Put on your thinking cap when you visit CITB - here you'll find Concepts, Ideas, Thoughts and "Outside The Box" thinking, plus we call Bullsh!t for what it is. Enjoy the ride, and if we stimulate your brain, please tell others about us!
On Fridays I post something fun. Why? Because you deserve a reward. We call it our TGIF Post.
Last week was the final post in our series called “Mind Blowing Facts.” The response was so great to that series that we came up with a few more assorted “Data Points.” Some call it trivia - I like to think of it as fun facts that are "Brain Builders." This is the perfect synaptic workout before the weekend.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Remember to print this post and share it with the kids. You’ll be a hero, and they will WOW and amaze their friends.
29 Completely Useless Facts!
The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.
Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts, and worms like fried bacon.
Of all the words in the English language, the word 'set' has the most definitions!
What is called a "French kiss" in the English speaking world is known as an "English kiss" in France.
"Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
"Rhythm" is the longest English word without a vowel.
In 1386, a pig in France was executed by public hanging for the murder of a child.
There is a place called Rome on every continent.
Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day!
Horatio Nelson, one of England's most illustrious admirals was, throughout his life, never able to find a cure for his sea-sickness.
The skeleton of Jeremy Bentham is present at all important meetings of the University of London
Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe!
One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!
The first known transfusion of blood was performed as early as 1667, when Jean-Baptiste transfused two pints of blood from a sheep to a young man.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!
The present population of 6.6 billion plus people of the world is predicted to become 11 billion by 2080.
Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, and had only ONE testicle.
Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
On average a hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute.
More people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.
The placement of a donkey's eyes in its head enables it to see all four feet at all times!
The six official languages of the United Nations are: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish.
You're born with 300 bones, but by the time you become an adult, you only have 206.
The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old!
The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds.
Slugs have 4 noses.
A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years!
The average person laughs 10 times a day!
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
CITB Quote of the day: "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." - Albert Einstein
On Fridays I post something fun. Why? Because you deserve a reward. We simply call it our TGIF Post.
This is week 2 of a 3 part series called "Mind Blowing Facts."Some call it trivia - I like to think of it as assorted "Data Points." Fun facts that are "Brain Builders." This is the perfect synaptic workout before you veg out in front of the idiot box all weekend.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Remember to print this post and share it with the kids. You'll be a hero, and they will WOW and amaze their friends.
Mind Blowing Facts 51 - 100
A Dragonfly's eye contains 30,000 lenses.
A Pig's tongue contains 15,000 taste buds. In comparison, the human tongue has 9,000 taste buds. (Yet they eat garbage. What am I missing here?)
The number system was invented in India. Aryabhatta was the scientist who invented the digit zero.
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
Earth weighs 5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons. But, every day the earth's weight increases by 10 tons because of cosmic dust falling on it from space!
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
"A duck's quack doesn't echo anywhere." The ONLY FACT HERE is that it is NOT A FACT! It is a commonly repeated Urban Legend.
Man is the only animal who'll eat with an enemy.
The average woman uses about her height in lipstick every five years.
The first Christmas was celebrated on December 25, AD 336 in Rome, after Emperor Constantine had declared Christianity the empire's favored religion.
A Cockroach will live nine days without its head, before it starves to death.
A Chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but monkeys can't.
A Rat can last longer without water than a Camel can.
About 10% of the world's population is left-handed.
The common belief that "Dolphins sleep with one eye open" is ONLY a metaphor. Dolphins have to be conscious to breath. This means that they cannot go into a full deep sleep, because then they would suffocate. Dolphins have "solved" that by letting one half of their brain sleep at a time. This has been determined by doing EEG studies on dolphins. Dolphins sleep about 8 hours day in this fashion.
Snakes have no external ears. Therefore, they do not hear the music of a "snake charmer." Instead, they are probably responding to the movements of the snake charmer and the flute. However, sound waves may travel through bones in their heads to the middle ear.
Many spiders have eight eyes.
The tongue of snakes has no taste buds. Instead, the tongue is used to bring smells and tastes into the mouth. Smells and tastes are then detected in two pits, called "Jacobson's organs", on the roof of their mouths. Receptors in the pits then transmit smell and taste information to the brain.
