge (on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts) is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.
The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra’s “Its A Wonderful Life”.
The combination “ough” can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: “A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.”
The company providing the liability insurance for the Republican National Convention in San Diego is the same firm that insured the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic.
The condom – made originally of linen – was invented in the early 1500s.
The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
The Earth weighs around 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
The elephant is the only mammal that can’t jump.
The first Ford cars had Dodge engines.
The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C.
The first toilet ever seen on television was on “Leave It To Beaver.”
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
The housefly hums in the middle octave, key of F.
The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
The katydid bug hears through holes in its hind legs.
The “L.L.” in L.L. Bean stands for Leon Leonwood.
The longest one-syllable word in the English language is “screeched.”
The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.
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.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
The moon is moving away at a tiny, although measurable distance from the earth every year. Do the math and you will clearly see that 85 million years ago it was orbiting the earth at a distance of about 35 feet from the earth’s surface. This would explain the death of the dinosours; the tallest ones, anyway.
The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
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.”
The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the “General Purpose” vehicle, G.P.
The name Wendy was made up for the book “Peter Pan.”
The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses. No one in Greece has memorized all 158 verses.
The Neanderthal’s brain was bigger than yours is.
The oldest known goldfish lived to 41 years of age. Its name was Fred.
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
The only nation whose name begins with an “A” but doesn’t end in an “A” is Afghanistan.
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.
The penguin is the only bird who can swim, but not fly.
The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
The phrase, “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye” is from Ancient Rome. The only rule during wrestling matches was, “No eye gouging.” Everything else was allowed, but the only way to be disqualified was to poke someone’s eye out.
The phrase “rule of thumb” is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
The placement of a donkey’s eyes in its’ heads enables it to see all four feet at all times.
The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head.
The Ramses brand condom is named after the great pharaoh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.
The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
The Sanskrit word for “war” means “desire for more cows.”
The “save” icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backwards.
The saying “it’s so cold out there it could freeze the balls off a brass monkey” came from when they had old cannons like ones used in the Civil War. The cannonballs were stacked in a pyramid formation, called a brass monkey. When it got extremely cold outside they would crack and break off… thus the saying.
The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in Jello.
The starfish is one of the only animals who can turn it’s stomach inside-out.
The state of Florida is bigger than England.
The term “the whole 9 yards” came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got “the whole 9 yards.”
The three best-known western names in China: Jesus Christ, Richard Nixon, and Elvis Presley.
The United States Government keeps its supply of silver at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York.
The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.
The verb “cleave” is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
The word “Checkmate” in chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means “the king is dead”.
The word “modem” is a contraction of the words “modulate, demodulate.” (MOdulate DEModulate)
The word “samba” means “to rub navels together.”
The world population of chickens is about equal to the number of people.
The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old.
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
There are over 52.6 million dogs in the U.S.
There are more chickens than people in the world.
There are more plastic flamingos in America than real ones.
There are only four words in the English language which end in ”-dous”: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
There are only thirteen blimps in the world. Nine of them are in the United States.
There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
There is a town in Newfoundland, Canada called Dildo.
There wasn’t a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses.
Thomas Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
To escape the grip of a crocodile’s jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs—it will let you go instantly.
Two-thirds of the world’s eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it is known as Tennessee.
Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden. The conversion to right-hand was done on a weekday at 5pm. All traffic stopped as people switched sides. This time and day were chosen to prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and been too sleepy to realize that this was the day of the changeover.
When opossums are playing ‘possum, they are not “playing.” They actually pass out from sheer terror.
When snakes are born with two heads, they fight each other for food.
When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home, the stadium becomes the state’s third largest city.
White Out was invented by the mother of Mike Nesmith (formerly of the Monkees).
Who’s that playing the piano on the “Mad About You” theme? Paul Reiser himself.
Wilma Flintstone’s maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty Rubble’s Maiden name was Betty Jean Mcbricker.
Windmills always turn counter-clockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room during a dance.
Women’s hearts beat faster than men’s.
You blink over 20,000,000 times a year.
You can only smell 1/20th as well as a dog.
You’ll eat about 35,000 cookies in a lifetime.
You’re born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206.
You’re more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day than in any other weather.
Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day.
Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, everytime you breathe.
Your right lung takes in more air than your left one does.
Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.

My friend did this for me, I have no clue where he got all these but the one’s I posted are all there too. I’m sure there has to be a website.

delirium's avatar

A LOT of those are urban legends.

