Did you know...

[Cobra]

OK, let's try for some interesting "Did you know?" facts here in this thread. I'll begin:

Did you know that elephants are the only animals than cannot jump? They lack knees.

[beavereater]

Did you know that it is considered quite rude to blow your nose in public in Japan, however taking a piss in the bushes in public is common.

[Capmaster]

Did you know that uranium is no more toxic than lead? Both are heavy metals and are toxic if you ingest enough, but depleted uranium-238 was actually used for decades as the weights inside cellophane tape dispensers

[yoda313]

Hello,

Did you know....

I have 3 copies of the star wars trilogy on vhs??? Yep...

The thx original original release around 95... The special edition full screen release in 97... the widescreen release in 2000....

I now have the DVD's of course...

Plus the episode 1 and 2 on dvd.... I have episode 1 on full screen vhs.... (I had the widescreen vhs but gave it to my brother in law because he has no copy of episode 1 just episode 2 and the original trilogy on dvd (the 3rd version I mean).....

Kevin

[Cobra]

Did you know that a locust can kick out, walk, jump and fly after the head and guts have been removed? I saw this just a few hours ago, and it is due to the decentralised nervous system employed by the locust.

[yoda313]

Did you know that a locust can kick out, walk, jump and fly after the head and guts have been removed? I saw this just a few hours ago, and it is due to the decentralised nervous system employed by the locust.

Hello,

COOL!

So what do you have to do to kill them completely???? A rifle????

Kevin

[Capmaster]

Did you know that if you took the world's entire population, they would all fit comfortably (space-wise) within the state of Texas?

[yoda313]

Did you know that if you took the world's entire population, they would all fit comfortably (space-wise) within the state of Texas?

Hello,

I heard that awhile backup. Texas is HUGE!

Kevin

[Cobra]

The locust brain was destroyed - the bodies do not "feel" anything - all this behaviour was "programmed". We just sealed them into the yellow biohazard bags - they will simply be incinerated.

[VCDHunter]

OK, let's try for some interesting "Did you know?" facts here in this thread. I'll begin:

Did you know that elephants are the only animals than cannot jump? They lack knees.

What about worms, slugs and snails ? Or starfish ? Or snakes ?

[Cobra]

Those are not animals in the mammalian sense. Should have been more specific.

[VCDHunter]

Those are not animals in the mammalian sense. Should have been more specific.

What about a blue whale ?

[Capmaster]

Did you know .....
that the nickname "Windy City" for Chicago has nothing to do with the weather?

It was started around the turn of the 20th century and referred to the loud, boisterous Chicago politicians that were participating in a national conference, and the nickname stuck

[vitualis]

Did you know that uranium is no more toxic than lead? Both are heavy metals and are toxic if you ingest enough, but depleted uranium-238 was actually used for decades as the weights inside cellophane tape dispensers

It depends on exposure. Lead can quite easily be absorbed through the skin by touch (and by ingestion) so in terms of a heavy metal toxic effect, it may well be worse than uranium.

Radiation from uranium is most in alpha particles which would be easily blocked by the most superficial layers of skin (which is dead). However, if uranium was inhaled or absorbed into the body, alpha particles can cause a lot of damage to cells --> increasing cancer risk.

It also depends on exactly what isotope of uranium you are talking about as well of course.

Regards.

[Dr. DOS]

Did you know that I have a 11 1/2 inch monster with a mind of its own

Did you know the fastest land animal is the Cheetah (65 mph) but the 7th fastest is the brown hare (who would have guessed - 45 mph - faster than a horse)

[Capmaster]

Did you know that uranium is no more toxic than lead? Both are heavy metals and are toxic if you ingest enough, but depleted uranium-238 was actually used for decades as the weights inside cellophane tape dispensers

It depends on exposure. Lead can quite easily be absorbed through the skin by touch (and by ingestion) so in terms of a heavy metal toxic effect, it may well be worse than uranium.

Radiation from uranium is most in alpha particles which would be easily blocked by the most superficial layers of skin (which is dead). However, if uranium was inhaled or absorbed into the body, alpha particles can cause a lot of damage to cells --> increasing cancer risk.

It also depends on exactly what isotope of uranium you are talking about as well of course.

Regards.