Birds don't sweat. Birds pant to expel body heat – they breath very quickly, letting the cooler air passing through the lungs and air sacs carry heat away from the body.
The highest kangaroo leap recorded is 10 ft and the longest is 42 ft.
Flamingo tongues were commonly eaten at Roman feasts.
The smallest bird in the world is the Hummingbird. It weighs 1 oz.
The bird that can fly the fastest is called a White. It can fly up to 95 miles per hour.
The oldest living things on Earth are 12,000 years old. They are the flowering shrubs called creosote bushes in the Mojave Desert.
Tea is said to have been discovered in 2737 BC by a Chinese emperor, when some tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water.
A person can live without food for about a month, but only about a week without water. If the amount of water in your body is reduced by just 1%, you will feel thirsty. If it's reduced by 10%, you will die.
Along with its lengthy neck, the giraffe has a very long tongue. It is over 20 inches long. Surprise! A giraffe can clean its ears with its tongue.
Ostriches kick with tremendous force, but only forward. Don't mess with them (unless your behind them).
An elephant can smell water three miles away.
If you were to remove your skin, it would weigh as much as 5 pounds.
A Hippopotamus can run faster than a man.
India never invaded any country in the last 10,000 years.
The tallest man in modern history was Robert Pershing Wadlow standing a whopping 8' 11". In comparison the average giraffe about about 18 ft.
Yao Defen is believed to be the world's tallest woman. She measures 7 ft. 9 in. That is 2 inches more than Sandy Allen (7 ft. 7 in.) of the United States. Allen is currently listed by Guinness World Records as the world's tallest woman.
The only 2 animals that can see behind themselves without turning their heads are the rabbit and the parrot.
The blue whale is the largest animal on earth. The heart of a blue whale is as big as a car, and its tongue is as long as an elephant.
The largest bird egg in the world today is that of the ostrich. Ostrich eggs are from 6 to 8 inches long. Because of their size and the thickness of their shells, they take 40 minutes to hard-boil. The average adult male ostrich, the world's largest living bird, weighs up to 345 pounds.
Every dolphin has its own signature whistle to distinguish it from other dolphins, much like a human fingerprint.
The world's largest mammal, the blue whale, weighs 50 tons at birth. Fully grown, it weighs as much as 150 tons.
90% of all the ice in the world is located on the continent of Antarctica.
Antarctica is DRIEST continent. Antarctica is a desert.
Antarctica is COLDEST continent, averaging minus 76 degrees in the winter.
Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun. It doesn't have a moon. Its atmosphere is so thin that during the day the temperature reaches +750 degrees, and at night can plunge to -300 degrees.
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. It is so large that if it were hollow, you could fit 1,000 Earths inside! Jupiter is made up of gas and is not solid. The most famous feature of Jupiter is its Red Spot, which is actually an enormous hurricane that has been raging on Jupiter for hundreds of years! Currently 27 of Jupiter's moons are officially recognized.
Saturn is a very windy place! Winds can reach up to 1,100 miles per hour. Saturn is also made of gas. This planet is famous for its beautiful rings, and at last count has at least 60 moons.
Uranus is the third largest planet, and is also made of gas. It's tilted on its side and spins north-south rather than east-west. Uranus has 27 named moons. 5 of them are massive enough to be considered dwarf planets if they were in orbit about the Sun.
Neptune is the eighth planet from the sun, the fourth largest, and appears blue because it is made of methane gas. It is named after the Roman god of the sea. Neptune is four times the size of Earth, and its day lasts a little more than 16 hours. Its year is about 165 Earth years. Neptune's orbit is a perfect circle.
Until recently Pluto was considered to be the farthest planet from the Sun. It has such an unusual orbit that occasionally it passes closer to the Sun than Neptune. Pluto is made of rock and ice. It is so small that astronomers are debating whether it should even be considered a planet. Recently other planet like objects have been discovered orbiting the Sun even further out in space than Pluto.
Mars has seasons like Earth. Mars has polar caps like Earth, containing frozen carbon dioxide (and small amount of water). The Sun appears about half the size on Mars as it does from Earth. The largest volcano in the Solar System is on Mars. It is called Olympus Mons. Mars is believed to have had water flowing around it like Earth once. It may have had a blue sky, too. However, it is unlikely that it had grass, trees and plants like Earth has now.
