betcha that tree is a Sequoia giganteum

From Maggie in Mali: NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE To the citizens of the United States of America, In the light of your failure to elect anybody as President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves and, by extension, the free world, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories including New Jersey. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, please comply with the following acts: 1. Look up "revocation" in the now official Oxford Dictionary ($75). Start spelling English words correctly. 2. Learn at least the first 4 lines of "God Save The Queen" 3. Start referring to "soccer" as football 4. Declare war on Quebec and France 5. Arrest Mel Gibson for treason 6. Close down the NFL. Learn to play rugby 7. Enjoy warm flat beer and steak and kidney pudding. Train waitresses to be more aggressive with customers and not to tell you their names. 8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday, this has been replaced with November 5th 9. All members of this British Crown Dependency will be required to take 6 weeks annual vacation and observe statutory tea breaks. 10.Driving on the left is now compulsory - recall all cars to effect the change immediately. 11.Report to our Consulate General in NY - M Wragg - for your new passport and job allocation. 12. Add the Royal Insignia to the top of the Washington Monument - and the Queens Christmas speeches to the Lincoln Memorial. 13. Stop referring to the World Series of Baseball and instead call the National Series of USA, Cuba and Japan. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776). Thank you for your cooperation and have a nice day!

now that cracked me up (esp. the backdate of taxes due!) *laugh*

As of September 1998, the highest recorded mileage for a car was 1,615,000 miles for a 1966 Volvo P-1800. California is in no danger of sliding into the Pacific. It will eventually slide into Canada. The continental plate it's sitting on is traveling north, not west. The world's first Electric Trolley System was introduced in Montgomery, Alabama in 1886. 95% of the known cases of gout occur in males. Known as the "Rich Man's Curse," attacks are often thought to be caused by an overindulgence in rich foods. It is a deficit in purine metabolism and in certain steroid hormones. 2/3 of us speed up at a yellow light. The Eiffel Tower was built by Gustave Eiffel, who also built a dam in Russia and locks for the first attempt at the Panama Canal. Eiffel also designed the right arm of the Statue of Liberty and the full steel structure holding it all together. In the wettest place on Earth, Hawaii's Mount Waialeale, it rains about 90% of the time: 480 inches per year. The reason Scotsmen still wear the kilt is because it is a source of pride. The kilt displays a Scotsman's tartan-- the color of his clan. Because of the Dress Act of 1746, Scots were banned from wearing kilts or tartans and thus it became a matter of pride to wear them. Each Shuttle is worth about $3,000,000,000 and costs another $1,000,000,000 to launch.

Yeah, that tax deal gets everyone!

What's the weather forecast for Mt Waialeale today?

if it's like Hilo, RAIN is the weather-du-jour every day!!!

The reason that all lightbulbs, even tungsten filamented and halogen gas filled ones, eventually wear out is that the filament metal slowly but steadily evaporates. In fact, the reason a "halogen" (tungsten halogen) bulb lasts longer is that the halogen gas helps to redeposit some of the evaporated tungsten atoms back on the filament. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" featured 7,500 boas, cobras and pythons, and 50 tarantulas. PepsiCo spent $236,000,000 in TV ads in 1996. Cats spend 15% of their time grooming. Certain fireflies emit a light so penetrating that it can pass through flesh and wood. In 1867 US Secretary of State William H. Seward offered Russia $7,200,000 (or two cents per acre) for Alaska. When it comes to doing invasive procedures like spinal taps, the majority of 1500 medical students surveyed (63%) seldom or never obtained specific permission. At the same time, "72% of patients indicated they would be upset to find out they had been the unsuspecting subject of a novice's first spinal tap." http://upalumni.org/medschool/appendices/appendix-2a.html Charles Dickens kept the head of his bed aligned with the North and South poles believing that the earth's magnetic field would pass longitudinal through his body and ensure a good night's rest.

His head was toward the North or South? Or did it matter? I always sleep with my head to the South.

About the only way I can arrange my bedroom is with my head to the north. Have no idea about Dicken, though. If it geomagnetism he is thinking about it seems, like a compass needle, the head should point to the north. Do no know!

my head's to the south.....hmmmmm

maybe my genius is running out of my toes?!

Wonder what the feng shui experts say about this?

I'll check - think I once covered that in another topic. Time for me to check back...stay tuned!

