This and That
Issue: 4.01 this is column 115
January 1, 2003
Factoids

1. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
2. A snail can sleep for three years.
3. Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
4. Butterflies taste with their feet.
5. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10.
6. February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
7. If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
8. In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
9. Leonardo DiVinci invented the scissors.
10. No word in the English language rhymes with month or orange.
11. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
12. Shakespeare invented the word 'assassination' and 'bump'.
13. "Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand, "lollipop" with your right.
14. The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
15. The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.
16. The words 'race car' and 'kayak' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.
17. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
18. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
19. If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of 6 months waiting at a red light.
20. In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch face is 10:10.
21. The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
22. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks; otherwise it will digest itself.
23. There's no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewables.
24. There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."
25. There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs five times: "indivisibility."
26. The Bible does not say there were three wise men; it only says there were three gifts.
27. Did you know that crocodiles never outgrow the pool in which they live? That means that if you put a baby croc in an aquarium, it would be little for the rest of its life.
28. A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle; a group of geese in the air is a skein.
29. A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
30. Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eye".
31. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet.
32. The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "un-copyrightable".
33. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
34. It's impossible to lick your elbow.
35. On average, a human being will have sex more than 3,000 times and spend two weeks kissing in their lifetime.
36. More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.
37. Rats and horses can't vomit.
38. The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language...try it!
39. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
40. In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
41. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
42. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
43. A duck's quack doesn't echo anywhere, and no one knows why.
44. 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their buttocks.
45. In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders.
46. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
47. Cat's urine glows under a black light.
48. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
49. 75% of the people who read this try to lick their elbow.

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