BLACK HOLE

Early humans saw black hole light in the night sky

• 18:14 24 September 2013 by Anil Ananthaswamy
• Magazine issue 2936. Subscribe and save

The supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy may have flared up some 2 million years ago, around the time our ancestors learned to walk upright

Editorial: "Black-hole eruption nearby is a warning for us all"

Some 2 million years ago, around the time our ancestors were learning to walk upright, a light appeared in the night sky, rivalling the moon for brightness and size. But it was more fuzzball than orb. The glow came from the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's heart suddenly exploding into life.

This novel picture emerges from work announced this week at a conference in Sydney, Australia, which ingeniously pieces together two seemingly unrelated, outstanding galactic puzzles.

As well as offering a welcome way to solve both, it gives us an unexpected glimpse of how the cosmos might have appeared to Earthlings 2 million years ago (see "Which species saw the flare?"). "That is when we had Homo erectus running around Earth," says Joss Bland-Hawthorn of the University of Sydney, who led the team behind the work.

It also paints supermassive black holes as unpredictable, and capable of generating some of the brightest flares in the universe, almost on a whim. That in turn throws up the possibility of modern humans being treated to a similar sight sometime in the future – thankfully we are too far away for a flare-up to pose a risk.

Blowing bubbles

It may sound strange to talk about supermassive black holes as the source of the brightest lights in the universe. But this is why the centres of some galaxies, known as active galactic nuclei or AGN, shine so brightly. The idea is that as the supermassive black hole pulls matter in, this matter accretes in a surrounding disc, heats up and starts glowing. When large amounts of matter get pulled into the disc, energy is released as bright jets of particles perpendicular to the black hole's spin.

The Milky Way's central black hole, called Sagittarius A*, is currently docile, but no one knows exactly what makes a black hole turn into an AGN. One clue that our galaxy wasn't always quiet came in 2010, when astronomers using NASA's Fermi gamma-ray satellite spotted a pair of spectacular but mysterious structures now called the Fermi bubbles, towering 25,000 light years above and below the galactic plane. Theories to explain the bubbles range from gamma rays emitted by annihilating dark matter to supersonic winds unleashed by intense bursts of star formation.

Then in April, at a meeting at Stanford University in California, Bill Mathewsand Fulai Guo of the University of California, Santa Cruz, argued that the bubbles were caused by an outburst from Sagittarius A*. Their simulations showed that two intense jets of high-energy particles, like those produced by an AGN, streaming out from the vicinity of the black hole could have created the bubbles. The flare-up, they calculated, would have happened between 1 and 3 million years ago and lasted a few hundred thousand years (arxiv.org/abs/1103.0055v3).

Bland-Hawthorn, who was present, heard this and immediately realised that such an outburst might solve another longstanding mystery. In 1996, astronomers discovered that a section of the Magellanic stream – a fast-moving flow of mainly hydrogen gas about 240,000 light years from the Milky Way – is glowing about 10 to 50 times as brightly as the rest. "We have never known the cause," he says.

Hydrogen light

Could the same explosion that blew up the Fermi bubbles be responsible? After all, the bright part of the stream lies below the galactic centre.

To investigate, Bland-Hawthorn teamed up with other astronomers includingGregory Madsen of the University of Cambridge, who has studied the Magellanic stream for years. "Our telescope was picking up the signature that a lot of ultraviolet light must have illuminated the stream at some point," says Madsen. A blast of UV light could explain why part of the stream was glowing, as it can rip apart hydrogen atoms, which then recombine, emitting light in the process.

Based on data from other galaxies with supermassive black holes that are actively spewing jets, the researchers worked out that if Sagittarius A* had been similarly active, the resulting UV light would indeed have ionised – and therefore lit up – part of the Magellanic stream (see diagram).

They then calculated the timing and energy of such an outburst, based on the time it would take for the UV light to reach the stream, the decay in the intensity of hydrogen emissions over time, and the time it takes for the emissions to reach us. It tallied well with Mathews and Guo's work to explain the Fermi bubbles (arxiv.org/abs/1309.5455).

