Factoids

A few irrelevant snippets, factoids and oddments, provided for the delectation and mental furtherment of readers. Most of these are true. (Oh, and please note that newly discovered factoids are added to this page wherever they contribute best to its overall sense of universal one-ness. They then sometimes get moved...)

• The Newton (N)

  One newton is (approximately) the force exerted by one apple when acted on by gravity
  Strictly speaking, 1 N = 1 kg·m/s²
  i.e. One Newton is the force required to accelerate a mass of one kilogram at a rate of one metre per second per second
  But, as gravity (on earth) = just under 10 m/s² and the mass of an apple is just over 0.1 kg, the definition of the newton ties in beautifully with the story that Isaac Newton was prompted to consider gravity when an apple fell on him as he sat under an apple tree.

• To lose weight, move to the equator

  Gravity is about 0.5% stronger at the North and South poles than at the equator - so, if you weigh 80kg (about 176 pounds) at the pole, you would lose 0.4kg (about 14 oz) by moving to the equator.

• To lose weight, climb Everest

  OK, yes, you'd lose weight doing that much exercise - but let's assume that you didn't? If you weighed 80kg when you set off, and your mass didn't change during the climb, you'd still weigh less (79.778kg, to be precise) when you reached the summit. This is because you are further from the centre of the earth, so the gravitational attraction of the earth would be lower. The Earth's radius is 6371km. Everest is 8.85km high. The ratio of your weight at the two distances from the centre of the earth is (6371/6379.85)squared. Of course, there are easier ways to lose 222 grams.... (Oh yes, and if you're being picky, you'd take a bit more weight off, resulting from increased centrifugal force effects, and add a bit on to allow for reduced buoyancy at lower air pressure.)

• Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain in the world

  The peak of Mauna Kea is about 30,000 feet (9,100 m) above it's base on the floor of the Pacific. Unfortunately, most people only see the top 13,803 feet (4,207m) where it sticks up out of the water. (The peak of Everest is only 3,650 to 4650m above its base (depending which side you look at), although it does reach higher above mean sea level than other mountains.)

• Africa, the least frilly continent

Although Africa's total area is nearly three times that of Europe, its coastline is only four-fifths as long. (Obviously not designed by Slartibartfast.)

• Geoconfusion

  • English lavender is from the Pyrenees and western Mediterranean.
  • French marigolds come from Mexico. So do African marigolds.
  • The German cockroach probably originated in East Africa; the American cockroach in West Africa.
  • And the Guernsey lily (Nerine sarniensis is from southern Africa.
  • The Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus) is from East Asia, probably China.
  • The Panama hat is from Ecuador.
  • Moray eels don't come from anywhere near Moray in Scotland; they're mostly tropical or subtropical. (See also the note on Echidnas further down this page)

• The Earth's magnetic South pole is at the North Pole

  (actually it is near, but not at, the North Pole.)

• Concrete, an ancient invention

  Concrete was widely used, and probably invented, by the Romans. They used it in building from about 200 BC. The best example is the dome of the Pantheon, built as a temple in 126 AD. The dome of the Pantheon is 43.3 metres (142 feet) in diameter. It remains the largest unsupported dome of non-reinforced concrete in the world today.

• Nostalgia isn't nearly as good now as it used to be

• Flies

  "Nothing seems to please a fly so much as to be taken for a currant, and if it can be baked in a cake and palmed off on the unwary, it dies happy" - Mark Twain

• The London Underground mosquito

  Culex pipiens f. molestus is believed to have developed from wild types, but is adapted to underground life. It is particularly voracious, and was first noted during the Blitz when underground stations were used as air-raid shelters. It has also appeared in other cities around the world.

• "Alcohol" is nothing to do with alcohol

  Or at least it wasn't originally - the first use of the word in English (taken from the Arabic al-kuhul) referred to powdered cosmetics, the meaning was later broadened to refer to the "pure spirit" of anything. "Alcohol of wine" therefore referred to the intoxicating ingredient in distilled liquor, and was later shortened to just "alcohol".