The London Underground carries 2,500,000 passenger a day, on 500 trains. Planting trees won't save the climate: http://www.sciam.com/news/111500/5.html Anthrax spores are routinely found in animal hides. In 1999, Bill Gates made $4,566,000...per hour. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. The saguaro cactus blossom is the official Arizona state flower. McDonald's uses 500,000,000 pounds of hamburger each year. The longest alphabet is Cambodian -- 74 letters.

A standard Slinky contains 87 feet of wire. There is $480,000,000,000 in US currency in circulation. Fearful of hospital infections, some surgeons are giving ALL their patients potent antibiotics. Shouldn't they be kept for emergencies? http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns226048 Michael J. Fox's middle name is really Andrew. Most men's bodies are composed of about 40 percent muscle; women's bodies are 30 percent muscle. Chances of being hit by lightning in your lifetime is 1 in 600,000. Risk of dying by lightning is 5 times greater for men than women. 21% occur in June, with the riskiest state being Florida. 800 tornadoes a year strike the U.S., causing an average of 80 deaths and 1,500 injuries per year. Miami Beach pharmacist Benjamin Green invented the first suntan cream by cooking cocoa butter in a granite coffee pot on his wife's stove, and then testing the batch on his own head. His invention was introduced as Coopertone Suntan Cream in 1944. IBM was paid more $100,000,000 for its services at the Sydney Olympics.

"Indiana Jones" was the name of George Lucas' pet Malamute. On Nov 16th, 2000 ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) announced that they had chosen ".biz," ".aero," ".name," ".coop", ".info", ".pro" and ".museum" as new top level domain names. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3730464.html There have been 250,000,000 Dr. Seuss books published. Hard drive storage is 12,000 times cheaper now than in 1985. There are 45,000 large dams in the world. 5 countries have more than 1,000 large dams each. People surfing the Web at home spent 23% more time online this year than last year. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3731909.html People who bought the first Kodak cameras had to mail them back to Rochester, New York for reloading. The country of Togo has the lowest crime rate in the world, with an average of just 11 reported crimes annually for every 100,000 people.

Dunkin' Donuts serves about 112,500 doughnuts each day. The rudder from the Titanic weighed more than the Santa Maria. A new VW beetle can handle more weight than many popular SUVs. The community of Mountain View, Arkansas is called the Folk Capital of America. The little town preserves the pioneer way of life and puts it on display for visitors at the Ozark Folk Center State Park from March through October. If a person counted at the rate of 100 numbers a minute and kept counting for eight hours a day, five days a week, it would take a little over 4 weeks to count to one million and a lifetime (80 years) to reach a billion. A South African bullfrog can grow to be 35in in length. In England there is no difference between a pig and a hog, but in the U.S. a pig over 180 pounds is considered a hog. In 1968, a convention of beggars in Dacca, India, passed a resolution demanding that the minimum amount of alms be fixed at 15 paisa (about three cents). It is unlawful to refuse a person a glass of water in AZ.

Are you like me? "QWERTY," the keyboard's first five letters, vividly describes my typing ability. My fingers function less than felicitously. I am a hunt-and-peck has- been, devoid of digital dexterity, clueless in coping with the keyboard's loopy logic. Why do they make it hard on us? Why do keyboards ignore alphabetical order? Blame the typewriter. The first machines in the 19th century did go from A to Z. But this stymied good typists because the most frequently used keys were contiguous. When typists struck, say, the "a" and "b" keys in rapid succession, the spokes carrying those letters often jammed. The solution: separate these and other often- used keys. Computers carried over the QWERTY keyboards that people were already used to. These machines never jam; they just crash, destroying our work and driving us to drink. (Source: EVER WONDER WHY? By Douglas B. Smith)

Marcia, I am tempted to say that you are a wealth of useless knowlege, but it is such wonderful knowlege. Besides, is any knowlege ever really "useless".

Irrelevant information is my specialty. I am still worried about those bullfrogs 3 feet long!!!

