More facts
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 - A circa 1116 B.C. Chinese imperial edict claimed that the use of
alcohol in moderation was required by heaven.

 - The speed of sound in water is about five times faster than the
speed of sound in air. Sound travels at nearly a mile per second in water
in 68 degrees Fahrenheit. That's because sound uses molecules to travel.
Molecules in water are much closer together than those in air, thus
shortening the travel time.

 - The word "shrimp" comes from the German "schrumpfen", meaning
something that has shriveled or gotten smaller - as some store-bought
shrimp seem to do when cooked.

 - Bears are extremely shortsighted creatures, which means they live
mainly in a world of scent and sound.


- The first "dentists" in the world were the Etruscans. They carved
false teeth from various mammal teeth in 700 BC. They also produced
partial bridgework that was strong enough to eat with.

- The average person blinks 25 times in a minute, which works out to
about 13,140,000 blinks each year.

- The smallest book in the Library of Congress is Old King Cole. It is
1/25" x 1/25", or about the size of the period at the end of this
sentence. The pages can only be turned with the use of a needle.

The largest book in the Library of Congress is John James Audubon's Birds
of America, containing many life-size illustrations of birds. The book is
39.37" (1 meter) high.

- Mourning the dead by flying flags at half-mast originated on ships. 
Customarily on ships the rigging was loosened so it appeared in disarray
when honoring the dead, while the custom has been abandoned the flag
tradition continues.

- During the Barnum & Bailey circus fire in 1944, the band began to
play "Stars and Stripes Forever," the circus disaster march, to alert the
performers that the situation was serious and not part of the show.

- Antarctica once had a warmer climate. The presence of coal on the
continent proves an earlier age saw warmer temperatures.


- The cheetah is one of the fastest animals alive, reaching speeds up
to 70 m.p.h. A house cat can run up to 30 m.p.h.; the fastest human goes
about 27.89 m.p.h.

- Roaring and purring are the two best-known noises cats make. Only
four species can roar, and they don't purr: lions, tigers, leopards, and
jaguars.

- The Manhattan cocktail began at the Manhattan Club in New York City
in 1874. Mixed specially for a party in honor of new governor Samuel J.
Tilden, the drink was named for the club.

- Recent studies have supported the common observation that different
colors suggest different moods. Red is usually rated as exciting, blue as
serene, yellow as attention getting, green as positive and black as
powerful.

- In World War II, it was reported that U.S. airmen put cans of ice
cream mix in the rear gunner's compartments of B-29s. The airmen claimed
that the freezing temperatures of high-altitude flight, and the plane's
vibrations, made great ice cream!

- The classic tale of "Little Red Riding Hood" was banned in the town
of Empire, California in 1990. The book cover showed a bottle of wine in
Little Red Riding Hood's basket. The local school board was afraid that
the story encouraged drinking.

- Poison ivy is not really poisonous. It contains highly allergenic
oil called urushoil. Coming in contact with it causes contact dermatitis
(itchy, painful skin). The oil travels well in smoke and can cause
serious medical problems if it gets in the throat and lungs.

- According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, peanut butter
will meet federal safety standards if it contains up to 210 insect
fragments per 700 grams, an average size jar of peanut butter. 
Additionally, that same jar may contain up to seven whole rodent hairs
before being considered unsanitary.

- Entomophagy is the scientific name for insect eating. There are
more than 1,450-recorded species of edible insects. Many species of
insects are lower in fat, higher in protein, and have a better feed to
meat ratio than beef, lamb, pork, or chicken.

100 grams of cricket contains: 
121 calories, 12.9 grams of protein, 5.5 g. of fat, 5.1 g. of
carbohydrates, 75.8 mg. calcium, 185.3 mg. of phosphorous, 9.5 mg. of
iron, 0.36 mg. of thiamin, 1.09 mg. of riboflavin, and 3.10 mg. of niacin.


- The distinctive smell that you experience upon opening a box of
crayons actually comes from stearic acid, which is the formal name for
processed beef fat.

- The Egyptians first invented toothpaste, some 5,000 years ago. It
was a crude mixture of wine and pumice. From the early Roman Empire until
18th-century Europe and America, urine was a main ingredient in
toothpaste, because the ammonia in it is an excellent cleaner. Ammonia is
still a main ingredient in many types of toothpaste.

- The average adult eyeball weighs about one ounce.

- Asian tree frogs build nests in trees over water. When their tadpoles
hatch, they drop directly into the water.

The world's longest escalator ride can be found in Ocean Park, Hong Kong,
China. With an overall length of 745 feet, the escalator boasts a
vertical rise of 377 feet.

The world's longest stairway is the service stairway for the Niesenbahn
funicular railway near Spiez, Switzerland. The stairway climbs to a
height of 5,476 feet with 11,674 steps.

- Mars takes 1.88 years to orbit the Sun, so its seasons are about
twice as long as those on Earth.

- When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, it was not a federal
felony to kill the President of the United States.

- As a group, a school of krill shrimp will molt instantly when
frightened. Swiftly, they leave behind their discarded exoskeletons as
decoys for their attacker.

- It takes about nine minutes for a snowflake to fall to Earth from a
height of 1,000 feet.

- In creating his paintings and sketches, John James Audubon refused to
use stuffed models. Instead, he used real birds that had been freshly
killed and wired into natural-looking poses. To keep his models fresh, he
was known to shoot dozens of birds per painting.

- Blood races through the human arteries at 3 feet (90cm) a second.

- The word skeleton comes from the Ancient Greek word for dry.

- Human bones can stand to be squeezed twice as hard as granite and
stretched four times as hard a concrete. Weight for weight, bone is five
times as strong as steel.

- Your spinal cord reaches its full size -- 17 inches (43cm) long by
3/4 inch (2cm) -- when you are four or five years old.

- Some North American monarch butterflies fly to Mexico, to spend the
winter in huge communal roosts. They can fly 1,180 miles (1,900 km) in
just three weeks.

- The world's smallest butterfly is the Pygmy Blue. Its wingspan
ranges between three eighths to half an inch in length.

- The human brain makes up 2% of the body's total weight, but uses up
20% of the body's oxygen supply.

- Roosters do NOT crow at the sun. Hens are scratching for bugs at
sunrise and the rooster is letting them and all the others know they are
his chickens, in his territory.

- The fighting men of ancient Greece wore only one sandal, on the left
foot, for kicking purposes. Thus, the military evolved to start
ceremonies on the combat foot. It was also considered bad manners at a
friend's house to step on his threshold with your left foot.

- Frogs cannot swallow with their eyes open. Additionally, the frog's
tongue is attached to the front of its mouth.

- Killer whales are not whales. They are dolphins who generally prey
on seals.


- The average distance to the Moon from the Earth's surface is
232,841.69 miles. If there were a "lunar expressway" and you could drive
your car at a constant speed of 65 mph it would take 3,582.18 hours or 4
months, 29 days, 6 hours and 10 minutes to reach the moon.

- While in most countries the penalty for driving while intoxicated is
severe, in Uruguay intoxication is a legal excuse for having an accident
while driving.

- To drink, a cat laps liquid from the underside of its tongue, rather
than the top.

- The word "alcohol" is derived from the Arabic language (al kohl or
alkuhl). A large proportion of the Arabic population is forbidden from
consuming alcohol for religious reasons.

- Although red wine can only be produced from red grapes, white wine
can be produced from both red and white grapes.