• The word "Vodka" comes from the Slavic for "water"

  "Vodka" is the diminutive form of voda (water) so, literally means "little water"; early uses of the word related to medicinal drinks.

• Euler's identity: e^iΠ + 1 = 0

  Or: e to the power of i times pi, plus one, equals zero.
  This is really cool, because the numbers represented by these symbols are not directly linked:
  e is the base of natural logarithms, it is the unique number such that the derivative of e^x at x=0 equals 1 (see the wikipedia page on e for a detailed explanation.
  i is the imaginary number, the square root of -1.
  Π (pi) is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter (diameter x pi = circumference).
  

• If at first you don't succeed....

  .....don't try skydiving

• Religious festivals

  Most major Christian festivals bear more than a little similarity to pre-existing Pagan ones:
  • Yule, the winter solstice (which fell on 25th December in the Roman calendar). 25th December was designated by Pope Julius I as the birthday of Christ.
  • Imbolc (1st February), the start of the spring quarter of the year, associated with the Celtic virgin goddess Brid. Later adopted (on 2nd February) as Candlemas, the feast of the purification of the virgin. Brid was renamed as Saint Bridget, this remained her feast day.
  • Lupercalia (14th February), a celebration of fertility. Later adopted as the feast day of St Valentine.
  • Eostre's day (The first full moon after the Spring equinox). The symbols of the fertility goddess Eostre include the egg and the rabbit. Easter is the first sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.
  • Beltane (1st May) The start of the summer quarter, celebrated by lighting fires and by maypole dancing. Roodmas associates this day with the Cross (the Rood), rather than a maypole).
  • Litha, the summer solstice (approx 21st June)
  • Lughnassadh (1st August) the "grain festival" at which bread from the first harvested corn was eaten. The Christian Lammas ("loaf-mass" service has a tradition of blessing the first loaf of bread).
  • Mabon, the Autumn equinox (approx 21st September).
  • Samhain (1st November), the start of the winter quarter, the Celtic feast of the dead. All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day (1st and 2nd November) remember the souls of dead saints and non-canonized dead respectively.

• The moon is smaller than the earth, but it is further away

• More trees than humans have visited the moon

  Stuart Roosa, an astronaut on Apollo 14, carried about 500 seeds of pine, sycamore, sweetgum, redwood and Douglas fir to the moon (or at least to lunar orbit) in 1971.These were then germinated, and given as gifts to many countries and US states.

• The only man on the Moon

There's one still there. Astrogeologist Eugene Schoemaker died in 1997; in 1998, some of his ashes were carried to the moon on the Lunar Prospector probe, which orbited the moon before being crashed into a crater near the lunar south pole on 31st July 1999.

• Most people live within 2486 miles of Hainan Island in the South China Sea

  51.4% of the world population live within a circle 4000km (2486 miles) radius centred on this point, despite the fact that most of the circle is water. The circle includes about one sixth of the world's land area.

• A kangaroo is just a mouse seen up close

• Australia didn't exist before 1824

  The continent was discovered by the Dutch in 1606 (and by aboriginals some while earlier...), but the name "Australia" wasn't officially proposed until 1804 and was only adopted in 1824.

• 12 September 1990: end of World War II

V-E Day (8 May 1945), V-J Day (14 August 1945), or the formal Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945) are sometimes cited. But the Treaty of Peace with Japan was only signed in 1951 and the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany on 12th September 1990.

• 2^nd July, American Declaration of Independence

  2^nd July (not the 4^th) marks the date on which the American Congress first (unanimously, but secretly) voted for independence from Great Britain. The declaration was reworded and the same twelve colonies voted for adoption of the final text on 4th July. New York State abstained from both votes.