Best time to buy a computer: right after Christmas, you save about 25%. Best time to buy a big-screen TV: the day after the Super Bowl, average savings are about 50%. General Motors Corp. spent $285,000,000 in TV ads in 1996. Of 1600 medical students who were asked, "Do you specifically ask permission as a medical student to perform invasive procedures [like spinal taps]?", 56% said "Never." http://upalumni.org/medschool/appendices/appendix-2a.html The word "Psychic" comes from the Greek letter "Psi" - Unknown. More turkeys are raised in California than in any other state. Every year of a dog's life is not the equivalent of seven years in human terms. Best estimates now are that the first year is worth about 18 to 21 years, and each year thereafter four. A girl, in the Vacococha tribe of Peru, to prepare her for marriage at the age of 12, is placed in a basket in the hut of her prospective in-laws and must remain suspened over an open fire night and day for 3 months. It took 670,000 hours to put the 31,000 insulating tiles on the original Shuttle. The national flag of Mozambique features the silhouette of an AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifle. It is the only national flag that features the symbol of a gun.

Psychic comes from the Greek word psyche, meaning soul or butterfly.

OOOhhhh... I like that. I think the nymph so named came to a bad end when she fell in love with Narcissus. Or was that Echo. Gotta brush up on my Edith Hamilton. Thank you, Mark!

+-------------- Bizarre Thanksgiving Trivia ---------------+ Cut and planed lumber was hard to come by in the New World, and since the Pilgrims didn't intend to go back to Europe, they dismantled the Mayflower and used it's lumber to build a barn. Ben Franklin wanted the turkey, not the eagle, to be the U.S. national symbol. He considered the eagle a "bird of bad moral character" because it lives by being a shrewd thief. Franklin Roosevelt tried to change the Thanksgiving holiday date to the next-to-last Thursday in November in order to create a longer Christmas shopping season, but was forced to move Thanksgiving back to its original date because of negative public response. The heaviest turkey ever raised weighed in at 86 lbs, about the size of a large German Shepherd. It was grown in England. When Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin sat down to eat their first meal on the moon, their foil food packets contained roasted turkey and all of the trimmings. Turkeys can drown if they look up when it is raining. Turkeys in fields near the Air Force test areas over which the sound barrier was broken were known to drop dead from the shock of passing jets.

PLUM PUDDING... Here's a dish with a peekaboo ingredient: who knows where it's hiding. In fact if you were to dive into a plum pudding with sensitive electronic detection devices, you would find nary a plum in the place. A treat for desert since the earliest Thanksgiving celebrations, plum pudding's ingredients include flour, sugar, spices and suet (fat). This mush is steamed, not baked, and is unleavened, making it pudding rather than cake. As for plums, the stealth ingredient that lends its name to this post-turkey goo, credit linguistic practices currant, uh, current in colonial America. "Plums" and "plumbs" were what they called raisins, the final ingredient in plum pudding.

Bulls do not charge because a cape is red. They charge because of the movement of the cape -- it does not have to be red or any other bright color. The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial consists of the Gateway Arch, the Museum of Westward Expansion and St Louis' Old Courthouse. Ants stretch when they wake up. They also appear to yawn in a very human life fashion before starting work each day. The underside of a horse's hoof is called a frog. Two French toolmakers were the first engineers to put the engine in the front of the car. This gave the car better balance, made it easier to steer, and made it much easier to get all your luggage in. The ant can lift 50 times and pull 30 times its own weight. The number one selling snack in the U.S. is potato chips. And the #1 item ordered in restaurants? French Fries. Emperor Henry VII (1269-1313) of Germany, during his reign as Duke of Luxembourg, was so proud of his police efficiency that he offered to reimburse personally any victims of robberies occurring within the boundaries of his duchy.

What bird has the longest migration path? You think that you're keen on piling up those frequent flyer miles? Consider the Arctic Tern. When it flies south it covers almost the distance from the North to the South Pole, 11,000 miles in all. This 17-inch winged wonder flies further than any of its fine-feathered friends. It's habitat ranges from New England well into the Arctic Ocean, from which it migrates south in August. After spending part of the winter in Antarctica it does the Tern-around, flying the 11,000 miles back to its home, arriving in June. Do you suppose it's ever occurred to this birdbrain that it gains nothing by flying from one cold place to another cold place for the winter? Who's its travel agent? (Source: HOW A FLY WALKS UPSIDE DOWN by Martin M. Goldwyn)

WAS PUBLIC KISSING EVER A CRIME IN THE UNITED STATES? Yes, and it still is in some places. In 1656 in Boston, a Captain Kimble was placed in the stocks for kissing his wife in public on the Sabbath. To this day, it is illegal in Indiana, for a mustached man to "habitually kiss human beings." In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, it is still a crime to kiss a stranger. WHAT IS THE LARGEST SHARK ATTACK EVER RECORDED? On November 28, 1942, hundreds of British seamen and Italian prisoners of war were killed by sharks when a German U-boat sank the steamer Nova Scotia off the coast of South Africa. Nine hundred men were on the ship when it sank; 192 were left when a rescue ship arrived.