Mars is the one planet that people believe is most likely to contain or to have contained life. Around 1900, The Guzman Prize was offered to the first person to be in contact with an extra-terrestrial being. However, this extra-terrestrial being was not allowed to come from Mars because that would make the competition too easy!
EDITOR'S NOTE: Please read the CITB story "What in the HELL Mars is this?" for revealing and fascinating photos of possible life on Mars.
On Fridays I post something fun. Why? Because you deserve a reward. We call it our TGIF Post.
The last post in our TGIF series was “29 Completely Useless Facts!” The response was great! We came up with a few more assorted “Data Points.” Some call it trivia - I like to think of it as fun facts that are "Brain Builders." The perfect synaptic workout before the weekend.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Remember to print this post and share it with the kids. You’ll be a hero, and they will WOW and amaze their friends.
77 Human Body Facts!
The shark cornea has been used in eye surgery, since its cornea is similar to a human cornea.
The number one cause of blindness in adults in the United States is diabetes.
The eyeball of a human weighs approximately 28 grams.
The eye of a human can distinguish 500 shades of gray.
The cornea is the only living tissue in the human body that does not contain any blood vessels.
The conjunctiva is a membrane that covers the human eye.
Sailors once thought that wearing a gold earring would improve their eyesight.
Research has indicated that a tie that is on too tight can increase the risk of glaucoma in men.
People generally read 25% slower from a computer screen compared to paper.
Men are able to read fine print better than women can.
Close to fifty percent of the bacteria in the mouth lives on the surface of our tongue.
You have approximately 9,000 - 10,000 taste buds; however, they're not all on the tongue. Some are under the tongue; some are on the inside of the cheeks; some are on the roof of the mouth. Some can even be found on the lips; these are especially sensitive to salt.
85% of the population can curl their tongue into a tube.
In a month, a fingernail grows an eighth of an inch.
People who have a mouth with a narrow roof are more likely to snore. This is because they have less oxygen going through their nose.
While sleeping, one man in eight snores, and one in ten grinds his teeth.
It takes food seven seconds to go from the mouth to the stomach via the esophagus.
In one day, a human sheds 10 billion skin flakes. This amounts to approximately 4,5 pounds in a year.
Every square inch of the human body has about 19,000,000 skin cells.
Every hour one billion cells in the body must be replaced.
The small intestine in the human body is about 2 inches in diameter, and 22 feet long.
The human body has approximately 37,000 miles of capillaries.
The aorta, which is the largest artery located in the body, is about the diameter of a garden hose.
The adult human body requires about 88 pounds of oxygen daily.
An average women has about 17 square feet of skin. When a women is in her ninth month of pregnancy she has approximately 18.5 square feet of skin.
The width of your arm span - stretched out - is the length of your whole body.
Women hearts beat faster than men.
Three years after a person quits smoking, their chance of having a heart attack is the same as someone who has never smoked before.
The human heart weighs less than a pound.
The human heart can create enough pressure that it could squirt blood a distance of thirty feet.
The first recorded open heart surgery was performed by Dr. Daniel Hall Williams in 1893.
Scientists have discovered that the longer the ring finger is in boys, the less chance they have of having a heart attack.
The right lung of a human is larger than the left one. This is because of the space and placement of the heart.
The human heart beat roughly 35 million times a year.
In a lifetime, the heart pumps about one million barrels of blood.
In 1967, the first successful heart transplant was performed in Cape Town, South Africa.
People that suffer from gum disease are twice as likely to have a stroke or heart attack.
Most heart attacks occur between the hours of 8 and 9 AM.
The human heart beast roughly 35 million times a year.
At one time it was thought that the heart controlled a person's emotions.
The smallest bone in the human body is the stapes bone which is located in the ear.
There are 54 bones in your hands including the wrists.
The only bone fully grown at birth is located in the ear.
The human face is made up of 14 bones.
If an identical twin grows up without having a certain tooth, the other twin will most likely also grow up with that tooth missing.
Humans are born with 300 bones in their body, however when a person reaches adulthood they only have 206 bones. This occurs because many of them join together to make a single bone.
Gardening is said to be one of the best exercises for maintaining healthy bones.
Enamel is hardest substance in the human body.
