BONE What would happen if humans didn't have bones? You'd be floppy like a beanbag.

Could you stand up? Forget it. Could you walk? No way. Without bones you'd be just a puddle of skin and guts on the floor. Bones have two purposes. Some, like your backbone, provide the structure which enables you to stand erect instead of lying like a puddle on the floor. Other bones protect the delicate, and sometimes soft, insides of your body. Your skull, a series of fused bones, acts like a hard protective helmet for your brain. The bones, or vertebrae, of your spinal column surround your spinal cord, a complex bundle of nerves. Imagine what could happen to your heart and lungs without the protective armor of your rib cage! How many bones do humans have? When you were born you had over 300 bones. As you grew, some of these bones began to fuse together. The result? An adult has only 206 bones! How do my bones move? With a lot of help. You need muscles to pull on bones so that you can move. Along with muscles and joints, bones are responsible for you being able to move. Your muscles are attached to bones. When muscles contract, the bones to which they are attached act as levers and cause various body parts to move. You also need joints which provide flexible connections between these bones. Your body has different kinds of joints. Some, such as those in your knees, work like door hinges, enabling you to move back and forth. Those in your neck enable bones to pivot so you can turn your head. Still other joints like the shoulder enable you to move your arms 360 degrees like a shower head. Are your bones alive? Absolutely. Bones are made of a mix of hard stuff that gives them strength and tons of living cells which help them grow and repair themselves. Like other cells in your body, the bone cells rely on blood to keep them alive. Blood brings them food and oxygen and takes away waste. If bones weren't made of living cells, things like broken toes or arms would never mend. But don't worry, they do. That's because your bone cells are busy growing and multiplying to repair the break! How? When you break your toe, blood clots form to close up the space between the broken segments. Then your body mobilizes bone cells to deposit more of the hard stuff to bridge the break.

What's bone marrow? Many bones are hollow. Their hollowness makes bones strong and light. It's in the center of many bones that bone marrow makes new red and white blood cells. Red blood cells ensure that oxygen is distributed to all parts of your body and white blood cells ensure you are able to fight germs and disease. Who would have thought that bones make blood!?! Do all critters have a backbone? Nope. In fact, some 97% of critters on earth don't have a backbone or spine. Remarkably enough, of those that do have a backbone, there are lots of similarities: a skull surrounding a brain, a rib cage surrounding a heart, and a jawbone or mouth opening. Factoids

The human hand has 27 bones; your face has 14! The longest bone in your body? Your thigh bone, the femur -- it's about 1/4 of your height. The smallest is the stirrup bone in the ear which can measure 1/10 of an inch. Did you know that humans and giraffes have the same number of bones in their necks? Giraffe neck vertebrae are just much, much longer! You have over 230 moveable and semi-moveable joints in your body

HAIR Humans are hairy. If you think that humans are pretty hairless creatures, you're wrong. All, we mean ALL, over your body, except for your lips, palms of your hands and soles of your feet are hairs, big and small. By the time you're an adult, you're likely to have about 5 million hairs growing out of your skin -- about the same number as a gorilla! The only difference is that most of a gorilla's hair is thick and long, and most of a human's is so thin and small it is extremely hard to see. You've got to look closely! What is hair? Hair is made of the same stuff that's found in horse hooves, bird feathers, antlers, horns, and your cat's or dog's claws and your fingernails! It's a body protein called keratin and it grows out of a minuscule opening of the skin called a follicle. Why is some hair curly, some hair straight? It all depends on the shape of the follicle out of which the hair is growing. Straight hair lies flat because it's round and grows out of round follicles. Curly hair bends

because its cross-section is an oval. It comes out of oval follicles. What makes some hair dark, some light, and some entirely white? The same chemical pigment that determines skin color -- melanin. Not having melanin in your body gives you white hair; a little makes you strawberry blond; more makes you a red-head; even more brown-haired; and even more, hair that looks blueblack. Pretty remarkable, huh? What do goosebumps have to do with hair? Everything! When you are chilled, or startled, you sometimes develop goosebumps. What are they? Temporary bumps on your skin caused by muscles attached to hair follicles pulling those hairs upright! Goosebumps actually serve a purpose in animals. Fluffing up fur or feathers helps trap air and make them warmer or make them look bigger and scarier. What do goosebumps do for humans? You tell us. What does puberty have to do with hair? As you approach puberty, you are likely to discover that several things about your body -- including patterns of body and facial hair -- are going to change. You'll start developing hairy underarms, and pubic hair.... If you're a boy, you may find yourself wanting to shave the hair on your upper lip and on your chin; if you're a girl, you may have hairy legs for the first time in your life. Puberty makes life interesting, eh? FACTOIDS:

Generally about 80 hairs are likely to fall out every day. But don't worry. You probably have about 100,000 hair follicles on your head! Even where you don't see hairs on your body, you've got them -- some 5 million of them!

SKIN So what is skin? Skin is a miracle garment. It's soft, pliable, strong, waterproof, and self-repairing. What would you be like without skin? The answer is, quite simply, a big squishy mess! Your skin is like a very large container. It's the largest organ of your body, and without it, all your delicate insides would spill right out. Skin doesn't just cover you! Your skin doesn't just cover you. It does a whole lot more. It functions as protective wrapping. Along with a layer of fat underneath, it insulates you against all kinds of

bumps, bangs and wear and tear. It keeps germs and water OUT (unless you have a break in your skin) and keeps your body's fluids and salts IN. Skin manufactures and oozes out all sorts of wonderful liquids. Waxes and oils act as your body's natural waterproofer and a protector against germs. They make your skin softer; but they can also give you pimples. Your skin also contains glands which manufacture sweat. With sweat, not only does your body get cooled by its evaporation, but it has a convenient way to get rid of chemicals it doesn't need. How does it do all this? Skin is alive. It's made of many thin sheets of layers of flat, stacked cells in which you'll find nerves, blood vessels, hair follicles, glands, and sensory receptors. Older cells are constantly being pushed to the surface by new cells which grow from below. When the old ones reach the top, they become wider and flatter as they get rubbed and worn by all your activity. And, sooner or later, they end up popping off like tiles blown from a roof in a strong wind. In fact, every minute 30,000-40,000 dead skin cells fall from your body! In approximately a month's time, your body has made a whole new layer of skin cells! Ever wonder what makes different skin colors? A pigment called melanin. More melanin in your skin cells makes your skin darker, less makes it lighter. Sitting in the sun can also cause more melanin to be manufactured in your skin cells. The result? A suntan. FACTOIDS:

As an adult, you may have more than 20 square feet of skin -- about the size of a blanket. You are likely to shed some 40 pounds of skin in a lifetime. Right now there are over a million dust mites, microscopic critters invisible to the naked eye, on your mattress and pillow, chomping on the dead skin cells that fell off you last night!

DIGESTIVE SYSTEM The story we're about to tell is of stormy seas, acid rains, and dry, desert-like conditions. It's an arduous journey that traverses long distances and can take several days. It's one in which nothing comes through unchanged. It's the story of your digestive system whose purpose is turn the food you eat into something useful -- for your body! Down the Hatch It all starts with that first bite of pizza. Your teeth tear off that big piece of crust. Your

saliva glands start spewing out spit like fountains. Your molars grind your pizza crust, pepperoni, and cheese into a big wet ball. Chemicals in your saliva start chemical reactions. Seemingly like magic, starch in your pizza crust begins to turn to sugar! A couple of more chews and, then, your tongue pushes the ball of chewed food to the back of your throat. A trap door opens, and there it goes, down your gullet! Next, your muscles squeeze the wet mass of food down, down, down a tube, or esophagus, the way you would squeeze a tube of toothpaste. It's not something you tell your muscles to do -- they just do it -- in a muscle action called peristalsis. Then, the valve to the stomach opens and pizza mush lands in your stomach! Inside your stomach Imagine being inside a big pink muscular bag -- sloshing back and forth in a sea of half-digested mush and being mixed with digestive chemicals. Acid rains down from the pink walls which drip with mucus to keep them from being eroded. Sound a little like an amusement ride gone crazy? Every time you think you've got your equilibrium back, the walls of muscle contract and fold in on themselves again. Over and over again, you get crushed under another wave of slop. Every wave mixes and churns the food and chemicals together more--breaking the food into even smaller and smaller bits. Then another valve opens. Is the end in sight you ask, as the slop gets pushed into the small intestine. Inside the small intestine, chemicals and liquids from places like your kidneys and pancreas break down and mix up the leftovers. The small intestine looks like a strange underwater world filled with things that resemble small finger-like cactuses. But they're not cactuses, they're villi. Like sponges, they're able to absorb tremendous amounts of nutrients from the food you eat. From the villi, the nutrients will flow into your bloodstream. But hold on! The story's still not over yet -- the leftovers that your body can't use still have more traveling to do! Next, they're pushed into the large intestine. It's much wider and much drier. You find that the leftovers getting smaller, harder and drier as they're pushed through the tube. After all, this is the place where water is extracted and recycled back into your body. In fact, the leftovers that leave your body are about 1/3 the size of what first arrived in your intestines! Where Food Turns Into Poop Finally, the end of the large intestine is in sight! Now the drier leftovers are various handsome shades of brown. They sit, at the end of their journey, waiting for you to expel them -- out your anus. Of course, you know the rest! A glorious,if slightly

stinky, journey, don't you think? Factoids:

HOW LONG ARE YOUR INTESTINES? At least 25 feet in an adult. Be glad you're not a full-grown horse -- their coiled-up intestines are 89 feet long! Chewing food takes from 5-30 seconds Swallowing takes about 10 seconds Food sloshing in the stomach can last 3-4 hours It takes 3 hours for food to move through the intestine Food drying up and hanging out in the large intestine can last 18 hours to 2 days! Americans eat about 700 million pounds of peanut butter. Americans eat over 2 billion pounds of chocolate a year. In your lifetime, your digestive system may handle about 50 tons!!