*laugh* that kissing thing!! *LOL*

All 17 children of Queen Anne died before she did. Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they cannot find food. Spain has 1,196 large dams, fifth most in the world. Modems are about 2,500 times cheaper in 2000 than in 1985. The state of Florida is bigger than England. Blind people can pick out the meaning of a spoken sentence more quickly than sighted folks. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns226050 Colorado has the highest mean altitude of all the states. California police in the 1920s thought they had gotten the drop on a moonshiner. What they found, instead of a still, was Philo T. Farnsworth's invention: the television.

was Philo the child who invented TV? there was something on discovery about a 14 year old boy who actually invented television. i can imagine that blind people can really tell what's going on since they must rely on inflection and tone and such rather than rely soley on facial expression. how hard it must be to not be able to read others' nonverbal action--but i'm sure that they can tell because of their heightened use of other senses. hmmmm.....gives me something to think about!

Yup!!!! Philo T. Farnsworth!!! 23 publishers rejected Dr. Seuss's first book. Over 1,000,000,000 pounds of depleted Uranium exist in the US. It is radioactive and has a half life of a billion years. http://www.iacenter.org The world's oil companies are now finding only one barrel of oil for every four that we consume. - Colin Campbell, oil geologist New Scientist, July 10, 1999 Political enemies of President Teddy Roosevelt once schemed to humiliate him by hiring a professional boxer to purposely bump into him on the street and start a fight. The boxer did what he was supposed to, but was promptly beaten up by Roosevelt shortly after the fight began. In 1992 further studies by the New Jersey Department of Health confirmed a 6.9 fold increase in bone cancer in young males. (Cohn, Perry D. Ph.D. "An Epidemiological Report on Drinking Water" Fluoridation and Osteosarcoma in Young Males, New Jersey Department of Health, Environmental Health Service, Trenton NJ November 8, 1992) http://www.bruha.com/fluoride/ Chrysler spent $370,000,000 in TV advertising in 1996. The world's oldest piece of chewing gum is over 9000 years old. The London Underground has over 260 stations and 16,000 staff.

marcia, i just love this stuff. wonder what makes them think to look stuff like this up!!

People like me Wolfie - we are far too curious!!! When we don't care about something, why do we not "give a hoot" about it? Well I suppose we might be distinguishing ourselves from owls, which give a hoot about everything. But what's the point? I, for one, am quite sure that I'm not an owl�you, too?--and I don't feel the need to give such comparisons any further thought. A little research shows that the expression comes not from birds but rather the backwoods. In nineteenth century rural America people declared something valueless by saying it "wasn't worth a hooter." (Don't even think about that word's meaning in modern slang. We're not goin' down that dirt road). "Hooter" was the backwoods pronunciation of iota, the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet, which we still use to imply that something has little or no value. Hoot is simply a contraction of hooter. And if you don't like that, I don't give a . . . hoot. (Source: DICTIONARY OF WORD AND PHRASE ORIGINS by William and Mary Morris)

Are there any living creatures that never die? Because there's no justice in the world, I'm sure that my next-door neighbor, who plays his stereo at 2 a.m., will end up in this category. Beyond him, science offers slim pickens' when it comes to immortality. In fact we've got just two kinds of candidates -- sort of. Theoretically, some one-celled animals divide indefinitely and thus maintain their biological integrity. But scientists have not counted any such activity much beyond 10,000 generations, just about the point where the brain cells of the scientists themselves give up the ghost. Then there's the hydra, an aquatic creature with a clever trick. It regenerates, replacing its cells with fresh ones that it grows about every month or so. There's no end to it. That's more comebacks than Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton could ever claim. (Source: Martin M. Goldwyn, HOW A FLY WALKS UPSIDE DOWN) FAST FACTS: November The second week of November is National Split Pea Soup Week, according to the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Industry. They used to serve that stuff in my high school cafeteria, but they spelled it Split Pea Soup Weak. November 3 is National Sandwich Day, brought to you � of course as a public service � by Ziploc Sandwich Bags. The company was also going to sponsor a sandwich week, but feared they might be spreading themselves too thin. (Source: THE BOOK OF DAYS)