• Nobody knows the shortest route to visit the capital cities of the 48 contiguous US States

  (Or any other set of places on a single landmass.) If you had a computer which could calculate the length of a single route in the time it takes light to cross the width of a hydrogen atom, calculating the answer to the problem would take it ten trillion trillion times the age of the universe.

• Not Edison, not Swan, but Lindsay (or maybe de Moleyns)

The incandescent electric light bulb was famously invented by Thomas Edison in 1879 (if you're an American) or Joseph Swan in 1878 (if you're British). But the first practical version was invented in Scotland by James Bowman Lindsay in 1835 - but he then lost interest. The first patent for an incandescent light bulb was granted in Britain in 1841 to Frederick de Moleyns.

• The speed of light = 1.8026175 × 10¹² furlongs per fortnight

• Light travels about one foot in one nanosecond

  (actually, it travels 29.9792458 centimetres; one foot = 30.48 centimetres)

• Light takes about 40,000 years, 8 minutes and 18 seconds to get from the sun to the earth.

  If you were told in school that it takes 8.3 minutes, that didn't allow for the 40,000 years it takes a photon to get from where it was produced inside the sun up to the surface. (There are many different estimates for this, varying between 17,000 and 1,000,000 years.)

• Solar energy

  The amount of solar energy reaching the Earth is about 174 petawatts. Earth receives more solar energy in one hour than that used in one year by mankind.

• The sun isn't yellow, it's a kind of orangey pink

  Don't look at it to check; you'll damage your eyes. And anyway you'd need to be out in space to get the correct colour because our atmosphere filters and scatters some frequencies of light. The sun's colour is a result of it's surface temperature (about 5800 Kelvin).

• Beans

  • Hippocrates taught that beans should be avoided. Curiously, beans are one of the protein sources included in the trendy "Hippocrates diet".
  • The disciples of Pythagoras were forbidden to eat beans (or to touch white cockerels, or to look into a mirror beside a light).
  • Runner bean plants are a tropical perennial - but they are not frost hardy, so usually grown in most temperate climates as an annual.
  • Beans produce 162 kilograms of protein per hectare of crop land; beef cattle produce just 9 kilograms per hectare.
  • Beans, beans, good for the heart...... It's the complex oligoasaccharides (a type of carbohydrate) in beans that give them their gassy reputation. We can't digest them, but bacteria in the large intestine can, producing methane in the process.

• Your small intestine is larger....

  ...than your large intestine. Your large intestine (cecum, colon and rectum) is about 1.5 metres long; your small intestine (duodenum, jejunum and ileum) is about 7m long. But it is thinner.

• Good health is simply the slowest possible form of death

• Every silver lining has a cloud

• Beauty

  • The eye of the beholder is only skin deep
  • One millihelen = the amount of beauty needed to launch one ship. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement ).

• Rules for writers

  [I originally saw these as output from the Unix "fortune" (fortune cookie) program. Many sources on the web refer to them as being from William Safire, but I can't find an original source.]
  Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs has to agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must not shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows the verb. Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

• The fraction 16/64 can be simplified (to 1/4) by cancelling the sixes in numerator and denominator

  This method also works for 19/95 = 1/5, 26/65 = 2/5 and 49/98 = 4/8

• Genealogy

  "An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own" - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
• The Brontosaurus is not extinct The well-known dinosaur with the big body, long neck, small head and elephant-like legs is not extinct because it never existed. It resulted from misidentification of an Apatosaurus - because the first Apatosaurus had been found without a skull, and exhibited with the skull of another dinosaur.

• There is a dinosaur in your garden

  Yep. They're not extinct. At least not all of them. OK, they've evolved a bit since then - we call them "birds" now.

• There are two metres of DNA in every one of your cells)

• The Earth orbits the Sun - Official

  - but Galileo was tried for heresy in 1663 for promoting this idea, rather than that all other bodies orbit the Earth. He was initially imprisoned, then subjected to house arrest for the rest of his life. The Catholic Church officially accepted that the Earth orbits the Sun on 31 October 1992.