What are smells? What makes the smell of something, like, say, rotten eggs? While what's making the smell may be invisible to the naked eye, it doesn't mean there's nothing there! The smell is just made of things too small to see. You know they're there because you can smell them. Odors are tiny molecules of chemicals from things like food, or flowers or poop that float through the air. Many odors aren't single scents or single kinds of molecules but a whole mixture of them. How do we smell smells? Through your nose. It's a mucus-covered, twisty cavern that's built to smell as well as warm, moisten, and filter the air you breath. When you breath through your nose, air enters both of your nostrils. Hairs, hanging from the walls of each opening, act as filters trapping dirt, dust, pollen -- all sorts of things -- even bugs! As the air moves further back inside your nose, the locale gets warmer and slimier. There's wet mucus everywhere! And if you look carefully, you discover the mucus is actually moving. Incredibly, small hair-like structures called cilia are sweeping or undulating back and forth, moving the mucus (and anything trapped in it) further and further back. At the same time, the air moving back is warmed by blood vessels just beneath the surface, filled with warm, pulsing blood. As the air spirals around, bouncing off ridges and valleys, the passageway opens up to a big cavern -- your nasal cavity. Rivulets of mucus stream back and down into our

throat. You swallow a lot of it! The odor chemicals that you inhaled, on the other hand, begin to float upward, not downward. They hit a ceiling area in your nasal cavity. About the size of a postage stamp, it's covered with millions upon millions of microscopic nerve cells that can detect smell. Odor molecules sink through a thick, mustard-colored mucus until they reach the sensitive hair-like tops of the nerve cells and get trapped. Differently shaped nerve cells recognize different smells because each smell molecule fits into a nerve cell like a lock and key. Then, these cells send signals along your olfactory nerve to the smell center in your brain. It senses the odor or collection of odors. Does it smell bad or good? Now that all depends on you and your sense of smell. What's the connection between smell and taste? Most of your sense of taste is really about your sense of smell. Do you think that the spaghetti and meatballs you're eating taste delicious? Much of the reason is because you like their smell. In fact, you're doing a lot of sniffing. Not only are you smelling before you take a bite, but while you are chewing, odor molecules from the ground-up food inside your mouth float upwards taking that remarkable smell journey. Factoids

If your sniffer is in peak performance you can tell the difference between 400010,000 smells. Now that's heavy-duty sniffing! WARNING: As you grow older, your sense of smell gets worse. Children are likely to have much more subtle senses of smell than parents or grandparents. MAYBE YOU WANT TO BE BLOODHOUND? They smell at least 1000 times better than humans. MAYBE YOU WANT TO BE A MALE MOTH? Just a dozen odor molecules from a lady moth a block away can drive a male moth crazy! BE GLAD YOU'RE NOT A DOLPHIN OR WHALE -- Instead of two nostrils in the middle of your face, you'd have one blowhole on the top of your head!

Your ears are exceedingly well-designed organs with two roles -- they enable you to hear and to keep your balance. Your outer ear gathers the sound waves or vibrations that reach it and funnels them into the ear canal. As vibrations travel through the middle ear, they hit your ear drum, a membrane smaller and thinner than the nail on your pinky finger. This causes your ear drum to vibrate like the skin of a drum.

The vibrations of the ear drum are then passed along a series of three tiny bones, the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup. Each, in turn, vibrates. The last bone, the stirrup, passes the vibrations on into the inner ear to a fluid-filled curled tube called the cochlea. Inside the cochlea thousands of tiny sensitive hairs called cilia begin to move and turn these vibrations into nerve messages that travel to your brain. There, your brain analyzes and makes sense of "sounds" -- and you "hear." What are sounds, anyway? Sound is made by vibrations. If you hit a gong, the hammer hits the metal causing the molecules that make up the metal to vibrate in a particular pattern, back and forth, back and forth. As they vibrate, they push the air molecules around them back and forth, as well. And that vibrating continues, traveling outward from the gong in every direction like the circular ripples from a splash in water. Sound vibrations travel through almost anything -- metal, air -- even water! But what do ears have to do with balance? Not only do your ears provide you with a rich and bountiful array of sounds to hear, they are sensitive instruments which help keep your sense of balance in a variety of ways. First, there are three small curved tubes called semi-circular canals above the cochlea. Each is filled with fluid and lies at right angles to the next. As you move, the fluid inside each one moves, bending microscopic hairs that are also inside these tubes. When these hairs, which rest in a layer of jelly, bend they send messages to your brain about whether or how your body is moving. At the same time, there are minute crystals balancing on these hairs. When you tilt your head, gravity causes these crystals to tumble off their perch, bending the tops of the hairs, and sending another type of message to your brain. This message tells your brain where "up" and "down" are. So thank goodness for your inner ear and all its tubes and hairs! Without them, your brain wouldn't know how to hold

your head and how to adjust your body to stay balanced. Why do you feel dizzy for a moment after getting off of an amusement ride? Have you ever been moving and when you stop you still feel like you're moving? Sometimes, it's your brain which is telling you that you're moving when you're not. But, sometimes, for a brief moment, it may be your inner ear which is giving out the wrong information. To see what we mean, take a jar half-filled with water and spin it around. When you stop moving the jar, what happens? It takes a moment before the water stops moving. The same holds true for the liquid inside your semi-circular canals. What causes earaches? Although earaches are not often serious, they are painful and, unfortunately, all too common. What causes them? Generally, you experience pain in your ears because of pressure on your eardrum. What causes the pressure? Too much fluid which can be the result of infection, allergies, or a virus. Do you know anyone who has had surgery to put tubes in their ears? It's a common procedure in which a doctor inserts a small artificial tube into the middle ear to help drain excess fluid and keep the ear earache-free. Are there people who can not hear at all? Yes. As a result of illness or a birth defect, some people don't hear well, and some don't hear at all. If they don't hear well, sometimes hearing aides can help them hear better. People who are entirely deaf, however, have to rely on their other senses even more to provide them with information about the world around them.

Did you know?

Most humans can distinguish over 1500 tones. A piano, meanwhile, has only 88 tones! Many animals lack ears altogether. Fish don't have ears. They have a ridge that goes down the length of their body and allows them to "hear" pressure changes through their body. How loud is a whisper? 20 decibels. How loud is a rock concert? Over 100 decibels. A road drill? 115 decibels. A gunshot? 140. Beware of sounds at the upper end of the human hearing spectrum. Hearing them without having ear phones to dampen the sound can cause permanent injury to your eardrums!

RESPIRATION

Why do you need to breathe? All the cells in your body require oxygen. Without it, they couldn't move, build, reproduce, and turn food into energy. In fact, without oxygen, they and you would die! How do you get oxygen? From breathing in air which your blood circulates to all parts of the body. How do you breathe? You breathe with the help of your diaphragm and other muscles in your chest and abdomen. These muscles literally change the space and pressure inside your body to accomodate breathing. When your diaphragm pulls down, it not only leaves more space for the lungs to expand but also lowers the internal air pressure. Outside, where the air pressure is greater, you suck in air in an inhale. The air then expands your lungs like a pair of balloons. When your diaphragm relaxes, the cavity inside your body gets smaller again. Your muscles squeeze your rib cage and your lungs begin to collapse as the air is pushed up and out your body in an exhale.

So, it all starts at the nose? Yup. About 20 times a minute, you breathe in. When you do, you inhale air and pass it through your nasal passages where the air is filtered, heated, moistened and enters the back of the throat. Interestingly enough, it's the esophagus or foodpipe which is located at the back of the throat and the windpipe for air which is located at the front. When we eat, a flap -- the epiglottis -- flops down to cover the windpipe so that food doesn't go down the windpipe. So -- back to breathing -- the air has a long journey to get to your lungs. It flows down through the windpipe, past the voice box or vocal cords, to where the lowermost ribs meet the center of your chest. There, your windpipe divides into two tubes which lead to the two lungs which fill most of your ribcage. Inside each of your sponge-like lungs, tubes, called bronchi, branch into even smaller tubes much like the branches of a tree. At the end of these tubes are millions of tiny bubbles or sacs called aleoli. Spread out flat, all the air sacs in the lungs of an adult would cover an area about the third of a tennis court. What do these sacs do? They help perform an incredible magic act. Your air sacs bring new oxygen from air you've breathed to your bloodstream. They exchange it for waste products, like carbon dioxide, which the cells in your body have made and can't use. How does this exchange work? With the help of the red blood cells in your bloodstream. Your red blood cells are like box cars on train tracks. They show up at the sacs at just the right time, ready to trade in old carbon dioxide that your body's cells have made for some new oxygen you've just breathed in. In the process, these red blood cells turn from purple to that beautiful red color as they start carrying the oxygen to all the cells in your body. But what happens to the carbon dioxide? It goes through the lungs, back up your windpipe and out

with every exhale. It's a remarkable feat, this chemical exchange and breathing in and out. You don't have to tell your lungs to keep working. Your brain does it automatically for you. Factoids

Your lungs contain almost 1500 miles of airways and over 300 million alveoli. Every minute you breathe in 13 pints of air. Plants are our partners in breathing. We breathe in air, use the oxygen in it, and release carbon dioxide. Plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Thank goodness! People tend to get more colds in the winter because we're indoors more often and in close proximity to other people. When people sneeze, cough and even breathe -- germs go flying!