Although the outsides of a bone are hard, they are generally light and soft inside. They are about 75% water.
Adult human bones account for 14% of the body's total weight.
1 in 2000 babies are born with a tooth that is already visible.
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!
The strongest bone in your body is the femur (thighbone), and it's hollow
In the United States women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression than men.
The human brain has about 100,000,000,000 (100 billion) neurons.
Of all the oxygen that a human breathes, twenty percent goes to the brain.
People who ride on roller coasters have a higher chance of having a blood clot in the brain.
Once a human reaches the age of 35, he/she will start losing approximately 7,000 brain cells a day. The cells will never be replaced.
It is not possible to tickle yourself. The cerebellum, a part of the brain, warns the rest of the brain that you are about to tickle yourself. Since your brain knows this, it ignores the resulting sensation.
A women from Berlin, Germany has had 3,110 gallstones taken out of her gall bladder.
In America, the most common type of mental illness is Anxiety Disorders.
Your brain is 80% water.
Your brain is move active and thinks more at night than during the day.
The smile is the most frequently used facial expression. A smile can use anywhere from 5 to 53 facial muscles.
The slowest growing finger nail is on the thumb, and the fastest growing is the nail on the middle finger.
The sensitivity of a woman's middle finger is reduced during menstruation.
The same amount of calories are burned in 6 sessions of 5 minutes each of an activity, or doing 1 session of that activity for 30 minutes.
The pectin that is found in apples aids in lowering cholesterol levels.
The most frequent season for suicides to occur is spring. The winter months have the lowest number of suicides.
The majority of American models are skinnier than 98% of American women.
The longest case of hiccups on record was by an American pig farmer, whose hiccups persisted from 1922 through 1987.
The length of a human esophagus is 25 centimeters.
The human liver performs over 500 functions.
The feet have approximately 250,000 sweat glands.
The eight most popular foods to cause food allergies are: milk, eggs, wheat, peanuts, soy, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish.
The earliest known occurrence of a fetus yawning was at eleven weeks after conception.
The average ear grows 0.01 inches in length every year.
CITB Quote of the day: "The individual desires judgment. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilization." - Morpheus
39 Facts About Sleep You Probably Didn’t Know… (Or Were Too Tired To Think About)
Experts say one of the most alluring sleep distractions is the 24-hour accessibility of the internet.
It’s impossible to tell if someone is really awake without close medical supervision. People can take cat naps with their eyes open without even being aware of it.
Anything less than five minutes to fall asleep at night means you’re sleep deprived. The ideal is between 10 and 15 minutes, meaning you’re still tired enough to sleep deeply, but not so exhausted you feel sleepy by day.
A new baby typically results in 400-750 hours lost sleep for parents in the first year
One of the best predictors of insomnia later in life is the development of bad habits from having sleep disturbed by young children.
The continuous brain recordings that led to the discovery of REM (rapid eye-movement) sleep were not done until 1953, partly because the scientists involved were concerned about wasting paper.
REM sleep occurs in bursts totaling about 2 hours a night, usually beginning about 90 minutes after falling asleep.
Dreams, once thought to occur only during REM sleep, also occur (but to a lesser extent) in non-REM sleep phases. It’s possible there may not be a single moment of our sleep when we are actually dreamless.
REM dreams are characterized by bizarre plots, but non-REM dreams are repetitive and thought-like, with little imagery - obsessively returning to a suspicion you left your mobile phone somewhere, for example.
Certain types of eye movements during REM sleep correspond to specific movements in dreams, suggesting at least part of the dreaming process is analogous to watching a film
No-one knows for sure if other species dream but some do have sleep cycles similar to humans.
Elephants sleep standing up during non-REM sleep, but lie down for REM sleep.
Some scientists believe we dream to fix experiences in long-term memory, that is, we dream about things worth remembering. Others reckon we dream about things worth forgetting - to eliminate overlapping memories that would otherwise clog up our brains.
Dreams may not serve any purpose at all but be merely a meaningless byproduct of two evolutionary adaptations - sleep and consciousness.
REM sleep may help developing brains mature. Premature babies have 75 per cent REM sleep, 10 per cent more than full-term babys. Similarly, a newborn kitten puppy rat or hamster experiences only REM sleep, while a newborn guinea pig (which is much more developed at birth) has almost no REM sleep at all.
