Random Fact of the Day

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The first "Random Fact of the Day" topic, created by Psionic_Wookie

Random Fact of the Day was a topic created on February 6, 2010. An idea masterminded and brought to life by Psionic_Wookie, the topic featured some of the most interesting, yet random, tidbits of information, as the topic title suggested. On a typical day, Wookie would post 1-2 facts; however, there were times when he would post more than that, usually on special days having to do with the day he was on, or an event that happened around that time. Furthermore, random facts contributed by other users were also welcomed; therefore, the topic also featured random facts submitted by other users; these facts did not affect Wookie's daily count.

Wookie's Daily Facts

Day 1: The 'arms' on an octopus are actually extensions of it's lips.

Day 2: The commercial ballpoint pen was invented in 1938 by Hungarian László Bíró, a newspaper editor, after his frustration with the standard ballpoint pens of the day kept tearing his pages or leaving big smears of ink.

Day 3: Diamond saws can't cut wood.

Day 4: Cats can't taste sweet. They just don't need to.

Day 5: Horseshoe crabs are the only animals that chew with their legs. They also have blue blood that's used in many antibiotics.

Day 6: Up until the 1940s in Western Culture, pink was considered a male-only color, because it being related to red and being a masculine and decided color, while blue was considered a feminine color because it was the more delicate and dainty color. Since the '40s, however, the societal norm has been inverted for no obvious reasons.

Day 7: Another octopus fact; because the octopus has so many 'arms', its brain can't handle all eight, so each 'arm' has its own nervous system. Each 'arm' literally has a mind of its own. With the brain, they all kinda act like a collective intelligence, though, so it all works out.

Day 8: A rat's nails grow at 2 different speeds. The top part of the nail grows faster than the underside, resulting in the sharp point.

Day 9: British king, King Henry VIII (21 April 1509 – 28 January 1547) was fascinated by firearms, even trying to make multi-chambered pistols (all of which failed miserably). As a result, his knights had a lesser-known talent; they used guns, with good precision (for the guns of the 16th century) too. Unfortunately, guns were hard to use in the gauntlets that they wore, resulting in them being impractical. Some knights did go in missing that piece of armour so they could use their pistols, however.

Day 10: The Roman Colosseum was originally called the Flavian Amphitheater, named after the family from which the father and son the built it (the father, Emperor Vespasian, started construction, his son, Emperor Titus, was ruler for the completion), the Flavian Family (go figure). It was called the Colosseum because of the large statue (colossus) of Nero that was put in front of it. Another interesting thing, the floor/battlefield of the Colosseum had a thin layer of sand on it, which is where we get our word arena, Latin for 'sand.'

Day 11: Cordyceps unilateralis, a fungus, has a particularly strong taste for ants. It invades small holes in the ant's exoskeleton with spores and it feasts on the ant's succulent innards. After having its fill, it migrates to the brain, where it takes control of the ant by altering its perception of pheromones. Stripped of free will, the ant is now essentially a zombie. It then climbs to the top of a small plant (typically a blade of grass) and clamps down hard with its mandibles. Day after day it spends there, as the spores start sprouting from its head, until one day the ant's head explodes. Well, the sprouts explode and blow up the head and release more spores into the air for this seemingly pointless process to begin again. *

Day 12: Spinochordodes tellinii is a parasite that grows to an average of a metre long and prefers damp areas. A grasshopper or cricket will ingest the microscopic larva, probably unintentionally. Once this happens, the larva develop into worms while still inside the insect. When it's fully grown (at that point, only a few inches long), it takes control of said insect and uses its newfound mobility to have the insect drown itself in a pool of water, thereby returning it to its favorite habitat (it is not known if the Tellinii makes the insect actively seek water or just jump around or what happens). In the event that the insect is eaten, the Tellinii will found its way out of the predator, often via urine or feces. *

For a short video of a cricket being drowned and the worm emerging from the cricket http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7226661303929118618# 0:33 long and quite interesting.

Day 13: The only parasite known to actually replace a working organ, the Cymothoa exigua. The Spotted Rose Snapper, a fish native to California, is its prey of choice. The small, parasitic crustacean enters the fish's mouth, attaches to the tongue and leeches the blood out of the tongue until the tongue dies. It then attaches itself to the leftover tongue-stump and acts as the tongue for the rest of both its and the fish's life. It causes no more harm to the fish (though it does still drink blood and some drink mucus), and the fish can actually use the hard shell of the C. exigua to crush its food, making it, technically, a symbiotic relationship, even though C. exigua is classified as a parasite. *

Fun Fact: In 2005, a fish parasited with what is suspected to be a C. exigua was found in the UK, even though the parasite is native to California. It was thought that the parasite could be increasing its range, but no other findings have been reported since, so it is likely that it is just an isolated incident. It is (as of when I read about it) on display in the Horniman Museum in South London, England.

Day 14: There is actually a kernel of truth to the folk wisdom that toast always lands butter-side down(besides the irrefutable Murphy's Law). The reason for this disagreeable behavior is simple Newtonian physics. Toast is typically oriented in a butter-side up position in the pre-dropped stage, and at a height of approximately four feet. Once the toast's center of gravity goes over the edge of the surface it is sitting upon, it descends to the floor in a predictable tumbling pattern. Unless it strikes an object during descent, thereby imparting an irregular tumbling pattern, the buttery bread only has enough distance to tumble halfway around before arriving at the floor. Consequently the the sticky side is frequently facing the floor. *

To remedy this, one can transport one's toast in a butter-side down configuration, or alter the toast-toting height to be something less than two feet from the floor or greater than ten feet.

Day 15: Most bowling balls you can buy are scented, usually with something strong and sweet. They are scented because most people who buy them also have shoes and keep their shoes and ball in the same bag, which can lead to the ball smelling weird (if you've ever bowled, you'll know how close the ball usually gets to your face).

Day 16: If you leave a parrot in a room, alone, for long enough, it will eventually go clinically insane.

Day 17: An unexpected side-effect of the hormone oxytocin, used to induce labor/help with difficult deliveries, and sometimes prescribed to assist a mother to feed her new infant (you know what I mean), is that the medication makes the user's tendency to trust other people greatly increase, and it usually makes the user significantly more generous. Now you know what to get your mother for Mother's Day :P Assuming she can cook, anyways. *

Day 18: Another drug thing; The medication Ropinirole provides some relief for sufferers of Parkinson's disease and Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS), but it has also been implicated in causing compulsive behavior such as excessive gambling, frequent compulsive shopping sprees, and addiction to...bedroom activities. Mirapex, another drug used to treat the same things, has been known to trigger amnesia in some users, causing them to forget what they've done during certain hours of the day. *

Day 19: "Rods from God"; the nickname of a satellite weapon that may or may be officially in development. It consists of a pair of satellites working in unison: one doing the targeting the other firing a 20-foot-long by 1-foot-wide tungsten rod. These rods would travel at 36,000 feet per second, striking the earth with the force of a meteor. Even hardened bunkers and underground fortifications would be unable to withstand such monumental punishment. *

Day 20: As German U-boats pounded the ships of the British Navy during World War II, the Brits became desperate to build a ship that could take more torpedo punishment. The Habbakuk was destined to be a two-million-ton aircraft carrier with a hull 40 feet thick - made almost entirely out of ice. More specifically, Pykrete, a super-strong variety of ice reinforced cellulose in the form of sawdust, wood chips, and paper shreds designed for the project.A small-scale prototype of the armed-iceberg proved the concept was quite solid, however construction was halted once the British found that the reallocation of all the wood chips, steel framing and insulating cork would hugely impact other wartime efforts. *

Day 21: While most people think Valentine's Day was in honor of the late St. Valentine, such a person never existed. Well, he did exist, but oral tradition has twisted and warped the story so badly, no one actually knows what really happened (though there are strong theories). Anyways, Valentine's Day is actually the Christian version of the pagan feast of Lupercalia that honored Juno Februata, the goddess of high-spirited sex. It was one of several Roman holidays that were pretty much just orgies. Annually on February 15, all single young men in Rome drew a lady's name from a jar and pinned it to their sleeves for the duration of the celebration. Men and women were thus partnered for feasting and love-making for several days. At the end of the holiday, all of the women expected at least one piece of jewelry, and any women who were impregnated expected to marry their partner.

Day 22: Jack Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill, aka Mad Jack Churchill, was the only man to kill someone with a bow and arrow in WWII.

Day 23: Another parasite fond of mind control is the Sacculina genus of barnacles. When the female Sacculina finds a suitable crab to infest, she will crawl along its body until an opening is found (usually a joint). Once inside, the barnacle begins her grim work. By forcing long tendrils into the crab's body, she gradually gains control over her victim. She also cracks open a hole in the crab's back that allows male Sacculina to take up residence with her. Once the male arrives, the crab is filled with millions of eggs. As if that wasn't bad enough, there are other physiological effects that are devastating to the host. The infected crab loses the ability to regenerate lost claws , as well as the ability to reproduce. If the crab is male, the parasites actually change the hormone levels and behavior of the crab, effectively turning it female. The crab becomes a slave, its only job to care for the larva being produced in its shattered body. *

Day 24:The Plesiometa Argyra spider of Costa Rica lives its life blissfully unaware of the horrifying death that could be hovering just overhead at any moment. While the spider is usually the hunter rather than the prey, there is one species of wasp known as Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga that targets these orb spiders regularly. A successful attack leaves the spider paralyzed as the wasp lays eggs in its abdomen. After the wasp has flown off, the spider wakes up and spends about 2 weeks going about its regular business. All the while, the wasp larvae grow in the spider's belly, feeding off its succulent juices. A day before its impending death, the spider suddenly stops creating its usually elaborate five-step web and begins a new two-step process that results in a very different structure. Small and strong, the new web is ideal protection for the maturing larvae. Once it's finished, the wasps kill their host and take up residence in their new web-house. While scientists aren't sure how exactly the larvae influence the construction of the web, research shows a fast acting chemical is most likely the culprit. *

Day 25: Termites can channel the power of flatulence as a defensive mechanism. When confronted with an intruder, a termite can break wind with such violent force that its abdomen explodes, sending feces and noxious chemicals onto the intruder.

Day 26: Charles Bonnet Syndrome is a very unusual thing; it usually (but not only) just occurs in elderly/hard-of-sight people (~15% of them) and has a strange effect: it makes people see things that aren't there, or in some cases, not see things that are there, sometimes as tiny as a bottle of water and sometimes it's whole buildings! Named after Charles Bonnet in 1760, who found himself concerned about his grandfather, Charles Lullin (89 years of age), who was seeing "amusing and magical visions". Lullin said he was being visited by people, birds, other animals, and the like, all of which were only visible to him. He did not appear to exhibit any other indications of marble-loss, in fact he was quite sane aside from seeing things. Moreover, the elderly man was quite aware that all the things he was seeing were in his head. That bit aside, CBS is a fairly rare syndrome (as stated, it typically, but not only, occurs in people who are losing their sight) that can be recognized by the differences between it and hallucinations (when you hallucinate, you feel pain, hear things, see them, etc. with CBS, you only see, not hear or feel). And most people with CBS are fully aware that they are just seeing things, except for the first time where they may just see a rude stranger who won't talk or an odd bird that doesn't sing, even when it looks like it should be.

Sometimes they are just bizarre sights, like a woman who reported seeing monkeys in elevator-operator outfits playing in her yard, or another woman who said she saw children with flowers for heads dancing in her house. Some people actually try and strike up conversations with people they see who aren't there, but because it only uses sight, they only stare on (I wonder what happens if you know sign-language?). It is figured that, because this usually only happens in blinding people, it is just cells in your eyes that start making things up because they have no information coming in (a similar thing happens if you lock yourself in a pitch black room for long enough; you start seeing and hearing things). *

Day 27: In 1963, physiologist Dr. Jose Delgado made one of the most striking demonstrations of the power of brain electrodes. In the Spanish city of Cordoba, before throngs of spectators (whole throngs, I tell you), the scientist strolled into a bull fighting ring adorned in full matador attire. He flapped his red cape at the bull opposite him, and it carried out it's signature charge.When it was a few yards from Delgado, he pressed a button on his belt to energize a radio-controlled electrode that had been implanted in the bull's brain. The bull's rage evaporated in an instant. It dug it's heels in the dirt, skidded to a stop and trotted off. In later years, Delgado was known to use a similar method to "play" with monkeys and cats like they were electronic toys. *

Day 28: The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; "7" was selected because the original containers were 7 ounces. "UP" indicated the direction of the bubbles.

Day 28 1/2: If you have 3 quarters, 4 dimes, and 4 pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.

Day 29: In the average lifetime, a person will walk the equivalent of 5 times around the equator.

Day 29 1/2: It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was written. In Psalms 46, the 46th word from the first word is shake and the 46th word from the last word is spear.

Day 30: When a bat or dolphin uses echolocation, they can actually 'see' inside the things that they hit with it (like a bat can actually 'see' inside of a mosquito).

Day 30 1/2: Each of the suits on a deck of cards represents the four major pillars of the economy in the middle ages: heart represented the Church, spades represented the military, clubs represented agriculture, and diamonds represented the merchant class.

Day 31: American car horns beep in the tone of F.

Day 31 1/2: When snakes are born with two heads, they fight each other for food.

Day 32: The human heart creates enough pressure to squirt blood 30 feet (9 m).

Day 32 1/2: Statistically, women kill themselves with pills more while men tend to shoot themselves more. Women take pills because it doesn't leave a mess, and for vanity reason, while men tend to use guns because guns are more masculine than pills.

Day 33: Women are 37% more likely to go to a psychiatrist than men are.

Day 33 1/2: Desserts is Stressed spelled backwards.

Day 34: The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.

Day 34 1/2: Every year about 98% of the atoms in your body are replaced.

Day 35: According to suicide statistics, Monday is the favored day for self-destruction.

Day 35 1/2: All polar bears are left-handed.

Day 36: North Dakota is the only state in the US that has never had an earthquake.

Day 36 1/2: If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

Day 37: China has about $1 trillion in personal savings and a savings rate of close to 50%. The US has about $158 billion in personal savings and an average savings rate of only about 2% (a little lesson here).

Day 37 1/2: Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.

Day 38: Abraham Lincoln was the only U.S. president to hold a patent. It was for an invention to buoy boats over shallow rivers.

Day 38 1/2: Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.

Day 39: Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

Day 39 1/2: Hummingbirds can't walk.

Day 40: Arnold Schwarzenegger's famous line in The Terminator "I'll be back" was originally scripted as "I'll come back".

Day 40 1/2: Average lifespan of a major league baseball is 7 pitches.

Day 41: The ears of a cricket are located on the front legs, just below the knee.

Day 41 1/2: The smallest bone in the human body is the stapes or stirrup bone located in the middle ear. It is approximately .11 inches (.28 cm) long.

Day 42: "Go." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

Day 42 1/2: No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.

Day 43: The town of Kennesaw, Georgia has required its citizens to own a firearm and ammunition since 1982. Kennesaw's law was amended in 1983 to exempt those who conscientiously object to owning a firearm, convicted felons, those who cannot afford a firearm, and those with a mental or physical disability that would prevent them from owning a firearm. It mentions no penalty for its violation. No one has ever been charged under the ordinance. In the first year, home burglaries dropped from 65, to 26 in 1983, to 11 in 1984

Day 43 1/2: Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.

Day 44: The U.S. ranks 29th in overall life expectancy, which is 78 years.

Day 44 1/2: About 1/3 of American adults are at least 20% above their recommended weight.

Day 45: A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time. It is 1/100th of a second.

Day 45 1/2: Humans are the only living thing that willingly and regularly sleep on their backs.

Day 46: An inch (2.5 centimeters) of rain water is equivalent to 15 inches (38.1 centimeters) of dry, powdery snow.

Day 46 1/2: Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.

Day 47: The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels. This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.

Day 47 1/2: If you eat a polar bear liver, you will die of vitamin A poisoning. As a carnivore which feeds largely upon fish-eating carnivores, the polar bear ingests large amounts of vitamin A, which is stored in its liver; in the past, humans have been poisoned by eating the livers of polar bears.

Warning: Very slight Star Wars spoilers

Day 48: In the first two Star Wars movies (Episodes IV and V), there were only two lightsaber colors. The Jedi used blue lightsabers, while Darth Vader used a red lightsaber. The last movie in the original trilogy, "Return of the Jedi", introduced the green lightsaber. The green lightsaber was used in this movie because a blue lightsaber didn't contrast enough against the blue sky in the fighting scenes on Tattoine.

