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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Things They Don't Teach You in School

According to the shirts the boys got for the new school year:

Recycling one glass jar saves enough energy to watch TV for 3 hours
During your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds of food
No piece of square dry paper can be folded in half more than 7 times
Over 2,500 left-handed people a year are killed using products made for right-handed people
There are more than 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying
Camels have three eyelids to protect them from blowing sand
A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove
The Earth weighs around 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons
Owls are one of the only birds that can see the color blue
A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court
You're born with 300 bones, but only have 206 when you are an adult
A giraffe can clean its ears and eyes with its 18-inch tongue 
A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave
The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1
Rice paper has no rice in it
A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second
If you counted 24 hours a day, it would take 31,688 years to reach one trillion
It is impossible to lick your elbows
Girls blink almost twice as much as boys
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet
There are more chickens than people in the world
"Sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the hardest tongue twister
No words rhyme with month, orange, or purple
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open
The average chocolate bar has 8 insect legs in it
A sheet of newspaper can't be folded in half more than 9 times

That's it, don't you feel more educated now?  I will certainly never say "be with you in a jiffy" with the same laissez faire attitude again!

10 comments:

cold cocoa said...

Explain that left-handed death thing? And insect legs in my candy bars? Ew.

I love useless knowledge. I love people who get to come up with these things for their jobs.

LC said...

Are bugs hiding out in the cocoa beans--another reason why chocolate is good for you.

It takes less than a jiffy to say jiffy. Add that one to the list.

Hopefully, I can remember some of these because hey, what great conversation starters while waiting at the dr. office.

TisforTonya said...

okay, check http://www.strangefacts.com/facts1.html for more of these... apparently porcupines float in water, who knew?

Anonymous said...

I'm considering never eating chocolate again ... nah! Thanks for the random trivia. I feel like trying out for Millionaire or something :)

Anonymous said...

Did anyone else blink as they read the one about blinking?

Megz said...

Thanks for the education. We read them together and it was very funny to see all my boys try licking their elbows and sneezing with their eyes open.

Sherie Christensen said...

Now I know all of the things you kept referencing at the cabin. I'll have to read them again when I'm less tired and maybe some will stick. I'm not sure about not having future aerospace engineers -- Jake and Dallin made planes for a week afterwards -- they've got years to perfect them.
Cold Cocoa I'll look for more pictures to send your way now that I've actually read your request.

Anonymous said...

About the left handed thing, to use right handed equipment left handed you usually have to bypass the safety mechanisms making operating the equipment more dangerous.

Anonymous said...

You should add some actual important information. Like, the Tuskegee Experiment. Between 1932-1972 the U.S. gov. did a research study on 399 poor black people with syphilis for the sole purpose of watching how the untreated disease works. Even though they found penicillin helps in the 40's, they continued the study until the '70s without using penicillin to help cure them. And Bin Laden was a CIA agent. How about some important things like that?

Anonymous said...

anonymous of 3/5/10...um yeah. Really great point. way to take a fun thread to craziness. Tuskkagee= true but let me guess, you think the USA exploded the twin towers too! ha. keep conspiratizing! rich laughter for the rest of us!