Scientists have not been able to explain a 1998 study showing a bright light shone on the backs of human knees can reset the brain’s sleep-wake clock.
British Ministry of Defense researchers have been able to reset soldiers’ body clocks so they can go without sleep for up to 36 hrs. Tiny optical fibres embedded in special spectacles project a ring of bright white light (with a spectrum identical to a sunrise) around the edge of soldiers’ retinas, fooling them into thinking they have just woken up. The system was first used on US pilots during the bombing of Kosovo.
Seventeen hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%.
The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, the Challenger space shuttle disaster and the Chernobyl nuclear accident have all been attributed to human errors in which sleep-deprivation played a role.
The NRMA estimates fatigue is involved in one in 6 fatal road accidents.
Exposure to noise at night can suppress immune function even if the sleeper doesn’t wake. Unfamiliar noise, and noise during the first and last two hours of sleep, has the greatest disruptive effect on the sleep cycle.
The “natural alarm clock” which enables some people to wake up more or less when they want to is caused by a burst of the stress hormone adrenocorticotropin. Researchers say this reflects an unconscious anticipation of the stress of waking up.
Some sleeping tablets, such as barbiturates suppress REM sleep, which can be harmful over a long period.
In insomnia following bereavement, sleeping pills can disrupt grieving.
Tiny luminous rays from a digital alarm clock can be enough to disrupt the sleep cycle even if you do not fully wake. The light turns off a “neural switch” in the brain, causing levels of a key sleep chemical to decline within minutes.
To drop off we must cool off; body temperature and the brain’s sleep-wake cycle are closely linked. That’s why hot summer nights can cause a restless sleep. The blood flow mechanism that transfers core body heat to the skin works best between 18 and 30 degrees. But later in life, the comfort zone shrinks to between 23 and 25 degrees - one reason why older people have more sleep disorders.
A night on the grog will help you get to sleep but it will be a light slumber and you won’t dream much.
After five nights of partial sleep deprivation, three drinks will have the same effect on your body as six would when you’ve slept enough.
Humans sleep on average around three hours less than other primates like chimps, rhesus monkeys, squirrel monkeys and baboons, all of whom sleep for 10 hours.
Ducks at risk of attack by predators are able to balance the need for sleep and survival, keeping one half of the brain awake while the other slips into sleep mode.
Ten per cent of snorers have sleep apnoea, a disorder which causes sufferers to stop breathing up to 300 times a night and significantly increases the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke.
Snoring occurs only in non-REM sleep
Teenagers need as much sleep as small children (about 10 hrs) while those over 65 need the least of all (about six hours). For the average adult aged 25-55, eight hours is considered optimal
Some studies suggest women need up to an hour’s extra sleep a night compared to men, and not getting it may be one reason women are much more susceptible to depression than men.
Feeling tired can feel normal after a short time. Those deliberately deprived of sleep for research initially noticed greatly the effects on their alertness, mood and physical performance, but the awareness dropped off after the first few days.
Diaries from the pre-electric-light-globe Victorian era show adults slept nine to 10 hours a night with periods of rest changing with the seasons in line with sunrise and sunsets.
Most of what we know about sleep we’ve learned in the past 25 years.
As a group, 18 to 24 year-olds deprived of sleep suffer more from impaired performance than older adults.
The extra-hour of sleep received when clocks are put back at the start of daylight in Canada has been found to coincide with a fall in the number of road accidents.
CITB Quote of the day: "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover" - Mark Twain
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Friday Apr 4, 2008
On Fridays I post something fun. Why? Because you deserve a reward. We call it our TGIF Post.
This is week 3 - the final post in our series called “Mind Blowing Facts.”
Some call it trivia - I like to think of it as assorted “Data Points.” Fun facts that are "Brain Builders." This is the perfect synaptic workout before the weekend.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Remember to print this post and share it with the kids. You’ll be a hero, and they will WOW and amaze their friends.
Mind Blowing Facts 101 - 150
Mountain lions are known by more than 100 names, including panther, catamount, cougar, painter and puma. Its scientific name is Felis concolor, which means "cat of one color." At one time, mountain lions were very common!
