Sunday, March 25, 2012

TRIVIA BITS

 

  • The flying fish has been known to glide up to 90 metres.
  • The Forth railway bridge in Scotland is a metre longer in summer than in winter, due to thermal expansion.
  • The four principal characters from the cartoon series "The Chipmunks" are Alvin, Simon, Theodore, and Dave.
  • The fragrance of flowers is due to the essences of oil which they produce.
  • The French composer J.B. Lully, while conducting a concert, pierced his foot with a pointed baton, and died from the resulting gangrene.
  • The French critic, Saint-Beuve, was born on 23 December 1804. On one occasion in his life he was unfortunate enough to get involved in a duel. When asked to choose his weapons, he replied " I choose spelling, You're dead".
  • The French equivalent of 'the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog', a sentence which contains every letter of the alphabet (useful when learning to type), is 'Allez porter ce vieux whisky au juge blond qui fume un Havane', which translates to 'Go and take this old whisky to the fair-haired judge smoking the Havana cigar'.
  • The Fresh Kills Landfill site on Staten Island, New York, opened in 1948, is the world's largest. It covers 3,000 acres and received up to 14,000 tons of garbage a day.
  • The fungus called truffles can cost $800 to $1,500 per pound. They are sniffed out by female pigs, which detect a compound that is in the saliva of male pigs as well. The same chemical is found in the sweat of human males.
  • The furthest point from any ocean would be in China.
  • The Future's Museum in Sweden contains a scale model of the solar system. The sun is 105 meters in diameter and the planets range from 3.5 mm to 6 km from the 'sun'. This particular model also contains the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, still to scale situated in the Museum of Victoria ... in Australia.

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