Day 48 1/2: In the prequel trilogy, both blue and green lightsabers were used by the Jedi equally. The exception is the purple lightsaber used by Mace Windu. This uniquely colored lightsaber was a request from Samuel L. Jackson, in order for him to accept the part as Mace Windu.

Day 49: The antibacterial components of antibacterial soaps (usually triclosan or, less commonly, triclocarbon) needs to be left on a surface for about two minutes in order to work. Most people are not this patient, and end up washing off the soap before the antibacterial ingredients can do their job.

Day 49 1/2: The woodpeckers tongue is so long (in many cases as long as the woodpecker itself), that it is not attached to the woodpecker's head as in most birds, but instead it curls back up around its skull, allowing it to be so long. Once the woodpecker locates an insects tunnel in a tree, it worms its tongue into the tunnel to try to locate the grub. The tongue of the woodpecker is long and ends in a barb. With its tongue the woodpecker skewers the grub and draws it out of the trunk.

Day 50: The common guinea pig was first domesticated in about 2000 BC by the people living in the Andes mountains, as a food source. To this day, they continue to be a major part of the diet in Peru and Bolivia, where they are an important source of protein and a mainstay of Andean folk medicine. Peruvians consume an estimated 65 million Guinea pigs each year, and the animal is so entrenched in the culture that one famous painting of the Last Supper in the main cathedral in Cusco, Peru shows Christ and the twelve disciples dining on guinea pig.

Day 50 1/2: C-4 is a very stable product, well known for its durability and reliability. It will not explode even if hit by a bullet, punched, cut, or thrown into a fire (in Vietnam, soldiers actually burned C-4 as an improvised cooking fire). The only reliable method for detonation is via a detonator or blasting cap.

Day 51: Early naval mines had mechanical mechanisms to detonate them, but these were superseded in the 1870s by the Hertz Horn (or chemical horn), which was found to work reliably even after the mine had been in the sea for several years. The mine's upper half is studded with hollow lead protuberances, each containing a glass vial filled with sulfuric acid. When a ship's hull crushes the metal horn, it cracks the vial inside it, allowing the acid to run down a tube and into a lead-acid battery which until then contains no acid electrolyte. This energizes the battery, which detonates the explosive.

Day 51 1/2: The English language commonly uses "blue" to refer to any color from cyan to navy blue. However, many languages, including many east Asian and African languages, do not have separate terms for blue and green, instead using a single word for both. At the same time, some languages, like Russian, Italian, and Hebrew, have different words for what English calls light blue and dark blue. This is the same as the English distinction between red and light red (pink).

Day 52: The modern bikini was invented by a French designer in 1946. It was named after Bikini Atoll, the site of US nuclear weapon tests a few days earlier in the Marshall Islands, on the reasoning that the burst of excitement it would cause would be like the nuclear device. Between 1946 and 1958, twenty three nuclear devices were detonated at Bikini Atoll. One detonation on March 1, 1954, codenamed Castle Bravo, was the first test of a practical hydrogen bomb. The largest nuclear explosion ever set off by the United States, it was much more powerful than predicted and created widespread radioactive contamination.

Day 53: The Purple Heart is a medal that is issued to members of the US Military that are wounded in battle. Almost half a million Purple Heart Medals were made near the end of WWII, in the anticipation of the invasion of Japan, which never came. Although there have been a few small production runs of new medals, most medals still in circulation were made during WWII in the anticipation of the invasion of Japan. There were enough Purple Hearts made during WWII that many units today in Afghanistan and Iraq have Purple Hearts on hand to give to wounded soldiers immediately.

Day 54: The praying mantis has no ears on its head. It has one single ear in the middle of the thorax on the underside. This single ear, which is a deep slit inside the thorax, allows it to hear ultrasonic sounds. Since praying mantises feed during the day, they do a considerable amount of flying by night. The night, however, is when bats feed, using ultrasonic sound waves to pinpoint their prey. The frequency of these sound waves indicates the location and distance of the bat’s prey. Praying mantises are able to hear these ultrasonic sounds and when the frequency begins to increase rapidly, indicating an approaching bat, mantises will stop flying horizontally and begin a direct, high speed nose dive towards the safety of the ground.

Day 55: Alcohol is absorbed directly through the stomach, and in the process irritates the cells that line the organ. Alcohol also promotes secretion of additional hydrochloric acid in the stomach, eventually causing the nerves to send a message to the brain that the stomach's contents are hurting the body. The brain responds by telling the stomach to expel its contents by vomiting.

Day 56: Typically, muscular "strength" refers to the ability to exert a force on an external object. By this definition, the jaw muscle is the strongest. The 1992 Guinness Book of Records records the highest bite strength of 4337 N (975 lbf) for 2 seconds. What distinguishes the jaw muscle is not anything special about the muscle itself, but its advantage in working against a much shorter lever arm than other muscles. If "strength" refers to the force exerted by the muscle itself, the strongest muscle of the body is usually said to be the quadriceps femoris or the gluteus maximus. The unexplained statement that "the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body" appears frequently in lists of surprising facts, but it is difficult to find any definition of "strength" that would make this statement true. Note that the tongue consists of sixteen muscles, not one.

Day 57: Human fingers do not contain any muscles other than the small muscles attached to each hair follicle, which contract to make the hairs stand on end, causing goose bumps. The muscles that move the finger joints are in the palm and forearm. The long tendons that deliver motion from the forearm muscles may be observed to move underneath the skin at the wrist and on the back of the hand.

Day 58: Many people are confused about why it's called "3 Musketeers" (called the Milky Way outside of US and Canada; Milky Way is called the Mars Bar, after the company that makes it), but most people don't know that, when first introduced in 1932, it was 3 bars with 3 different flavors in them; vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. Rising costs and wartime restrictions on sugar forced Mars to ditch strawberry and vanilla in favor of the most popular flavor, chocolate. At five cents when first introduced, it was marketed as one of the largest chocolate bars available, one that could be shared by friends.

Originally introduced in 1930 by Frank and Ethel Mars, the Snickers bar was named after their family horse. The original Snickers bars were sold for a nickel and consisted primarily of chocolate, peanuts and caramel. It is currently the best selling candy bar of all time.In the UK and Ireland, it was originally sold under the name Marathon. Mars standardized many of its global brand names and the name was changed to Snickers in 1990. For 18 months before the name changed, the words "Internationally known as Snickers" were printed on the side of the Marathon wrapper. Following the name change, the bar moved from being Britain's ninth most popular bar to the third most popular. Mars has since re-registered the original name as a UK trademark.

The Kit Kat bar was first created by Rowntree's of York, England and now produced worldwide by Nestlé, which acquired Rowntree in 1988, except in the United States where it is made under license by The Hershey Company. The original "four-finger" version of the bar was developed after a worker at the Rowntree's factory in York put a suggestion in the suggestion box for a snack that a "man could have in his lunch box for work". It was launched in September 1935 in the UK as Rowntree's Chocolate Crisp (price: 2d).The two-finger version was launched on May 15, 1936. Rowntree's Chocolate Crisp was renamed Kit Kat Chocolate Crisp in 1937, and after World War II just Kit Kat. The name is believed to have come from the Kit-Cat Club, an eighteenth-century political club for artists. In 1937, the Norwegian firm Freia launched a near-identical chocolate bar called Kvikk Lunsj for the Norwegian market.

Butterfinger was invented by the Curtiss Candy Company of Chicago, Illinois, in 1923. The company held a public contest to choose the name of the candy dress. As an early publicity stunt and marketing ploy, the company dropped Butterfinger and Baby Ruth candy bars from airplanes in cities across the United States which helped increase its popularity. The Curtiss Candy Company was sold to Nabisco in 1981, and, in 1990, Nestlé bought Baby Ruth and Butterfinger from RJR Nabisco.Two of the slogans currently used to advertise the candy bar are "Follow the Finger" and "Break out of the ordinary!" Prior to these, Bart Simpson and other characters from Fox's The Simpsons appeared in numerous advertisements for the product from 1990 to 2001, with the slogans "Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger!", "Bite my Butterfinger!", and "Nothin' like a Butterfinger!" However, when Butterfinger dropped the Simpsons as a spokesperson, a Simpsons episode called "Sweets and Sour Marge" included a scene involving Butterfinger bars being unable to be burned, a character saying "even the fire doesn't want them."

Day 59: Aokigahara Jukai (The Sea of Trees) located at the base of Mount Fuji is the top suicide area in Japan; the spirits of those who kill themselves there are said to be cursed to forever haunt the area. Over 78 bodies have been discovered, prompting officials to put up signs prohibiting suicide in the forest.

Day 60: Sixty is a composite number with divisors 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, 60 making it also a highly composite number.

Sixty is the smallest number divisible by the numbers 1 to 6. (There is no smaller number divisible by the numbers 1 to 5). 60 is the smallest number with exactly 12 divisors.

Sixty is the sum of a pair of twin primes (29 + 31), as well as the sum of four consecutive primes (11 + 13 + 17 + 19). It is adjacent to two prime numbers (59,61). It is also the smallest number which is the sum of two odd primes in 6 ways.

The icosidodecahedron has 60 sides.

In the Bible, the number 60 occurs several times, for example as the age of Isaac when Jacob and Esau were born,[4] and the number of warriors escorting King Solomon.

60 is the code for international direct dial calls to Malaysia.

Year 60 A.D was a leap year.

Day 61: The word "easel" (an upright support used for displaying and/or working on something resting upon it, usually a canvas being painted on) comes from the German word "esel" and the Dutch word "ezel", both of which refer to an easel, and to an ass (donkey). The use of the word for "donkey" referring to an "easel" is similar to the way "horse" is used in "sawhorse" (a wooden frame which supports work in progress).

Day 62: The name of the State of Idaho is a made up word. It is not derived from a Native American root. The common belief is that "Idaho" is based off of a word or phrase from the local Native American tribe. According to the myths "Idaho" comes from "E Dah Hoe" supposedly meaning "gem of the mountains." Idaho was originally suggested as a name for the state of Colorado.

Day 63: The ten-gallon hat falls 87% short of its promise. The average Stetson holds only 3 quarts of water when filled to the brim. But, in all likelihood, this discrepancy is the result of poor communication, not poor measurement. The earliest versions of the hat came from Mexico, where cowboys decorated their hats with colorful braids, known as galóns. The taller the hat, the more galóns one could fit on their hat, so a ten-galón would be quite tall. When cowboys from the Rio Grande started borrowing their Mexican coworkers' favorite accessory, they likely butchered the name too. **

Day 64: If you watched daytime television in the 1970s and 1980s, you probably know Rice-a-Roni is "The San Francisco Treat". But don't let that super-catchy jingle fool you; the product was actually based on an Armenian recipe of rice pilaf, vermicelli pasta and chicken broth. In the 1940s, a San Francisco housewife named Lois DeDomenico borrowed the recipe from her Armenian landlord and served the dish to her family, who happened to own a pasta company. After her brother-in-law took a few bites and said that it would be good in a box, Rice-a-Roni was born. **

Day 65: Some might call Gadsby a "love" story, but Ernest Vincent Wright wouldn't have used that word. Instead, he described his story as being a "strong liking" and "throbbing palpitation" story. That's because, in 1939, Wright gave himself one restriction: he promised to right Gadsby without using the letter E. Wright wanted to prove the a great author could work around such restrictions and still tell a gripping story. To prevent any stray Es from entering his story, he tied down the E on his typewriter and then put his expansive vocabulary to the test. The result is an astounding feat of verbal gymnastics. While vividly describing a wedding scene, he manages to avoid using the words "bride", "ceremony" and even "wedding" (he calls is a "grand church ritual"). To explain away the verbosity of the language, he uses a narrator whore poor command of the English language and circumlocution even irritates the story's other characters. When the book was announced, one skeptic attacked Wright in a letter, claiming such a feat was impossible. Wright responded with "All right, the impossible has been accomplished" in the book's intro. Sadly, Wright didn't live long enough to revel in his book's critical acclaim. He died the year the book was published. **

Day 66: In 2007, researchers at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City reported that people who played video games at least 3 hours a week made better surgeons. In a series of hands-on tests that mimicked laparoscopic surgery, gamers made 37% fewer mistakes and were 27% faster than non-players. Among the 33 surgeons that participated, skill and experience at video games were better predictors of test performance than years of training of even number of surgeries they'd previously performed. The study's results confirmed what Dr. James Rosser , Beth Israels chief of minimally invasive surgery. A lifelong gamer, Rosser noticed that his non-gaming peers didn't have the fine motor control with their hands that he had. Now that there's proof to back his theory, Rosser and his colleagues have a good excuse for keeping multiple video game systems close the the operating room and playing them in their downtime. **

Day 67: The “running W” was a trip wire to make horses fall over at the critical moment during filming. The device broke countless horses’ legs and necks. It is now illegal.

Day 67 1/2: In The Godfather (1972), John Marley’s (Jack Wolz) scream of horror in the horse head scene was real, as he was not told that a real horse head (which was obtained from a dog food company) was going to be used.

Day 68: A common problem with agriculture in Afghanistan is that few things will grow there in the winter. To remedy this, a US Army battalion in the Baraki Barak district, south of Kabul, recently jump-started a winter agriculture program by building model green houses for the farmers. But even the green houses were too cold to grow crops in. That is, until Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gukeisen came up with an ingenious solution: rabbits. The furry creatures radiate tons of body heat and cages full of them can easily warm up a greenhouse. As a bonus, farmers can use rabbit waste as fertilizer. And of course, when rabbits outgrow their cages, you can eat them. **

Day 69: Diamonds are a girls best friend; but apparently, so is tequila. According to three scientists from Mexico, the two substances are made out of nearly the same materials. In fact, the researchers discovered that tequila's natural ratio of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon can easily be converted into a diamond. All they had to do was heat 80-proof tequila until it became a gas, then reheat the vapor to break down its molecular structure. The resulting tequila crystals then condensed to form a diamond film. The best part is that the researchers didn't have to spring for premium tequila; even the cheapest worked fine. Don't expect to buy tequila-based diamond rings any time soon, though. The diamond film is far from the size and shape of traditional gems. **

Day 70: According to legend, Ernest Hemingway created the shortest story ever told. While having lunch at New York's famous Algonquin Round Table, Hemingway bragged that he could write a captivating tale - complete with a beginning, middle and end - in only six words. His fellow writers refused to believe it, each betting him $10 that he couldn't do it. Hemingway quickly scribbled six words on a napkin and passed it around. As each writer read what he wrote, they all conceded that he won the bet. The six words were: "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn." **

While the anecdote may be apocryphal, whoever did write "Baby shoes" has forced writers forever after to consider the economy of words. Today, the work has inspired countless six-word memoir and story competitions, proving that a story's brevity is no limit to its power.

On a side-note, if you go to Wikipedia and look up "baby needs a new pair of shoes", it redirects you to the page on Craps.

Day 71: New York state law makes it illegal for children to collect old cigar butts.

Day 71 1/2: Unrestrained giggling is forbidden in the streets of Helena, Montana.

Two stupid laws I just read from a book I found in a shelf in my basement. The book is from 1976, so these laws could've been overturned or something by now, but I'll post a few more here that should make up for the ones that may not in effect anymore.

A monkey can serve five days in jail for shoplifting in Illinois

Portland, Oregon, makes it against the law to parade up and down the street with a For Sale" sing.

In Atlanta, it is unlawful to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp.

The law says you can't drive more than 2,000 sheep down Hollywood Boulevard at one time.

Day 72: Zimbabwe has been experiencing hyperinflation for years. In response, the governor of Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank, Gideon Gono, did the stupidest thing possible: he printed lots more money. Beginning in 2006, Gono printed currency raging from 1 cent to a $100,000,000,000,000 dollar bill., flooding the local economy. His accomplishment didn't go unnoticed. Gono was given the Ig Nobel "for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a range of numbers." The bank notes didn't help Zimbabweans cope with much else, though. **

Day 73: The axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) is the best known of the Mexican neotenic mole salamanders belonging to the Tiger Salamander complex. Larvae of this species fail to undergo metamorphosis, so the adults remain aquatic and gilled. The species originates from the lake underlying Mexico City and is also called ajolote (which is also the common name for the Mexican Mole Lizard). Axolotls are used extensively in scientific research due to their ability to regenerate most body parts, ease of breeding, and large embryos. They are commonly kept as pets in the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Japan (sold under the name wooper looper) and other countries.

Axolotls should not be confused with waterdogs, the larval stage of the closely related Tiger Salamanders (Ambystoma tigrinum and Ambystoma mavortium), which are widespread in much of North America and also occasionally become neotenic, nor with mudpuppies (Necturus spp.), fully-aquatic salamanders which are not closely related to the axolotl but bear a superficial resemblance.