• Not Galileo, not Copernicus, but Aristarchus

  It's referred to as "the Copernican principle" (the idea that the earth goes round the sun, as opposed to Aristotle's idea that the sun goes round the earth), but it was originated by Aristarchus of Samos nearly 1800 years before Nicolaus Copernicus published his theory.

• The Earth rotates more than once each day

  One rotation of the earth takes 23hours 56 minutes and 4.09 seconds but, because it has moved along its orbit around the sun during that time, it takes about another four minutes before the sun reaches the same point in the sky.

• Have you ever listened to the things newsreaders say?

  Lots of people, not just newsreaders, say the oddest things:
  • "They searched through the debris with a fine toothcomb"
  • "They worked round the clock"
  • "He painted with a camel hairbrush"
  • "I feel like a cheese sandwich"

• You have more than the average number of legs (probably...)

  Most people have two legs, some have one, some have zero. The average number is therefore slightly less than two. If you have two legs, you have more than the average number.

• You are blind ten percent of the time

  Whenever your eyes move from looking at one point to another, your brain "switches off" any input from your eyes. This may be to stop you getting motion sickness from the way the scenery keeps sloshing around - but it means that you are effectively blind during that time. (Stand close to a mirror and look at your reflection. Focus on your left pupil. Now shift your focus to your right pupil. Did you see your eyes move? No? You must have been blind.)

• Early to rise, early to bed - makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead.

• The best way to live longer is to live longer

  No, I mean it. Life expectancy is increasing (at least in most countries), so every day you live adds more than a day to your life expectancy. In the UK, life expectancy in recent years has risen by about 5 hours per day.

• Famous last words

  • "Go away, I'm alright" - H.G.Wells
  • "Either that wallpaper goes - or I do!" - Oscar Wilde
  • "Die, my dear doctor? That is the last thing I shall do!" - Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston
  • "Je vais ou je vas mourir, l'un et l'autre se dit ou se disent." (Translation: "I am about to - or I am going to - die: either expression is correct." (Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian)
  • "Duirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite" (translation: "I told you I was ill") - not actually the last words of Spike Milligan, but the epitaph on his gravestone.)

• Negatives

  • gruntled - happy
  • cle - the state of not being a parent's brother
  • gusting - jolly nice
  • ert - moving
  • der - over

• Don't Panic?

  If in trouble
  Or in doubt,
  Run in circles
  Scream and shout

• The fuel efficiency of my car is 0.063058 mm²

  It would normally be expressed as 44.8 miles per gallon (that's 4.546 litre sized imperial gallons, not 3.785 litre U.S. gallons), but it's a bit silly to use units like that which are a length divided by a volume. Think of it first as volume per distance (e.g. gallons used per mile travelled), then simplify the units (volume divided by length equals area) and convert to metric units. You can think of the 0.063058 mm² as being the cross sectional size of the thread of fuel along which the engine of the car travels, sucking it up as it goes.

• Your thermometer is travelling at nearly the speed of light

  Well, not the entire thermometer, but the electrons in the mercury. Mercury ought to be a solid at room temperature (it is a metal, after all) but is actually a liquid because the electrons in atoms of mercury whizz around the nucleus at almost the speed of light. This makes the electrons heavier, which makes them orbit closer to the nucleus, which means that they can't interact with the electrons of nearby atoms as easily, which is why mercury stays liquid. Simple!

• The fastest animal in the world is the Copepod

  It is only 1mm long, but can accelerate to half a metre per second within a few thousandths of a second. That's 500 body lengths per second, so the equivalent of a human moving at almost 2000 miles per hour.

• An AA cell battery equals 147 jellybabies

  Duracell AA cells are reported to provide 3.432 Watt hours of electric power. This is the same as 12355 Joules or 2953 kcal.
  Jelly babies contain approx 20 kcal each, so 147.65 Jelly babies deliver the same energy as an AA cell (as do 20.65 bananas, or 10 Mars bars).

