50 Fascinating Factoids – Part 1

My mate Mort, a true gentleman of Pittsburgh, sent me most of these tidbits. Surely a distinguished statesman from the good ol’ US of A wouldn’t fib?

If you are ambidextrous does that mean you dribble?

2.) To make half a kilo of honey, bees must collect nectar from over 2 million individual flowers.
No wonder the little buggers always look exhausted.

3.) Heroin is the brand name of morphine once marketed by ‘Bayer‘.
And to think, this was 1895 – way before Woodstock.

4.) People in nudist colonies play volleyball more than any other sport.
Hopefully they also wear a lot of sunscreen.

5.) Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952, but he declined.

6.) Astronauts can’t belch – there is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.
They can flatulate though, and there’s nothing more horrid than a fart in a space suit.

7.) Ancient Roman, Chinese and German societies often used urine as mouthwash.

8.) The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. In the Renaissance era, it was fashion to shave them off!


It is also a poem by Keats

11.) A googol (not Google) is actually the common name for a number with one hundred zeros.
A googolplex is 1 followed by a googol of zeros, or 1 with a million zeros following it. It has nothing to do with a popular search engine.


13.) Gold is the only metal that doesn’t rust, even if it’s buried in the ground for thousands of years.
Hmm, I didn’t think that any precious metals actually rusted. Rust is peculiar to iron and compounds made with iron. Regardless, I will not be burying my vast stash of gold bars any time soon 😉

14.) Your tongue is the only muscle in your body that is attached at only one end.

15.) If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water. When a human body is dehydrated its thirst mechanism shuts off.

16.) Each year 2,000,000 smokers either quit smoking or die of tobacco-related diseases.

17.) Zero is the only number that cannot be represented by Roman numerals.
i – i = ?

18.) Kites were used in the American Civil War to deliver letters and newspapers.
That must have been one long piece of string.

Not sure why though. It is a stupid song.

20.) Drinking water after eating reduces the acid in your mouth by 61 percent.

21.) Peanut oil is used for cooking in submarines because it doesn’t smoke unless it’s heated above 160°C.
However, if you’re allergic to peanuts do not become a submariner.

22.) Airports at higher altitudes require a longer airstrip due to lower air density.

23.) The banana cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man.
So how did it get here in the first place?

Really! I just figured the little crab had his tiny television turned up too loud.

25.) Nine out of every 10 living things live in the ocean.
Like crabs with loud television sets.

Tune in next week for more Mort madness with, Fascinating Factoids – Part 2