Day 74: When Donald Unger was a child, his mother warned him not to crack his knuckles or he would get arthritis. Skeptical, Unger undertook a 60-year experiment to prove his mother wrong. He began cracking his left knuckles at least twice a day while almost never cracking his right ones.The resulting study, published in medical journal Arthritis and Rheumatism, revealed that after 6 decades, not only were both hands free of arthritis, they were physically identical. Unger, who grew up to be an allergist, wrote that his result "calls into question whether other parental beliefs, e.g. the importance of eating spinach, are also flawed. Further investigation in likely warranted." **

Day: 75: Scientists suggest that the dreams of fetuses are mostly composed of sound and touch sensations, given the lack of visual stimuli in the womb.

Day 75 1/2: All cultures and time periods report nightmares. The word “nightmare” derives from the Anglo-Saxon word mare, meaning demon—which is related to the Sanskrit mara, meaning destroyer, and mar, meaning to crush. So the word “nightmare” carries with it connotations of being crushed by demonic forces.

Day 76: People have committed suicide in an endless variety of ways, including swallowing poisonous spiders, power-drilling holes in their heads, sticking hot pokers down their throats, choking on underwear, injecting peanut butter into their veins, crushing their necks in vices, and hurling themselves into vats of beer.

Day 76 1/2: Women are twice as likely to suffer from depression than men. Women may be at a higher risk for depression due in part to estrogen, which may alter the activity of neurotransmitters that contribute to depression.

Day 77: Turtles can breathe through their butts.

Day 78: ‘Jay’ used to be slang for ‘foolish person.’ So when a pedestrian ignored street signs, he was referred to as a ‘jaywalker.’ **

Day 78 1/2: To the Kikuyu tribe of central Kenya, the number 10 is considered bad luck. In fact, “10” is so feared that no one speaks it aloud; they just skip that number when counting anything—especially people, since it’s thought to be particularly bad luck to count humans. **

Day 79: Although the word “earthling” today conjures visions of science-fiction stories, it is actually the Old English word for a farmer. **

Day 79 1/2: Bagpipes weren’t invented in Scotland, but in ancient Persia. **

Day 80: A person of average size and weight burns about 60 to 70 calories each hour just sitting and watching television. **

Day 80 1/2: The first recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross award (for heroism or achievement in aerial combat) was Charles Lindbergh, the year before his famous transatlantic flight. **

Day 81: You can actually get nicotine poisoning from wet tobacco leaves absorbing through your skin. The phenomenon is called Green Tobacco Sickness (GTS). **

Day 81 1/2: New Hampshire is the only U.S. state that does not by law require drivers to wear safety belts while operating a motor vehicle. **

Day 82: Duct tape was developed in 1942 for use by the U.S. Army as a waterproof sealing tape for ammunition boxes. **

Day 82 1/2: Prohibition made it a crime to produce, sell, or transport alcoholic beverages. But anyone who already had bottles of old liquor stocked away was free to consume it at his or her leisure, within the confines of their home. **

Day 83: There's a reason X-Ray machines are large and clunky. Unlike visible light, X-Rays don't like to bend, so they are difficult to manipulate. The only way way can scan bags at airports or people at the doctor's office is by bombarding the subject with a torrent of radiation all at once, which requires a huge device. But lobsters, living in murky water 300 feet below the surface of the ocean, have "X-Ray vision" far better than any of our machines. Unlike the human eye, which views refracted images that have to be interpreted by the brain, lobsters see direct reflection that focused to a single point, where they are gathered together to form an image. Scientists have figured out a way to copy this trick to make new X-Ray machines. The Lobster Eye X-Ray Imaging Device (LEXID) is a handheld "flashlight" that can see through three-inch thick steel walls. The device shoot s a small stream of low power X-Ray through an object and a few come bouncing back when it reaches the other side of the object. Just as in a lobster eye, the resulting signals are funneled through tiny tubes to make an image. The Department of Homeland Security has already invested a million dollars in LEXID designs (as of May 2009), which it hopes to find useful in finding contraband. **

Day 84: Plastic bags take up less landfill space than paper bags. According to one study, two plastic bags take up 72 percent less landfill space than one paper bag.

Day 84 1/2: “Pepsi-Cola” is an anagram for “Episcopal,” which some believe the drink is named after. But then “Britney Spears” is an anagram for “Presbyterians,” so we’re inclined to discount this theory. **

Day 85: The Vatican Bank is the only bank in the world that allows ATM users to select Latin to perform transactions. That's just one symbol of the Holy See's continued devotion to the language. Pope Benedict XVI has been particularly passionate about reviving the language and purportedly holds many informal conversations in Latin (Pope John Paul II generally spoke Polish). The Vatican's Latin Foundation tries to keep the language relevant by translating modern phrases into the ancient tongue. In 2003, they released an updated dictionary that included the terms "rush hour" (tempus maximae frequentiae) and "dishwasher" (escariorum lavatory). Interestingly, the translations can have serious consequences. A recent U.S. lawsuit (as of May 2009) was brought against the Vatican for conspiring to protect one of their priests (you can assume what he did) and it was held up for months as the Church's experts rejected the prosecuting team's Latin translations of terms such as "conspiracy to commit fraud." **

Day 86: Those doves released at weddings and other formal ceremonies are actually white homing pigeons. True ring-neck doves are bred to be kept as pets and rarely survive out of captivity.

Day 86 1/2: The letter J does not appear anywhere in the periodic table of elements.

Day 87: Antiperspirants are classified as drugs by the FDA. Technically, they affect and/or alter your body's natural functions.

Day 87 1/2: Although Chewbacca looks like an ape, the voice was made by mixing grunt/barks of dogs with the growls of lions and bears.

Day 88: There are 170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ways to play the ten opening moves in a game of chess.

Day 88 1/2: There are 318,979,564,000 possible ways to play the first four moves per side in a game of chess.

OK, one more I can't resist. There are 6 more dimples on a golf ball from the US than there are from the UK (336 in US, 330 in UK). No idea if that's actually true, but it's certainly random.

Day 89: The custom of saying "Bless you" when someone sneezes was first used by ancients when they believed that breath was the essence of life, and when you sneeze a part of you life is escaping. Evil spirits rush into your body and occupy the empty space. By saying "God bless you" the speaker is protecting the sneezer from that spirits.

Day 90: Your appendix is a small, closed tube about the size of your finger which attaches into the beginning of your large intestine, where the small and large intestines meet. It's open at the end connecting into the large intestine and closed at the other end, so material can move into and out of the appendix, but has nowhere to go. If the open end of the appendix gets plugged for some reason - either because of swelling or because something from the large intestine gets stuck in the opening - then the appendix starts to swell because of the secretions from the lining. Said swelling shuts off the blood supply and the appendix tissue dies. At this point, it's time for the appendix to come out through an operation. If it's not removed, the appendix eventually bursts, something which is often fatal.

Day 91: Ever looked at a white wall or empty sky or some other blank surface and seen little black spots or cobwebs floating around? Those are "floaters" and they're IN your eye, so you can't really make them go away by blinking. Floaters are tiny clumps of gel or cells inside the vitreous, the clear jelly-like fluid that fills the eye. What you're seeing are the shadows of these floaters cast on the retina, the light-sensitive film at the back of the eye. Because they are INSIDE your eye, floaters move with your eyes when you try to focus on them. Floaters may become more prevalent as we age and the vitreous humor thickens and clumps. But don't worry, floaters are harmless and present no danger to your vision. The only time to worry is when you suddenly see a very large number of floaters or showers of floaters that weren't there before. In rare cases, this could indicate retinal detachment or a blood vessel in the eye breaking.

Day 91 1/2: You coulda had a V8.

Day 92: If you were to sell a full body on the black market, it would net you around $1,000. Might seem like a hefty amount for just a few hours of digging, until you realize that, had to sold the pieces individually, you could have made much, much more. An intact head can get you as much as $500; a knee, $650; and a full torso could get you a whooping $5,000! However, selling body parts is illegal (for obvious reasons >.>), so most people get around that by only charging for "shipping and handling", since just transporting them is not illegal.

Day 93: Porcupines float.

Day 93 1/2: Deaf people have safer driving records on average than hearing people; in the U.S., at least.

Day 94: The pound sign (#) is called an anoctothorpe.

Day 94 1/2: Greece's national anthem has 158 verses.

Day 95: The only U.S. President in office to weigh less than 100 pounds was James Madison

Day 95 1/2: The average person over fifty will have spent one year looking for lost items.

Day 96: In Helsinki, Finland, instead of giving parking tickets, the police usually deflate tires.

Day 96 1/2: Thirty-Five percent of people who use personal adds for dating are already married.

Day 98: The film Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me had to be renamed in Singapore as censors didn't like the title -- it was briefly forced to change it to 'The Spy Who Shioked Me.' (Shioked means 'treated nicely.')

Day 98 1/2: In one scene from this movie 'Three Men and a Baby' a young boy who has nothing to do with the film is seen moving across the set. Actually standing in the window. Later, when this was discovered, no-one knew who he was and rumours started to spread about a possible haunting.

Day 99: White elephants were rare even in Siam (the modern Thailand). If you found one the emperor automatically owned it and you couldn't harm it. When the emperor wanted to punish someone, he gave him or her a white elephant as a "gift." They couldn't ride it or work it, but they still had to take care of it and clean up after it. And you know what elephants do besides eat. So the gift was useless. Hence the expression.

Day 99 1/2: The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows."

Day 100 1/5: The German name of the American TV show, "Murder, She Wrote" running from September 30, 1984 to May 19, 1996, is "Mord ist ihr Hobby", which literally translates into "Murder is her hobby."

Day 100 2/5: In the beginning, credit cards were just charge accounts, offered by individual stores and only usable at those stores. The first credit card that could be used at multiple locations was offered by The Diner's Club in 1950.

Day 100 3/5: The metric system uses the meter, defined precisely as 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of orange-red light emitted by the krypton-86 atom, or originally one-ten-millionth the length of the longitude from the North Pole to the equator. The meter is exactly 39.37 inches - or some 118 barleycorns.

Day 100 4/5: Requiring little or no dialogue, physical comedy is one of the oldest forms of entertainment. The trademark of the style involves simulated acts of violence--a kick in the pants, a playful slap or a quick whack with a stick--all for the sake of a good laugh. The comedic effect is usually emphasized by sound effects. Gongs and drums accompany the actors blow-by-blow, heightening the experience. In the late 16th century, actors in the Italian "commedia dell'arte" carried flexible clubs that made a sharp cracking noise as the target was struck. The clubs became known as "slapsticks" and since then all forms of physical comedy--with or without sound effects--have carried the name. That is why physical comedy is called "slapstick."

Day 100 5/5: 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

Day 101: Technically speaking, crystal glass is actually a liquid that flows very slowly.

Day 101 1/2: Most lipstick contains fish scales.

Day 102: A crocodile can't stick it's tongue out.

Day 102 2/4: A shrimp's heart is in their head.

Day 102 3/4: The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.

Day 102 4/4: If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and DIE.

[Note by P. Wookie on #4: I don't know if that last one is true, but it's random and I laughed when I read it, so I put it in the topic.]

Day 103: Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.

Day 103 1/2: ~98% of the American population can't lick their elbows. Much as they need to...

Day 104: Bubble wrap was the failed attempt made by two engineers to invent a washable, textured plastic wallpaper.

Day 104 1/2: The car used for time travel in Back to the Future was actually supposed to be a refrigerator. However, it was changed to a car for fear that kids might copy the movie and start playing in refrigerators, which, as you may or may not know, are very, very hard to open from the inside.

[Note by P. Wookie on #2: I actually read it is impossible, but I doubt that]

Day 105: The process of pasteurization was developed by Louis Pasteur in the 1850s to prevent wine from spoiling. It wasn't until a while later that he discovered that it could be used on milk and other things.

Day 105 1/2: People in character costumes (like Goofy at Disneyworld/land) have it really rough; the average suit weighs ~40 pounds, and during hot summers (which are to the extreme in California and Florida, where the Disney theme parks are) and surrounded by crowds (which we all know happens in the summer...stupid public schools...) temperatures inside the suit can reach 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

Day 106: In Klamath Falls, Oregon, it is illegal to kick the heads off snakes.

Anyone stealing citrus fruit in Yuma, Arizona can legally be given castor oil as punishment.

In Idaho you cannot fish for trout from the back of a giraffe.

If a Michigan woman leaves her husband, then he is entitled to take possession of all her clothing.

You can be stopped by the police for biking over 65 miles per hour in Connecticut.

In Florida, men may not be seen publicly in any kind of strapless gown.

Day 107: Sting (musician Gordon Sumner) got his name because he performed in a black and yellow rugby shirt once and the other band members said he looked like a bumblebee.

Day 107 1/2: Mathematicians state that a standard deck of 52 cards must be shuffled at least 7 times to completely randomize the order of the cards.

Day 108: Legend has it that the Roman emperor Nero used to send his slaves scurrying to the mountains to collect snow and ice to make flavored ices, the precursors to ice cream, in the first century.

Day 108 1/2: Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.

Day 109: You think gasoline is expensive? Check this out

Diet Snapple 16oz for $1.29 = $10.32 per gallon Lipton Ice Tea 16oz for S1.19 = $9.52 per gallon Gatorade 20oz for $1.59 = $10.17 per gallon Ocean Spray 16oz for $1.25 = $10.00 per gallon Pint of milk 16oz for $1.59 = $12.72 per gallon STP Brake Fluid 12oz for $3.15 = $33.60 per gallon Vick's Nyquil 6oz for $8.35 = $178.13 per gallon Pepto Bismol 4oz for $3.85 = $123.20 per gallon Whiteout .7oz for $1.39 = $25.42 per gallon Scope 1.5oz for $0.99 = $84.48 per gallon

And this is the REAL KICKER...... Evian water 9oz for $1.49 = $21.19 per gallon .....$21.19 FOR WATER!!

So next time you're filling your car up, just be glad it doesn't run on Nyquil. Awesome as that would be.

Day 110: Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann was trying to come up with a chemical to induce childbirth. Instead he developed lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD. He was working with it and about to go home when he got a bit of it on his hand, which absorbed into his skin. He thought it was nothing (after all, it was supposed to induce childbirth). On his bike ride home, he noticed the effects.

Day 111: In 1963, baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, "They'll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run." On July 20, 1969, a few hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Gaylord Perry hit his first, and only, home run.

Day 111 1/2: The average lifespan of a taste bud is ten days.

Day 112: George Washington did not toss a dollar across the Potomac. Even if he did toss something, the dollar didn't come into being until after the U.S. gained independence.

Day 112 1/2: "Yankee Doodle" is not an American song. It was a British ditty designed to harass ragtag colonists during the French and Indian War.

Day 113: Fifty four percent of Americans fold their toilet tissue neatly while 35 percent wad it into a ball before using it.

Day 113 1/2: Of is the only word in which an "f" is pronounced like a "v".

Day 114: It may be hard to believe, but you can actually die from water intoxication. How much water do you need to drink to overdose on it? Well, it's not the amount so much as what you're doing and how fast you drink it. Most at risk are athletes who drink large amounts of water as they complete marathons or other extreme sporting events. Most endurance athletes need anywhere from eight to sixteen ounces per hour, but too much more than that can be dangerous, causing seizures and death. What happens is the large amount of water all at once overwhelms the body's cells, partly by diluting the body's sodium, potassium, and electrolytes. The cells become too puffed up and disrupt normal body functioning. Brain cells can swell, causing disorientation like you see in intoxicated people. Athletes are already losing salts through sweating and they need more than just water to replace them. That's why sports drinks, like Gatorade, are better than water when you're running a marathon. They replace the electrolytes and salts.

Ones with * are from the book Alien Hand Sydrome by Alan Bellows

Ones with ** are from Mental Floss website or magazine

User-Submitted Facts

“Dogs can't look up” – Sweanus

“Hardly anyone in the usa spends 2 dollar bills or half dollars anymore. In Canada they use 1 and 2 dollar coins and they even have a 5 dollar bullion coin made of pure silver called the Silver maple leaf.” – HitomiKagewaki

“Hippos can run faster than humans” – Elefantjunior

"And allow me to expand on that Hippo thing a little bit: Hippos have been clocked in at running 19 MPH, faster than most people can (though the world record for faster person is 28 MPH IIRC). They are also responsible for more attacks than lions, bears, and something else I don't remember combined.