• Computers never make misteaks

• Albinoni's Adagio

  Probably the best known work by Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751), the Adagio in G minor was actually written by Remo Giazotto (1910 - 1988).

• Beethoven wrote his 1st piano concerto after his 2nd

  And before he wrote his 2nd, he wrote his 0th piano concerto. But no-one talks about that one much.
  0th in E flat major: 1784
  2nd in B flat major: 1787-89
  1st in C major: 1796-97

• The Bayeux tapestry isn't

  It's not a tapestry, it's an embroidery. And it wasn't made in Bayeux, or even in France, but in Kent, England. Oh, and it's most famous image isn't original: Harold wasn't originally shown as being shot in the eye; the best guess is that he was shown holding a spear.

• The first English printed book was printed in Bruges (now in Belgium)

  It was the "Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye", printed in 1473 by William Caxton

• Solar eclipses as seen on earth are a very unusual (and temporary) phenomenon

  The Sun is 400 times the diameter of the Moon, and is also 400 times further away than the Moon, so the Moon exactly covers the sun's disc as seen from Earth, but leaves the solar corona visible. The Moon is, however, moving further away from the Earth by 4.8 centimetres per year. This means that, at some time in the future, the moon will no longer completely cover the Sun's disc during an eclipse.

• The earth's core is sloshy, but it has a lump in the middle

  The outer core is a liquid, its viscosity is probably similar to honey (about 9 Pa.s). The inner core is a lump of nickel-iron about 70% of the size of the moon.

• 8th September 1752 never happened

  The day after Wednesday 2nd September 1752 was Thursday 14th September 1752 (at least in Britain and the British Empire, which included most of the Eastern States of America). This was because of the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. This change took place at different times in different countries, starting in 1582 and ending in 1923 (in Greece) - so, for 341 years, different parts of Europe had different dates.

• February 1751 never happened

  Actually, January, February and most of March 1751 went missing, at least in Britain. This is because, until 1st January 1752, the year was always considered to start on 25th March. Dates therefore ran (for example) 23 March 1748, 24 March 1748, 25 March 1749. Because of the change to the "modern" system in 1752, 1751 therefore started on 25 March but ended on 31 December.

• Time Immemorial

  In English law, "time immemorial" means any date prior to 3rd September 1189, the date when King Richard I was crowned.

• A long time ago, in a far off place....

  The UK is where they think 100 miles is a long distance; The USA is where they think 100 years is a long time.

• Disgusting food

  Completely plausible, but totally offputting:
  • Kidney fudge
  • oysters with custard
  • sausage milkshake
  • liver meringue pie
  • savoury chocolate omelette
  • kipper brandy liqueur

• No-one was ever disgusted before 1601

  (Because the word didn't exist in the English language before then.)

• The popular story of Christmas is (probably) wrong

  The original text of the bible makes no mention of a donkey; it does not say that Mary gave birth on the night that she arrived in Bethlehem, it makes no mention of an inn or an innkeeper; it does not say that Christ was born in a stable and no mention is made of wise men visiting him at the place of his birth. It is almost certain that Christ was not born in December (or even in the winter), as shepherds would not have been abiding in the fields with their flocks in the winter.

• "Hark the Herald Angels" commemorates the invention of the printing press

  - or at least the usual tune does. It was written as a tune for brass band by Felix Mendelssohn in 1840 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Gutenberg's invention of the movable type printing press.

• "While Shepherds Watched..." was the only legal Christmas carol

  In the 18th century it was the only Christmas hymn allowed by the Anglican church, because it's text was based directly on scripture.