Of course. I was speaking about the chemical toxicity, not the radiological danger. Tritium is another that is harmless if it remains outside your body, for the same reason you mentioned. Breathe some and let it irradiate your lung tissue and that's different, as you know

I used to own a Texas Instruments LCD watch that had tritium embedded in the LCD material. A permanent night-light

Of course plutonium leads the heavy metal pack ...lead, cadmium, uranium, etc. for chemical toxicity. A very nasty material - get it in your bloodstream and its chemical properties kill you. Breathe it and it'll give you lung cancer from the radiation. Charming stuff

Those tape dispensers had depleted U-238, of course ...no higher than the background radiation. But they still came and confiscated them because since the feds technically classify the material as "radioactive" even though all the U-235 has been removed and pure U-238 has very little activity, it had to be removed from the general public.

Too bad because being substantially denser than lead, it makes a great ballast material ...and an excellent source of kinetic energy when delivered to enemy tanks, aircraft, land vehicles, etc

[pacmania_2001]

Did you know that the state of Texas could easily fit inside the cattle property of Australian billionaire Kerry Packer?

[CoasterCreator]

did you know on the average a snail could got to sleep for 3 years without eating

[yoda313]

did you know I still have a 386 that still works????

Yep dos 6.2 and windows 3.1 Those were the days

Kevin

[smearbrick1]

In 1307 Pope Clement V and the king of France, Phillip The Fair ordered that the members of the Knights of Templar all be arrested. Unfortunately, a lot of them weren't arrested but killed because some supposed "heresy". This occurred on Friday the 13th.

This where the superstition about Friday the 13th began.


There is more to this story than this, but very detailed, very interesting, and very long.

[Cobra]

Did you know that the only vehicle allowed legally to pass through a red traffic light in the UK is not a fire engine, police car or an ambulance? It is a Royal Mail post van.

[yoda313]

Hello,

Did you know life can exist in such extreme environments as underwater volcanos and 2 miles underground???

Kevin

--That's where they're going to try to search for life on Jupiter's moons Io and Europa (at least one of them still has an active volcano - due to the gravitational stresses caused by its proximity to Jupiter) --

[CoasterCreator]

The first written account of the Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie, was made in 565AD.

[yoda313]

Hello,

Did you know the Earth's magnetic poles reverses polarity every few thousand years???? It will rotate to opposite poles.

Kevin

--There was a pbs special on it this year. I think it's because of a reversal of the inner core causing a realignment of the field --

[CoasterCreator]

Beer was the first trademarked product - British beer Bass Pale Ale received its trademark in 1876.

[yoda313]

Hello,

Did you know football goal posts are the size they are because that was the size of the logs they used??? There wasn't any plan it was just what they had available.

Kevin

--Heard that on a local pbs special called "Michigan Memories" about the University of Michigan football program--

[CoasterCreator]

Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

[Capmaster]

Did you know that the Great Pyramid of Khufu is the last survivor of the ancient seven wonders of the world? Only the one pyramid has been given this honor - not all three of the Giza pyramids.

It was constructed with voluntary labor, and not slaves as was previously thought. Pyramids started in the 3rd dynasty of the old kingdom, reached their peak (NPI) in the fourth dynasty when the great pyramids were built (about 2500BC), then died out due to labor and resource issues.

It took as many as 30 years of labor from 30,000 - 50,000 workers to build Khafre's pyramid. They worked on the pyramid while their crop land was inundated from the annual Nile flood.

It was originally 146 metres tall (is now 137 due to erosion and vandalism) and 235 metres on each side, with 2,300,000 blocks each weighing an average of 2-1/2 tons. The sides have a mean error of only 0.6 inch in length at the base

Until the mid 14th century (the pyramids were some 3800 years old then) it had a smooth white limestone casing. After an earthquake in Cairo that destroyed most of the city, the muslim clerics ordered the pyramids cannibalized so the white limestone casing could be used to rebuild their destroyed mosques, so they stripped Khufu's (largest), Menkaure's (smallest), all but the very top-most section of Khafre's pyramid. It was probably the grandest case of defacement and vandalism in history.

[Faustus]

Speaking of Texas.

If your in El Paso, TX its closer to Needles in California than it is to Dallas, TX.

Thank us for good old Dr. Pepper also

[CoasterCreator]

There are 318,979,564,000 possible ways of playing just the first four moves on each side in a game of chess.