Also, they have a special kind of...sweat, though it's not actually sweat. It looks red after it has been on the hippo for a few minutes (it is colorless at first), leading it to be called "blood sweat", even though it is neither. Males usually secrete this fluid after a fight with another male, though they do it at other times too. It inhibits bacterial growth, as there are two distinct pigments in it: one red, hipposudoric acid and one orange, norhipposudoric acid, which are to very acidic compounds. Both pigments also absorb Ultra Violet rays, preventing sunburn." ~ Psionic_Wookie

“Kangaroos can't jump backwards.” – frankftw

“If you hold a bullet in one hand and a gun in the other at the same height and drop the bullet at the same time as firing the gun, both bullets will hit the ground at the same time.” – FAHtastic

“Silver is rarer than gold and eventually will become extinct by 2020? or something(meaning no new silver mined unless they find a new silver mine or something). So we would have to recycle silver from electronics in landfills or remelt old silver coins by then.

3-5 people out of a 100 own Silver.

Prices per troy ounce as of today: $1097-$1098 for Gold $15.97-$15.99 Silver $1508-$1513 Platinum $2340-$2730 Rhodium” – HitomiKagewaki

“cigarette filters are the number one piece of litter in the usa” – ToadYoshi

“You can buy uncut sheets of either $1, $2, $5, $10, $20 or $50 dollar uncut sheets from the BEP itself. They do cost more than face value. For example a 32 sheet of two's costs 90 bucks but the way I look at the cost as 90 dollars minus the 64 dollars= 26.” – HitomiKagewaki

“Hitler was blinded (temporarily) and nearly killed by a mustard gas attack in WWI.” – Eddie___Dean

“Most dandruff is not simply dead scalp cells. When you wash your hair, it gets wet, and the hair closer to your head takes longer to dry because it has less access to the air. In the mean time, the water next to your scalp allows a wonderful breeding ground for a mold, which is really what (some) kinds of dandruff is.” – Grand_Maester

“Salt is the only rock that we eat.” – VF1MS Metal Siren

“More money is printed daily for Monopoly games than for the U.S. Treasury

If everyone in the world owned their own mid sized house, they could all fit within the state of Texas (or so I heard)” – VideoboysaysCube

“Money is actually based upon debt and not value. In other words if there was no debt there be no money and we go back to the old money system of value.

Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution explicitly forbids the states from issuing "bills of credit" (paper or "fiat" money) or making anything but gold and silver coin "legal tender", whereas there are no corresponding explicit prohibitions against the federal government, nor any explicit authorization.

In 1798, Vice President Thomas Jefferson wrote that the federal government has no power “of making paper money or anything else a legal tender,” and he advocated a constitutional amendment to enforce this principle by denying the federal government the power to borrow.” – HitomiKagewaki

“There is a bird named Antpitta avis canis Ridgley. This bird doesn't sing, instead it barks like a dog.” – baltoboulbobbi

“it takes more energy to [digest] a piece of celery than the amount of calories present in the celery. so you are losing calories for every piece of celery you eat” – kirbydude385

“"In fact, every U.S. banknote issued since 1861 is still redeemable today at full face value and will continue to be legal currency. In addition, there will be no recall or devaluation of any U.S. bills as the United States has never devalued its currency and will not do so now." – HitomiKagewaki

“Forest fires burn faster uphill than downhill.” – BlackDra90n

“Bananas are not fruit; they're actually herbs.

Also, I remember hearing somewhere that human DNA is ridiculously similar to that of a banana, but I think that's only because both us and bananas have layers of keratin to prevent us from becoming waterlogged.” – Ultim87

“Koalas sleep more than sloths do.” – kirbydude385

“Glow sticks and hockey pucks will blend inside a blender.” – Ankleslam101

“1. Surely the strangest Easter custom takes places in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, where there is a tradition of spanking or whipping women on Easter Monday. Males throw water at females and spank them with handmade whips made of willow and decorated with ribbons at the end. The spanking is supposed to be symbolic and according to legend, females should be spanked in order to keep their health and beauty during the next year. It doesn’t sound too fun for the women!

2. In Finland, children dress up and go begging in the streets with sooty faces, carrying broomsticks. Sounds a bit like Halloween? In some parts of Western Finland they even burn bonfires on Easter Sunday. But there is no sign of Guy Fawkes. This tradition takes place to ward off witches flying around between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

3. On Maundy Thursday in Verges, in Spain, a traditional “death dance” is performed which involves a parade down the streets of the medieval town. Everyone involved is dressed in costumes and the procession ends with frightening skeletons carrying boxes of ashes. The scary dance begins at midnight and continues for three hours into the early morning.” – Aecioo

The end of Random Fact of the Day

Sadly, on June 4th, 2010, after four months of random facts, the topic was closed. Fortunately, that was because it reached 500, not because Wookie stopped. Wookie said he had plans on restarting Random Fact of the Day in mid-July/early August 2010, if all works out.

Random Fact of the Day V2

On August 30th, 2010, Psionic_Wookie revived Random Fact of the Day with Random Fact of the Day V2, saying he thought it had been long enough since the first one and that he was finally ready to start another. This topic works the exact same way as the first, Wookie posts a fact a day (or more, depending on the day/his mood) and welcomes any additional facts from readers. Unfortunately, some facts Wookie posted were also used in the first RFotD, an accident on Wookie's part, however readers told Wookie not to worry about this.

Day 1/115: The first coast-to-coast airplane flight across the United States took place in 1911 and took 49 days.

Day 2/116: In 2008, Japan tested out a wasabi fire alarm, which was silent and released wasabi vapours. In the tests, 93% of people woke up within 2 minutes.

Day 3/117: Frank Oz, voice of Yoda, also does Cookie Monster, Grover, Bert, Fozzie Bear, Sam the Eagle, Animal and Ms. Piggy.

Day 4/118: The death of pro-British Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini on August 25th, 1896, and the succession of Sultan Khalid bin Barghash, of whom the British did not approve, led to the Anglo-Zanzibar War. On the morning of August 27th, 1896, ships of the Royal Navy attacked and destroyed the Beit al Hukum Palace. A cease fire was declared 38 minutes later and to this day the bombardment stands as the shortest war in history.

Day 5/119: It is often rumored that 'golf' stands for 'Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden'. That is most likely not true. It is believed to have passed to the Scots from the medieval Dutch word 'kolf' or 'kolve,' meaning 'club,' and the dialect of the Scots turned it into 'golve.'

Day 6/120: Manatees (Dugongs) have blood that clots fairly slowly, and this blood property makes it important to study them for people with haemophilia (a blood clotting disorder in humans).

Day 7/121: People waste enough paper to cover the Netherlands every five minutes.

Day 8/122: Pepsi had a hard time selling much in China due to translations.

In 1958, Pepsi's slogan was "Be sociable," which translated as "Be intimate." Sales dropped.

Pepsi then changed their slogan to "Now it's Pepsi for those who think young" in 1961, which was translated to "New Pepsi is for people with the minds of children." Sales dropped.

Pepsi then tried "Come alive with Pepsi!" which became "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead."

Then they tried "Come alive! You're in the Pepsi generation!" which was instead heard as "Resurrect! Your body will be made of Pepsi!"

Day 9/123: Pound for pound, hamburgers are often more expensive than cars.

Day 10/124: The can opener was actually invented more that 80 years after the can (can was invented around 1772, can opener was patented in 1855 in England and in 1858 in the US). The can (well, really more of a box) was first made of tin-plated iron and weighed more than the food. Instructions read "Cut round the top near the outer edge with a chisel and hammer." The first patented can opener was really just a variation of a knife. The first can opener to use the now-common serrated wheel was invented in 1870, but was difficult to operate. The real breakthrough came in 1925, when a second wheel was added to hold the cutting wheel in place (the design you are probably familiar with, because it was so popular and easy to use).

Day 11/125: Donald Duck comics were once banned in Finland because he didn't wear pants.

Day 12/126: The human body is actually capable of performing huge feats of strength, even the bodies of those who aren't particularly strong. Take Angela Cavalio, who, after her son got trapped under a car he was working on (the jack slipped), she ran outside to find him unconscious. She called for help from her neighbor, but it wasn't coming as fast as she wanted so she just lifted the freaking car with her bare freaking hands. It was no She-Hulk, she only lifted it a few inches, but she had to hold it more several minutes while he dragged his butt to safety. And there's Sinjin Eberie, who went rock climbing in New Mexico when a 600-pound boulder came loose, smashed into him (crushing his hands) and started pushing him back down toward a 150-foot drop. In the same "crap's gonna hit the fan," adrenaline-pumped mode Angela was in earlier, he just tossed the boulder aside, crushed hands and all.

Why can't we do this all the time? Evidence suggests that out muscle fibers are actually strong enough to allow us to punch through walls like a fricking Terminator if they really, really want to, but our brain frustratingly limits that. Why? One problem is that just about everything else (skin, bone, tendon, etc) wouldn't be able to take that kind of punishment. It's the same reason steroid users get injured more often - the support structures can't keep up with the muscles.

And part of where that strength comes from, it actually gets by halting other bodily function like immune response and digestion, so it's only awesome for a few minutes at a time anyway.

Day 13/127: When the temperature drops, the eyesight reaction times of insects (as well as some animals like tortoises) decrease, which is why they're easier to catch early in the morning or at night by predators, like birds, whose eyesight isn't affected by temperature.

Day 14/128: Human babies are born two months premature for their size and lifespan. This is because they also have very large brains during birth.

Day 14/128 1/2: A baboon named Jackie became a private in the African army in WWI.

Day 14/128 3/4: Technically speaking, banana trees aren't trees, they're herbs. And bananas themselves are not fruits, but berries.

Day 15/129: The average combined total of all the minutes people spend on Facebook every day is about 3,000,000,000 minutes, or about 5700 years.

Day 16/130: As you probably noticed, Led Zeppelin is slightly misspelled. This was actually intentional because they didn't want people to mispronounce their name.

Day 16/130 1/2: Men are more likely to be left-handed (10%) than women (8%). Also, "ambidextrous" does not actually mean anything about your left hand. The literal translation is "both right."

Day 17/131: A leech has 32 brains. Also, the bite of a leech it painless, even though they can bite through hippo hide.

Day 18/132: Head lice actually prefer it if you have a nice, clean head, not a dirty, greasey head as so many claim.

Day 18/132 1/2: Cotton Mouths are actually not nearly as aggresive as people give them credit for. They usually prefer to scare away would-be attackers by flashing their fangs and the white lining of their mouth at the creature in question. From Wikipedia: In tests designed to measure the various behavioral responses by wild specimins to encounters with people, 23/45 (51%) tried to escape, while 28/36 (78%) resorted to threat displays and other defensive tactics. Only when they were picked up by a mechanical hand were they likely to bite.

Day 19/133: Honey will never spoil. EVER.

Day 19/133 1/2: On average, American dentists will use 26,000 pounds of gold per year on inlays, fillings, and crowns.

Day 20/134: Abe Lincoln was known to be an avid jokester and story teller (he also suffered from depression). And he was the first president to be assassinated.

Day 21/135: The McDonald's at the family resort Lindvallen in Stockholm, Sweden, is the only McDonald's with a ski-through window. It was opened in 1996 and, just in case you don't feel like skiing, the restaurant holds 140 people.

Day 22/136: Theodore Roosevelt's wife and mother died on the same day, in the same house.

Teddy was the first president to ride in a car and fly an airplane (l assume not at the same time).

Day 23/137: Canada has a weaker gravitational pull than the USA, which is suspected to be due to an effect called "post-glacial" rebound.

Day 24/138: Chess was invented in Persia, modern day Iran.

Day 24/138 1/2: Our word "checkmate" is derived from the Persian phrase "shah mut" meaning "the king is defeated."

Day 25: Lewis Carrol's "Through the Looking Glass" is based on chess, much the same way as "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" was based on playing cards.

Day 25 1/2: The Queen was originally a male prime minister and could only move one space and only diagonally. lt wss changed to a queen and given much more power in the Renaissance era.

Day 26/140: lf the entire population of China walked by you in a single file line, it would never end due to the rate of reproduction.

Day 26/140 1/2: At one point, Daniel Palmer, creator of chiropractic, once considered turning his practice into a religion.

Day 28: The African cicada can click at up to 106 decibels, louder than a chainsaw (about 100 decibels)

Day 28 1/2: If you ever take a look at a clock with Roman numerals, you'll probably notice that the numbers go [I, II, III, IIII, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII], with the four being IIII instead of IV. While nobody knows exactly why this is, there are two strong possibilities:

Back then, IV was the sign for Jupiter (head of the gods, essentially Zeus), so the clock would've read [one, two, three, God, five].

Another possibility is that IIII was heavier and necessary to balance the clock and the slightly lighter IV just couldn't do that.

Day 29/143: If you were to bang your head against a wall for an hour, you would burn about 150 calories.

Day 29/143 1/2: The Guinness Book of World Records holds the record for being the book most stolen from public libraries.

Day 30 144: In French, there are seventeen different words used for "surrender."

Day 30/144 2/4: Though very hard, it is entirely possible to light a fire via rubbing Cool Ranch Doritos together.

Day 30/144 3/4: If you wrap your pencils in aluminum foil before sticking them in a pencil sharpener, you can actually sharpen the the blades of the pencil sharpener.

Day 30/144 4/4: In 1843, a mime in Paris actually got stuck in his own imaginary box and eventually starved to death.

Day 31/145: Over 300 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were not spelled correctly.

Day 31/145 1/2: In Chinese, KFC's slogan "Finger lickin' good" translates to "Eat your fingers off."

Day 32/146: When the Gerber baby food company started selling some of it's products in Africa, they decided to use the same smiling baby that they've always used. After they noticed that the products weren't selling, they quickly found out why: most Africans are illiterate, so companies put pictures on the labels of containers that display what's inside.

Day 32/146 1/2: The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Kekoukela", which translates to "bite the wax tadpoles" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then researched Chinese characters to find a better translation. They eventually ended up with "kokou kole", translating to "happiness in the mouth."

Day 33/147: The Dairy Association's great success with the "Got Milk?" campaign prompted them to expand their advertising to Mexico. However, after a short while, it was brought to their attention that the slogan read, not "Got Milk?", rather, "Are you lactating?"

Day 33/147 1/2: Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron, into Germany, but didn't realize that "mist" was a slang term for "manure" in Germany. Alas, not too many Germans had a use for a "Manure Stick."

Day 34/148: Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken", got horribly mangled in it's translation to Spanish. A photo of the man and one of his chickens appeared all over Mexico with the words "It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused."

Day 34/148 1/2: September 28th is national Ask a Stupid Question Day (though some claim it's on the last school day of September). It's usually only observed by teachers and students. According to holidayinsights.com, the roots of this special day go back to the 1980s. At the time, there was a movement by teachers to try and get kids to ask more questions in the classroom. The kids would then ask stupid questions to make the teachers happy.

Day 35/149: An annoying little bird in New Zealand, called a Kea, has been known to peck at or take any unguarded items you may be carrying and will sometimes even pry apart rubber parts of cars.

Day 35/149 1/2: There are 318,979,564,000 different ways the first four moves of chess can go. Per side.

Day 36/150: The year 150 started on a Wednesday on the Julian calander.

150 is the sum of eight consecutive prime numbers (7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 31)

A "Professor's Cube" is a Rubix Cube with 150 squares.

Day 37/151: Eagles have been known to occasionally kill and carry off young deer.

Day 37/151 1/2: When George Lucas was mixing the American Graffiti soundtrack, he numbered the reels of film starting with an R and the dialog starting with a D. Walter Murch, the sound designer, asked George for Reel 2, Dialog 2 by saying "R2D2." George liked the way that sounded so much that he integrated that into another one of his projects.

Day 38/152: Ants stretch when they get up every morning.

Day 38/152 1/2: Recycling a single glass jar saves enough energy to power a TV for three hours.

Day 39/153: April 16th is National Eggs Benedict Day.

Day 39/153 1/2: There were no ponies in the Pony Express. Only horses.

Day 40/154: Honeybees can have hair on their eyes.

Day 40/154 1/2: To keep him cool during those long baseball games, Babe Ruth would put a cabbage or lettuce leaf under his hat and change it every two innings.

Day 41/155: In 2003, 86 of the days in Hell, Michigan, were below freezing.

Day 41/155 1/2: The drive-through line on the opening day of the first McDonald's in Kuwait City, Kuwait, reached over seven miles long at times.

Day 42/156: If you know a male millionaire and he is married, statistically, his wife is probably a teacher.

Day 42/156 1/2: Regardless of country, all soldiers salute with their right hands.