Freaking out

So an AGN at the centre of our galaxy around 2 million years ago potentially solves two mysteries at once. What's more, it might also support an emerging view of supermassive black holes.

Many theorists say that AGNs happen only when galaxies merge. But the Milky Way hasn't had a merger for billions of years, so it seems like it is possible to get an AGN in other circumstances.

That echoes recent modelling work by Greg Novak of the Paris Observatory in France and Jeremiah Ostriker of Princeton University. They suggest that AGNs can be triggered by galactic gas moving inward after cooling by a large amount, and by unstable discs of gas and dust that break apart and fall towards the black hole (The Astrophysical Journal, doi.org/fngbsd). That would make AGN flare-ups much more erratic and unpredictable.

Novak is excited by the latest work. "It indicates that just a few million years ago – an instant in galactic terms – the Milky Way had a really major outburst of AGN activity. Amazing!" he says.

It is possible that Sagittarius A* could go AGN again, says Bland-Hawthorn. That would be catastrophic for any worlds near the galactic centre. But modern Earthlings, like their ancestors, would simply see a beautiful, though strange, sight. "You'd really be freaked out," he says.

THE MOON

The Moon Is Not Black And White, It Just Looks That Way

By Caleb A. Scharf | September 20, 2013

---

Hands up if you think about the Moon in black and white? Yes – well, you’re not alone, and there’s actually good reason for you to, because the surface of the Moon is nearly devoid of strong colors in comparison to what we’re used to here on Earth.

Someone (a junior member of my family) asked me about this recently, which sent me digging through the Apollo image archives – a remarkable library of photographs, many of which I’m pretty sure that most of us haven’t seen very often. And here are some of those images, all of them are in full color, even if you might think otherwise.

Apollo 14 (NASA)

This first one is from Apollo 14, taken by Alan Shepard to document a set of scientific instruments deployed by the astronauts; ion detectors, a geophone, seismic monitor, lunar environment experiment and so on. Note that the only discernible color is on the devices themselves, particularly the gold blanketing and connector cables, the lunar soil is, well, gray.

Apollo 16 (NASA)

This is from Apollo 16, showing Charlie Duke at the rover. Again, the only noticeable color comes from the rover, the color bar device in the lower center, and if you peek closely, the United States flag on the back of the spacesuit life support.

Apollo 16 (NASA)

Apollo 16 again, a full color image…

Apollo 17 (NASA)

Apollo 17, on the rover heading to Station 1.

Apollo 17 (NASA)

Apollo 17 again, a boulder being studied and sampled, plus a color reference.

Apollo 17 (NASA)

Apollo 17, picture taken by Gene Cernan (shadow) showing Harrison (Jack) Schmitt in the distance with the LM and rover.

Apollo 17 (NASA)

Apollo 17, Earth over the LM.

Apollo 11 (NASA)

Apollo 11, showing the struts of the LM and the scuffed up soil from Neil and Buzz’s feet.

Apollo 15 (NASA)

Apollo 15, a feather and hammer in the lunar dirt…left from the famous demonstration of Galileo’s experiment that all objects are accelerated equally in the gravity field of a planet (or moon).

Apollo 16 (NASA)

Apollo 16, back to the black and white, a very gray breccia (boulder) seen over the side of the rover.

Apollo 17 (NASA)

Apollo 17, Harrison (Jack) Schmitt seen on the far side of the rover, the tone of this picture is amazing.

Apollo 17 (NASA)

Apollo 17, West view towards the Taurus-Littrow Valley entrance.

Apollo 13 (NASA)

Finally, not the blue marble that’s usually shown, this is from Apollo 13. One can only imagine what this view felt like to the astronauts of the stricken mission as they tried to get back home.

ANTIOXIDANTS DISPEL STATIC ELECTRICITY

Vitamin E and Other Antioxidants Dispel Static Electricity

An inexpensive coat of antioxidants helps an electric charge to dissipate from plastics and rubber

By Richard Van Noorden and Nature magazine

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NO LAUGHING MATTER: While children may have fun with static electricity, static charge that builds up on industrial components, such as plastic fuel filters on cars or inside semiconductor parts, can lead to potentially dangerous electric sparks and a build-up of dust.Image: Mike Renlund/Flickr

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It might be called a shock finding. Coating plastic or rubber materials with antioxidants such as vitamin E stops static charge from building up on the polymer’s surface, chemists report today. The discovery could prove a cheap solution to problems such as dust clinging to plastic, static electric shocks, or the sparks that damage television circuits and fry computer motherboards.