So, what's the endocrine system? It's a little-known system made up of a whole collection of glands and it does very BIG things. It regulates, coordinates and controls an extraordinary number of your body's functions. How? While your nervous system uses electricity to orchestrate all sorts of things in your body, your endocrine system does even more through the wonder of chemicals. Where do these chemicals come from? They come from glands and a few organs (like the stomach, pancreas, kidneys, etc.) that produce them and ooze them. While the chemicals that your organs manufacture are used close to home, endocrine glands throughout your body make chemicals called hormones that travel much further. Endocrine glands spew their hormones directly into your bloodstream! You're not likely to be aware that all these chemicals are traveling to all parts of your body. But they are, and they're acting as chemical messengers. What are hormones? "Hormone" means to "excite" or "spur on" and that's exactly what hormones do. They cause other things to start happening. It's as if they were keys which not only unlock the doors to other activities, but also regulate those other activities that they've

initiated. You've got over 30 of these amazing hormones busily orchestrating and regulating such things as: when you feel hungry or full; how you sleep; your body temperature; how you break down and utilize the food you eat and whether you are fat or thin; when you start puberty and how long it takes; how you handle stress; how much adrenaline you have in an emergency situation...even how and when you grow. Phew! Now you might say that you thought it was genes that determined things like how tall you're going to eventually grow. But when, and if, you grow as tall as the instructions from your genes would suggest depends on hormones - - in this case growth hormones. What is puberty? The time when your body begins its final journey to become adult is also run by these hormones. It's called puberty and it involves all sorts of big and small changes to your body -- and your brain! During puberty, your body's shape begins to change -- girls develop breasts and hips; boys, taller and broader bodies and more muscles. Hair begins to develop in varying degrees on boys and girls: pubic hair, underarm hair, leg hair, and, on boys, facial and body hair. By the time you've finished puberty, you will have reached your adult size. You may also find yourself more interested in the opposite sex, and experiencing feelings and emotions that are quite new to you. And, if you are a boy, you will have acquired the ability to father a baby; if you are a girl, you will have developed the ability to have a baby. Because these changes, most especially the last, are SO big and SO important, it would take a whole series of web sites to explore the consequences of them. Therefore, we are not going to attempt to discuss them in detail here. But suffice it to say that with these changes come big responsibilities and that the consequences of your actions can be extremely powerful! Will I feel different? Puberty is a time in which you may find yourself feeling confused. One minute you may find yourself giggling, then next find yourself feeling sad or cranky. Just understand that you haven't changed into a different person & your body is just adjusting to all these molecules of hormones racing around. And, don't worry! By the end of puberty, your body will have adjusted the hormone levels so that you will feel on a much more even keel.

You may find it surprisingly helpful to talk with your parents, teachers or mentors about all of this. After all, whether you believe it or not, the adults around you have actually experienced this confusing time, too! Factoids:

Imagine your body without glands. You'd be without all the ooze, sweat, mucus, chemicals and juices in your body which make your body home. For girls, puberty generally begins sometime between ages 9-13 and for boys, ages 10-15!

What is it? It's a big name for one of the most important systems in the body. Made up of the heart, blood and blood vessels, the circulatory system is your body's delivery system. Blood moving from the heart, delivers oxygen and nutrients to every part of the body. On the return trip, the blood picks up waste products so that your body can get rid of them. Your Heart About the size of your clenched fist, your heart is a muscle. It contracts and relaxes some 70 or so times a minute at rest -- more if you are exercising -- and squeezes and pumps blood through its chambers to all parts of the body. And it does this through an extraordinary collection of blood vessels. Your Blood Stream Your blood travels through a rubbery pipeline with many branches, both big and small. Strung together end to end, your blood vessels could circle the globe 2 1/2 times! The tubes that carry blood away from your heart are called arteries. They're hoses that carry blood pumped under high pressure to smaller and smaller branched tubes called capillaries. The tubes that more gently drain back to the heart are veins. How does your blood get oxygen? When you inhale, you breathe in air and send it down to your lungs. Blood is pumped from the heart to your lungs, where oxygen from the air you've breathed in gets mixed with it. That oxygen-rich blood then travels back to the heart where it is pumped through arteries and capillaries to the whole body, delivering oxygen to all the cells in the body -- including bones, skin and other organs. Veins then carry the oxygendepleted blood back to the heart for another ride. What's blood, anyway? Most of your blood is a colorless liquid called plasma. Red blood cells make the blood look red and deliver oxygen to the cells in the body and carry back waste gases in

exchange. White blood cells are part of your body's defense against disease. Some attack and kill germs by gobbling them up; others by manufacturing chemical warfare agents that attack. Platelets are other cells that help your body repair itself after injury. FACTOIDS:

The body of an adult contains over 60,000 miles of blood vessels! An adult's heart pumps nearly 4000 gallons of blood each day! Your heart beats some 30 million times a year! The average three-year-old has two pints of blood in their body; the average adult at least five times more! A "heartbeat" is really the sound of the valves in the heart closing as they push blood through its chambers

What does your urinary system do? Huh? Are you asking yourself what's a system, anyway? A body system is a set of body parts that do a particular job. In this case, it's filtering out excess fluid and other substances from your bloodstream. Some fluid gets reabsorbed by your body but most gets expelled as urine. If your body weren't clever enough to get rid of some of this stuff, you'd get sick! How does the urinary system work? Your body makes chemical waste products it can't use. They go into your bloodstream, then pass into your kidneys where the excess fluid and chemical stuff your body can't use is filtered out. As your kidneys do this work, they also make sure that your blood is just the right combination -- not too thin or too thick, not too salty, or overloaded with excess vitamins and minerals or wastes made by other parts of the body. The kidneys work as they do because they contain millions of infinitesimal filters. Hundreds of times a day the blood in your body gets filtered through these filters and the liquid and wastes are removed. The wastes trickle down and collect in the center of your kidneys. Your kidneys are always working and the pee is always drip--drip-dripping down through tubes called the ureters into a stretchy pouch. This stretchy pouch is your bladder and it can stretch enough to hold a pint of urine! When your bladder becomes too full, it sends a message to your brain. You feel the need to pee and start looking for a place to do it. When the time and place are right, your brain orders the muscles around your bladder to start squeezing and for the circle of muscles at the bottom of your bladder to open. Pee squirts out through the urethral

opening in your body. Hopefully, the pee meets the water of a toilet. Now that spells relief! Factoids

Ever eat kidney beans? They were named after your kidneys which are a similar shape and color! Your kidneys have about a million structures that filter out liquids and wastes.

What would happen if humans didn't have bones? You'd be floppy like a beanbag. Could you stand up? Forget it. Could you walk? No way. Without bones you'd be just a puddle of skin and guts on the floor. Bones have two purposes. Some, like your backbone, provide the structure which enables you to stand erect instead of lying like a puddle on the floor. Other bones protect the delicate, and sometimes soft, insides of your body. Your skull, a series of fused bones, acts like a hard protective helmet for your brain. The bones, or vertebrae, of your spinal column surround your spinal cord, a complex bundle of nerves. Imagine what could happen to your heart and lungs without the protective armor of your rib cage! How many bones do humans have? When you were born you had over 300 bones. As you grew, some of these bones began to fuse together. The result? An adult has only 206 bones! How do my bones move? With a lot of help. You need muscles to pull on bones so that you can move. Along with muscles and joints, bones are responsible for you being able to move. Your muscles are attached to bones. When muscles contract, the bones to which they are attached act as levers and cause various body parts to move. You also need joints which provide flexible connections between these bones. Your body has different kinds of joints. Some, such as those in your knees, work like door hinges, enabling you to move back and forth. Those in your neck enable bones to pivot so you can turn your head. Still other joints like the shoulder enable you to move your arms 360 degrees like a shower head. Are your bones alive? Absolutely. Bones are made of a mix of hard stuff that gives them strength and tons of living cells which help them grow and repair themselves. Like other cells in your body, the bone cells rely on blood to keep them alive. Blood brings them food and

oxygen and takes away waste. If bones weren't made of living cells, things like broken toes or arms would never mend. But don't worry, they do. That's because your bone cells are busy growing and multiplying to repair the break! How? When you break your toe, blood clots form to close up the space between the broken segments. Then your body mobilizes bone cells to deposit more of the hard stuff to bridge the break. What's bone marrow? Many bones are hollow. Their hollowness makes bones strong and light. It's in the center of many bones that bone marrow makes new red and white blood cells. Red blood cells ensure that oxygen is distributed to all parts of your body and white blood cells ensure you are able to fight germs and disease. Who would have thought that bones make blood!?! Do all critters have a backbone? Nope. In fact, some 97% of critters on earth don't have a backbone or spine. Remarkably enough, of those that do have a backbone, there are lots of similarities: a skull surrounding a brain, a rib cage surrounding a heart, and a jawbone or mouth opening. Factoids

The human hand has 27 bones; your face has 14! The longest bone in your body? Your thigh bone, the femur -- it's about 1/4 of your height. The smallest is the stirrup bone in the ear which can measure 1/10 of an inch. Did you know that humans and giraffes have the same number of bones in their necks? Giraffe neck vertebrae are just much, much longer! You have over 230 moveable and semi-moveable joints in your body. About 440 gallons of blood flow through the kidneys each and every day!

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BRAIN

Dimensions and Sizes

Average dimensions of the adult brain: Width = 140 mm/5.5 in, Length = 167 mm/6.5 in, Height = 93 mm/3.6 in. How much does human brain weigh? At birth our brains weigh and average of 350-400g (about 4/5 lbs), as adults the brain averages 1300-1400g (about 3 lbs). If Stretched out the cerebral cortex would be 0.23 sq. m(2.5sq.ft), the area of a night table. Total surface area of the cerebral cortex is 2,500 cm2 or 2.69 sq.ft.

