Monday Fun Facts

Today we have another installment of fun facts and trivia. Since Mondays are traditionally difficult, especially after a really fun weekend, I thought we could take a little of the sting out of Mondays by having a fun fact/trivia evening. Tonight will be a bit of a mish-mash of trivia, I have stopped specifically looking for interesting trivia from 1910. There are so many fun facts out there that I wanted everyone to enjoy..

I am sure that many of you knew that the first Harley Davidson motorcycle was built in 1903. But did you know that the carburetor on that motorcycle was made from a tomato can? For those of you who have followed the rise and fall and rise and fall and rise of Harley Davidson, the thought of a tomato can as a carburetor is not entirely surprising (I am thinking back to the AMF days, when it seems we would have been LUCKY to have had a tomato can...).

I don't know about you guys, but when someone cracks their knuckles around me, my stomach turns. I originally pictured the joints just grinding over each other and "popping" back into place. Apparently, my imagery was incorrect. The sound that you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting. Talk to deep sea divers, they can crack their knuckles just by closing and tightening their fist. This is due to all of the nitrogen they absorb after so many deep water dives on mixed air... It makes you wonder though, for those who make a habit of cracking their knuckles (which still makes my stomach turn), are they lighter in the water than the rest of us because they have more nitrogen in their system? Something to think about...

Some more trivia on the human body - some of you may know this tidbit, but human hair and fingernails continue to grow after death. Anybody in the mortuary business is painfully aware of this...

Did you know it takes about 20 seconds for a red blood cell to circle the whole body? I didn't know my circulatory system was that efficient...wow...

The only part of the body that has no blood supply is the cornea in the eye. It takes in oxygen directly from the air. Wow, that just makes me feel creepy... does that mean a cornea can live without being attached to our body? More food for thought...

Intelligent people have more Zinc and Copper in their hair. I wonder where they get it since hair is basically waste product of your body...

The average person laughs about 13 times a day. I haven't had my quota today, hence this fun fact blog... ;-()

Here is something fun for the parents of the world. In an average day, a four year old child will ask 437 questions. I bet many of you parents out there believe that number to be significantly higher than that. But geez, 437 is a lot of questions... it is a wonder more parents don't go crazy by then...

Do you know the only two animals that can see behind themselves without turning their heads? It is the rabbit and the parrot. Their eyes are placed right on the side of their heads so that they can easily see forward and backward without turning their head. I might get confused if I could look forward and backward at the same time. I have enough trouble walking forward that I can't imagine how I could see behind myself too... How do rabbits run so fast if they can see both directions?

This last tidbit made me giggle, probably more because I am tired, not because it is truly funny. Granted, I believe animals should not be mistreated, but I also believe there are many "animal activists" that go too far in promoting their agenda. This fact just tickled my fancy, though nobody really won: Two animal rights protesters were protesting at the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn. Suddenly the pigs, all two thousand of them, escaped through a broken fence and stampeded, trampling the two hapless protesters to death.

And lastly, do you know the names of the three wise monkeys? Personally, I didn't even know they had names, but yes, they do. There is Mizaru (See No Evil), Mikazaru (Hear No Evil) and Mazaru (Speak No Evil).

Now that you are smarter than you were at the beginning of this blog, I will leave you for the evening. Have a wonderful evening and day tomorrow. I will post more serious information tomorrow.

Until tomorrow...