| 3121/
Sir Isaac Newton was a member of the British Parliament during
the 1689-90 session. The only recorded incident of his speaking
before the august body was when he felt a draft and asked
an usher to close the window.
3122/ When a son, Albert,
was born to Hermann and Pauline Koch Einstein on March 14th
1879 they were distressed that their son's head was misshapen,
and prayed that he was not mentally damaged.
3123/ In 1895, Einstein
entered Zurich Polytechnic Institute in Switzerland. Whilst
there he managed to upset one of his physics teachers, Jean
Pernet, who said of Einstein - "You're enthusiastic,
but hopeless at physics. For your own good, you should switch
to something else, medicine maybe, literature or law".
3124/ Albert Einstein
won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921.
3125/ According to plant
fossils dating to the period from 85 to 100 million years
ago. Alaska had a climate similar to the southern California
coast.
3126/ Algae are microscopic
plant-like organisms that use the energy of sunlight to make
their own food. The many species of algae on Earth capture
more of the sun's energy and produce more oxygen than all
plants combined.
3127/ Today's dog is
the result of the domestication of wolves thousands of years
ago.
3128/ During the 60 minutes
of a hockey game, players can burn 6,000 calories and lose
up to 15 pounds.
3129/ When two NHL hockey
players collide, their pads and body tissues can absorb enough
energy to power a 100-watt light bulb for a minute and a half.
3130/ Though downhill
skis move fast, the friction between a waxed downhill ski
and snow is 10 times greater than that between a steel skate
blade and ice.
3131/ The eruption of
Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 cooled Earth’s temperature for
two years, but some areas of the world experienced warmer
winters the first year after the eruptions. Mt. Pinatubo in
the Philippines spewed sulfur into the atmosphere that spread
around the planet for three weeks.
3134/ Gold is 19.3 times
heavier than water by volume.
3135/ In 1997, researchers
tested the breast milk of Inuit women and found a level of
dioxins two times higher than women from southern Quebec.
3136/ All types of alcohol
drinks contain some methanol, a substance blamed for the worst
hangovers. Whisky, cheap red wine, fruit brandy and other
dark spirits contain the most methanol, sometimes as much
as two percent by volume. Vodka and other clear drinks contain
the least. In the liver, methanol takes 10 times longer than
ethanol to break down.
3137/ The 1918 flu, which
infected 28 percent of people in the United States, killed
675,000 Americans. More than 20 million people died worldwide,
most of them young adults.
3138/ The amount of meltwater
from Alaska’s glaciers since the 1950s is enough to
cover the state with 7 feet of water, or put Texas 15 feet
under.
3139/ When Canadian scientists
flew onto the sea ice to locate the magnetic north pole in
2001, they found it at latitude 81.3° north and longitude
110.8° west, about 155 miles north of Ellef Ringnes Island.
3140/ In Celtic legend,
Morgana was a fairy half-sister of King Arthur who lured sailors
to their deaths by creating mirages of castles in the air,
which they would mistake for a harbour. A fata morgana occurs
when many alternating layers of cold and warm air force light
rays to take a complicated path.
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