Day 43/157: In 1998, there were more fast-food employees murdered than on duty cops.

Day 43/157 1/2: The average American will spend six months of their life waiting at read lights.

Day 44/158: Kangaroos can't move their legs independently on land, but they can in the water.

Day 44/158 1/2: It is much rumored that kangaroos can't swim, but they can, usually long distances. But they seem to have trouble swimming in pools.

Day 45/159: If you were to spell out every number, you would get to 1,000 before there was an A.

Day 45/159 1/2: Approximately 40% of people who come to a party in your home with snoop through your medicine cabinet.

Day 46/160: In the US, only 1 in every 7 burglaries is solved.

Day 46/160 1/2: The average chocolate bar has eight insect legs in it.

Day 47/161: There is enough fuel in a full tank of a jumbo jet to drive an average-sized car around the world four times.

Day 47/161 1/2: The dot that is over the litter 'i' is called a tittle.

Day 48/162: Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool, England, but only in tropical fish stores.

Day 48/162 1/2: Sports Illustrated magazine allows those who subscribe to opt out of receiving the famous swimsuit issue each year. Fewer than 1% of subscribers do.

Day 49/163: A few years back, Russian scientists actually developed a drug that "prolongs drunkenness and enhances intoxication." According to them, you take the pill before you drink and you need less alcohol to attain and sustain the same level of drunkenness as you what need without the pill.

Day 49/163 1/2: Spam filters that catch the word "cialis" will not allow many work-related e-mails to get through, because "cialis" is in the word "specialist."

Day 50/164: Amusement park attendance goes up after a fatal accident. Apparently, people want to ride the rides that killed somebody.

Day 50/164 2/4: More people die in the US at the beginning of the month than at the end. This is suspected to be due to drug users that get benefit checks at the beginning of each month then blowing it on drugs (probably ODing).

Day 50/164 3/4: Only 5% of the ocean floor has been mapped in as much detail as the surface of Mars.

Day 50/164 4/4: Albert Einstein didn't know how to drive a car.

Bonus Fact: Microsoft threatened to sue 17-year-old Mike Rower with a lawsuit after the young man launched a website. The websites name? MikeRoweSoft.com The website was launched in August 2003 asa part time web designing business. Mike thought it would be funny to add 'soft' to the end of his name and make that the websites name, but Microsoft saw that as a trademark infringement because of the phonetic resemblance to Microsoft. After getting the letter in January 2004 telling him to give up the domain, Rowe requested compensation for losing the domain, to which Microsoft said they would give him $10. After much press coverage and several court visits, they finally settled on an out of court settlement. Rowe would give up the domain in exchange for a subscription to Microsoft Developer Network, an all expenses paid trip for him and his family to the Microsoft Research Test Fest at the Microsoft headquarters, training for Microsoft certification and an XBox with a selection of games.

Day 51/165: The smallest wingspan of any insect (or animal, for that matter) belongs to the Tanzanian parasitic wasp, as just 0.2mm. To put that into perspective, 1 millimeter is about 1/26 of an inch. The wingspan is about 1/130 of an inch.

Day 51/165 1/2: The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagra Falls froze completely solid.

Day 52/166: The little hole in the sink that makes it so water drains through there instead of overflowing is called a "porcelator."

Day 52/166 1/2: The US has about 5% of the total world population, but about 25% of the total world prison population.

Day 53/167: Americans get an average of ten days of vacation a year. The French, however, get at least five weeks of vacation per year, by law. Most full-time workers get two full months, though.

Day 53/167 1/2: Ever spell Truman's name as "Harry S. Truman"? Well, you're doing it wrong. The 'S' is not short for anything (thus no need for the period), S is his actual middle name, a common practice among the Scots-Irish. His parents did this to please both of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young.

Day 54/168: The *snap* you hear when a bullwhip is cracked is because the very tip of the whip goes faster than the speed of sound, thus causing a small sonic boom.

Day 54/168: Le Train de Nulle Part (The Train from Nowhere) is a French novel written in 2004 by Michel Dansel, under the pen name of Michel Thaler. The entire novel, consisting of 233 pages, is completely devoid of verbs.

Day 55/169: The tap water in NYC isn't kosher; it contains harmless micro-organisms that are technically shellfish.

Day 55/169 1/2: There are still more than 8,000 troops listed as MIA from the Korean War.

Day 56/170: In a survey a few years back (I can't seem to find the year >.>), 71% of office workers that were stopped on the streets gave up their computer passwords in exchange for a chocolate bar.

Day 56/170 1/2: Twinkies were invented in Schiller Park, Illinois around 1930 by James Dewar, a baker for Continental Bakeries (now called Hostess). After finding that the machines used to make cream-filled strawberry shortcakes sat idle when strawberries were not in season, Dewar came up with a new idea: snack cakes filled with banana cream, and he called it a Twinkie. However, during World War II, bananas were rationed, so Hostess was forced to switch to a different kind of cream, abd they chose vanilla. The change proved to be extremely popular, so Hostess never switched back to banana.

Day 57/171: Only an estimated 6% of autographs in circulation from members of the Beatles are real.

Day 57/171 1/2: The total time spent deleting spam e-mails in the United States costs about $22 billion annually.

Day 58/172: There are more English speakers in China than America (there are about 300 million people in America, about a billion in China).

Day 58/172 1/2: The day before George W. Bush was reelected, Canada's immigration website had 115,000 visitors. Before the reelection, the site had an average of 20,000 visitors a day.

Day 59/173: Costco is the largest wine retailer in America, with annual sales of $700 million a year.

Day 59/173 1/2: A private elementary school (that shall not be named) in Alexandria, Virginia, accidentally served margaritas to its schoolchildren, thinking it was limeade.

Day 60/174: The world's largest book, "Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey" is in the Chicago Public Library. It measures 5 feet tall, 7 feet wide (when open) and weighs 133 pounds.

Day 60/174 1/2: La Paz, Bolivia, is a fireproof city. At 12,000 feet above sea level, there's too little oxygen to support a flame (only 16% of the air is oxygen, compared to 21% at sea level).

Day 61/175: On average, more people are killed annually by teddy bears than grizzly bears.

Day 61/175 1/2: CBS's fine for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the 2004 Super Bowl show was $550,000. This could've been paid with only 7.5 seconds of commercial time during the same Super Bowl telecast.

Day 62/176: The hat that chef's wear is shaped oddly, but, as you can expect, it's for a reason. The curious shape allows air to circulate around inside the hat, keeping the chef's head a few degrees cooler than the surrounding air.

Day 62/176 1/2: In November of 2003, an employee of the Alabama Department of Transportation installed a spyware on his boss's computer to prove he wasted time and taxpayer dollars doing anything but work while on the clock. He eventually proved that only 10% of the boss's time was spent actually working (20% was checking stocks, the other 70% was solitaire). After this spyware was traced back to this employee, the employee was fired and the boss simply received a letter of reprimand.

Day 63/177: 7% of Americans claim they never bathe.

Day 63/177 1/2: We forget about 80% of what we learn each day.

Day 64/178: Women blink nearly twice as often as men.

Day 64/178 1/2: Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.

Day 65/179: The word "willy-nilly", generally accepted as meaning "arbitrarily", originated as a contraction of the phrase "will ye or nill ye", roughly meaning "whether you like it or not."

Day 65/179 1/2: [Word]oholic if frequently misused as a description of someone who is addicted to [word]. But this is quite incorrect, you see. If you were to say someone is a "workoholic", you would really be saying they have an addiction to workohol.

Day 66/180: A butler is the head of a large household of servants, dealing specifically with the wine cellar(s) - "butler" is, in fact, a corruption of "bottler". Because Alfred is Batman's only servant, he cannot, by definition, be a butler. He is a valet. Though a valet could do the job of a butler, and vice versa.

Day 66/180 1/2: "Unique" is often used to mean "special" or "unusual", when the actual definition is "one-of-a-kind." Not just rare, totally singular. Which makes it even stupider when people use the phrase "very unique" or "quite unique."

Day 67/181: There are over 13,000 McDonald's in the US. That's over 260 per state.

Day 67/181 1/2: In Los Angeles, you are not legally allowed to bathe two babies in the same bathtub at the same time.

Day 68/182: The word "stupid" actually means "in a stupor", so calling someone stupid doesn't mean unintelligent, rather you're calling them unresponsive.

Day 68/182 1/2: "Factoid" is often used to mean "little fact" or "trivia." The suffix "-oid" actually means "having the likeness of", so a factoid is like a fact, but it's not a fact (like how a pony is like a horse, but it's not a horse).

Day 69/183: There are 24 known "perfect" numbers. A "perfect" number is a number that equals the sum of all its divisors except itself. 6 is the lowest "perfect" number (1+2+3=6). The largest known "perfect" number has 12,003 digits.

Day 69/183 1/2: There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. 292 if you don't count swapping a dollar coin for a dollar bill.

Day 70/184: According to an old British law, attempting suicide is a capital offense. If caught trying to commit suicide, an offender will be hanged.

Day 70/184 2/4: David Prowse was the guy inside the Darth Vader costume in Star Wars. He spoke all of Vader's lines and didn't even know he was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones he saw the screening of the movie. Oh, and did I mention he's Scottish? Yeah, Vader was almost Scottish.

Day 70/184 3/4: Emus and kangaroos can't walk/jump backwards. They are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.

Day 70/184 4/4: Hydroxydesoxycorticosterone is an anagram of hydroxydeoxycorticosterones, They are the longest non-scientific English anagrams, even though the only thing that moved was an 's' it still counts.

Day 71/185: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c81bcjyfn6U&feature=player_embedded

Day 72/186: American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by taking out one olive from each salad served to first class.

Day 72/186 1/2: The longest English word is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. It is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "a factitious word alleged to mean 'a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust, causing inflamation on the lungs." A condition normally meeting the word's definition is normally called silicosis.

Day 73/187: On a molecular level, sand is actually much more wet than water.

Day 73/187 1/2: When subjected to a weak electric charge (approximately 50 volts), a cat's tail will always point north.

Day 74/188: Baby Spice, a British pop singer, is the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandniece of Archduke William Pinkley-Hogue of Standishfordshire, thus making her 103rd in line for the throne of England.

Day 74/188 1/2: The white of the egg is not the healthiest part of it. The shell is.

Day 75/189: There's a small gravel road in Freeman, Missouri, that branches off of the regular road and leads up to a hill. It's almost a rock's throw from the Kansas state line. Some say gravity doesn't work there. There have been several cases of people driving up to the hill, stopping at a level spot, putting the car in neutral and the car just starts rolling forward, sometimes at low speeds, like 2 miles per hour, sometimes at speeds up to 25 miles per hour. Nobody knows what causes this fascinating event to occur, but it doesn't happen to everyone, for some reason.

[Note by Psionic_Wookie: These are actually known as gravity hills. What, you want a link? Just Google it.]

Day 76/190: An estimated 3% of the Antarctic glaciers is frozen penguin pee.

Day 76/190 1/2: An inscription found in the tomb of Pharaoh Ramses was found to be a recipe for a drink almost identical to Coca-Cola.

Day 77/191: Silly Putty was invented in 1943 by Peter Hodgson as a substitute for rubber for boots used in the military. One day he accidentally dropped some boric acid into silicone oil and noticed that the resulting creation was stretchier than, and bounced higher than, rubber.

Day 77/191 1/2: Charles Darwin tried to make flying monkeys by attempting to have a chimp and a vulture mate. As you can probably tell, this did not work very well.

Day 78/192: By the age of 17, Shaolin monks are expected to be able to deflect a spear tip using only their necks.

Day 78/192 1/2: .999~ = 1 The proof? x = .999~ 10x = 9.999~ 9x = 9.000 x = 1

Day 79/193: A "walla-walla" scene is a scene where extras pretend to talk in the background, but all they're actually saying is "walla-walla" over and over again.

Day 79/193 1/2: 101 Dalmatians, Peter Pan and Mulan are the only Disney movies where both parents are present and alive throughout the whole movie (that I can think of, anyway. I haven't seen all Disney movies).

Day 80/194: Mickey Mouse is banned in Romania, as of 1935. The Romanians thought he scared children.

Day 80/194 2/4: The Welsh alphabet consists of 28 letters, but no J, K, Q, V, X, or Z. Instead, the eight letters it adds are the digraphs CC, DD, FF, NG, LL, PH, PR, and TH.

Day 80/194 3/4: It takes at least 50,000 crocus flowers to make a pound of dried saffron. As you can probably tell, saffron is very expensive.

Day 80/194 4/4: Hawaii's po'ouli is thought to be the world's rarest bird. There are only two of those birds known to be in existence, and they aren't even confirmed to be male and female. Even if they were, they are suspected to be too old to mate anyway.

Day 81/195: Englishwoman Theresa Vaughn, 24, was convicted in 1922 of marrying 62 men over 5 years.

Day 81/195 1/2: In Saudi Arabia, girls are legally allowed to get married at the age of eight.

Day 82/196: According to ABC News, Justin Bieber is the seventh most Googled woman.

Day 82/196 1/2: The vision of hawks is roughly 20/5. That means that they can see something at twenty feet as sharp and detailed as what a human could see at five.

Day 83/197: Smoking meat was originally done, not because it tastes good to people, because it tastes bad to flies.

Day 83/197 1/2: Brazil is the world's largest exporter of beef. And Argentina is the world's largest consumer of beef, with an annual average of 141 pounds per person being eaten.

Day 84/198: The American military is currently developing a new combat knife, currently called "The Wasp", that has a small canister of CO(2) in the handle and a thin tube leading from it to the tip of the knife, so that when a troop stabs someone, they can release the gas and essentially blow the target's organs up like balloons, something that's much harder to recover from than a normal knife wound. Oh, and did I mention that the gas is icy cold? 'Cause that's important.

Day 84/198 1/2: North Carolina is the state that produces the most tobacco, with Kentucky coming in second.

Day 85/199: Saint Agatha is the patron saint of wet nurses, rape victims, breast diseases and preventing volcanic eruptions. In the third century, she was tortured and had her breasts cut off. Probably for that reason, her representation is breasts on a dish. If you want to observe her feast day, it is February 5th.

Day 85/199 1/2: Male brain process female voices differently than male voices. No, they don't tune them out, they actually pay more attention to what a female voice is saying. This is why a female voice (known as *****in' Betty) is used in F-16 fighter jet and Apache helicopter cockpits for warnings.

Day 86/200: The reason helium makes someone's voice sound higher is that helium is lighter than air, thus it travels through the larynx faster than oxygen. You probably knew that. But you might not have known that when the fast moving helium hits the thick outside air, all the soundwaves bunch up. To anyone who has taken middle school science should know, that results in a higher pitch.

Day 86/200 2/10: The house of the Sultan of Brunei has 1,788 rooms, 257 bathrooms and takes up 2,152,00 square feet.

Day 86/200 3/10: The first public performance by the band KISS had an audience of three people.

Day 86/200 4/10: The largest cell in the human body is the ovum (female only, of course), which is visible to the naked eye. The smallest cell is the sperm cell, which is approximately 1/175,000 the size of an ovum.

Day 86/200 5/10: Grilling is quick, hot cooking over an open flame. Barbequing is slow, moist cooking involving sauces and smoking.

Day 86/200 6/10: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese was the first pre-packaged meal, starting in 1937.

Day 86/200 7/10: Orangutan babies will sometimes nurse for up to six years.

Day 86/200 8/10: Male whiptail lizards don't exist. The females produce enough testosterone to mimic male behaviour (such as mounting), causing other females to lay and fertilize their own eggs. This results in, what is essentially, clones, as there is only one batch of genes that go into the egg, it will be exactly like its mother.

Day 86/200 9/10: People have to be dead for ten years before they can be put on postage stamps. The exception to this is presidents, who only have to wait a year.

Day 86/200 10/10: The Cat in the Hat took over a year to write and illustrate.

Day 87/201: The motto "In God We Trust" first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864, as a way to boost the country's morale during the Civil War. The phrase didn't appear on paper money until 1957.

Day 87/201 1/2: If you're lucky enough to have a 1909-S VBD Wheat Penny, congratulations! That penny is worth roughly $550.0 in good condition.

Day 88/202: Lucy Hayes was the first first lady to have graduated college.

Day 88/202 1/2: New Jersey has the highest car insurance rates of any state, while North Dakota has the lowest.