• A balanced diet

  It is important to ensure that you maintain a balance in your diet between different groups of nutrients. The four main types of nutrient are sugar, grease, starch and burnt crunchy bits.
  Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant

• Mnemonics

  • Pi - the length of each word in this rhyme represents a digit of pi, up to 21 digits:
    Now, I wish I could recollect pi.
    "Eureka," cried the great inventor.
    Christmas Pudding; Christmas Pie
    Is the problem's very center.
  • Stalagmites and stalactites: mites grow up and tights come down.
  • Spring forwards, Fall back. (which way the clocks move for daylight saving time / British summer time)
  • A litre of water's a pint and three quarters (1.76, actually - but N.B. this only works for imperial pints, not US pints)
  • How to spell separate correctly: Separate is a rat of a word to spell
  • The cranial nerves: On Old Olympus' Towering Tops, A Fat Aged German Viewed Some Hops (Olfactory, Optic, Oculomotor, Trochlear, Trigeminal, Abducent, Facial, Auditory, Glossopharyngeal, Vagar, Spinal Accessory, Hypoglossal)
  • The order of the planets from the sun: Mother Very Thoughtfully Made A Jelly Sandwich Under No Protest (Mercury, Venus, Terra (Earth), Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto)
    Update! As of 2006, Pluto is no longer a planet, but a "dwarf planet". A suitable mnemonic that only includes the true planets is: Men Very Easily Make Jugs Serve Useful Needs. However, there is now a need for a mnemonic which covers the full set of planets and dwarf planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Eris.
  • Thirty days hath September, April June and No Wonder, all the rest have peanut butter, Except for Grandma 'cos she rides a bicycle.
  
  

• A King's home is his castle

• Farting in an elevator is wrong on so many different levels

• Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana

• Strawberries aren't berries, but bananas are

  A "berry" is any fleshy fruit which develops from a single ovary. So bananas are, and strawberries aren't. And Gooseberries are, but raspberries aren't.

• You share half your DNA with a banana

• Radioactive bananas

The "Banana Equivalent Dose" is a way of comparing radiation exposure from man-made sources (nuclear power plants, etc) with naturally occurring radiation. Bananas contain a lot of potassium, a proportion of natural potassium is radioactive, so eating a banana exposes you to radiation (about 15 Becquerel). But it's not a good measure - Brazil nuts contain up to five times as much, and you excrete radioactive potassium as well as eating it.

• Is Coal more radioactive than nuclear power?

Nah! It's also not true that coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste. But it is true that coal-fired power stations release 100 times as much radiation per watt of power than nuclear power plants.

• Time flies - not!

  Time is meant to pass at one year every year, one minute per minute, and one second per second - right?
  Wrong! Although time usually passes at one second per second, it sometimes takes a break, at least officially. Because the spin of the earth is slowing down, the atomic clocks that rule our lives regularly get far enough ahead that a "leap second" is added, usually at midnight on 31 December. If it seems that time is passing faster, it really is because you're getting older. Sorry!

• You are now entering the future

  Yes - you are a time traveller......

• Time goes more slowly here than some other places

  Because you're living in a gravity well, gravitational time dilation means that time runs more slowly here than outside the well. So time is actually passing more slowly here than if you were in orbit.

• Gravity sucks

• 15 million kilograms of space rocks hit the earth every year

  Don't Panic! most of it is dust. You're quite unlikely to be hit by a meteorite. An American woman was hit in 1954, but it came through her roof then bounced off her radio first, so only bruised her. And a girl in Yorkshire was hit on the foot by one in 2002, but not hurt.

• Does eating asparagus make your pee smell? (and, if it does, can you tell?)

  Some people notice that, when they have eaten asparagus, their urine smells strongly - but many other people are unaffected. Apparently about 40% of the (UK) population produce the "smelly" chemicals after eating asparagus, but a large proportion of the population are unable to detect the smell of these chemicals. (See dmd.aspetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/29/4/539 for full details!)

• Can you lick your elbow?

  Most people who read this will try.