Composition

The composition of the brain = 77-78% water, 10-12% lipids, 8% protein, 1% carbs, 2% soluble organics, 1% inorganic salt. The breakdown of intracranial contents by volume (1,700 ml, 100%): brain = 1,400 ml (80%); blood = 150 ml (10%); cerebrospinal fluid = 150 ml (10%). The cerebellum contains half of all the neurons in the brain but comprises only 10% of the brain. The cerebral cortex is about 85% of the brain. Percentage of total cerebral cortex volume = frontal lobe 41%, temporal lobe 22%, parietal lobe 19%, occipital lobe 18%. There are about 100 billion neurons in the human brain, the same number of stars in our galaxy. The left hemisphere of the brain has 186 million more neurons than the right hemisphere. 750-1000ml of blood flow through the brain every minute or about 3 full soda cans. In that minute the brain will consume 46cm3 (1/5 cups) of oxygen from that blood. Of that oxygen consumed, 6% will be used by the brain's white matter and 94% by the grey matter.

Times

The brain can stay alive for 4 to 6 minutes without oxygen. After that cells begin die. The slowest speed at which information travels between neurons is 416 km/h or 260 mph, thats as "slow" as todays supercar's top speed (the Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron clocked at 253 mph). 10 seconds is the amount of time until unconsciousness after the loss of blood supply to the brain. Time until reflex loss after loss of blood supply to the brain, 40-110 seconds. During early pregnancy the rate of neuron growth is 250,000 neurons a minute.

Other Fun Facts About The Human Brain

Results from cognitive tests show 30% of 80-year-olds perform as well as young adults. Your brain is about 2% of your total body weight but uses 20% of your body's energy. The energy used by the brain is enough to light a 25 watt bulb. More electrical impulses are generated in one day by a single human brain than by all the telephones in the world. How much does human brain think? 70,000 is the number of thoughts that it is estimated the human brain produces on an average day. After age 30, the brain shrinks a quarter of a percent (0.25%) in mass each year. Albert Einsteins brain weighed 1,230 grams (2.71 lbs), significantly less then the human average of 1,300g to 1,400g (3 lbs). Each year Americans consume 50 billion aspirin tablets or 15.5 million tons. 89.06 is the percentage of people who report normally writing with their right hand, 10.6% with their left and 0.34% with either hand.

http://www.brainhealthandpuzzles.com

Amazing body Facts

Your fingernails grow four times as fast as your toenails. Babies are born with 300 bones adults have 206. Eyelashes last about 150 days. The heart circulates your blood through your body about 1,000 times each day. 5. You make about half a quart (500 ml) of spit each day. 6. The smallest bone in your body is in your ears. 7. Your blood has the same amount of salt in it as the ocean does. 8. A sneeze blows air out of your nose at 100 miles per hour. 9. You are taller in the morning than you are at night. 10. Humans are the only animals that cry when upset. 11. Many more boys are color blind than girls are. 12. Children have more taste buds than adults. 13. Your lungs are the only organs in your body that float. 14. Food spends up to 6 hours in the stomach being digested. 15. Your eyeballs are actually part of your brain. 16. Bones are 4 times stronger than concrete. 17. The largest muscle in your body is the one you are sitting on! 18. In one day, a human sheds 10 billion skin flakes. This amounts to approximately two kilograms in a year. 19. People whose mouth has a narrow roof are more likely to snore. This is because they have less oxygen going through their nose. 20. While sleeping, one man in eight snores, and one in ten grinds his teeth. 21. It takes food seven seconds to go from the mouth to the stomach via the esophagus. 22. Every square inch of the human body has about 19,000,000 skin cells. 23. Approximately 25% of all scald burns to children are from hot tap water and is associated with more deaths than with any other liquid. 24. Forty one percent of women apply body and hand moisturizer at least three times a day. 25. Every hour one billion cells in the body must be replaced. 26. The world record for the number of body piercing on one individual is 702, which is held by Canadian Brent Moffat. 27. The small intestine in the human body is about 2 inches 1. 2. 3. 4.

around, and 22 feet long. 28. The human body makes anywhere from 1 to 3 pints of saliva every 24 hours. 29. The human body has approximately 37,000 miles of capillaries. 30. The aorta, which is largest artery located in the body, is about the diameter of a garden hose. 31. Close to fifty percent of the bacteria in the mouth lives on the surface of our tongue. 32. There are approximately 9,000 taste buds on the tongue. 33. The adult human body requires about 88 pounds of oxygen daily. 34. It is very common for babies in New Zealand to sleep on sheepskins. This is to help them gain weight faster, and retain their body heat. 35. An average woman has 17 square feet of skin. When a woman is in her ninth month of pregnancy she has 18.5 square feet of skin. 36. The width of your arm span stretched out is the length of your whole body. 37. 41% of women apply body or hand moisturizer a minimum three times a day. 38. A human's small intestine is 6 meters long. 39. There are as many hairs per square inch on your body as a chimpanzee. You don't see all of them because most are too fine and light to be noticed. 40. Every hour one billion cells in the body must be replaced. 41. Dead cells in the body ultimately go to the kidneys for excretion. 42. By walking an extra 20 minutes every day, an average person will burn off seven pounds of body fat in a year. 43. The human body is 75% water. 44. You lose everyday around 50 to 100 hairs from your head, which are replaced the same day. 45. An average human has 100000 hairs on the head. 46. The air from a sneeze can reach the speed of 100 mph; from a cough 60 mph. 47. An average person drinks around 16000 gallons of water in his lifetime. 48. A nail takes around 6 months to grow from base to the most tip. 49. Around 45 miles of nerves run through our body. The

electric impulses travel at a speed of almost 250 mph! 50. Babies have 94 bones more than an adult, in total 300. 51. An average human blinks 25 times a minute, that's over 6.205.000 times a year! 52. By the age of 70 your heart has beat 2, 5 billion times and pumped around 48.000.000 gallons of blood. 53. In a tiny drop of water there are 5 million red blood cells, 10.000 white cells and 300.000 platelets 54. A square of human skin contains 20 feet of blood vessels, 1300 nerve cells, 100 sweat glands and 3 million cells. 55. The average human body contains enough: Sulphur to kill all fleas on an average dog, Carbon to make 900 pencils, Potassium to fire: a toy cannon, Fat to make 7 bars of soap, Phosphorus to make: 2,200 matchheads, and enough Water to fill a ten gallon tank. 56. The microorganisms in and on your body make up 10% of your bodyweight (dried, without water). 57. You produce a quart of saliva daily, 10.000 gallons in a lifetime. 58. A square of human skin has 32 million bacterias on it! 59. Each second 10.000.000 of cells die and are replaced in your body. 60. You create a new skin every month and a new skeleton every 3 months! 61. Ears and nose don't stop keep growing during the whole life! 62. The liver is the body's chemical factory. It has over 500 functions! 63. You lose 600.000 particles of skin every hour that make up 1.5 pounds a year! 64. You spend one third of your lifetime sleeping. 20 Years in an average lifetime! 65. In a lifetime, an average man will shave 20,000 times. 66. Hair will fall out faster on a person that is on a crash diet.

What is the strongest muscle in the human body?

There is no one answer for this question since there are different ways to measure strength. There is absolute strength (maximum force), dynamic strength (repeated motions), elastic strength (exert force quickly), and strength endurance (withstand fatigue). There are three types of muscles in the human body: cardiac, smooth and skeletal. Cardiac muscle makes up the wall of the heart and is responsible for the forceful contraction of the heart. Smooth muscles make up the walls of the intestine, the uterus, blood vessels, and internal muscles of the eye. Skeletal muscles are attached to the bones and in some areas the skin (muscles in our face). Contraction of the skeletal muscles helps limbs and other body parts move. Most sources state that there are over 650 named skeletal muscles in the human body, although some figures go up to as many as 840. The dissension comes from those that count the muscles within a complex muscle. For example the biceps brachii is a complex muscle that has two heads and two different origins however, they insert on the radial tuberosity. Do you count this as one muscle or two? Although most individuals have the same general set of muscles, there is some variability from one person to another. Generally, smooth muscles are not included with this total since most of these muscles are at cellular level and number in the billions. In terms of a cardiac muscle, we only have one of those- the heart. Muscles are given Latin names according to location, relative size, shape, action, origin/insertion, and/or number of origins. For example the flexor hallicis longus muscle is the long muscle that bends the big toe:
Flexor = A muscle that flexes a joint Hallicis = great toe Longus = Long

The following are muscles that have been deemed the strongest based on various definitions of strength (listed in alphabetical order): External Muscles of the Eye The muscles of the eye are constantly moving to readjust the positions of the eye. When the head is

in motion, the external muscles are constantly adjusting the position of the eye to maintain a steady fixation point. However, the external muscles of the eye are subject to fatigue. In an hour of reading a book the eyes make nearly 10,000 coordinated movements. Gluteus Maximus The gluteus maximus is the largest muscle in the human body. It is large and powerful because it has the job of keeping the trunk of the body in an erect posture. It is the chief antigravity muscle that aids in walking up stairs. Heart The hardest working muscle is the heart. It pumps out 2 ounces (71 grams) of blood at every heartbeat. Daily the heart pumps at least 2,500 gallons (9,450 liters) of blood. The heart has the ability to beat over 3 billion times in a persons life. Masseter The strongest muscle based on its weight is the masseter. With all muscles of the jaw working together it can close the teeth with a force as great as 55 pounds (25 kilograms) on the incisors or 200 pounds (90.7 kilograms) on the molars. Muscles of the Uterus The uterus sits in the lower pelvic region. Its muscles are deemed strong because they contract to push a baby through the birth canal. The pituitary gland secretes the hormone oxytocin, which stimulates the contractions. Soleus The muscle that can pull with the greatest force is the soleus. It is found below the gastrocnemius (calf muscle). The soleus is very important for walking, running, and dancing. It is considered a very powerful muscle along with calf muscles because it pulls against the force of gravity to keep the body upright. This muscle keeps an individual from falling backwards. Tongue The tongue is a tough worker. It is made up of groups of muscles and like the heart it is always working. It helps in the mixing process of foods. It binds and contorts itself to form letters. The tongue contains linguinal tonsils that filter out germs. Even when a person sleeps, the tongue is constantly pushing saliva down the throat.