Day 89/203: There's a group of monks in Japan, from the Tendai Sect of Buddhism, based at Mount Hiei. These monks, known as the Tendai "Marathon" Monks are the toughest, most committed athletes in the world. They run for no reason other than spiritual enlightenment. Doesn't sound so bad? It is. The ultimate achievement of their training is the completion of their 1,000-day challenge, which has to be the most demanding physical, and possibly mental, challenge in the world. Only 46 men have completed the challenge since 1885. It takes about seven years to complete, since the monks must also do other Buddhist trainings, such as meditation and caligraphy, as well as their other duties at the temple.

The first 300 days are just basic training, in which the monks run about 40km (around 24 miles, just shy of an Olympic Marathon) a day for 100 straight days. By the fourth and fifth years, they're running 40km a day for 200 straight days. The last two years are even more daunting. In the sixth, they run 60km (about 36 miles) a day for another 100 straight days. If you think that's tough, their seventh year has them run 84km a day for 100 days. That's two Olympic Marathons back-to-back, every day, for 100 days. The monks are not allowed to stop to eat, drink or rest, either (even when they do eat, it's a diet of purely vegetables, tofu and miso soup). The only things they're allowed to have on them are books with maps or mantras, food offerings, candles and a knife and rope (in the event they should fail their training). And, I'm not sure if it's important enough to mention, but they do all this running, through mountains, streams, snow, you name it, in straw sandals.

Day 90/204: Only about 0.3 cents of every dollar spent in America is used on reading material.

Day 90/204 1/2: A contranym is a word that can have opposite meanings. For example, "sanction" (could mean approve or punishment), "clip" (could mean cut or fasten) and "trim" (could mean to cut away or to ornament).

Day 91/205: In Finland, fines for speeding are based on the offender's income.

Day 91/205 1/2: The really was a girl, named Jenny, whose parents had the phone number 867-5309.

Day 92/206: Licking your wounds may actually help, even though it stings so much (then again, most wound treatments sting). Saliva contains compounds that fight infection and might even encourage healing. This is one of the reasons a cut or sore in the mouth heals faster than one almost anywhere else.

Day 92/206 1/2: Being (what we now consider) overweight was actually fashionable up until the turn of the twentieth century. One of the biggest sex symbols of the late 1800s was the two-hundred-pound Lillian Russell.

Day 93/207: There really was a $100,000 bill (and a $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills, but those are another day). The $100,000 bill, which sported an image of Woodrow Wilson on the front and a bright orange color on the back, was introduced in 1936 as a way to transfer federal money. These were the days before digital money, mind you. The $100,000 bill was made so that government transactions don't have to use, say, 1,000 $100 bills, or something.

Day 93/207 1/2: It is illegal for a member of the United States military to become president. What about Washington and Eisenhower, you ask? They were generals, clearly they had time in the military. Here's the thing: they were generals. In order to run for president, any military personnel must resign from the military in order to become a civilian, since early Congress passed a law stating that the United States must have a civilian president.

Bonus facts: Also, there's a common misconception: Washington was not a 5-star General. The rank didn't exist back then. Instead, he was a Lieutenant General. He was promoted in 1976, to General of the Armies, the highest possible rank. This was done after John J. Pershing was promoted to General of the Armies in 1919, and it was discovered that he then outranked Washington, something it was decided could not happen. So, so 60 years later, they promoted Washington.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing actually still makes $2 bills. It's just that nobody ever uses them, thinking they're rare, so they don't get worn out quickly, so they don't need to be replaced. According to the tour guide I had, they still make them every 5 or 6 years, whenever an order comes in. Essentially, nobody uses them because nobody uses them.

Day 94/208: You can't get divorced in the Philippines.

Day 94/208 1/2: The largest note ever issued was the Hungarian 100 quintillion pengo note. That's a 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 pengo bill.

Day 95/209: The big space inside the Pentagon, that big, grassy, slightly smaller pentagon, is the largest no-salute area for American soldiers in the world. This is because it's basically a park, complete with a hotdog stand, that a lot of people go to for lunch/a break. If they had to salute, then the lowest ranking officers/enlisted men would have to be constantly saluting those of a higher rank and would hardly get lunch/a break. Normally, if you ever crossed paths with anyone in the military who was of a higher rank than you, you would have to salute.

Day 95/209 1/2: That aforementioned hotdog stand has an interesting story. It's actually kind of big for a hotdog stand, it's roughly the size of a large gazebo, and exactly in the middle of the park. During the Cold War, the Soviets sent a satellite into space to spy on the Pentagon. They saw that there was a small building in the middle of the Pentagon's park. They judged that it must be some form of transport, probably an elevator into the military's underground fortress, and they even planned to attack it. The Pentagon heard this and decided to let the Soviets continue with their plan. The hotdog stand was then labeled "The most dangerous hotdog stand in the world", complete with an "Enter at your own risk" sign.

Day 96/210: Gold in a liquid suspension is rather effective as an anti-inflammatory and was once even used to treat rheumatoid arthritis.

Day 96/210 1/2: The Aztec word for "gold" was "teocuitlatl", which has the approximate meaning "excrement of the gods."

Day 97/211: There is no historical evidence that Betsy Ross ever made the American Flag.

Day 97/211 1/2: The study of kissing is called philematology.

Day 98/212: Khoikhoi (a tribe in Africa) men believe that twins are evil and come from having two testicles. So they chop one of them off. Similarly, the Ponapeans of Micronesia cut out one of a boy's testicles at puberty.

Day 98/212 1/2: There is a museum in Iceland completely dedicated to the genitalia of males from many different species.

Day 99/213: Alaska and Hawaii have the same record high temperature - 100F. This is the lowest high of any state.

Day 99/213 1/2: It takes about 570 gallons of paint to cover the entire White House.

Day 100/214: The first working fax machine was actually invented in 1861, before the first working telephone.

Day 100/214 2/5: The system of measurements the U.S. uses is called U.S. customary measure.

Day 100/214 3/5: The act of... "self-gratification" can actually be dangerous to younger men. Research shows it increases the risk of developing prostate cancer. Interestingly, it has the opposite effect for older men.

Day 100/214 4/5: France is the world's largest exporter of electricity.

Day 100/214 5/5: Another cancer-related fact: studies have shown that women who breast-feed their children are at a reduced risk of getting breast cancer.

Day 101/215: The oldest continuously operating public school in America is the Boston Latin School, which started teaching in 1635. It is also the first public school.

Day 101/215 1/2: You can get a college scholarship for a lot of weird things. These things include, but are not limited to, being left-handed, being particularly tall of short, being good with duck calls, writing an essay on how milk helped you in school, skateboarding, having the last name of van Valkenburg, Gatling or Gatlin, knowing a lot about the FBI, making your own prom outfit out of duct tape, having the best apple pie recipe, writing an essay about the novel The Fountainhead or planning to study parapsychology.

Day 102/216: The first American woman to receive a medical degree was Elizabeth Blackwell, in 1849. The first African American woman to receive a degree at all was Mary Jane Patterson, at Oberlin, in 1862.

Day 102/216 1/2: Even though women tend to wash their hands more, their hands have, on average, more bacteria on them than the average man's. This appears to be because the hands of men are more acidic, thus less hospitable to bacteria.

Day 103/217: Women lack an enzyme in the stomach that breaks down alcohol, so it goes straight into their bloodstream. Men's stomachs start breaking it down right away. So, drink for drink, women get more drunk.

Day 103/217 1/2: Studies show that pregnant women can smell up to two thousand times better than a non-pregnant woman. Some believe that this may explain what causes morning sickness.

Day 104/218: In 1919, Ethelda Bleibtrey, winner of three gold medals in the 1920 Olympics, was arrested for "nude swimming" after she removed her stockings at a public pool.

Day 104/218 1/2: Nail polish was first worn about five thousand years ago in China, to differentiate between the classes. It didn't come to the U.S. until 1907. When it did come, most women didn't know how to use it, so magazines ran little bits on how to apply it.

Day 105/219: Lightning doesn't always make thunder.

Day 105/219 1/2: St. Louis legalized prostitution in 1870.

Day 106/210: In the 1700s, women would shave off their eyebrows and glue on mouse fur, similar to how they just draw them on today.

Day 106/210 1/2: The shortest presidential inaugural address was that of George Washington. It was only 135 words in 1793.

Day 107/221: Believe it or not, when the plane struck the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, it actually picked a really great time. The Pentagon was being redone, wall by wall, to make it more solid (it originally had wood framing, it was being replaced by steel; that's all I remember). The one wall that the plane struck was the one wall that had already been mostly done. Because it was being redone, there was barely anyone in it, and since it was more solid, the damage was minimal. Only 125 people died that day at the Pentagon (not counting those on the plane). It was estimated that, if they had struck any other wall, or if that wall wasn't redone, the deaths would be in the thousands.

Day 108/222: Approximately 90% of toothpicks come from Maine.

Day 108/222 1/2: Of all the Americans who have made it to 100-years-old, about 80% of them were women.

Day 109/213: Early rubber condoms were much thicker than the current ones and were made to just be washed and reused.

Day 109/213 1/2: Colombia has the highest per capita murder rate in the world.

Day 110/224: The day people have the most heart attacks is Monday

Day 110/224 1/2: Tobacco use is the #1 cause of preventable death. Big surprise.

Day 111/215: The driest area on the planet is Arica, Chile, where it only rains about once every six years.

Day 111/215 1/2: China shares its borders with 14 other countries. It shares this trait with Russia.

Day 112/216: Women come out of anesthesia faster than men, and also suffer from more side effects from anti-depressants, steroids and antibiotics.

Day 112/216 1/2: It is against federal law to set fire to U.S. currency.

Day 113/217: Approximately 1.7% of American children are homeschooled.

Day 113/217 1/2: Deer are the deadliest animal to Americans, in terms of how many [animal]-related deaths there are. In 2007, there were 223 people killed in deer-related car crashes. Only one person in America was killed by a shark that year.

Day 114/228: The working man in Portugal or Austria is owed, by law, thirty-five paid days off a year. Spain, Denmark, Germany and Finland are right behind it with thirty-four. Americans, however, are entitled to none, unless the specific job says you get them.

Day 114/228 2/5: Every day, about $75 million is shredded for fertilizer, insulation, fireplace logs and roof shingles.

Day 114/228 3/5: Since the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list came into being in 1950, there have been 491 people on it (at the time of the book I'm reading this from). Only eight have been women. Of the 491, 460 have been caught; 151 have been with help from the public.

Day 114/228 4/5: There are eight countries that punish homosexuality with the death penalty.

Day 114/228 5/5: It is estimated that, worldwide, there are about 100,000,000 unexploded land mines. Most, if not all, of them are still functional.

Day 115/229: Virginia reaches 95 miles further west than West Virginia does.

Day 115/229 2/5: In Japan, there is a 20-1 ratio of people to vending machines. What's in these machines? Oh, the standard necessities: cellphone rechargers, rice, flowers, toilet paper, booze, rhinoceros beetles and porn. Standard stuff.

Day 115/229 3/5: Much as they try not to, during their lifetime, an average American will end up eating several pounds of dirt. Inadvertently, of course. Probably.

Day 115/229 4/5: If Barbie were life-size, she would be too skinny to have a period.

Day 115/229 5/5: In the event no players finish Final Jeopardy with at least $1, all players lose. At the time of my reading, this had only happened three times.

Day 116/230: About half of the U.S peanut crop goes to the production of peanut butter.

Day 116/230 1/2: Men are more likely to succeed suicide. Women are more likely to attempt it, though.

Day 117/231: Rubies are the third hardest mineral, measuring a 9.0 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness (right behind moissanite [9.5] and, of course, diamond [10.0]). Also, sapphires can be any color, except red, which is specifically reserved for rubies (though rubies can be a wide range of colors too, so I'm not 100% sure how it works).

Day 117/231 1/2: At the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891, the first game of basketball was played. It ended with a score of 1 - 0.

Day 118/232: The rarest known mammal is the Yangtze River dolphin. There are only about twenty known to be in existence.

Day 118/232 1/2: Harry Truman never graduated from college.

Day 119/233: Pretty much only North Americans call it "corn." Most, if not all, of the rest of the world calls it "maize."

Day 119/233 1/2: Millard Fillmore, Chester Arthur, Andrew Johnson and John Tyler had no vice president.

Day 120/234: A meter is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 seconds.

Day 120/234 1/2: Before 1751, all geishas were male.

Day 121/235: Botanically speaking, tomatoes are berries.

Day 121/235 1/2: In Qatar, Bahrain and Dubai, there are no personal income taxes.

Day 122/236: Every now and again, huge chunks of ice fall from the clear blue sky above, sometimes weighing up to 200 lbs. No one is sure why this happens. Yet, anyways.

Day 122/236 1/2: The absolute rarest stamp in the world is the Treskilling Yellow, accidentally made to be the wrong color by Sweden in 1855. The is only one known stamp of this kind, valued at around $2 million.

Day 123/237: Banana are the most popular fruit in America, by a sizable bit.

Day 123/237 1/2: Wayne Morse, senator from from Oregon, once gave an uninterrupted speech that went on for 22 hours and 26 minutes.

Day 124/238: You may have read or heard about Cruithne, which has been called "Earth's second moon". This is not correct. Cruithne is actually a quasi-satellite.

Day 124/238 1/2: The hair of polar bears is actually clear. It's a bunch of clear, hollow tubes that are designed to trap air, and thus heat.

Day 125/239: On the "Creation of Man" painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Adam's... ummm... "Little Adam", was made in one brush stroke.

Day 125/239 1/2: Another thing about that painting: the fingers, those famous fingers, aren't the original fingers. The original fingers fell off, some time ago, and some nameless lackey had to paint them back on.

Day 126/240: 16/20 of the world's most polluted cities are in China.

Day 126/240 1/2: It is actually pretty hard to start an avalanche with just sound, unless it's really, really strong (like a sonic boom).

Day 127/241: Pure water doesn't conduct electricity. It must have something dissolved in it to be able to conduct electricity. The reason tap water conducts electricity is because it has sodium fluoride (NaF), which conducts electricity, in it.

Day 127/241 1/2: Because they need to stay a consistent weight, vampire bats will start urinating as soon as they start feeding, to try and shed as much weight as they're gaining.

Day 128/242: Ablutophobia, the fear of washing or bathing Allodoxaphobia, the fear of opinions. Anglophobia, the fear of England, the English, and the English culture. Arachibutyrophobia, the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. Auroraphobia, the fear of Northern lights. Barophobia, the fear of gravity. Chaetophobia, the fear of hair. Chorophobia, the fear of dancing. Coprastasophobia, the fear of constipation. Euphobia, the fear of hearing good news.

Day 129/243: There are really five things our tongues can taste; bitter, sweet, sour, salty, and then umami, which is a savory, meaty taste.

Day 129/243 1/2: The original "tongue map" is entirely false. Our tongues can taste every flavor about equally all over it.

Day 130/244: The is no real evidence that vikings ever wore horns on their helmets.

Day 130/244 1/2: Napoleon wasn't particularly short, nor did he have a Napoleon complex. Following his death in 1821, his height was measured and recorded as 5'2" in French feet, which translates as about 5'6.5" in U.S customary measure, or 1.686 meters, which was about average for a man back then. There are still many attempts to explain why he was called "le Petit Caporal (The Little Corporal)", but not many scholars believe it referred to his height. One possible explanation is that Napoleon was often seen with his Imperial Guards, who were taller than average.

Day 131/245: Christopher Columbus's efforts at obtaining support for his trip to India were not at all hampered by the European belief in a flat Earth. In fact, most sailors and navigators of the time knew the Earth was a sphere, however, they disagreed with him on the distance the trip would be, which was smart on their side (CC's estimate was about 1/6 of the actual distance, so even if the America's didn't exist, they would've run out of supplies long before reaching land). The intellectual class had actually known the Earth was round since the works of Plato and Aristotle.

[Note from Psionic_Wookie: I wasn't sure how to weave it in, but Eratosthenes also made a very good estimate of the Earth diameter, back in the third century B.C.]

Day 132/246: The platypus has genome features of reptiles, birds and mammals, yet it's classified as a mammal.

Day 132/246 1/2: We've only discovered an estimated 15% of species in the world.

Day 133/247: Don't turn your car on to warm up before you drive it in cold weather. It's not bad for your engine to just turn it on and go. You won't damage it if you do it. And if you turn it on just to warm up your seat, well, you're just going to have to get over it. A law is on its way in that prohibits leaving your car running at all if nobody is in it, since it pollutes unnecessarily, as well as it often just leaves your car sitting and running. Meaning anybody can just take it.

Day 134/248: Only about 15% of the Sahara Desert is covered in sand. Roughly 70% is rocks and gravel, with the rest being limestone and shale plateaus.