Seesul's avatar

HOLY beejeebers, xxp. you going for the grand prize, you’ve got it.
Whoever collected this list has WAAAAY too much time on their hands.
AC: Fava beans don’t go well with anything if you happen to be Sicilian
and have a problem with them

delirium's avatar

And there’s two contradictory chicken statements… >.>

AstroChuck's avatar

Yeah, right.

Seesul's avatar

..and I still want some concrete evidence on those Bush Babies, etc. and them biiiig peeepers. I know they LOOK big, but when was the last time you weighed a lemur? My cat is 7lbs and has HUGE eyes, like Puss’n’Boots. Still going to ask my kitty’s ophthalmologist next time I see him.
and yes, I will admit if I’m wrong and take your “special hat” and sit in the corner

delirium's avatar

Hahahahahahahaha…. someone PM brownlemur. This is his SPECIALTY.
Actually, seesul…. make it a question. Go go go! You’ll make his day!

the last time he weighed a lemur was probably like…. yesterday….

brownlemur's avatar

Lemur masses, eh? Well they range from <30 grams to about 9 kg, so there’s quite a range. As far as eyes go, check out tarsiers (Tarsius sp). I’m not so sure I believe the cat eye thing. I’m sure you will all go running to read the 2006 paper in Folia Primatologica by Chris Kirk about primate eyes….

For those of you who are actually interested, the citation is:

Kirk, EC. 2006. Eye morphology in cathemeral lemurids and other mammals. Folia Primatologica 77:27–49.

Send me a PM if you want the PDF.

delirium's avatar

thank you lemur! (did your lemur sense go off and you suddenly looked up from whatever you were doing with the knowledge that someone, somewhere on fluther was talking about lemurs?)

not to tease too much, its just rare when the exact thing you specialize in comes up. I await the day when someone asks about forensic knee taphonomy!

Seesul's avatar

okay, here goes, what in the samhilll is forensic knee taphonomy? I know the forensic and knee part and ta=goodbye phon=sound, nomy=laws governing (but there is only one “n”). But investigating the criminal aspect of the laws governing the sound my knee makes? Can’t wrap my tiny blonde brain around that one.

delirium's avatar

ahahahhhahahahah. Oh god, I wish! taphonomy is the study of what happens to something after it dies. Sometimes it connects to the study of the revealed morphology post mortem as well. (dammit. I’m typing this on my iPhone and it keeps changing words it doesnt know.)
My current primary study is… Well… Hypothetically if you were to have two very similar left female femurs from and one tibia that went with one of them… There is no one in the world able to tell which if were not basing it off of visual taphonomical data (there wouldn’t be any of they came from the same exhumation). I am working on finding the way.

playthebanjo's avatar

there’s just too many big words…ouch!

Seesul's avatar

delrium: I can’t believe I actually understand that. I watch enough of the real life forensic shows to actually figure your explanation out! I started watching them years ago because I was on a cruise in the Pacific and their was a woman at the table that was in the field. I found it fascinating and have been watching it ever since. I love detective stories anyway. Thanks for the explanation. I understand about the iPhone, I answered one question this past week while in the car on a bumpy road it repeated itself in a weird way. If you don’t have one, it’s hard to understand.

Harp's avatar

@Marina
The further back you can roll your eyes, the more easily you can be hypnotized. If you can almost conceal the iris beneath the half-open upper lid, you’re a great subject. If you can barely create much of a white margin between the iris and lower lid, you’ll be difficult, or impossible, to hypnotize.

Knotmyday's avatar

Not to interrupt the vibrant exchange here, but:

The Three-toed Sloth, Bradypus/Bradipodidae, lose a third of their body weight when they poop. How ‘bout dat?

They can also rotate their heads 270 friggin’ degrees.

Continue…

Knotmyday's avatar

Speaking of asses: the African wild Ass from which all asses descended, is one of the most endangered animals in the world. Save the asses!

Knotmyday's avatar

Speaking of being done, did you know that the psychological law of closure and relationship closure are two very different things?

who’d ‘a thunk?

marinelife's avatar

@Harp My ability to roll my eyes has been improved dramatically by the practice I have been getting following this thread!

Seesul's avatar

i was told that when a sloth fell out of a tree, Knot, that it never got up and just died there.

Part of my “behind the scenes” experience at the San Diego Zoo was visiting the giraffe kraal and getting close up with the eldest sloth they had at the time.

Gee, while I was gone, a lot of people were sent to the naughty room, huh?

Knotmyday's avatar

Nope, they come down to use the potty all the time. One of the strangest things I found on my search through slothdom was that a sloth has such a strong grip that every once in a while, one is found dead (of natural causes) still hanging from a tree. Weird.

edit: nice run-on sentence…

Seesul's avatar

I took it as falling, not just climbing down, actually falling. What do you think, Knot? Have you ever seen one fall and get back up?