It costs 4.2 cents to print a US legal note (dollar bill). Coffee increases alertness and enhances performance on certain tasks. Tests on drivers and typists prove that two cups of coffee can help. However, research shows it helps most if the drinker is bored or fatigued. Only 27% of the total risk estimates fell within the order of magnitude reported in the literature. For every complication, many physicians made underestimation or overestimation errors by several orders of magnitude and a few consistently denied existence of any risk. [For example] substantial percentages of physicians under- estimated the risk of death due to [hernia repair] by a factor of 100 or even 1000. http://upalumni.org/medschool/appendices/appendix-2a.html The nation's first scheduled steam railroad began in New Castle, Delaware in 1831. Michael Jordan's high school basketball team cut him. Richard Hooker's novel, M*A*S*H, was rejected by 21 publishers. The power propelling the Shuttle upward at launch is equal to that in 23 Hoover dams. Pope Paul IV, who was elected on 23 May 1555, was so outraged when he saw the naked bodies on the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel that he ordered Michelangelo to paint over them.

King Louis XIV of France owned about 1,000 wigs. 13 boxes of jello are purchased every second in the US. Ole Evinrude, a Norwegian immigrant, founded the Evinrude outboard motor company in 1909. On average, a woman will speak 7000 words over the course of a day while a man will only speak 2000 words in a day. The fastest fish is the sailfish: up to 60 miles per hour. The "spot" on 7UP comes from its inventor who had a red eyes. He was albino. Punta Gorda in Florida means "fat point" when translated from Spanish. The name was given to the city because a broad part of the land in Punta Gorda juts into Charlotte Harbor. 220 billion computer chips are made each year. Brandy is from the Dutch "brandewijn", meaning burnt or distilled wine.

Q. What does Parallax mean? A. While looking at an object, cover first one eye, then the other. The object appears to move. Parallax is the apparent movement of an object as a result of two different points of view.

That 7,000 word avg for women vs. 2,000 words for men ties in with the MSNBC study I just saw that says women listen with both sides of their brain while men only use the left side, could it be the same for speech? This is a drastic difference. The left side of the brain is the one that interprets language. Go to msnc.com and search for "men brain" and you'll find this fascinating article about the differences in how men and women communicate.

men and women brains are wired differently. women are used to using all their senses to interpret everything around them. perhaps as a protective mechanism from our earlier periods of nurture and self-preservation. that is interesting. maybe it just means we talk too much? *LAUGH*

I can monitor several conversations and read at the same time. I know of at least one man who can also - but it is rare.

The Indonesian coffee Kopi Luwak is the most expensive in the world, selling for $300/pound. The reason its so expensive is the way it is processed. Its beans are ingested by a small animal called a Paradoxurus. The beans are then extracted from the excreta and made into Kopi Luwak. The heart is not on the left side of the chest. It's about in the center with its strongest portion on the left side, thus, it can be heard slightly better from the left. 44% of American men tailgate to try to speed up the person in front of them. Women blink nearly twice as much as men. Kangaroos can hop as fast as 40 miles per hour. By the late 1930's, more than thirty radio serials reached a daily audience of forty million, twice the audience reached by television soaps today. This vast audience was a bonanza for program sponsors. "Ma Perkins", a successful radio serial, sent the sales of Oxydol, a laundry detergent, through the roof. Soap companies plunged into the business of producing serials that featured their products, and they so dominated daytime that serials became known as "soap operas". Processing power is about 200 times cheaper in 2000 vs 1985. Japan has 2,675 large dams, fourth most in the world.

This may come in very handy for conversions: http://www.webcom.com/~legacysy/convert2/

Q. Where does the "blue blazer" come from? A. Blue jackets were ordered for all crew members by the captain of the HMS Blazer in the middle 1800s. They were good looking, and caught on with everyone.

How did they choose which presidents to carve on Mt. Rushmore? Well it's a good thing they didn't vote on it or we might still be facing a blank mountain. South Dakota's Mt. Rushmore is said to have been named for a lawyer who was just passing through (sounds like a presidential election, doesn't it?). In the 1920s the state's tourism board decided that it would take more than that name to fill the local hotels so it proposed to have a sculptor carve on the mountain the images of famous figures from western history, such as Kit Carson. They hired John Borglum, who had already been engaged to carve Robert E. Lee's visage on Stone Mt. in Georgia. Borglum had a better idea for Mt. Rushmore: presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. And so it came to pass. (Source: JUST CURIOUS, JEEVES by Jack Mingo and Erin Barrett)

A New Star in Space NASA Science News for December 1, 2000 Something in the heavens is growing brighter and it will soon become one of the most eye-catching stars in the night sky. No it's not a supernova. It's the International Space Station! FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast01dec_1.htm?list89800

Track the new star using this url: http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/realtime/JTrack/Spacecraft.html

Can't wait until those solar panels are fully fitted - it's going to be so *cool* to see the space station from Earth!!!! I want to go!!!