• Stupid signs:

  • (On the back of bitumen tanker truck): "Warning - Elevated Surface Temperature" (I think it meant "Hot!")
  • "Sheep Keep Dogs Under Control"
  • "Slow Mud On Road" (but where did the fast mud go?)
  • "Baby catalogue available here" (Seen in a "Boots" store, a UK pharmacy chain which has diversified into other areas of healthcare). Catalogues may be fun, but surely not as much as the traditional method?!
  • (In a shoe shop window): "Buy one, get one free"

• You are (mostly) not human

  Your body contains about 100 trillion human cells - but it contains 10 to 20 times as many bacterial cells. Most of these are beneficial, and are essential to your health, but they are still not human. You are probably less than 10% human.

• Your brain is 77% water

  (and half the rest of it is fat)

• You are not reading this now

  You actually read it as much as 1/10th of a second before you thought you did. It takes between 50 and 100 milliseconds (1/10 sec) between an image striking the retina of the eye and it registering in the brain, so you've probably already started reading the next factoid by now...

• Kittens which are born blind grow longer whiskers

• Diarrhœa

  • Diarrhœa is hereditary - it runs in the jeans
  • Dire Rear
  • "She prepares herself to die, but before she dies she sings an aria. The so-called die-aria" (Victor Borge, in his album "caught in the act")
  • Spelling mnemonic: Diarrhœa Is A Really Runny Heap Of Endless Amounts

• Simplifying Spelling (and Grammar)

  Is it laziness, illiteracy, an attempt to be "different", or just common sense?
  The spellings of many words have changed, and are changing. English words derived from other languages (in whole or in part) become anglicized, then become further simplified. Words derived from a combination of other words gradually replace letters with apostrophes, then lose the apostrophes.
  Proponents argue that it makes words and spellings easier to learn - but, if taken to its logical conclusion, our language would lose much of the nuance, expression and beauty it now has. (owr langwij wud looz much of th newans, ekspreshun and byooty it now has.)
  • Diarrhœa, diarrhoea, diarrhea or dire-rear?
  • Formulæ, formulae or formulas?

• Weird British Laws

  It is illegal:
  • to be drunk in charge of a cow (The Licensing Act, 1872)
  • to eat mince pies or Christmas pudding on Christmas day (banned by Oliver Cromwell)
  • for anyone to wear armour to Parliament (Royal Prerogative, 1279)
  • to use any slide upon ice or snow (Town Police Clauses Act 1847)
  • to shake out your doormat in the street after 8AM (Town Police Clauses Act 1847)
  • to dispose of any whale washed up on the coast without first offering the it to the sovereign. The head belongs to the king and the tail to his consort "to furnish the Queen's wardrobe with whalebone". (From a statute of 1324)
  • to die in Parliament. (Anyone who dies in a royal palace is eligible for a state funeral; Westminster is a royal palace; If you die there, your body will be removed to hospital before a death certificate is issued, to avoid the cost of a state funeral)
  • to drive to church on Christmas day (the Holy Days and Fasting Days Act of 1551 requires everyone to attend church on Christmas day on foot)

  - though there are some much stranger laws in several other countries.

• Beavers' tails are fish but whales aren't

  In the middle ages, you weren't allowed to eat meat on fast days - but the beaver's tail was officially classified as "fish", allowing it to be consumed.

• Latin name confusion

  • Geranium species and Geraniums are Pelargoniums
    
  • Watercress is Nasturtium and Nasturtium is Tropaeolum
    
  • Puffinus puffinus is the Manx shearwater
    
  • Platypus is a type of beetle; the platypus is Ornithorhynchus
  • Echidna is a genus of Moray eels; Echidnas (spiny anteaters) are Zaglossus and Tachyglossus species

• You are more energetic than the sun

  In fact, even your houseplants are more energetic than stars. The energy rate density of a typical star is approximately 2 ergs per second per gram. That of a plant is between 3000 and 6000 ergs/s/g and humans are about 20,000 ergs/s/g.

• 10 sorts of people

  There are 10 sorts of people: the sort who knows binary, and the other.