Our bodies
- Each square inch of human skin consists of 19 million cells, sixty hairs, ninety oil glands, nineteen feel of blood vessels, 625 sweat glands, and 19,000 sensory cells.
- The pupils of your eyes can give clues to your emotions if the other person can se them. If you are trying to bargain for something you want very much, wear dark glasses, for your pupils may dilate when you show interest and you may end up paying a higher price for the merchandise. [I’d love to try this sometime.]
- Human reproduction follows lunar time rather than sidereal, or solar, time: Gestation is about 266 days – nine lunar months – and the menstrual period is one lunar month.
- Man has tiny bones once meant for a tail and unworkable muscles once meant to move his ears. [Doggy! xD]
- To keep your feet warm, put on a hat. Eighty percent of all body heat escapes through the head.
- The scientist Paul Weiss has estimated that each of us had in his brain about as many cells as there have been seconds in time since our part of the cosmos began to assume its present form – about 1 quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000). Further, he estimates that each cell has about 10,000 macromolecules and receives about 10,000 connections from other brain cells as the macromolecules of each develop linkages. Dr. Weiss computes that the brain loses 1,000 brain cells per day, irretrievably, seemingly at random, which mean a loss of 100 billion cross-linkages daily. Yet, amazingly, basic patterns and memories are maintained. [No wonder the second I try to think about what I dreamt, I forget all about it except for the most horror parts. ~___~]
- The brain is surrounded by a membrane containing veins and arteries. This membrane is filled with nerves of feeling. However, the brain itself has no feelings; if it cut into, the person feels no pain. (Just… wow.)
- The heart beats faster during a brisk walk or heated argument than during sexual intercourse. [*coughs hysterically* No comment on that. .-.;;;;;]
- We think we cannot see at night, But given enough time to adjust, the human eye can, for a time, see almost as well as an owl’s. Ultimately, as the amount of light decreases, an owl detects shapes after a human no longer can.
Pampered Pets
- Napoleon suffered from ailurophobia, the fear of cats. [I think my friend Fatin, do also. .-. Our last extra Maths class in the … form 5 (?), there was this kawaii cat. =3 For me at least, but Fatin, along with Helmiati, were scared of it. I took it out, upon their request but the cat kept coming back. xD After a while, the cat decided to leave the class.]
- A cat fell from the twentieth floor of a building in Montreal, in 1973, and suffered only from a pelvic fracture.
Salty Facts
- There is a salt mine in the Polish town of Wieliczka, near Cracow, that has been in operation for nearly 1,000 years. [I’ve been in this salt mine; my mother twice. It’s just… amazing. No other words can describe the feeling when you are exactly down in the mine.]
Sharps and Flats
- There were at least fifty two musicians in the family of Johann Sebastian Bach. [I love his music.]
- Bach’s Six Concertos for Orchestra – the Brandenburg Concertos – were written for the margrave of Brandenburg, a prince who loved music, concertos in particular. When the margrave died, the Brandenburg Concertos were said to be worth twenty four groschen. Eight groschen were worth $1.50 in those days (1721), so the value for six of the most distinguished pieces in all of music was only $4.50.
- Johann Sebastian Bach must have liked to walk. He walked the 230 miles from Arnstadlt to Lubeck, Germany, in order to hear the organist Buxtehude. On another occasion, he walked 25 miles to Halle in the hope of meeting Handel, arriving just after Handel had left the town by coach.
Solar System
- Want to reach the outermost planet of the solar system in twenty five years instead of the forty seven years that a direct flight would take? If yes, be sure to be launched first toward Jupiter. Passing through the giant’s planet gravitational field, your spaceship would receive an added boost on its way to that most distant planet, Pluto.
Sports
- Between 1882 and 1887, Hugh L. Daly played second base and shortstop and pitched for several major league baseball teams. As a pitcher, he won seventy four games, including a no hitter, and he registered a long standing record of striking out nineteen batters in a game. Not bad for a man with only one arm.
Strange Rules, Laws, and Customs
- It was proposed in the Rhode Island legislature in the 1970s that there be enacted a $2 tax on ever act of sexual intercourse. [o-o I wonder how much… .-.;;;;]
That’s Entertainment
- Everyone has heard of Hollywood’s voice dubbing. In the movie musical Singin’ in the Rain, the lesser art of foot-dubbing was applied: After Gene Kelly completed his famous tap dance in the rain, the director still needed the sound of sloshy tapping feet. Instead of having Mr. Kelly dance again for the sound track, two young ladies put on their tap shoes and, tapping in bucketsful of water, produced the required sounds to match the tapping seen on the screen. One of these tappers was the late Carol Haney, assistant to Mr. Kelly, and the other was Gwen Verdon, choreographer Jack Cole’s assistant. Both of these foot-dubbers later became Broadway dancing stars.
What’s in a Name
- The most common name in the world is neither Ching nor John. It’s Muhammad. [I think someone told me this, I just can’t remember who and when…]
- Some of the names by which Bangkok is known are Great City of Angels, the Supreme Warehouse of Divine Jewels, the Great Land Unconquerable, the Grand and Prominent World, the Royal and Delightful City Full of Ninefold Gems, the Highest Royal Dwelling and Grand Palace, the Divine Shelter and Living Place of the Reincarnated One…
Words
- One of the greatest orators of all time – Demosthenes (384?-322 B.C.) – was once a stutterer who stubbornly trained himself out of it, reportedly by putting pebbles in his mouth and practicing speaking aloud.
- The Polish actress Helena Modjeska (1844 - 1909) was popular with audiences for her realistic and emotional style of acting. She once gave a dramatic reading in her native tongue at a dinner party of people who didn’t know Polish [Oh boy…], and her listeners were in tears when she finished. It turned out she had merely recited the Polish alphabets. [I never got around to ACTUALLY learning the whole alphabets, neither Miss Monika nor that crazed Polish teacher taught any of her students the alphabets in Polish. .-.; But that must have been so dramatic to have her audience in tears. xD]
- Among the thousands of languages spoken around the world, about 175 languages are spoken natively by at least a million people. The ten largest languages each have over 100 million native speakers. They are, in descending order, Chinese, English, Russian, Spanish, Hindi, Bengali, Arabic, Portugese, German and Japanese.
- A forty five letter word connoting a lung disease, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis, is the longest word in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. The longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary means the act of estimating as worthless – floccinaucinihilipilification.
- One legal term for having sexual intercourse with someone else’s spouse – i.e., adultery – is “criminal conversation.”
No comments:
Post a Comment