| 3321/ Sixty per
cent of the planet is covered by water more than a mile deep.
3322/ HMS Challenger sailed around
the world between 1873 and 1876, covering 68,000 nautical
miles and collected 13,000 plants and animals on its historic
voyage.
3323/ If you take the volume
of the oceans and divided it between every single person on
earth, each person is entitled to 260 million cubic metres
of water; says Paul Tyler, Marine biologist at the Southampton
Oceanography Centre (SOC).
3324/ The majority of marine
life is found in the sunlit or euphotic zone - the upper 200m
- but there are ten times more species in the deeper zones.
3325/ The biggest animal that
has ever lived on the planet, the blue whale, is 30 metres
long and weighs more than 200 tonnes. Its tongue weighs as
much as an elephant, its heart is the size of a car and it
can cruise at 20 knots.
3326/ Because food is sparsely
distributed, many creatures of the deep such as the umbrellamouth
gulper eel, have extendable mouths and stomachs so that they
can swallow prey bigger than themselves.
3327/ There are fewer than ten
submersibles in the world that can take you more than a mile
beneath the ocean surface. (Try getting marine
insurance on those!)
3328/ The deepest point in the
ocean, the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench is 11,000m
(7.3 miles) down. At this point, the pressure is equal to
one person supporting the weight of 50 jumbo jets.
3329/ At one mile underwater
the pressure is more than a ton on every square inch.
3330/ "When you are courting
a nice girl, an hour seems like a second. When you sit on
red-hot cinders, a second seems like an hour. That's relativity"
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955) - Quoted in News Chronicle,
14th March 1949
3331/ Aluminium (with an 'i')
was the official US spelling (and still is in the UK) for
118 years after it was first isolated by Sir Humphry Davy
in 1807. Then in 1925 the American Chemical Society decided
to change it to 'Aluminum' (without an 'i').
3332/ Thomas Edison effectively
founded the silent movie industry when he made a short black
and white film of his employee Fred Ott sneezing. Our brains
interpret a succession of still images, flashing before our
eyes faster than 15 frames per second, as being continuous
movement. When audiences saw the sneeze, they chorused "God
Bless You!" enthusiastically and burst out laughing.
3333/ Originally, the pill was
launched to treat menstrual disorders; the fact that it prevented
conception was pointed out as a side effect.
3334/ Today, three and a half
million women in the UK (a quarter of women of reproductive
age) and 100 million worldwide - rely on the Pill for contraception.
3335/ 33 year old writer Erik
Weihenmayer, if Colorado, was the first blind person to climb
Mount Everest.
3336/ Around 12 million African
children - equivalent to the child population of Great Britain
- are growing up as 'Aids Orphans'. By 2010, that figure could
rise to more than 43 million.
3337/ It is estimated that by
2020, HIV will have caused more deaths than any disease outbreak
in human history and, by 2021, more than 150 million will
be infected worldwide.
3338/ There are 13 species of
otter worldwide, but only one in the UK: the European otter,
Lutra lutra. it's found across Eurasia from Ireland to China,
and into southeast Asia. Otters living inland are identical
to those in the sea.
3339/ In 1909 the Western Clock
Company (soon to be Westclox) began marketing that trustiest
of tickers - the Big Ben alarm clock.
3340/ Enrico Caruso became the
world's first opera star to sell a million records with his
1904 recording of the aria Vesti la gubbia, from
Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.
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