Children can have fun with static electricity — when they rub balloons on their hair, the rubber and hair stick together because of the attraction between transferred charged particles. But static charge that builds up on industrial components, such as plastic fuel filters on cars or inside semiconductor parts, can lead to potentially dangerous electric sparks and a build-up of dust.

The puzzle with static electricity, explains Bartosz Grzybowski, a physical chemist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, is that although charged particles should repel each other when they land on an insulating surface, making them spread evenly across a material and leak back into the air, they actually form stable, long-lived clumps. This leads to the build-up of large amounts of tightly confined static charge, enough to abruptly discharge when a conductive path becomes available: for example, shooting through a human body to a metal railing, or sparking through air like a miniature lightning bolt.

Vitamin treatment
Grzybowski’s team reports in Science that it has solved the mystery. The researchers examined under the microscope the patterns of electric and magnetic charge created when charged particles land on polymer surfaces. They discovered that charged particles are stabilized by radicals — reactive molecules with spare, unbound electrons that form when chemical bonds are broken on a surface. The radicals share some of the burden of the electric charge; without them, charged particles would not be able to clump together so tightly. The answer, the team says, is to apply surface coatings that react chemically with the radicals, mopping them up. Such coatings could include vitamin E, among other cheap, non-toxic antioxidants. Some of these chemicals are in fact already added to the blends from which polymers are made, in order to scavenge the radicals formed when ultra-violet light damages plastic - but haven't been used as anti-static coatings.

The researchers proved their case by using solutions of radical scavengers to coat common polymers, such as beads of polystyrene. Sure enough, after being shaken up to gain static charge, the coated beads shed their static electricity within minutes. The scientists also used their anti-static coating to protect a transistor component, showing that it remained undamaged when charged particles were shot at it from an ion gun. “It’s actually quite incredible that the answer is so simple,” says Grzybowski.

Other researchers contacted by Nature found the work exciting. The real advance is the insight into the root causes of static electricity, says Michael Dickey, who researches nano-electronics at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. “It is very clever in the simplicity of addressing an old problem,” he adds.

Dealing with the effects of static electricity is "a very big problem in industry,” says Fred Roska, a researcher at 3M in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He adds that simply finding ways to supply charged particles that neutralize the static charge building up on polymers during semiconductor manufacturing, for example, is a billion dollar market. Industrial firms also deal with static electricity by modifying the materials they use: either by covering polymers with water or gel coatings through which charge can dissipate, or by inserting conductive strips of metal or carbon nanotube into a polymer blend to provide a path for static charge to fade away.

But those solutions involve trade-offs, Grzybowski says, such as making a plastic more conductive, and do not address the underlying cause of the static build-up. And he thinks that the antioxidant coatings will prove a cheaper solution. He says that he has patented the discovery and hopes to license it to companies such as 3M and Dow.

HIDDEN SECRETS OF TAJMAHAL

SECRETS OF TAJ MAHAL

No one has ever challenged it except Prof. P. N. Oak, who believes the whole world has been duped. In his book Taj Mahal: The True Story, Oak says the Taj Mahal is not Queen Mumtaz’s tomb but an ancient Hindu temple palace of Lord Shiva (then known as Tejo Mahalaya ) . In the course of his research Oak discovered that the Shiva temple palace was usurped by Shah Jahan from then Maharaja of Jaipur, Jai Singh. In his own court ch ronicle, Badshahnama,Shah Jahan admits that an exceptionally beautiful grand mansion in Agra was taken from Jai SIngh for Mumtaz’s burial . The ex-Maharaja of Jaipur still retains in his secret collection two orders from Shah Jahan for surrendering the Taj building. Using captured temples and mansions, as a burial place for dead courtiers and royalty was a common practice among Muslim rulers.