The large cats of the world are divided into two groups- those that roar, like tigers and African lions, and those that purr. Mountain lions purr, hiss, scream, and snarl, but they cannot roar. They can jump a distance of 30 feet, and jump as high as 15 feet. They hunt alone, not in packs like wolves. They sneak up on their prey just like a house cat sneaks up on a bird or toy - one slow step at a time.
A lion can eat ten pounds of meat at one time!
A full-grown male mountain lion may be 9 feet long, including his tail!
Queen ants can live to be 30 years old.
Dragonflies can flap their wings 28 times per second and they can fly up to 60 miles per hour.
As fast as dragonflies can flap their wings, bees are even faster... they can flap their wings 435 times per second.
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day.
Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people.
11% of the world is left-handed.
The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump! (Which is probably a good thing - an elephant jumping would probably register on the Richter scale!)
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian Pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.
Coca-Cola would be green if coloring weren't added to it.
More people are allergic to cow's milk than any other food.
Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
Earth is the only planet not named after a god.
It’s against the law to burp, or sneeze in a church in Nebraska, USA.
Some worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food!
It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
Queen Elizabeth I regarded herself as a paragon of cleanliness. She declared that she bathed once every three months, whether she needed it or not.
Slugs have 4 noses.
Owls are the only birds that can see the color Blue.
Your tongue is the only muscle in your body that is attached at only one end.
More than 1,000 different languages are spoken on the continent of Africa.
There was once an undersea post office in the Bahamas. It was established in 1939 as part of a scientific facility on the sea bed off the Bahamas. They used a special oval postmark that was inscribed "SEA FLOOR/BAHAMAS."
Abraham Lincoln's mother died when she drank the milk of a cow that grazed on poisonous snakeroot.
After the death of Albert Einstein his brain was removed by a pathologist and put in a jar for future study.
Penguins are not found at the North Pole.
A dentist invented the Electric Chair.
A whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound.
Alexander Graham Bell's wife and mother were both deaf.
Cockroaches break wind every 15 minutes.
Fish scales are an ingredient in most lipsticks.
"Canada" is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".
259,200 people die every day.
Your body produces 1.7 liters of saliva each day.
The world’s oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old!
The largest beetle in the Americas is the Hercules beetle, which can be 4 to 6 inches in length. That's bigger than your hand!
The average lead pencil can draw a line that is almost 35 miles long.
You can write almost 50,000 words in English with just one pencil.
The Wright Brothers invented one of the first airplanes. It was called the Kitty Hawk.
The worst industrial disaster in India occurred in 1984 in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh. A deadly chemical, methyl isocyanate leaked out of the Union Carbide factory killing more than 2500 and leaving thousands sick. In fact, the effects of this gas tragedy are being felt even today.
Mars is nicknamed the "Red Planet," because it looks reddish in the night sky.
Venus is nicknamed the "Jewel of the Sky."
Because of the greenhouse effect, Venus is hotter than Mercury, even though it's not as close to the sun.
Venus does not have a moon but it does have clouds of sulfuric acid! If you're going to visit Venus, pack your gas mask!
CITB Quote of the day: "Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Albert Einstein
This post - Rebus Puzzles - is a part of our Brain Builder series. If you’ve never done a rebus puzzle before, then this quick introduction will explain all you need to know. They are essentially little pictures, often made with letters and words, which cryptically represent a word, phrase, or saying.
This page, our Guide To Rebus Puzzles, explains eight of the main ways in which a rebus puzzle might encode its solution.
re·bus Pronunciation [ree-buhs]
-noun, plural -bus·es.
1. a representation of a word or phrase by pictures, symbols, etc., that suggest that word or phrase or its syllables: Two gates and a head is a rebus for Gateshead.
2. a piece of writing containing many such representations.
As an editor I am a lover of information. Some might call it trivia - I like to think of it as assorted "Data Points" (that term is for my engineering friends - you know who your are!).
It's Friday and because of it being Friday I get to post something just for the fun of it. This is totally off topic for the scope of our blog. BUT IT'S OK! Why? Because it's my blog and I think you should do something fun on Fridays!
So here it is...
Mind Blowing Facts 1 - 49
Turtles have no teeth.
Prehistoric turtles may have weighed as much as 5,000 pounds.
