Trivia
Stuff
We Didn't Need to Know
*
Antarctica is the only continent without reptiles or snakes.
* After the death of her husband, poet Percy Shelley, Mary
Shelley (author of Frankenstein) kept his heart wrapped up
in silk until she died.
* Baskin Robbins once made ketchup ice cream. This was the
only vegetable flavoured ice cream produced.
* Bats are the only mammal that can fly.
* Bats have only one baby a year.
* In Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips
of less than 50 minutes.
* The Indian epic poem the "Mahabharata" is eight
times longer than "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey"
combined.
* Giraffes are the only animals born with horns. Both males
and females are born with bony knobs on the forehead.
* 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.
* Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature.
* Teeth are the only parts of the human body that can't repair
themselves.
* The bloodhound is the only animal whose evidence is admissible
in an American court.
* Should there be a crash, Prince Charles and Prince William
never travel on the same airplane as a precaution.
* The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards.
* The hyoid bone in the throat is the only bone in the human
body not joined to another.
* There are more than 40,000 characters in Chinese script.
* The only country in the world that has a Bill of Rights
for Cows is India.
* The only part of the human body that has no blood supply
is the cornea in the eye. It takes in oxygen directly from
the air.
* The penguin is the only bird that can swim, but not fly.
It is also the only bird that walks upright.
* Some Persian rugs may last as long as 500 years before wearing
out.
* 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 realise what is occurring,
relax and correct itself.
* Some toothpaste and makeup contain crushed volcanic stone.
* The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
* Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
* An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
* 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.
* Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two
weeks otherwise it will digest itself.
* Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get
leprosy.
* Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a
calorie.
* 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.
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(R) thedailystar.net 2004
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