For example, Humayun,Akbar, Etmud-ud-Daula and Safdarjung are all buried in such mansions. Oak’s inquiries began with the name of Taj Mahal. He says the term ” Mahal ” has never been used for a building in any Muslim countries from Afghanisthan to Algeria .. “The unusual explanation that the term TajMahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal was illogical in atleast two respects.
Firstly, her name was never Mumtaz Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani,” he writes. Secondly, one cannot omit the first three letters ‘Mum’ from a woman’s name to derive the remainder as the name for the building.”Taj Mahal, he claims, is a corrupt version of Tejo Mahalaya, or Lord Shiva’s Palace . Oak also says the love story of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan is a fairy tale created by court sycophants, blundering historians and sloppy archaeologists Not a single royal chronicle of Shah Jahan’s time corroborates the love story.

Furthermore, Oak cites several documents suggesting the Taj Mahal predates Shah Jahan’s era, and was a temple dedicated to Shiva, worshipped by Rajputs of Agra city. For example, Prof. Marvin Miller of New York took a few samples from the riverside doorway of the Taj. Carbon dating tests revealed that the door was 300 years older than Shah Jahan. European traveler Johan Albert Mandelslo,who visited Agra in 1638 (only seven years after Mumtaz’s death), describes the life of the cit y in his memoirs. But he makes no reference to the Taj Mahal being built. The writings of Peter Mundy, an
English visitor to Agra within a year of Mumtaz’s death, also suggest the Taj was a noteworthy building well before Shah Jahan’s time.

Prof. Oak points out a number of design and architectural inconsistencies that support the belief of the Taj Mahal being a typical Hindu temple rather than a mausoleum. Many rooms in the Taj ! Mahal have remained sealed
since Shah Jahan’s time and are still inaccessible to the public . Oak asserts they contain a headless statue of Lord Shiva and other objects commonly used for worship rituals in Hindu temples Fearing political backlash, Indira Gandhi’s government t ried to have Prof. Oak’s book withdrawn from the bookstores, and threatened the Indian publisher of the
first edition dire consequences . There is only one way to discredit or validate Oak’s research.

Open all sealed rooms in front of media. Let experts investigate.

INTERESTING FACTS

192 Funny and Interesting Facts

If you use these small jokes on your presentation materials (publication, website, powerpoint, seminars, lecture, tv show, etc), please have the courtesy to QUOTE THE SOURCE. It is not easy collecting all these. Thank you!

Please note that some of the 'facts' below have been proven false myths. An example is the duck's echo which does not echo (but proved that it does).