Antarctica is the only continent without reptiles or snakes. An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it. In the Caribbean there are oysters that can climb trees. Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair. The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.

When George Lucas was mixing the American Graffiti soundtrack, he numbered the reels of film starting with an R and numbered the dialog starting with a D. Sound designer Walter Murch asked George for Reel 2, Dialog 2 by saying "R2D2". George liked the way that sounded so much he integrated that into another project he was working on. The youngest pope was 11 years old. Mark Twain didn't graduate from elementary school. Proportional to their weight, men are stronger than horses. Pilgrims ate popcorn at the first Thanksgiving dinner. They have square watermelons in Japan - they stack better. Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation. Heinz Catsup leaving the bottle travels at 25 miles per year. It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs. Armadillos can be housebroken. The first Fords had engines made by Dodge. A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night. Peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite. Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone. A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside. A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove. A hummingbird weighs less than a penny. Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it is known as Tennessee. The flashing warning light on the cylindrical Capitol Records tower spells out HOLLYWOOD in Morse code. Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie. The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year. One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television. The average American will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year. Over 1,000 birds a year die from smashing into windows. The State of Florida is bigger than England. Ants stretch when they wake up in the morning.

It's against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland. Thomas Edison, light bulb inventor, was afraid of the dark. During your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds of food. That's the weight of about 6 elephants. Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food. Dolphins sleep with one eye open. The world's oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old. In space, astronauts cannot cry, because there is no gravity, so the tears can't flow. About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30. More people use blue toothbrushes than red ones. A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h. Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe. In the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons. Slugs have 4 noses. Recycling one glass jar saves enough energy to watch TV for 3 hours. Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet. Owls are the only birds who can see the color blue. The average American drinks about 600 sodas a year. It's against the law to slam your car door in Switzerland. There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses. Honeybees have hair on their eyes. A jellyfish is 95 percent water. In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals. A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate. The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump. The penguin is the only bird who can swim, but not fly. The most common name in the world is Mohammed. Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States. America once issued a 5-cent bill.

You'll eat about 35,000 cookies in your lifetime. Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep him cool. He changed it every 2 innings. Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying. The pitches that Babe Ruth hit for his last-ever homerun and that Joe DiMaggio hit for his first-ever homerun where thrown by the same man. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave. The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head. In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs. There are over 52.6 million dogs in the U.S. Dogs and cats consume almost $7 billion worth of pet food a year. Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day. The Pentagon has twice as many restrooms as necessary. When it was built, segregation was still in place in Virginia, so separate restrooms for blacks and whites were required by law. In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin. In 2003, there were 86 days of below-freezing weather in Hell, Michigan It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was written. In Psalms 46, the 46th word from the first word is "shake" and the 46th word from the last word is "spear". If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat it measures 87 feet long. The strength of early lasers was measured in Gillettes, the number of blue razor blades a given beam could puncture. The drive-through line on opening day at the McDonald's restaurant in Kuwait City, Kuwait was at times seven miles long. Point Roberts in Washington State is cut off from the rest of the state by British Columbia, Canada. If you wish to travel from Point Roberts to the rest of the state or vice versa, you must pass through Canada, including both Canadian and U.S. customs. The Pentagon in Washington, D. C. has five sides, five stories, and five acres in the middle. Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar with "Midnight Cowboy." Her entire role lasted only six minutes.

There is an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which has a winter population of 200. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321 Newborn babies are given to the wrong mother in the hospital 12 times a day worldwide. The Starbucks at the highest elevation is on Main Street in Breckenridge, Colorado. Each year, over 1,000,000 people fail to itemize out the mortgage interest deduction on their income taxes. Last year, this amounted to $473,000,000 in taxes. In 1998, more fast-food employees were murdered on the job than police officers. The lead singer of The Knack, famous for "My Sharona," and Jack Kevorkian's lead defense attorney are brothers, Doug and Jeffrey Feiger. Two very popular and common objects have the same function, but one has thousands of moving parts, while the other has absolutely no moving parts - an hourglass and a sundial. One out of three employees who received a promotion use a coffee mug with the company logo on it. If you know a (male) millionaire who happens to be married, The most likely profession of his wife is a teacher. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. 1 pound of lemons contain more sugar than 1 pound of strawberries. The "you are here" arrow on maps is called an ideo locator. 60% of all US potato products originate in Idaho. 61,000 people are airborne over the US at any given time. A flamingo can eat only when its head is upside down. Mark Twain was born on a day in 1835 when Halley's Comet came into view. When he died in 1910, Halley's Comet was in view again. The Weddell seal can travel underwater for seven miles without surfacing for air. In 1963, baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, "They'll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run." On July 20, 1969, a few hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Gaylord Perry hit his first (and only) home run. The longest words in the English language with only one syllable are the nine-letter "screeched" and "strengths". Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eye". All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" read 4:20. A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.

A snail can have about 25,000 teeth. A snail can also sleep for three years. A starfish can turn its stomach inside out. A strand from the web of a golden spider is as strong as a steel wire of the same size. A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans. About a third of all Americans flush the toilet while they're still sitting on it. According to Genesis 1:20-22 the chicken came before the egg. Soldiers from every country salute with their right hand. The microwave oven was invented by mistake when an engineer testing a magnetron tube noticed that the radiation from it melted the chocolate bar he had in his pocket. Moisture, not air, causes super glue to dry. Only 14% of Americans say they've skinny dipped with the opposite sex. "60 Minutes" on CBS is the only TV show to not have a theme song or music. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of their birthplace. Most boat owners name their boats. The most popular boat name requested is Obsession. 100% of all lottery winners gain weight. An average American will spend an average of 6 months during his lifetime waiting at red lights. The Olympic flag's colors are always red, black, blue, green and yellow rings on a field of white. This is because at least one of those colors appears on the flag of every nation on the planet. Cats can hear ultrasound. In a recent survey, Americans revealed that banana was their favorite smell. In all three Godfather films, when you see oranges, there is a death (or a very close call) coming up soon. If you were to spell out numbers, you would you have to go until 1,000 until you would find the letter "A". 23% of employees say they have had sex in the office. Bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers were all invented by women. Married men change their underwear twice as often as single men. There are more collect calls on Father's Day than any other day of the year. Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots. 40% of all people who come to a party in your home snoop in your medicine cabinet.

3.9% of all women surveyed say they never wear underwear. Superman is featured on every episode of "Seinfeld", either by name or pictures on Jerry's refrigerator. 85% of the men who cheat on their wives die while having sex. Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than for the US Treasury. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served first class. Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28 Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38 Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again: 80 Percentage of American women who say they would marry the same man: 50 Percentage of men who say they are happier after their divorce or separation: 58 Percentage of women who say they are happier: 85 Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches Percentage of bird species that are monogamous: 90 Percentage of mammal species that are monogamous: 3 Chances that a burglary in the United States will be solved: 1 in 7 One third of the land in the United States is owned by the government. The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards Between 1942 and 1944, Academy Awards were made of plaster. John Madden is an accomplished ballroom dancer. In 21 states, Wal-Mart is the single largest employer. Jim Gordon, drummer of Derek and the Dominos ("Layla"), killed his mother with a claw hammer. One of Hewlett Packard's first ideas was an automatic urinal flusher. Eric Clapton did not play the very famous first riff on the song "Layla". That was Duane Allman. Clapton comes in later. There are more cars in Southern California than there are cows in India. The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows. The province of Alberta, Canada is completely free of rats. Illinois has the most personalized license plates of any state.

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States. The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672. The average chocolate bar has 8 insect legs in it. Fleas can jump 130 times higher than their own height. In human terms this is equal to a 6 foot person jumping 780 feet into the air. Snakes are true carnivores as they eat nothing but other animals. They do not eat any type of plant material. There are no venomous snakes in Maine. The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels. This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles. Erosion at the base of Niagara Falls (USA) undermines the shale cliffs and as a result, the falls have receded approximately 7 miles over the last 10,000 years. The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building. North Dakota has never had an earthquake. Alexander Graham Bell (who invented the telephone) also set a world water-speed record of over seventy miles an hour at the age of 72. There is enough fuel in a full tank of a jumbo jet to drive an average car four times around the world. Hawaii is moving toward Japan 4 inches every year. Chimps are the only animals that can recognize themselves in a mirror. The leg bones of a bat are so thin that no bat can walk. If you keep a goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white. In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak. Almonds are members of the peach family. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day. One person in two billion will live to be 116 or older. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon. More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes. The dot that appears over the letter "i" is called a tittle. All major league baseball umpires must wear black underwear while on the job (in case their pants split). The Spanish word esposa means "wife." The plural, esposas, means "wives," but also "handcuffs." If all Americans used one third less ice in their drinks the United States would become a net exporter instead of an importer of energy. If the Nile River were stretched across the United States, it would run nearly from New York to Los Angeles. San Francisco cable cars are the only National Monuments that move. The Hoover Dam was built to last 2,000 years. Its concrete will not be fully cured for another 500 years. Abraham Lincoln's dog, Fido, was assassinated too. All of David Letterman's suits are custom made - there are no creases in his suit trousers. Cranberry Jell-O is the only flavor that contains real fruit flavoring. Fewer than half of the 16,200 major league baseball players have ever hit a home run. In comic strips, the person on the left always speaks first. Richard Versalle, a tenor performing at New York's Metropolitan Opera House, suffered a heart attack and fell 10 feet from a ladder to the stage just after singing the line "You can only live so long." If the entire population of earth was reduced to exactly 100 people, 51% would be female, 49% male; 50% of the world's currency would be held by 6 people, one person would be nearly dead, one nearly born. In 1920, Babe Ruth out-homered every American League team. Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool, England, but only in tropical fish stores. Toxic house plants poison more children than household chemicals. The original name of Bank of America was Bank of Italy. The ant, when intoxicated, will always fall over to its right side. The California Department of Motor Vehicles has issued six driver's licenses to six different people named Jesus Christ. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike each year than all the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined. People in China and Japan die disproportionately on the 4th of each month because the words death and four sound alike, and they are represented by the same symbol.