Only one out of a thousand baby sea turtles survives after hatching.
Sea turtles absorb a lot of salt from the sea water in which they live. They excrete excess salt from their eyes, so it often looks as though they're crying.
Helium is a colorless, odorless, tasteless inert gas at room temperature and makes up about 0.0005% of the air we breathe.
Helium Gas makes balloons float. Helium is lighter than air and just as the heaviest things will tend to fall to the bottom, the lightest things will rise to the top.
Camels can (and DO) spit.
An ostrich can run 43 miles per hour (70 kilometers per hour).
Pigs are the fourth most intelligent animal in the world.
Dinosaurs didn't eat grass? There was no grass in the days of the dinosaurs.
Dolphins can swim 37 miles per hour (60 kilometers per hour).
A crocodile's tongue is attached to the roof of its mouth? It cannot move. It cannot chew but its Digestive juices are so strong that it can digest a steel nail, Glass pieces, etc.
Sharks are immune to disease i.e. they do not suffer from any Disease.
Animals are either right- or left-handed? Polar bears are always left-handed, and so is Kermit the Frog.
Paris, France has more dogs than people.
New Zealand is home to 70 million sheep and only 40 million people.
Male polar bears weigh 1400 pounds and females only weight 550 pounds, on average.
Bison are excellent swimmers? Their head, hump and tail never go below the surface of the water.
There are 6 to 14 frog’s species in the world that have no tongues. One of these is the African dwarf frog.
A frog named Santjie, who was in a frog derby in South Africa jumped 33 feet 5.5 inches.
The longest life span of a frog was 40 years
The eyes of a frog flatten down when it swallows its prey
The name `India' is derived from the River Indus
The Persian invaders converted it into Hindu. The name `Hindustan' combines Sindhu and Hindu and thus refers to the land of the Hindus.
Chess was invented in India.
The' place value system' and the 'decimal system' were developed in 100 BC in India.
The game of snakes & ladders was created by the 13th century poet saint Gyandev. It was originally called 'Mokshapat.' The ladders in the game represented virtues and the snakes indicated vices. It became the classic children's board game Chutes and Ladders.
India has the most post offices in the world
'Navigation' is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH
The word Navy is also derived from the Sanskrit word 'Nou'.
Until 1896, India was the only source for diamonds to the world
The' place value system' and the 'decimal system' were developed in 100 BC in India.
A snail can sleep for 3 years.
The names of the continents all end with the same letter with which they start
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.
Electricity doesn't move through a wire but through a field around the wire.
The first bicycle that was made in 1817. The German Baron Karl Drais von Sauerbronn invented the "Laufmaschine" or "Running Machine", a type of bicycle. The steerable Laufmaschine was made entirely of wood and had no pedals; a rider would push his/her feet against the ground to make the machine go forward.
The first steam powered train was invented by Robert Stephenson. It was called the Rocket.
A cheetah does not roar like a lion - it purrs like a cat (meow).
The original name for the butterfly was 'flutterby'
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
Ants don't sleep.
Dolphins usually live up to about twenty years, but have been known to live for about forty.
Dolphins sleep in a semi-alert state by resting one side of their brain at a time
A dolphin can hold its breath for 5 to 8 minutes at a time
Bats can detect warmth of an animal from about 16 cm away using its "nose-leaf".
Bats can also find food up to 18 ft. away and get information about the type of insect using their sense of echolocation.
The eyes of the chameleon can move independently & can see in two different directions at the same time.
Cockroach: Can detect movement as small as 2,000 times the diameter of a hydrogen atom.
CITB Quote of the day: "There Are No Victims Only Volunteers" - Dr. Phil
Posted by Thom Byxbe | Under Concept, Idea
Wednesday Feb 20, 2008
I have been involved with the World Wide Web since its conception. The creators of the WWW concept envisioned a tool for the sharing of knowledge through the linking of data points. HyperHistory Online is precisely what they envisioned. HyperHistory.com is an expanding scientific project presenting 3,000 years of world history with an interactive combination of synchronoptic lifelines, timelines, and maps.