1. It is impossible to lick your elbow (busted)
2. A crocodile can't stick it's tongue out.
3. A shrimp's heart is in it's head.
4. People say "Bless you" when you sneeze because when you sneeze,your heart stops for a mili-second.
5. In a study of 200,000 ostriches over a period of 80 years, no one reported a single case where an ostrich buried its head in the sand.
6. It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
7. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit. (busted?)
8. More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.
9. Rats and horses can't vomit.
10. If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib.
11. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.
12. If you keep your eyes open by force when you sneeze, you might pop an eyeball out.
13. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.
14. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
15. In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
16. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
17. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
18. A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
19. 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their butts.
20. In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders.
21. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
22. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
23. Over 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow.
24. A crocodile can't move its tongue and cannot chew. Its digestive juices are so strong that it can digest a steel nail.
25. Money notes are not made from paper, they are made mostly from a special blend of cotton and linen. In 1932, when a shortage of cash occurred in Tenino, Washington, USA, notes were made out of wood for a brief period.
26. The Grammy Awards were introduced to counter the threat of rock music. In the late 1950s, a group of record executives were alarmed by the explosive success of rock ‘n roll, considering it a threat to "quality" music.
27. 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. The tea bag was introduced in 1908 by Thomas Sullivan of New York.
28. Over the last 150 years the average height of people in industrialised nations has increased 10 cm (about 4 inches). In the 19th century, American men were the tallest in the world, averaging 1,71m (5'6"). Today, the average height for American men is 1,75m (5'7"), compared to 1,77 (5'8") for Swedes, and 1,78 (5'8.5") for the Dutch. The tallest nation in the world is the Watusis of Burundi.
29. In 1955 the richest woman in the world was Mrs Hetty Green Wilks, who left an estate of $95 million in a will that was found in a tin box with four pieces of soap. Queen Elizabeth of Britain and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands count under the 10 wealthiest women in the world.
30. Joseph Niepce developed the world's first photographic image in 1827. Thomas Edison and W K L Dickson introduced the film camera in 1894. But the first projection of an image on a screen was made by a German priest. In 1646, Athanasius Kircher used a candle or oil lamp to project hand-painted images onto a white screen.
31. In 1935 a writer named Dudley Nichols refused to accept the Oscar for his movie The Informer because the Writers Guild was on strike against the movie studios. In 1970 George C. Scott refused the Best Actor Oscar for Patton. In 1972 Marlon Brando refused the Oscar for his role in The Godfather.
32. The system of democracy was introduced 2 500 years ago in Athens, Greece. The oldest existing governing body operates in Althing in Iceland. It was established in 930 AD.
33. 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'll feel thirsty.
    If it's reduced by 10%, you'll die.
34. According to a study by the Economic Research Service, 27% of all food production in Western nations ends up in garbage cans. Yet, 1,2 billion people are underfed - the same number of people who are overweight.
35. Camels are called "ships of the desert" because of the way they move, not because of their transport capabilities. A Dromedary camel has one hump and a Bactrian camel two humps. The humps are used as fat storage. Thus, an undernourished camel will not have a hump. 
36. In the Durango desert, in Mexico, there's a creepy spot called the "Zone of Silence." You can't pick up clear TV or radio signals. And locals say fireballs sometimes appear in the sky.
37. Ethernet is a registered trademark of Xerox, Unix is a registered trademark of AT&T.
38. Bill Gates' first business was Traff-O-Data, a company that created machines which recorded the number of cars passing a given point on a road.
39. Uranus' orbital axis is tilted at 90 degrees.
40. The final resting-place for Dr. Eugene Shoemaker - the Moon. The famed U.S. Geological Survey astronomer, trained the Apollo astronauts about craters, but never made it into space. Mr. Shoemaker had wanted to be an astronaut but was rejected because of a medical problem. His ashes were placed on board the Lunar Prospector spacecraft before it was launched on January 6, 1998. NASA crashed the probe into a crater on the moon in an attempt to learn if there is water on the moon.
41. Outside the USA, Ireland is the largest software producing country in the world.
42. The first fossilized specimen of Australopithecus afarenisis was named Lucy after the paleontologists' favorite song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," by the Beatles.
43. Figlet, an ASCII font converter program, stands for Frank, Ian and Glenn's LETters.
44. Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.
45. Every year about 98% of atoms in your body are replaced.
46. Hot water is heavier than cold.
47. Plutonium - first weighed on August 20th, 1942, by University of Chicago scientists Glenn Seaborg and his colleagues - was the first man-made element.
48. If you went out into space, you would explode before you suffocated because there's no air pressure.
49. The radioactive substance, Americanium - 241 is used in many smoke detectors.
50. The original IBM-PCs, that had hard drives, referred to the hard drives as Winchester drives. This is due to the fact that the original Winchester drive had a model number of 3030. This is, of course, a Winchester firearm.
51. Sound travels 15 times faster through steel than through the air.
52. On average, half of all false teeth have some form of radioactivity.
53. Only one satellite has been ever been destroyed by a meteor: the European Space Agency's Olympus in 1993.
54. Starch is used as a binder in the production of paper. It is the use of a starch coating that controls ink penetration when printing. Cheaper papers do not use as much starch, and this is why your elbows get black when you are leaning over your morning paper.
55. Sterling silver is not pure silver. Because pure silver is too soft to be used in most tableware it is mixed with copper in the proportion of 92.5 percent silver to 7.5 percent copper.
56. A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball of rubber. A ball of solid steel will bounce higher than one made entirely of glass.
57. A chip of silicon a quarter-inch square has the capacity of the original 1949 ENIAC computer, which occupied a city block.
58. An ordinary TNT bomb involves atomic reaction, and could be called an atomic bomb. What we call an A-bomb involves nuclear reactions and should be called a nuclear bomb.
59. At a glance, the Celsius scale makes more sense than the Fahrenheit scale for temperature measuring. But its creator, Anders Celsius, was an oddball scientist. When he first developed his scale, he made freezing 100 degrees and boiling 0 degrees, or upside down. No one dared point this out to him, so fellow scientists waited until Celsius died to change the scale.
60. At a jet plane's speed of 1,000 km (620mi) per hour, the length of the plane becomes one atom shorter than its original length.
61. The first full moon to occur on the winter solstice, Dec. 22, commonly called the first day of winter, happened in 1999. Since a full moon on the winter solstice occurred in conjunction with a lunar perigee (point in the moon's orbit that is closest to Earth), the moon appeared about 14% larger than it does at apogee (the point in it's elliptical orbit that is farthest from the Earth).
    