Chicago is closer to Moscow than it is to Rio de Janeiro. Dogs have two sets of teeth, just like humans. They first have 30 "puppy" teeth, then 42 adult teeth. In 1950, President Harry Truman threw out the first ball twice at the opening day Washington DC baseball game; once right handed and once left handed. A Swiss ski resort announced it would combat global warming by wrapping its mountain glaciers in aluminum foil to keep them from melting. The chameleon has a tongue that is one and a half times the length of his body. Beethoven dipped his head in cold water before he composed. There once was a town named "6" in West Virginia. Ten years ago, only 500 people in China could ski. This year, an estimated 5,000,000 Chinese will visit ski resorts. In 1920, Babe Ruth broke the single season home run record, with 29. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 30 home runs. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 40 home runs. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 50 home runs. A Nigerian woman was caught entering the UK with 104 kg of snails in her baggage. Profanity is typically cut from in-flight movies to make them suitable for general audiences. Fox Searchlight Pictures has substituted "Ashcroft" for "A**hole" in the movie Sideways when dubbed for Aerolineas Argentinas flights. Author Hunter S. Thompson, who committed suicide recently, wanted to be cremated and his ashes to be shot out of a cannon on his ranch. Sports Illustrated magazine allows subscribers to opt out of receiving the famous swimsuit issue each year. Fewer than 1% choose this option. There is a company that will (for $14,000) take your ashes, compress them into a synthetic diamond to be set in jewelry for a loved one. The RIAA sued an 83 year old woman for downloading music illegally, even though a copy of her death certificate was sent to the RIAA a week before it filed the suit. Two 1903 paintings recently sold at auction for $590,000 - the paintings were in the famous "Dogs Playing Poker" series. Russian scientists have developed a new drug that prolongs drunkenness and enhances intoxication. Romanian firefighters could not get their trucks close enough to a burning building, so they put out the fire by throwing snowballs at it. A perfect SAT score is 1600 combined. Bill Gates scored 1590 on his SAT. Paul Allen, Bill's partner in Microsoft, scored a perfect 1600. Bill Cosby scored less than 500 combined. Motorists traveling outside Salem, Oregon saw one of the "litter cleanup" signs crediting the American Nazi party. Marion County officials had no choice but to let that group into the adopt-a-road program. The $500 per sign was picked up by Oregon taxpayers. The Ku Klux Klan is also involved in the adopt-a-road program in the state of Arkansas.

Spam filters that catch the word "cialis" will not allow many work-related e-mails through because that word is embedded inside the word "specialist". McDonald's restaurants will buy 54,000,000 pounds of fresh apples this year. Two years ago, McDonald's purchased 0 pounds of apples. This is attributed to the shift to more healthy menu options (the Apple Pie, which has been at McDonald's for years uses processed Apple Pie Filling). The biggest dog on record was an Old English Mastiff that weighed 343 pounds. He was 8 feet, 3 inches from nose to tail. Mailmen in Russia now carry revolvers after a recent decision by the government. All of Queen Anne's 17 children died before she did. There are over 87,000 Americans on waiting lists for organ transplants. American made parts account for only 1% of the Chrysler Crossfire. 96% of the Ford F-150 Heritage Truck is American. A Dutch court ruled that a bank robber could deduct the 2,000 Euros he paid for his pistol from the 6,600 Euros he has to return to the bank he robbed. The average child recognizes over 200 company logos by the time he enters first grade. Last December, the House of Representatives earmarked $50,000,000 to create an indoor rain forest in Iowa. Amusement park attendance goes up after a fatal accident. It seems many people want to ride upon the same ride that killed someone. For every ton of fish that is caught in all the oceans on our planet, there are three tons of garbage dumped into the oceans. June Foray did the voice for Rocky the Flying Squirrel and the Chatty Cathy dolls. Japanese and Chinese people die on the fourth of the month more often than any other dates. The reason may be that they are "scared to death" by the number four. The words four and death sound alike in both Chinese and Japanese. People with initials that spell out GOD or ACE are likely to live longer than people whose initials spell out words like APE, PIG, or RAT. More people in the United States die during the first week of the month than during the last, an increase that may be a result of the abuse of substances purchased with benefit checks that come at the beginning of each month. In the film Forrest Gump, all the still photos show Forrest with his eyes closed. There are an average of 18,000,000 items for sale at any time on EBay. The New York Times reports that in February 2004, 62% of all e-mail was spam. U.K. telecom provider Telewest Broadband is testing a device that hooks to your PC and wafts a scent when certain e-mails arrive.

In 1993, David McLean developed lung cancer. He died on October 12, 1995. McLean's death made him the second Marlboro Man to die of lung cancer. Another actor, Wayne McLaren, died in 1992 at the age of 51 from lung cancer. There is a bar in London that sells vaporized vodka, which is inhaled instead of sipped. According to market research firm NPD Fashionworld, fifty percent of all lingerie purchases are returned to the store. On EBay, there are an average of $680 worth of transactions each second. The Eiffel Tower shrinks 6 inches in winter. The first FAX machine was patented in 1843, 33 years before Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone. 72% of Americans sign their pets' names on greeting cards they send out. In an effort to encourage the use of nuclear energy, the United States lent highly enriched uranium to countries all over the world between 1950 and 1988. Enough weapons-grade material to make 1,000 nuclear bombs has still not been returned by such countries as Pakistan, Iran, Israel and South Africa. Homing pigeons use roads where possible to help find their way home. In fact, some pigeons followed roads so closely that they actually flew around traffic circles before choosing the exit that led them home. A snowflake can take up to a hour to fall from the cloud to the surface of the Earth. Only 5 percent of the ocean floor has been mapped in as much detail as the surface of Mars. The only people whose likenesses adorn Pez dispensers are Betsy Ross and Paul Revere. Pain is measured in units of "dols". The instrument used to measure pain is a "dolorimeter". In a nod to astronauts, Texas is the only state that permits residents to cast absentee ballots from space. Eleven top executives of the Direct Marketing Association (the telemarketers' group that is trying to kill the federal "Do Not Call" list) have registered for the list themselves. An iceberg the size of Long Island, New York, has broken off Antarctica and has blocked sea lanes used by both ships and penguins. In 2003, the Transportation Security Administration dropped a requirement that air marshals pass a marksmanship test. Some applicants were even hired after they repeatedly shot flight attendants in mock hijacking episodes. As of January 2004, the United States economy now borrows $1,500,000,000 each day from foreign investors. A Costa Rican worker who makes baseballs earns about $2,750 annually. The average American pro baseball player earns $2,377,000 per year. Former keyboard player for Jethro Tull David Palmer is now a woman named Dee Palmer. He waited until his wife died before going through with his longtime desire for a sex change. During Bill Clinton's entire eight year presidency, he only sent two e-mails. One was to John Glenn when he was aboard the space shuttle, and the other was a test of the e-mail system.

Albert Einstein never knew how to drive a car. The UK's best selling hiking magazine published faulty coordinates for descending Scotland's tallest peak (Ben Nevis), and recommended a route that leads climbers off the edge of a cliff. The Mars Rover "Spirit" is powered by six small motors the size of "C" batteries. It has a top speed of 0.1 mph. Zeppo Marx (the unfunny one of the Marx Brothers) had a patent for a wristwatch with a heart monitor. The entire town of Capena, Italy (including children as young as 2 years old) lights up cigarettes each year in honor of St. Anthony's Day. This tradition is centuries old. Microsoft threatened 17 year old Mike Rowe with a lawsuit after the young man launched a website named MikeRoweSoft.com. As of January 1, 2004, the population of the United States increases by one person every 12 seconds. There is a birth every eight seconds, an immigrant is added every 25 seconds, but a death every 13 seconds. There is a Starbucks in Myungdong, South Korea that is five stories tall. There has been no mail delivery in Canada on Saturday for the last thirty five years. The weight of air in a milk glass is about the same as the weight of an aspirin tablet. The world's smallest winged insect is the Tanzanian parasitic wasp. It's smaller than the eye of a housefly. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey. The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher. If you have three quarters, four dimes and four cents, you have $1.19. But you cannot make exact change for a dollar. There are more plastic flamingoes in the United States than real ones. The chance that you will die on the way to buy your lottery ticket is greater than the chance of you winning the big prize in most lotteries. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance. Dolly Parton once lost a Dolly Parton Look-Alike contest. An average of 100 people choke to death on ball point pens each year. The National Anthem of Greece has 158 verses. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.