Knotmyday's avatar

Noooo… never witnessed sloth-fall. I did google it just now, and it appears that everyone is of the opinion that they are built like furry little tanks; not likely to injure themselves.

Seesul's avatar

I think the person may have been inferring that they were just too lazy to get up after falling, not actually hurt themselves. Maybe it came from near dead ones falling. The one that I saw sure confirms the “furry little tank” thing to me.

What was great was that my son was less than 5 at the time and they usually didn’t take the group back there if there was a little kid in the group because they didn’t want their senior citizen to be disturbed. He was so good on the rest of the tour, that she allowed him back. He has never forgotten it. One amazing creature, for sure.

thebeadholder's avatar

That this might perhaps be the question on Fluther that has the most comments removed by Fluther moderators???!!!

AstroChuck's avatar

Wish I could see what the moderators removed of mine. I don’t recall getting involved in all the arguing. Is there anyway to find these things out?

Seesul's avatar

Chuckie, I’m guessing you were just stuck in the middle of it and got sent to the principals office for just being there. I’ve never seen the Chuckster argue, it’s not in his character, is it?
or maybe you knew the teacher was out of the room

Knotmyday's avatar

This is a disgustingly long thread. My finger got plumb wore out scrolling to the top.

thebeadholder's avatar

@Seesul: LOL!!!! @Knot: I hear ya!

jlm11f's avatar

@ AC – same for me, i don’t think i got involved in the argument either. i was wondering what comment of mine got removed too.

El_Cadejo's avatar

@thebeadholder actually this is the question with most answers removed by mods.

beast's avatar

@uberbatman

I’m going to answer that question so I can be the only one that wasn’t removed.

Seesul's avatar

So the answer to that question was yes? That’s hysterical, uber. There was already one that wasn’t removed, beast, that’s what I found so funny, right in the middle. Anything else would be an anticlimax. it should be left alone.

beast's avatar

Ha. My answer was already removed.

sndfreQ's avatar

[Fluther Moderator]: Any subsequent non-relevant posts in this discussion will be summarily censored; anyone interested in chatting please use the chat room for said purpose.

Please remember your answers to the discussion are for the purpose of serving the asker of the question and the knowledge-building of the collective.

Thanks and respect!

playthebanjo's avatar

resistance is futile

thebeadholder's avatar

@uber: touche!

AstroChuck's avatar

That Debra Winger was the voice of E.T.

AstroChuck's avatar

That Kotex was first made as bandages during the second world war.

Seesul's avatar

^ ...and that before that, rags were used, hence the expression “on the rag”.

Trance24's avatar

The Betta fish is able to breathe oxygen in both water and in the air. Which is why they are able to live in such small containments, and do not need water changes as often. (But that does not make it right.)

AstroChuck's avatar

What became the most popular video game of all time was originally to be called Puck Man. But because of the concern of vandalism (scratching out part of the “P” to make a different letter) they decided to go with Pac-Man instead.

Grabbins's avatar

That was a hell of a lot of answers.

They are all pretty cool though.

I maybe should of emphasized “THE” in ‘What is the coolest fact you know?’ then this page wouldn’t have been too long to even read. I thought I was going to wear out my trackpad just scrolling to the bottom!

MissAnthrope's avatar

@babirurtle36 – That is a misconception. The heart is the strongest muscle in the body. :)

Ugh, I know too many random facts, how can I pick just one? ;)

Parrothead's avatar

Donald Duck has never realized that he doesn’t wear pants.

steven's avatar

All the clocks in ”‘Pulp Fiction’” at stuck at 4 :20

Knotmyday's avatar

Not so, steven. Debunked.

There is a persistent myth that that all the clocks in the movie are set to 4:20 (although, certainly all the clocks on the wall in the pawn shop are set to 4:20). However, in at least two scenes it is obvious that this is not the case. In the “Bonnie Situation” while Jimmy, Vince and Jules are drinking coffee in the kitchen, the clock clearly reads 8:15. Secondly, when Vince and Jules go to retrieve the briefcase, it is “7:22 in the a.m.”. The significance of the time 4:20 is that it is slang for smoking marijuana

robmandu's avatar

< < GA’d @Knotmyday for that last sentence in his quip.

Nimis's avatar

Rob: Exciting and frightening all at once.

jlm11f's avatar

wow. that was a pretty fantastic video. i agree with nimis, some facts on it were just frightening.

Faze44's avatar

That what goes around comes around

Skaggfacemutt's avatar

Regarding Disney movies, in Pollyanna, she went to live with her relatives because her parents had died.

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