    Since the Earth is also several million miles closer to the sun at that time of the year than in the summer, sunlight striking the moon was about 7% stronger making it brighter. Also, this was the closest perigee of the Moon of the year since the moon's orbit is constantly deforming. In places where the weather was clear and there was a snow cover, even car headlights were superfluous.
62. According to security equipment specialists, security systems that utilize motion detectors won't function properly if walls and floors are too hot. When an infrared beam is used in a motion detector, it will pick up a person's body temperature of 98.6 degrees compared to the cooler walls and floor.
    
    If the room is too hot, the motion detector won't register a change in the radiated heat of that person's body when it enters the room and breaks the infrared beam. Your home's safety might be compromised if you turn your air conditioning off or set the thermostat too high while on summer vacation.
63. Western Electric successfully brought sound to motion pictures and introduced systems of mobile communications which culminated in the cellular telephone.
64. On December 23, 1947, Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., held a secret demonstration of the transistor which marked the foundation of modern electronics.
65. The wick of a trick candle has small amounts of magnesium in them. When you light the candle, you are also lighting the magnesium. When someone tries to blow out the flame, the magnesium inside the wick continues to burn and, in just a split second (or two or three), relights the wick.
66. Ostriches are often not taken seriously. They can run faster than horses, and the males can roar like lions.
67. Seals used for their fur get extremely sick when taken aboard ships.
68. Sloths take two weeks to digest their food.
69. Guinea pigs and rabbits can't sweat.
70. The pet food company Ralston Purina recently introduced, from its subsidiary Purina Philippines, power chicken feed designed to help roosters build muscles for cockfighting, which is popular in many areas of the world.
71. According to the Wall Street Journal, the cockfighting market is huge: The Philippines has five million roosters used for exactly that.
72. Sharks and rays are the only animals known to man that don't get cancer. Scientists believe this has something to do with the fact that they don't have bones, but cartilage.
73. The porpoise is second to man as the most intelligent animal on the planet.
74. Young beavers stay with their parents for the first two years of their lives before going out on their own.
75. Skunks can accurately spray their smelly fluid as far as ten feet.
76. Deer can't eat hay.
77. Gopher snakes in Arizona are not poisonous, but when frightened they may hiss and shake their tails like rattlesnakes.
78. On average, dogs have better eyesight than humans, although not as colorful.
79. The duckbill platypus can store as many as six hundred worms in the pouches of its cheeks.
80. The lifespan of a squirrel is about nine years.
81. North American oysters do not make pearls of any value.
82. Human birth control pills work on gorillas.
83. Many sharks lay eggs, but hammerheads give birth to live babies that look like very small duplicates of their parents. Young hammerheads are usually born headfirst, with the tip of their hammer-shaped head folded backward to make them more streamlined for birth.
84. Gorillas sleep as much as fourteen hours per day.
85. A biological reserve has been made for golden toads because they are so rare.
86. There are more than fifty different kinds of kangaroos.
87. Jellyfish like salt water. A rainy season often reduces the jellyfish population by putting more fresh water into normally salty waters where they live.
88. The female lion does ninety percent of the hunting.
89. The odds of seeing three albino deer at once are one in seventy-nine billion, yet one man in Boulder Junction, Wisconsin, took a picture of three albino deer in the woods.
90. A group of twelve or more cows is called a flink.
91. Cats often rub up against people and furniture to lay their scent and mark their territory. They do it this way, as opposed to the way dogs do it, because they have scent glands in their faces.
92. Cats sleep up to eighteen hours a day, but never quite as deep as humans. Instead, they fall asleep quickly and wake up intermittently to check to see if their environment is still safe.
93. Catnip, or Nepeta cataria, is an herb with nepetalactone in it. Many think that when cats inhale nepetalactone, it affects hormones that arouse sexual feelings, or at least alter their brain functioning to make them feel "high." Catnip was originally made, using nepetalactone as a natural bug repellant, but roaming cats would rip up the plants before they could be put to their intended task.
94. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans ages the equivalent of five human years for every day they live, so they usually die after about fourteen days. When stressed, though, the worm goes into a comatose state that can last for two or more months. The human equivalent would be to sleep for about two hundred years.
95. You can tell the sex of a horse by its teeth. Most males have 40, females have 36.
96. Money isn't made out of paper; it's made out of cotton.
97. The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottle represents the varieties of pickle the company once had.
98. Your stomach produces a new layer of mucus every two weeks - otherwise it will digest itself.
99. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
100. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
101. Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.
102. Every person has a unique tongue print as well as fingerprints.
103. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
104. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
105. During the chariot scene in 'Ben Hur' a small red car can be seen in the distance.
106. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.
107. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
108. (removed, duplicated)
109. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear any pants.
110. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.
111. Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower' because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters.
112. Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.
113. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.
114. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.
115. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan, there was never a recorded Wendy before!
116. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!
117. Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors.
118. A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
119. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
120. 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.
121. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It's the same with apples!
122. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!
123. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
124. Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
125. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages them.
126. 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.
127. Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts, and worms like fried bacon.
128. Of all the words in the English language, the word ’set’ has the most definitions!
129. What is called a "French kiss" in the English speaking world is known as an "English kiss" in France.
130. "Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
131. "Rhythm" is the longest English word without a vowel.
132. In 1386, a pig in France was executed by public hanging for the murder of a child
133. A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off.
134. Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
135. You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath
136. There is a city called Rome on every continent.
137. It’s against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland.
138. Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day.
139. Horatio Nelson, one of England’s most illustrious admirals was throughout his life, never able to find a cure for his sea-sickness.
140. The skeleton of Jeremy Bentham is present at all important meetings of the University of London
141. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people
142. Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, everytime you breathe!
143. The elephant is the only mammal that can’t jump!
144. One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!
145. Like fingerprints, everyone’s tongue print is different!
146. 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
147. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!
148. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!
149. The present population of 5 billion plus people of the world is predicted to become 15 billion by 2080.
150. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
151. Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, and had only ONE testicle.
152. 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.
153. Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
154. Coca-Cola would be green if colouring weren’t added to it.
155. On average a hedgehog’s heart beats 300 times a minute.
156. More people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.
157. The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words.
158. More people are allergic to cow’s milk than any other food.
159. Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
160. The placement of a donkey’s eyes in its’ heads enables it to see all four feet at all times!
161. The six official languages of the United Nations are: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish.
162. Earth is the only planet not named after a god.
163. It’s against the law to burp, or sneeze in a church in Nebraska, USA.
164. You’re born with 300 bones, but by the time you become an adult, you only have 206.
165. Some worms will eat themselves if they can’t find any food!
166. Dolphins sleep with one eye open!
167. It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open
168. The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old!
169. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds
170. 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
171. Slugs have 4 noses.
172. Owls are the only birds who can see the colour blue.
173. A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years!
174. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!
175. The average person laughs 10 times a day!
176. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain
177. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
178. If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
179. The human heart! creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
180. A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
181. A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death!
182. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories a hour
183. The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
184. The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.
185. The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
186. Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
187. Butterflies taste with their feet.
188. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
189. A cat's urine glows under a black light.
190. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
191. Starfish have no brains.
192. Polar bears are left-handed.