The Bible has been translated into Klingon. Toto was paid $125 per week while filming the "Wizard of Oz". All polar bears are left handed. To help reduce budget deficits, several states have begun reducing the amount of food served to prison inmates. In Texas, the number of daily calories served to prisoners was cut by 300, saving the state $6,000,000 per year. The only member of the band ZZ Top without a beard has the last name Beard. Pope John Paul II is the world's Scrabble champion in the over-70 category. Montpelier, Vermont is the only state capitol without a McDonald's. In 1993, the board of governors at Carl Karcher Enterprises voted (5 to 2) to fire Carl Karcher. Carl Karcher is the founder of Carls Jr. restaurants. The little hole in the sink that lets the water drain out, instead of flowing over the side, is called a "porcelator." The wingspan of a Boeing 747 jet is longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight. Ted Turner owns 5% of New Mexico. Over 8 years, this happened 284 times: "Cosmo" Kramer went through Jerry Seinfeld's apartment door. The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth 2 moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel fuel that it burns. There are more 100 dollar bills in Russia currently than there are in the United States. It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky. 65% of Elvis impersonators are of Asian descent. Burt Reynolds was originally cast to be Han Solo in the first Star Wars film. He dropped out before filming. Pope John Paul II was named an "Honorary Harlem Globetrotter" in 2000. ThereTelevision stations hung banners at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, including AlJazeera, until it was noticed and taken down. A woman was chewing what was left of her chocolate bar when she entered a Metro station in Washington DC. She was arrested and handcuffed; eating is prohibited in Metro stations. The New York City subway system, in an effort to raise revenue, is considering selling sponsorships of individual stations to corporations. Riders could soon be getting off at Nike Grand Central Station or Sony Times Square. The Nike swoosh was designed by a Portland State University student, and purchased by Nike for $35. Gerald Ford once worked as a cover model for Cosmopolitan magazine. Gillette spent $1,000,000 to place razor samples in the welcome bags handed out at the Democratic National Convention, only to have them confiscated as they were considered a threat. This caused huge

delays at all security checkpoints. Quebec City, Canada, has about as much street crime as Disney World. Jim Carrey voted in 2004 at the Beverly Hills City Hall. He had an assistant wait in line for him, however. As part of a charity event, 500 cats were spayed and neutered in the cafeteria of an elementary school. School was cancelled for days and $10,000 was spent on cleaning and sterilizing the room. The United States has five percent of the world's population, but twenty-five percent of the world's prison population. The largest McDonald's is in Beijing, China - measuring 28,000 square feet. It has twenty nine cash registers. A house in Baghdad worth $15,000 before the Iraq war now sells for $120,000 to $150,000. There are between 5,000 and 7,000 tigers kept as pets in the United States. The fertility rate in states that voted for George Bush is 12% higher than states that favored John Kerry. The chicken is one of the few things that man eats before it's born and after it's dead. The number of US college students studying Latin is three times the number studying Arabic. If you hook Jell-O up to an EEG, it registers movements almost identical to a human adult's brain waves. Some dogs can predict when a child will have an epileptic seizure, and even protect the child from injury. They're not trained to do this, they simply learn to respond after observing at least one attack. 32 out of 33 samples of well-known brands of milk purchased in Los Angeles and Orange counties in California had trace amounts of perchlorate. Perchlorate is the explosive component in rocket fuel. The remains of 125 people will be launched into space where they will orbit the Earth for centuries. The leading cause of on-the-job deaths in workplaces in America is homicide. So far, Congress has authorized $152,600,000,000 for the Iraq war. This is enough to build over 17,500 elementary schools. Americans take an average of just ten days per year vacation. In France, the law guarantees everyone five weeks of vacation, and most full-time workers get two full months vacation. The IRS admits that one in five people who call their help line get the wrong answer to their question. 20% of Americans think that the sun orbits around the Earth. Harry S Truman's middle name was S. Just S, without the period. (thanks to Eric Snyder) Van Halen singer David Lee Roth trained to be an EMT in New York City, and planned to be certified by November 2004. The thong accounts for 25% of the United States women's underwear market. On average, 40% of all hotel rooms in the United States remain empty every night.

When you hear a bullwhip snap, it's because the tip is traveling faster than the speed of sound. There is a new television show on a British cable called "Watching Paint Dry". Viewers watch in real-time. Gloss, semi-gloss, matte, satin, you name it. Then viewers vote out their least favorite. The largest ocean liners pay a $250,000 toll for each trip through the Panama Canal. The canal generates fully one-third of Panama's entire economy. French author Michel Thaler published a 233 page novel which has no verbs. The spring thaw finally allows cemeteries in Alaska to start digging graves for those who died during the winter. When Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen turned 18 in mid-2004, they took official control of a company worth more than the gross national product of Mongolia. Their earnings in 2003 topped $1 billion. Orthodox rabbis warned that New York City drinking water might not be kosher; it contains harmless micro-organisms that are technically shellfish. David Bowie thinks he is being stalked by someone who is dressed like a giant pink rabbit. Bowie has noticed the fan at several recent concerts, but he became alarmed when he got on a plane and the bunny was on board. A party boat filled with 60 men and women capsized in Texas after all the passengers rushed to one side as the boat passed a nude beach. In 1997, a woman in Bradenton, Florida lost her cat. In 2004, she got a call from the local animal shelter. The cat turned up wandering the streets in San Francisco, California. The cat's identity was proven with a microchip that had been implanted prior to 1997. Almost 20% of the billions of dollars American taxpayers are spending to rebuild Iraq are lost to theft, kickbacks and corruption. The treasury department has more than twenty people assigned to catching people who violate the trade and tourism embargo with Cuba. In contrast, it has only four employees assigned to track the assets of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. There are 40,000 New York City cab drivers, who collectively drive more than a million miles each day. An estimated 800,000 senior citizens voluntarily give up their driving privileges each year. The average age at which they surrender the wheel is 85. More than 8,100 US troops are still listed as missing in action from the Korean war. 3,400,000 Americans are considered "Extreme Commuters". These people commute over 90 minutes round trip every day to work. 82% of Americans made a purchase at Wal-Mart in 2002. Oslo, Norway is the world's most expensive city. A gallon on gas costs almost $5, and it costs $1.32 to use the public restrooms. Villanova University's commencement speaker this year is the actor who plays Big Bird. In 1965, auditions were held for the "Monkees" TV show. Some of the people who responded (but were not hired) were Stephen Stills, Harry Nilsson, Paul Williams and Charles Manson.

Kevin Spacey's older brother is a professional Rod Stewart impersonator. 71% of office workers stopped on the street for a survey agreed to give up their computer passwords in exchange for a chocolate bar. George W. Bush and John Kerry are 16th cousins, three times removed. If current trends continue, Medicare costs will absorb 51% of all income tax revenues by 2042. The prison system is the largest supplier of mental health services in America, with 250,000 Americans with mental illness living there. Researchers have found that doctors who spend at least three hours a week playing video games make about 37% fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery than surgeons who didn't play video games. Before he had his own show, Jerry Seinfeld appeared on three episodes of the TV show "Benson" as the governor's speechwriter. There are 1,008 McDonald's franchises in France. Hostess Twinkies were originally filled with banana filling. The filling was changed during World War II when the United States experienced a banana shortage. World War II veterans are now dying at the rate of about 1,100 each day. George W. Bush is probably going to be the eighth president in US history to have completed a term in office without ever having issued a single veto. A deployed air bag adds as much as $2,000 to the cost of repairing a vehicle. That's enough for insurance companies to often declare the car "totaled". For the first time in history, the number of people on the planet aged 60 or over will soon surpass those under 5. One out of five people in the world (1.1 billion people) live on less than $1 per day. The Swedish pop group ABBA recently turned down an offer of $2 billion to reunite. The New Yorker magazine now has more subscribers in California than New York. Five years ago, 60% of all retail purchases were made with cash or check. Now it's 50%. By 2010, 39% of purchases will be made by cash or check. 35 Billion e-mails are sent each day throughout the world. The richest self-made American under 40 is Michael Dell, chairman of Dell Computers. He is worth $18 billion. Legislators in Santa Fe, New Mexico, are considering a law that would require pets to wear seat belts when traveling in a car. Life Savers got their shape by a malfunctioning machine, which mistakenly punched a hole in the center of each candy. SUV sales are up 18% in the first quarter of 2004 vs. the same period of 2003, even though gas prices

are skyrocketing. Consumer surveys show that gas prices would have to hit $3.75 per gallon before there will be any real impact on SUV sales. Airport security agents at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts caught a passenger trying to sneak a severed seal head onto a plane inside a cooler. The man said he was a biology professor and had found the dead animal on the beach. Jimmy Carter once reported a UFO in Georgia. There are 150,000,000 cell phones in use in the United States, more than one per every two human beings in the country. A Boeing 767 airliner is made of 3,100,000 separate parts. Only 6% of the autographs in circulation from members of the Beatles are estimated to be real. The time spent deleting SPAM costs United States businesses $21.6 billion annually. 60.7 percent of eligible voters participated in the 2004 presidential election, the highest percentage in 36 years. However, more than 78 million did not vote. This means President Bush won re-election by receiving votes from less than 31% of all eligible voters in the United States. John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, loved to skinny dip in the Potomac River. La Paz, Bolivia has an average annual temperature below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. However, it has never recorded a zero-degree temperature. Same for Stanley, Falkland Islands and Punta Arenas, Chile. 41% of Chinese people eat at least once a week at a fast food restaurant. 35% of Americans do. A Wisconsin forklift operator for a Miller beer distributor was fired when a picture was published in a newspaper showing him drinking a Bud Light. G-rated family films earn more money than any other rating. Yet only 3% of Hollywood's output is G-rated. Richard Hatch, winner of the first "Survivor" reality series, has been charged with tax evasion for failing to report his $1,000,000 prize. The entire fleet of Unicoi County Tennessee's salt trucks was rendered out of commission in one accident. All three trucks were badly damaged when one of them began skidding down a road, causing a chain reaction accident. Officials blamed road conditions. More people study English in China than speak it in the United States of America (300 million). Fast food provider Hardee's has recently introduced the Monster Thickburger. It has 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat. More than 2,500 left-handed people are killed each year from using products that are made for righthanded people. For every person on earth, there are an estimated 200 million insects. There are 2,000,000 millionaires in the United States. 1.5 million Americans are charged with drunk driving each year. A Georgia company will mix your loved one's ashes with cement and drop it into the ocean to form an

