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8 Nov 2009
Fact of the day
Nostradamus wrote 942 quatrains (4 line long poems) in his lifetime which he organised into centuries. Many people believe that he could predict the future and that these poems contain cryptic information about future events.
Random Facts
Reptiles were responsible for such body part innovations as fur, feathers, claws, differentiated teeth, water impervious skin, water impervious eggs, and the penis.
Some areas of Mexico City are sinking by as much as a foot per year.
"Erin go bragh" means "Ireland forever".
Koalas sleep an average of 22 hours a day, two hours more than the sloth.
In 1997 Mexico City registered a maximum 24-hour concentration of 542 micrograms of particles per cubic metre of air, and an ongoing study at Denali National Park shows an average yearly concentration of 1.4 micrograms per cubic meter of air.
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The term "to wear your heart on your sleeve" originated in the Middle Ages when young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their Valentines would be which they would then wear pinned on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.
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A writer who survived a severe earthquake in 1822 in Copiapo, Chile stated he knew that "something uncommon was going to happen, everything seemed to change colour... the whole world appeared to be in disorder", and he "felt quite subdued and overwhelmed by some invisible power, beyond human control or comprehension."
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The risk of dying in an aeroplane crash over a period of one year is about 0.000002, or one in 500,000.
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A series of 'blind tests' with turnips grown through coloured sheeting showed that all but one of the 25 testers described turnips grown through blue sheeting as 'sharp'; white sheeting produced a bland tasting turnip; and green led to a 'mild' and 'almost sweet' vegetable.
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Currently, several "scientific" versions of dowsing rods which purportedly contain actual electronic circuitry, are being sold to government agencies in the USA for very high prices, as much as $14,000.
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The earliest fossil life was found in strata about 3.5 billion years old. These earliest fossils are bacteria like, indeed they are remarkably similar to some blue-green bacteria and other bacteria that are still living.
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If a helium atom could be magnified to be as far across as 30 football fields, its nucleus would only be the size of a ping-pong ball.
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The first evidence for gunpowder is in about the 9th century, and consists of a Taoist warning against mixing saltpetre, sulphur, arsenic compounds, and honey (which supplied carbon), on the grounds that burnt hands, faces, and houses had resulted from the experiment.
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In 1716, Edmond Halley published a paper describing exactly how transits could be used to measure the Sun's distance, thereby establishing the absolute scale of the solar system from Kepler's third law.
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