A novel synchronoptic concept depicts a full panorama of history in such a way that it will appeal to a cultivated public at large. A true picture of the world would be incomplete if it equates history with the history of wars and politics and neglects all other aspects of life. The addition of scientific, cultural and religious facts and events are therefore a key to a fundamental knowledge of society. A spatial representation of time has obvious educational advantages: here history is no longer learned but viewed.
EDITORS NOTE: Albert Einstein said "never memorize anything you can look up in a book". I subscribe to this concept as it appears so do the authors of HyperHistory Online.
Over 2,000 files are interconnected throughout the site. In addition to that HyperHistory provides several hundred links to the world wide web. The growing site itself contains presently over 50 MB of images and text files, but individual gif files are kept small enough to allow for a quick display.
I love to learn and this is a site for student, teacher and information junkies like myself. We give HyperHistory Online our BEST recommendation. While the interface to this site is good it seems to us that at times it is confusing. Do not let this bit of constructive criticism prevent you from visiting this site. It will be one you will often return to.
CITB Quote of the day: "Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Albert Einstein
As an editor I am a lover of information. Some might call it trivia - I like to think of it as assorted "Data Points" (that term is for my engineering friends - you know who your are!).
AND it's Friday and I get to post something just for the fun of it. This is totally off topic for the scope of our blog. BUT IT'S OK! Why? Because it's my blog and I think you should do something fun on Fridays! So here it is...
Curious and Useless Stuff
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than for the US Treasury.
Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.
Coca-Cola was originally green.
The state with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska
The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% (now get this...) The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%
The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400
The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
The youngest pope was 11 years old.
The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
Those San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
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.
Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what? A. Their birthplace
Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name? A. Obsession
CITB Quote of the day: "Just because someone is related to you by blood that doesn't make them family. UNCONDITIONAL love, loyalty and support is what makes one family in our brotherhood. All of you judgmental self-righteous hypocrites wonder why we are so strong and how our numbers keep growing. We offer a loyal family structure for the true warriors that are often condemned by your so called society." - Sunny Barger
Posted by Thom Byxbe | Under Idea
Friday Feb 8, 2008
Source: WikipediaThanks to our friends over at Firefox Facts and some creative map loving developers there is no way you could ever get lost as long as you had a laptop, an internet connection and that lovable Firefox.
Map+ - View the Yahoo Map of any address without having to open a new tab or window.
GDirections - Find where your going or where you have been on Google and Yahoo Maps based on your selected text and one of various home addresses.
Shazou - A unique Japanese mapping service and tool that enables the user with one-click to map and geo-locate any website they are currently viewing.
GeoLocateFox - Find where any web site’s HQ is with this tool. It tells you the location if contains GeoLocation metadata within the HTML on the web page.
GMiF - An addon for Flickr that will tell you exactly where those photos were taken via Google Maps.
We use Backpack here at CITB everyday. After trying a LOT of software solutions to manage the multitude of tasks necessary to plan, schedule, and coordinate the day to day operations of our 3 blogs we chose Backpack.
Please click below and take advantage of the FREE version of Backpack.
Thomas Byxbe is the Publisher and Editor of Concepts, Ideas, Thoughts & Bullsh!t.
Thom has been a respected Internet author for over 12 years. He has written extensively on the Internet, Technology and Lifestyle topics. Concepts, Ideas, Thoughts & Bullsh!t is one of 3 current blog projects he writes and manages.
Mr. Byxbe is President and Chief Internet Visionary of Metamorphosis Idea Lab located in Madison Heights, Michigan.
In addition, Thom is an Ordained Minister focused on pastoral counseling. He has been a certified Neuro-Linguistic Practitioner for over 20 years. In his current counseling practice he utilizes a blend of talk based counseling with NLP programming techniques.
If you have suggestions, comments or would like to submit recommendations for articles to appear in Concepts, Ideas, Thoughts Bullsh!t, please feel free to contact him at:
The shark cornea has been used in eye surgery, since its cornea is similar to a human cornea.
Close to fifty percent of the bacteria in the mouth lives on the surface of our tongue.
The aorta, which is the largest artery located in the body, is about the diameter of a garden hose.
The human heart beat roughly 35 million times a year.
The human face is made up of 14 bones.
Of all the oxygen that a human breathes, twenty percent goes to the brain.
The longest case of hiccups on record was by an American pig farmer, whose hiccups persisted from 1922 through 1987.
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