artificial reef. The Washington Times newspaper is owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. The busiest shopping hour of the holiday season is between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm on Christmas Eve. In 2002, women earned 742,000 bachelor's degrees. Men earned only 550,000 during the same year. The difference is growing so large that many colleges now practice (quietly) affirmative action for male applicants. Most of the deck chairs on the Queen Mary 2 have had to be replaced because overweight Americans were breaking them. Actor Bill Murray doesn't have a publicist or an agent. The day after President George W. Bush was reelected, Canada's main immigration website had 115,000 visitors. Before Bush's re-election, this site averaged about 20,000 visitors each day. Only 30% of stolen artwork worth more than $1,000,000 each is recovered. The typical American child receives 70 new toys a year, most of them during the holiday season. 90% of Canada's 31,000,000 citizens live within 100 miles of the U.S. border. Costco is the largest wine retailer in the United States. Annual wine sales are about $700 million. The worst air polluter in the entire state of Washington is Mount St. Helens. There are less than 100 surviving American World War I veterans. Actor Bruce Willis has filed a lawsuit against the movie studio that produced his film "Tears of the Sun", alleging he was struck in the forehead by a fake bullet. Since 2002 (when the movie was in production), the lawsuit claims he has endured "extreme mental, physical, and emotional pain and suffering". A ten year old mattress weighs double what it did when it was new, because of the -ahem- debris which is absorbed through the years. That debris includes dust mites (their droppings and their decaying bodies), mold, millions of dead skin cells, dandruff, animal and human hair, secretions, excretions, lint, pollen, dust, soil, sand and a lot of perspiration, of which the average person loses a quart per day. Good night! About 20% of gift cards never are redeemed at the full value of the card. John Kerry's hometown newspaper, the Lowell Sun, endorsed George W. Bush for president in 2004. Bush's hometown newspaper, the Lone Star Iconoclast, endorsed John Kerry for president in 2004. Only 939 of the 1,400,000 high school seniors who took the SAT in 2004 got a perfect score of 1600. Two of them are twin brothers Dillon and Jesse Smith from Long Island, NY. Billboard magazine has recently launched a top 20 chart of cell phone ringtones. The US Army is handing out $2,500 to Fallujah residents whose property was destroyed by US planes and artillery. George W. Bush, who presents himself as a man of faith, rarely goes to church. Yet he received votes from nearly two out of three voters who attend church at least once a week. In 2015, it is estimated that half the federal budget will be spent on programs for the elderly.

A private elementary school in Alexandria, Virginia, accidentally served margaritas to its schoolchildren, thinking it was limeade. The Chicago Cubs are suing former Hartford Courant newspaper carrier Mark Guthrie to get back $301,000 in pay that was intended to go to a Cubs pitcher with the same name. The Tribune Company owns both the Hartford Courant and the Chicago Cubs. In February 2004, a Disney World employee was killed when he fell from a parade float and was trapped between two float sections. OSHA termed this a serious workplace violation, but Disney was fined only $6,300. Even today, 90% of the continental United States is still open space or farmland. The second Saturday in September is usually a popular time for weddings. Not in 2004, as most couples did not want their anniversaries on September 11. Mel Gibson has personally earned almost $400,000,000 from his movie "The Passion of the Christ". Austin High School in Texas has removed candy from its vending machines. Now some enterprising students are earning $200 per week dealing in black market candy. In 2004, Virgin Atlantic Airlines introduced a double bed for first class passengers who fly together. The world's largest book, "Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey" is in a Chicago public library. The book measures 5 feet tall by 7 feet wide when open. It weighs 133 pounds. If the recent U.S. election was held in Canada, John Kerry would have beaten George Bush in a landslide - 64% to 19%. Oprah Winfrey and Elvis Presley are distant cousins. 55% of Americans claim they would continue working even if they received a $10,000,000 lottery prize. The company that manufactures the greatest number of women's dresses each year is Mattel. Barbie's got to wear something. All radios in North Korea have been rigged so listeners can only receive a North Korean government station. The United States recently announced plans to smuggle $2,000,000 worth of small radios into the country so North Koreans can get a taste of (what their government calls) "rotten imperialist reactionary culture". La Paz, Bolivia is the world's most fireproof city. At 12,000 feet about sea level, the amount of oxygen in the air barely supports a flame. The estates of 22 dead celebrities earned over $5 million in 2004. These celebrities include Elvis Presley, Dr. Seuss, Charles Schulz, J.R.R. Tolkien and John Lennon. George Washington spent about 7% of his annual salary on liquor. Each year, more people are killed by teddy bears than by grizzly bears. If you disassembled the Great Pyramid of Cheops, you would get enough stones to encircle the earth with a brick wall twenty inches high. Nearly one third of New York City public school teachers send their own children to private schools.

The New York City Police Department has a $3.3 billion annual budget, larger than all but 19 of the world's armies. CBS's fine for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" in the 2004 Super Bowl show was $550,000. This could be paid with only 7.5 seconds of commercial time during the same Super Bowl telecast. In September 2004, a Minnesota state trooper issued a speeding ticket to a motorcyclist who was clocked at 205 mph. Al Gore's roommate in college (Harvard, class of 1969) was Tommy Lee Jones. In her later years, Florence Nightingale kept a pet owl in her pocket. The New York Jets were unable to find hotel rooms for a game in Indianapolis recently because they had all been booked up by people attending Gencon, a gaming convention. China is the world's largest market for BMW's top of the line 760Li. This car sells for $200,000 in China more than almost all people in China make in a lifetime. A chef's hat is shaped the way it is for a reason: its shape allows air to circulate around the scalp, keeping the head cool in a hot kitchen. Life expectancy for Russian men has actually gone down over the past 40 years. A Russian male born today can expect to live an average 58 years. Each year, sixteen million gallons of oil run off pavement into streams, rivers and eventually oceans in the United States. This is more oil than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez. An employee of the Alabama Department of Transportation installed spyware on his boss's computer and proved that the boss spent 10% of his time working (20% of time checking stocks and 70% of the time playing solitaire). The employee was fired, the boss kept his job. Solid structures (parking lots, roads, buildings) in the United States cover an area the size of Ohio. A Brussels Airlines flight to Vienna was aborted because the pilot was attacked in the cockpit. The attacker was a passenger's cat, who got out of its travel bag. Physicists have already performed a simple type of teleportation, transferring the quantum characteristics of one atom onto another atom at a different location. At General Motors, the cost of health care for employees now exceeds the cost of steel. There is a regulation size half-court where employees can play basketball inside the Matterhorn at Disneyland.

Wacky Science Facts

One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second. You can listen to thunder after lightning and tell how close you came to getting hit. If you don't hear it, you got hit, so never mind. Talc is found on rocks and on babies. The law of gravity says "no fair jumping up without coming back down". When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions. When people run around and around in circles we say they are crazy. When planets do it we say they are orbiting. Rainbows are just to look at, not to really understand. While the earth seems to be knowingly keeping its distance from the sun, it is really only centrificating. Someday we may discover how to make magnets that can point in any direction. South America has cold summers and hot winters, but somehow they still manage. Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change back into a sun in the daytime. Water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees. There are 180 degrees between freezing and boiling because there are 180 degrees between north and south. A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which way it wants to go. There are 26 vitamins in all, but some of the letters are yet to be discovered. Finding them all means living forever. There is a tremendous weight pushing down on the center of the Earth because of so much population stomping around up there these days. Lime is a green-tasting rock. Many dead animals in the past changed to fossils while others preferred to be oil. Genetics explain why you look like your father and if you don't why you should. Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them know we know they're there. Some oxygen molecules help fires burn while others help make water, so sometimes it's brother against brother. Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun. But I have never been able to make out the numbers. We say the cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation. Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things people forget to put the top on.

To most people solutions mean finding the answers. But to chemists solutions are things that are still all mixed up. In looking at a drop of water under a microscope, we find there are twice as many H's as O's. Clouds are high flying fogs. I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it, and that is the important thing. Clouds just keep circling the earth around and around. And around. There is not much else to do. Water vapor gets together in a cloud. When it is big enough to be called a drop, it does. Humidity is the experience of looking for air and finding water. We keep track of the humidity in the air so we won't drown when we breathe. Rain is often known as soft water, oppositely known as hail. Rain is saved up in cloud banks. In some rocks you can find the fossil footprints of fishes. Cyanide is so poisonous that one drop of it on a dogs tongue will kill the strongest man. A blizzard is when it snows sideways. A hurricane is a breeze of a bigly size. A monsoon is a French gentleman. Thunder is a rich source of loudness. Isotherms and isobars are even more important than their names sound. It is so hot in some places that the people there have to live in other places