Day 134/248 1/2: Mongolia is the least densely populated country in the world, while Monaco is the most.

Day 135/249: In Denver, Colorado, it is illegal to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next door neighbor In Michigan, it is unlawful for a woman to get her hair cut without her husband's permission. In Alabama, it is not legal to wear a fake moustache that may cause laughter. Also in Alabama, you are not allowed to have an ice cream cone in your back pocket at any time. In Georgia, you can be arrested for slapping a man on the back. Another one in Colorado: the law states that people attending a wedding are not allowed to throw shoes at the bride or groom.

Day 136/250: Shirley Temple is the only female celebrity to have a drink named after her.

Day 136/250 1/2: The Blair Witch Project only cost $22,000 to make, yet grossed $248 million, giving it the highest box office sales to production cost ratio if any film ever.

Day 137/251: It is often believed that a police officer has to tell the truth if asked whether or not they are one during an undercover mission. They are not actually legally required to say anything, much less the truth.

Day 137/251 1/2: Searing meat does not "seal in" moisture. In fact, it actually males the meat lose more moisture. The reason for searing is tasty crust often created during the process.

Day 138/252: Many cooks think that cooking with alcohol will make a non-alcoholic food, since alcohol boils at a very low temperature. This is not true. If you leave whatever food baking or simmering for an hour, as much as 25% of the alcohol will still remain. After 2 hours, as much as 10% can remain.

Day 138/252 1/2: Some squirrels are predatory.

Day 139/253: There are a lot of rumors surrounding the Lavender Town tune of the first Pokemon games. After doing some research, I found that there's a bit of truth behind some of it. Shortly after the release of Red and Green in Japan, many kids complained of nausea and headaches after listening to the tune. As it turns out, the tune had a small segment, just two or three seconds long, but it was just the right frequency to cause these symptoms in young children, though pretty much only younger ones and some older ones, and only when they were wearing headphones. This small segment was taken out for the American release.

Day 140/254: As those of you who are older than, say, 15, should know, a "mole" (6.02 x 10^23) is a term in chemistry used to help identify the number of atoms in a given amount of a substance (it is also sometimes called "Avogadro's number", after the Italian scientist, Amedeo Avogadro, whose work led to its discovery). What you might not have known is that there are efforts to make "Mole Day" a national holiday. It is already recognized in some schools and other small groups, but it's not a full-blown holiday yet. Mole Day takes place from 6:02 AM to 6:02 PM on October 23 (10/23). To learn more about Mole Day, go to www.moleday.org

Day 141/255: Thomas Edison isn't inventor of the lightbulb; that would be Joseph Swan, who patented a carbon-filament lightbulb in England ten months before Edison did the same in America. After Edison made quite a bit of money off his "invention", Swan sued for patent infringement in England, and won.

Day 142/256a: Many of the fire ants in the southern U.S. are not native to the area, but accidentally imported, probably from Brazil, sometime in the 1930s. It is most likely that a boat had a potted plant, or something, that had a nest in it, and since the ants didn't have any natural predators in the land of freedom, they proceeded to spread rapidly.

Day 142/256b: As fire ants don't have many natural predators, since they are mostly imported, they are dominating the southern U.S., causing many problems, ranging from lighting houses on fire to causing traffic accidents, they are quite the nuisance. Which is why Dr. Lawrence Gilbert is making an attempt to rid the area of them by infecting large groups of ants with phorid fly larva. The phorid fly is one of the ant's only natural predators, and is only a third the size of an ant. When the flies see a group of ants, they start to approach them. The ants are biologically wired to fear this creature, so as soon as one is spotted, a pheromone is released that alerts all the other ants that there's something to be alert about. The fly has a use for this chemical, however; it makes them want to mate. After the male fertilizes the female, she dives down at an ant, plugging it in the neck with an egg. The ant, for the most part, just lies there stunned. After the egg hatches, it starts to eat the inside of the ant. Once it has had its fill in the thorax, it moves over to the head, where it starts to eat the brain (this process takes several days). When the brain is 100% devoured, the young fly releases an enzyme that dissolves the connective tissues between the head and thorax, so the head just falls off, and it's got itself a cocoon! For about two weeks, the fly matures in the disembodied head. When it finally emerges, it must wait for its wings to harden, then it only has a few days to start the cycle over again...

Day 143/247a: Japanese honeybees make high quality honey, but not much of it, so many Japanese beekeepers will import European honeybees, which make honey of a lesser quality, but a lot more of it. One disadvantage of this, however, is that European honeybees have no defense against...

Day 143/257b: The Japanese giant hornets are a fierce species of hornet, measuring two inches long with a three-inch wingspan. It also has strong jaws, venom that can dissolve human flesh, and armour that little in the insect kingdom can penetrate. These wasps are so strong, they can destroy a hive of 30,000 European honeybees with just 30 wasps in three hours using almost exclusively their jaws, and only lose a handful of wasps. However, it would be a grave error for them to attack the hive of a Japanese honeybee. You see, to find a hive, the wasps send out scouts. Well, the Japanese bees know this. When a scout happens upon one of their hives, they start to back away from it, trying to lure it in. Once it's been lured in far enough, the bees attack like a collective mind, all of them just latching on to the wasp. But they don't sting. Oh no, they have something better in mind. They all begin to vibrate. The bees have a heat tolerance of up to 118 degrees Fahrenheit. The wasp only goes up to 115. By vibrating, they achieve 117, slowly roasting the wasp alive. After the wasp dies, they clean up the scentmark she left and continue about their day.

Day 144/258: New Jersey has the most toxic waste site in America, followed by Pennsylvania, then California.

Day 144/258 1/2: For the role of George Costanza, tailors intentionally made Jason Alexander's clothes one size too small, in an attempt to make him look geekier.

Day 145/259: It is estimated that 27% of food in developed countries is wasted just because it gets throw away.

Day 145/259 1/2: Bea Arthur, who played Dorothy on The Golden Girls, is a year older than Estelle Getty, who played Sophia, Dorothy's mom.

Day 146/260: Bullets don't usually spark when they hit metal, since they are copper-coated lead, not just lead.

Day 146/260 1/2: It is illegal to take a lion to a movie theater in Baltimore.

Day 147/261: Henry Ford (yes, that Henry Ford) invented charcoal in the 1920s.

Day 147/261 1/2: Some say barbecue was actually invented for problematic meat different from pork - human meat.

Day 148/262: You can make liquid smoke. It's fairly simple, really. Just burn charcoal or sawdust, condense it, then run it through water, which will capture many of the flavors. The liquid smoke can then be added ti a variety of foods to add, you know, a smokey flavor.

Day 149/263: What mothers have been saying about cold causing colds does have a good bit of science to back it up, as of late. It turns out that when you're cold, your body pulls blood from the extremities so it can focus the warmth in the core, which you probably already knew. What this also means is that blood is directed away from the head, or more specifically, the nose, which means fewer white blood cells to kill off bacteria before they reach the lungs, where they have a fine chance to multiply and wreak havoc. Interestingly, this can be caused simply by having cold feet, not necessarily being cold.

Day 150/264: It is often said that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from the moon. This is false on both accounts. Not only is it not visible from the moon (shuttle astronaut Jay Apt was quoted as saying "…the Great Wall is almost invisible from only 180 miles up."), but city lights are easily visible from the moon, if looking at the night side of the Earth. This misconception is believed to have been popularized by Richard Halliburton decades before the first moon landing.

Day 151/265: The original name of crash test dummies is Anthropomorphic Test Device. Also, they were originally developed for the Air Force for testing ejecting seats, not for the auto industry.

Day 151/265 1/2: Gasoline used to be sold as a cure for lice. It was very ineffective and could easily kill or maim the user.

Day 152/266: According to R. Lee Ermey, there was a study during World War II that showed that the more bullets you fire at your enemy, the more likely you are to win.

Day 152/266 1/2: The Glock 18 handgun has a fire rate of 1,200 bullets per minute. This means that it burns through its 33-bullet clip in approximately 1.65 seconds. It also has a single fire mode, however, if you don't feel like changing clips every two seconds.

Day 153/267: A large chuck of the budget of Monty Python and the Holy Grail was donated by various members of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.

Day 153/267 1/2: There are more than 3 million people in the US with the last name Smith. It is the most common last name in the US, Australia, and the UK, as well as the second most common in Canada and the fifth most common in Ireland.

Day 154/268: A þ, or a thorn, is a letter in Old English, Icelandic, and Old Norse alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English, and is pronounced like a "th" sound, like in thunder or thigh in English. It was eventually replaced with the digraph "th".

Day 154/268 1/2: "Antisocial" doesn't mean what a lot of people (especially here) think it means; it does not mean "dislikes or fears socializing". If someone is "antisocial", they are actively against society and behave with hostility towards it, be it from just being a jerk to being a murderer. The more appropriate term for people who fear socializing would be either "social anxiety disorder" or the increasingly more popular - and more accurate - term, "agoraphobia", from the Greek term "fear of the marketplace". Though it's still not entirely accurate, it's better than "antisocial".

Day 155/269: Tater tots were invented in 1953 as a way to use the scraps left over from making French fries.

Day 155/269 1/2: According to early Mesoamerican lore, humans were crafted by the gods. Out of corn.

Day 156/270: Biologist Barry Sinervo, of the University of California, has discovered an interesting mating strategy in the side-blotched lizard species Uta stansburiana. Males have either blue, orange, or yellow throats and each follow a fixed mating strategy: Orange-throated males are the strongest, but do not form strong pair bonds; instead, they fight blue-throated lizards for the females. Yellow-throated males, however, are able to statch females away from them. Blue-throated makes are middle-sized and form strong pair bonds. While they are outcompeted by orange-throated males, they can defend against yellow-throated males. Said yellow-throated males are smallest, and their coloration mimics that of the females, and using that, they can sneak up to females, while the orange-throated lizard is away fighting, and mate; however, this trick doesn't work with the stronger-bonded blue-throated males.

Day 157/271: Basset hounds have very dense bones. So dense, in fact, that a 14"-tall basset hound can weigh as much as a 22"-tall labrador retriever. They were bred this way, as well as they were bred to have short legs, because this would make them a bit slower, thus easier for hunters to follow.

Day 157/271 1/2: The reason shar-pei are so wrinkly is the Chinese bred them that way to be better at dog fights. The wrinkles helped defend from attacks and protect the organs. They were used as guard dogs, as well, because of the wrinkles and their willingness to attack intruders. Also, the name "shar-pei" translates to "sand skin", referring to the texture of the skin, which was bred to be uncomfortable to any attackers that hit it.

Day 158/272: The folding umbrella was first introduced in France in 1715.

Day 158/272 1/2: Most Americans didn't start brushing their teeth until after WWII.

Day 159/273: It is a common myth that an earthworm becomes two worms when cut in half. However, only a limited number of earthworm species are capable of anterior regeneration. When most earthworms are bisected, only the front half of the worm (where the mouth is located) can survive, while the other half dies. Also, species of the planaria family of flatworms actually do become two new planaria when bisected or split down the middle.

Day 160/274: In 1955, 14-year-old African-American Emmett Till was brutally murdered by a woman's husband after allegedly whistling at the woman.

Day 160/274 1/2: Daniel Peter is credited with making the first milk chocolate bar in 1875. Though he actually made the first milk chocolate bar in 1857, but he couldn't market it until 1875, due to the inability to remove all the water from the milk, which led to mildewing.

Day 161/275: Dock Ellis, a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1970s, threw a no-hitter while under the influence of LSD. At certain points during the game, Ellis said he couldn’t see the batter or the catcher, and as a result, relied on the baseball to tell him where to throw it.

Day 162/276: You may have noticed that, when people wear suits, the sleeves of their shirt extend a bit further than their jacket sleeves. This is so that the sleeves of their shirt will get dirtier, rather than the sleeves of their expensive jacket.

Day 163/277: Many people salt the water when they're trying to boil it to make pasta. Many of these people believe it helps the water boil faster. It does not. What it does do, however, is season the noodles, since that's your only chance to do so.

Day 164/278: Mr. Clean has a first name - Veritably. The name came from a "Give Mr. Clean a First Name" promotion in 1962.

Day 164/278 1/2: Space Invaders was so popular in Japan, it created a coin shortage for a short period.

Day 163/279: There is a myth that's been around for a while, you've probably heard it; women say an average of 20,000 words per day while men only say an average of 7,000. This is clearly not true when you look at things, though. Consider the average talking speed, which is approximately 125 words per minute (of course, some people are faster, some are slower). This means that a woman will spend 160 minutes talking each day, and assuming she gets 8 hours of sleep each night, this means she is silent for about 13 hours and 20 minutes each day. A man, on the other hand, would talk for 56 minutes each day, and be silent for 15 hours and 4 minutes, assuming he gets 8 hours of sleep each night. None of this seems right, now does it?

Day 165/279: Technically speaking, you've probably never seen a "zombie" movie. This is because a "zombie" is a still-living person that's lost their higher thought processes and is essentially programmable flesh robots being controlled by a master. The term for walking dead is "ghouls". However, the term for a dead person reanimated to serve a master is a "revenant". Interestingly enough, one of the first "zombie" movies, Night of the Living Dead, which was also the movie most credited with started the genre, called them "ghouls".

Day 166/280: You cannot "plead the fifth". Pleading requires a plea, which is usually either "guilty" or "not guilty". The correct term would be "take the fifth".

Day 166/280 1/2: "Organic" is a term often used, particularly in fiction, as a synonym of "biogenous", that being something along the lines of "living tissue", or "made from living/once-living matter". The real definition of "organic" is made of carbon compounds". This means that plastic is an organic material. Not only that, the field in which one makes plastic is called organic chemistry.

Day 167/281: It isn't harmful to pick up a baby bird, despite what you may hear about its mother rejecting it if you do. The mother will most likely still care for it. You may still want to avoid picking them up, though. Bacteria, angry mother bird catching you, etc.

Day 167/281 1/2: Eating less than an hour before swimming won't give you stomach cramps. In fact, not eating shortly before swimming is more likely to give you a stomach cramp.

Day 168/282: "Accurate" and "precise" do not mean the same thing. Accuracy is how close to the target you are, precision is how consistent you are. So if you're shooting at a circular target and keep hitting the outermost ring, but you keep the shots very close together, you are precise, but not accurate. If you keep hitting withing the middle three rings, but most shots are kinda far apart, you're accurate, but not precise.

Day 168/282 1/2: It is currently theorized that, contrary to what you saw on Jurassic Park, T-Rexes probably had feathers. In the colder areas, at least. I'm not sure if there's a way to determine what color they might have been, though.

Day 169/283: Gunnery Sergeant Robert Lee Ermey was the first member of the Marine Corps to be promoted after retirement.

Day 170/284: Contrary to what we're often told, it's quite a bad idea to try and punch a shark in the nose to make it flee. Think about it: you're swimming in the ocean and a shark comes along. Freaked out, you remember that punching it in the nose will make it flee, so you pull back that hand and plunge your fist... straight into its mouth. Oh yeah, you forgot, first off, the bobbing you're doing throws off your aim, plus the water slows you down quite a bit, and the shark is a carefully-crafted biting machine specifically made to move and kill quite quickly in the ocean. Even if you did manage to pop it in the nose, you'd have only stunned it for maybe a minute, which would be fine, except the shark can still track you and kill you, and it would probably be mad by now. Oh well, at least you wouldn't have to live with your mistake for long.

Day 171/285: The Brazilian Wandering Spider (nicknamed "The World's Deadliest Spider") is a spider that can reach ten-inches in length and has venom twice as potent as the black widow's. The venom contains a combination of a neurotoxin and high levels of serotonin. Once the serotonin hits your brain, it starts to cause intense tremors throughout your body along with terrible pain. Not every bite does exactly this, though. Another side effect of the bite is priapism. What's that? Well, imagine you took some... let's call them "man pills", and you're up, except instead of a blue pill giving you this, it's the spider's bite, and instead of it being a pleasurable experience, it's monstrously painful and lasts for hours, and may have to be cured by a doctor puncturing you there with a needle.

Day 172/286: That thing Ocelot does with his hands (that two-finger thing) in Metal Gear Solid 3 was not scripted, it was just something the motion capture guy did.

Day 173/287: A black belt in martial arts doesn't really mean all that much in terms of your expertise. The original black belts were used in judo in the 1880s to indicate competency in the basic techniques. Promotion beyond this varies depending on the martial art. For judo and some other Asian martial arts, holders of higher ranks are awarded belts with alternating red and white panels, with the very highest ranks being awarded with solid red belts.

Day 174/288: Real ninjas didn't wear black suits. If you think about it, it would be kinda silly if they did. Their job is to blend in with people, so it would really stand out unless you were in a crowd of people wearing the black suits. The reason they're currently pictured like that is thanks to theater. In the Edo period, roughly 100 years after ninjas were around, playwrights needed to show how sneaky ninjas were on the stage, and the audience had long been used to ignoring the stage hands, who were in the background and all dressed in black, so the playwrights thought it fitting that the ninjas would hide there and jump out to deliver a quick, killing blow, and probably surprise the audience.

Day 175/289: There is a bullet called the .557 Tyrannosaur Round. This bullet is massive and contains so much power you can't even really use it. Here is a video of people trying. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EVqT3XEzss&feature=player_embedded#at=28

Day 176/290: On June 16, 1775, during the War for Independence, the Patriots heard that British general Thomas Gage was on his way to Bunker Hill and would arrive the next day. As they didn't have much time, they hastily fortified their defenses there. When Gage got there, though, he came up with a brilliant strategy that would force the Patriots to retreat: throw wave after wave of his own men at the Patriots until they ran out of ammunition. He eventually did force a retreat, but only after losing upwards of a thousand troops.

Day 177/291: The Entomophthora muscae, more commonly known as the Insect Destroyer, is a fungus that, well, destroys insects. Specifically, flies. After one fly dies from it and the spores are released, the spores float around until they land on another fly, where they begin to penetrate the cuticle of the fly. Once inside they begin eating and reproducing. Just when the fly is about to die, the fungus causes the fly to go as high as it can, then it makes the fly explode, in which the spores are released and float around until they land on another fly, etc., etc.

Day 178/292: Not only does lightning sometimes strike the same place twice, it's rather likely to strike the same place two or more times. Chances are, if it struck something, it was drawn to it, so unless the object is destroyed, there's a good chance it'll get struck again.

Day 179/293: A common misconception about ADHD is that it leaves a person with a near inability to focus without the help of drugs. ADHD is not a bad thing, though. Links have been found between ADHD and creativity, and there is some evidence that Mark Twain, Sir Walter Raleigh and Pablo Picasso all had ADHD. It doesn't leave a person with the inability to focus on anything, it leaves them with an inability to focus on things they aren't interested in. Something that is often in the "Don't care" area of patient's brain is schoolwork, and they often try to find some way to entertain themselves, so these kids are often treated as delinquents with an inability to learn. The fact is that standardized education is just boring (hard to believe, right?), so they don't care. Some scientists believe this is a trait leftover from our hunter/gatherer days, while some people would be content staying at the camp and making clothes, somebody had to go and hunt for food, and it was probably the guys with ADHD. The creativity part probably helped them get ideas for weapons.

Day 180/294: Most people believe video games were invented in 1972, with the invention of Pong. Depending on what you consider a "video game", however, this may not be true. Patented in 1948 by Thomas Goldsmith Jr. (well, he filed for a patent on January 25, 1947; it didn't get issued until December 14, 1948), the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device was a missile simulator based off of radar displays from WWII. Instead of digital, it used analog circuitry to control the CRT beam and position a dot on the screen. Screen overlays had to be used for targets, since graphics couldn't be drawn at the time.

Day 181/295: Your brain rewards you for being close-minded. Studies show that the brain is wired to get a quick high from reading things that agree with them, while they get a similar high from dismissing things that disagree with them, regardless of how well-supported they are.

Day 181/295 1/2: It's been proven that crows can remember human faces. Researches in Seattle captured, tagged, then released several crows for an experiment, all while wearing weird skin-mask-things. In the days later, it was found that the crows that were tagged started dive-bombing the scientists who were wearing the masks. And only the guys who were wearing the masks, and only the masks worn by the guys who were tagging the crows. This not only shows that crows can remember faces, they can also hold a grudge. And in the following days, even more crows started attacking the masks, which seems to indicate that the crows can effectively communicate and get other crows to attack.

Day 182/296: Tom Selleck was supposed to be the Indiana Jones, however shooting time for that would have conflicted with the shooting time for Magnum, PI, so he honoured the first contract and stayed as Magnum while letting Harrison Ford play Indiana. Ironically, a writers' strike delayed the filming of Magnum, PI for about six months, long enough for Selleck to have played Indiana and still keep his Magnum role.

Day 183/297: Scientists in Japan were working on genetically modified mice by... genetically modifying them to be more prone to mutation. Some of the mutated mice include one with stubby legs, one with a tail like a dachshund and... one that can chirp like a bird.

Day 183/297 1/2: You probably know that there are certain rocks that can glow in the dark, but you might not know how they work; when atoms absorb energy, they want to get rid of it, and to do so, they glow. The atoms in the rocks absorb the energy from Ultraviolet Rays and expend them as visible light.

Day 184/298: Garry Hoy was a lawyer from Toronto, Canada, who wanted to demonstrate that the windows on his 24th-floor office were unbreakable. Of course, what better way to test this than to throw oneself at the window? Using this logic, Hoy did just that. And the glass didn't break. You may think that this would satisfy Hoy and that he would end it there, but noooo, he wanted to demonstrate it one more time. Interestingly enough, the glass still didn't break. However, it did pop out of the pane and he fell to his death. So I guess he still did prove his point.

Day 185/299: Bando Mitsugoro VIII, a 20th century Japanese Kabuki actor, sought to prove that he was immune to poison. Actually, you probably figured the rest of this story out by now, but I'll tell it anyway: on the 16th of January, 1975, he went to a restaurant and ordered four "fugu livers", better known t us as "pufferfish liver". He wanted to prove he could ingest four times the lethal dose of a toxin and still be fine. He wasn't.

Day 186/300 1/10: In 1667, after managing to buy Manhattan for $24, the Dutch traded it for the South American country of Suriname.

Day 186/300 2/10: William Wrigley started out selling baking soda with a free pack of gum included, but dropped the baking soda part after learning people were just buying it for the gum.

Day 186/300 3/10: Antarctica doesn't get that much snow, it's just that the snow on the ground never melts.

Day 186/300 4/10: There are no bears native to Australia (koalas are marsupials).

Day 186/300 5/10: Hens don't actually sit on the eggs, they squat over them while supporting their weight on their legs and the edge of their nest.

Day 186/300 6/10: Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on the same day (February 12, 1809).

Day 186/300 7/10: If a dog barks too much, it can get laryngitis, just like a human, however it takes longer due to the strength of dogs' vocal cords.

Day 186/300 8/10: The Disney logo wasn't designed by Disney himself; it was designed by a staff artist.

Day 186/300 9/10: Phillip Morris once ran an ad about "smokers' cough". Their claim was that it was caused by cigarettes not made by Phillip Morris.

Day 186/300 10/10: http:// is short for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. I don't know what the colon or slashes are for.

Day 187/301: If genetically tested, the children of two identical twins will test as half-siblings rather than cousins.

Day 188/302: To avoid physical contact, George Washington generally chose to bow to, rather than shake the hand of, his visitors.

Day 188/302 1/2: 4 is the only number with the same number of letters as the number it represents.

Day 189/303: English muffins weren't invented in England; they were invented by Samuel Bath Thomas, in a bakery in New York City. Granted, Thomas was an Englishman.

Day 189/303 1/2: Theodore Roosevelt was known to be able to read four pages of a book a minute, and would read a book a day.

Day 190/304: Woodrow Wilson's first name is Thomas. Woodrow is his middle name.

Day 190/304 1/2: Harry S Truman's eyesight was quite poor, so he had to memorize the eye chart in order to get into the Army.

Day 191/305: About every 1/1000 BB gun shootings are attempted suicides. The reason they're not actual suicides is because the pellets are generally too small to cause any real damage.

Day 191/305 1/2: The infinity sign (a sideways 8) is known as a "lemniscate".

Day 192/306: Without special authorization, planes are not allowed to fly under 3,000 feet within a three-mile radius of Disneyland.

Day 193/307: The Law of Spontaneous Generation, a law that states that if certain items are left alone for a certain amount of time, it will make something that is alive (for example, it was believed that if you put a piece of cheese and a sweaty shirt in a cardboard box overnight, it would make a mouse), was a Scientific Law for about 1900 years, before being proven wrong by Louis Pasteur.

Day 194/308: Fireflies are beetles, not flies.

Day 195/309: In 1995, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported that between 1978 and 1995, there were no fewer than 37 deaths were credited to vending machines.

Day 196/310: Nintendo was not initially aware of Mew's existence. It had been snuck into Red/Green just before the games were finished.

Day 196/310 1/2: Interestingly, both "snuck" and "sneaked" are technically correct, though "snuck" is a bit of an Americanism that came into being in the late 19th century, whereas "sneak" has been around since the late 16th or early 17th century, with "sneaked" probably following it pretty closely.

Day 197/311: There's a species of shrimp, the Ommatokoita, that lives off the eyes of the Greenland shark. The shrimp burrows into the shark's eye, anchors itself, then just begins feeding on the succulent eye juices for the rest of its life. Luckily, the shark doesn't need its eyes to hunt. That's particularly lucky because almost all Greenland sharks have them. Scientists have also speculated that the shark may benefit from the shrimp by using it as something of a fishing lure to attract prey.

Day 198/312: Madagascar natives view the aye aye lemur as an unholy terror. Consequently, the aye aye is also endangered.

Day 199/313: Cocoa powder doesn't dissolve well in water, so it has to be treated with an alkalizing agent to lower the acidity and allow it to be mixed with water quite easily (it also changes the color and flavor). However, this process leaves the cocoa with a lower amount of flavonols, the antioxidant that makes chocolate remotely healthy. This chocolate is called "Dutch process chocolate".

Day 200/314: There are some sunglasses marketed that are designed to make you eat less by making everything you see blue. This might sound stupid (okay, it does sound stupid), but it might actually work. Blue is a relaxing color, and you're less likely to eat as much if you're calm. But it's still stupid.

Day 201/315: Originally, toasting was a way to show your guests that you weren't trying to kill them. That is, you're drinking from the same container of wine that they are, so you probably didn't poison it. I'm not entirely sure why it's called "toasting", but I like to buy into the speculation that the wine from then wasn't very good, so they added pieces of burnt bread, which helped cut down on the acidity.

Day 202/316: Take chewable Vitamin C tablets? Yeah, you might want to stop that. You see, Vitamin C is an acid (ascorbic acid, to be exact), which means it does acid-y things, like slowly eat away at teeth if not taken off, which most people don't do. Dentists recommend brushing your teeth after chewing one, but then, they suggest brushing your teeth after everything.

Day 203/317: George Washington wanted his Mount Vernon home to be made of stone, but stone was pretty expensive at the time, so he had the building be made of wood, then coated with a mixture of paint and sand, which made it look like it was made of stone.

Day 204/318: Only two genera of earthworms are indigenous to North America.

Day 204/318 1/2: Approximately 2/3 of the world's lawyers live in the United States.

Day 205/319: The state fish pf Hawaii is the humuhumunukunukuapua’a, which translates to something along the lines of "the fish with a pig-like nose". The English name for it is the Reef Triggerfish.

Day 206/320: There was almost a Krusty the Clown live action sitcom, starring Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Krusty, but part of the plot was that Krusty lived in a house on stilts that were being eaten by beavers, and either trained or animatronic beavers would've been quite expensive, so the idea was shelved.

Day 207/321: John Trumbull (1756-1843) was an American artist who had a contract with Congress to paint historical pictures. However, he wasn't allowed to sign them. Instead, he always painted himself into the picture, which Congress didn't realize until much later.

Two examples http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Surrender_of_Lord_Cornwallis.jpg He's fourth to the right of the flag, facing away from the center

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/General_George_Washington_Resigning_his_Commission.jpg Third from the left. Yes, he's dressed in female clothing. This is because that was after Congress found his little secret and threatened to drop the contract with him if he painted himself in another one.

There are also many interesting things about the second picture. One is that most people in it were filler. Trumbull was asked to paint that picture about eighteen years after it happened, and Washington was dead, so he didn't have much of a reference. The women were all based off of Martha and Eleanor Washington (they all look the same). The people weren't actually people, aside from Thomas Jefferson (who was a close friend of Trumbull), and there's no real evidence to suggest he was there. Also, if you look at the men standing behind Washington, you will see that five of them are other versions of Washington. The first one is a slightly younger Washington, depicted as a general of the Continental Army. The second is an even younger, red-headed Washington, as a colonel from the French and Indian War. Behind him is an Washington, younger still, depicted as he probably would have looked when he enlisted in the British army. Behind that Washington is one where he is much older and dressed in civilian clothes, as a father, with his kids in front of him (who look exactly like Martha and Eleanor, who are behind that Washington). Lastly, we have old, wise Washington. According to the tour guide I had at the Pentagon, he was wise because he wasn't wearing pants. One more thing: Trumbull had the chair behind the front Washington look kinda like a throne, with Washington rising from it as though to deny the position of king.

Day 208/322: Italian was the first "ethnic" food to be accepted in the U.S.

Day 209/323: Evolution is not a progression from inferior to superior, nor does it mean to become more complex. Something can evolve to become simpler, but to say it devolved is a misnomer.

Day 210/324: Caecilians are a type of amphibian that superficially resemble snakes or worms. When the mother builds a nest and has little baby caecilians and will protect them quite dutifully. So dutifully, in fact, that she never leaves the nest in search of food for the young. Instead, the young employ some specialized, temporary teeth to chew on the mother's skin. Luckily, the mother has the rejuvenation abilities of Wolverine, so the skin just grows right back, ready to be devoured again.

Day 211/325: Contrary to what you've probably been told, color didn't actually exist until 1947. A German chemist by the name of Dr. Hans Schputdler was working with a new element, Wimmium (named after its discoverer, Archaeologist Joseph Wimm, who found it in some Aztec ruins) to try and determine its molecular structure. When he mixed it with iron and potassium while it had access to oxygen, it produced a chemical reaction that left behind a liquid that we now call "color", which had the ability to completely change the light that bounced off of a substance, with as little as one drop being able to affect whole buildings. After he reported this to to American government, they found a way it could be useful; from that point on, put a small amount of this new liquid in everything that was to be made ever. This process started in 1951, and continued for a decade or two, until everything was colored. This is why TVs weren't "in color" until 1951 (TVs were one of the first things to get colored).

Day 212/316: The automobile was invented in 1769, by a Frenchman named Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, though it wasn't tested until 1771. The vehicle weighed in at 2.5 tonnes tare and was capable of holding 4 more tons of weight. Its steam-powered-engine was capable traveling at the neck-snapping, whiplash-causing, heart-stopping speed of two-and-a-half miles per hour. However, the machine had a lot of problems, it was slow, clunky, and heavy, so it was difficult to drive (also it was this big http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Fardier_a_vapeur.gif). Before it could be completed, Cugnot ran out of money to improve his invention, and it eventually got scrapped.

Day 213/327: Muay Thai is a vicious martial art with a fun little story. Back in 1774 in Burma, after the Burmese had conquered Thailand (then called Siam), Nai Khanom Tom, a Muay Thai practitioner, was called by the king to see how well Muay Thai stood up to Lethwei, a Burmese martial art. About ten seconds into the fight, his opponent was crying like a girl. That is, until he was knocked out by a flying knee strike. But the judge ruled that the Lethwei-user was distracted, so he overruled the knockout. Being the gentleman he was, Tom went with it and took out nine other Lethwei masters without any breaks before everyone was too scared to fight him. After this, the Burmese king deduced and openly stated that the Thai people had poisonous hands.

Day 214/328: It's generally not a great idea to brush your teeth right after eating, even though that's what we were all told by dentists. Recent studies have shown that the acidity in the food softens the tooth enamel, which can then be brushed away quite easily. A better idea would be to wait a while after eating to brush, ideally waiting until right before the next meal. Also, flossing after a meal is a good idea, as it removes the food and bacteria in between your teeth without brushing off the enamel. It's also still a pretty good idea to brush twice a day.

Day 215/329: If properly worked, the edge of the blade of a knife made of obsidian can approach the thickness of a single molecule, and can be much sharper and smoother than surgical steel.

Day 215/329 1/2: Approximately one-third of the world's amphibians are endangered.

Day 216/330: The highest amount of points awarded for a single word in a Scrabble tournament was 392 points for the word "caziques", which is the plural form for a Caribbean tribal leader, or an oriole of the American tropics.

Day 217/331: The original title for referring to the President of the United States was "His Highness, the President of the United States and Protector of Rights of the same", as proposed by John Adams. However, that idea was shelved in favor of "Mr. President".