Me too, Mike! After I posted the ISS and J-track information I went outside to look for it overhead. The skies were spectacularly clear - you could see the Great Galaxy in Andromda with naked eye deespite a quarter moon and a street light next to me. As I was scanning the sky I noted the most amaxing huge fireball! It was the color of a yellow frosted Christmas tree light - yellow-orange and bright but not brilliant which makes me think it was a piece of space junk. It had along tail sparkling with debris as it fell south to north.

Does the U.S. Constitution guarantee an American's right to own a gun? Whoa! Don't point that thing at me! I know this is a controversial issue, with feelings running high on both sides. So in my tradition of fearlessly following the truth wherever it may lead, I'm going to offer a little, uh, ammunition for each side. The Bill of Rights says, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." So unless you and the other folks who hang at the pizza parlor constitute a state militia, the Constitution doesn't guarantee your right to own so much as a peashooter. On the other hand (the one with the trigger finger), the states are sure as shootin' free to regulate or not regulate private gun ownership. So go for it -- the legislation of your choice, not your gun, that is. (Source: DICTIONARY OF MISINFORMATION by Tom Burnam)

14,000,000 Bic pens are sold daily in 150 countries. The toothbrush was invented in 1498. The cells which make up the antlers of a moose are the fastest growing animal cells in nature. Archduke Karl Ludwig (1833-1896), brother of the Austrian emperor, was a man of such piety that on a trip to the Holy Land, he insisted on drinking from the River Jordan, despite warnings that it would make him very ill. He died a few weeks later. Scientists discover 10,000 new species of insects every year. The catfish has the most taste buds -- over 27,000.

The largest wave ever recorded was near the Japanese Island of Ishigaki in 1971 and was 260 feet high. Experiments conducted in Germany and at the University of Southampton in England show that even mild and incidental noises cause the pupils of the eyes to dilate. It is believed that this is why surgeons, watchmakers, and others who perform delicate manual operations are so bothered by noise. The sounds cause their pupils to change focus and blur their vision. The hydrogen filling the Hindenburg airship did not explode, and the 35 dead were either killed by burning diesel or jumped to their deaths. In 1997, a retired NASA scientist found that the real culprit was the flammable fabric of the airship's outer skin, not the hydrogen. Many pesticides contain fluorine as an "inactive" ingredient -- serving as the adjuvant ("ferry") that delivers the agent to its target. Because they are considered "inert", listing is not required on labels. [As a Chemical Engineer, I can tell you that Fluorine is the EXACT OPPOSITE of inert. Inert means unreactive, and Fluorine is the most reactive element known to man. HF, Hydrogen Fluoride, can etch glass!] http://www.bruha.com/fluoride/html/pesticides.htm Of the 500 to 1,000 chemicals used in the manufacture of silicon chips, some are known or suspected carcinogens-- such as arsenic, which allows chips to better conduct electricity and is vital to the chip-making process. It takes over 60 people, spending four months and using 6,000 gallons of paint, to paint The Eiffel Tower. Trains in the London Underground average 20.5 miles per hour (counting stops). Hawaii is the only state that grows coffee. About 20% of adults have or have had a cockroach that called their inner ear canal home -- they enter while you sleep!

If a US coin has the letter "S" printed on it, it was minted in San Francisco; a "D" means it was made in Denver; no letter at all means it was minted in Philadelphia. The odds against a flipped coin coming up with the same side showing ten times in a row are 1,023 to 1. The mill, equal to one-tenth of a cent, was declared the lowest money of account by the US Congress in 1786. The mill, as a coin, was never minted. "E Pluribus Unum," the Latin expression appearing on US currency, means "one out of many." Abraham Lincoln was carrying Confederate money when he was assassinated.

Why do we tell someone who's all riled up to keep their shirt on? Our clothes often speak for us in more ways than one, dressing up many colorful English expressions. For example, "now the shoe is on the other foot," "even a big shot puts on his pants one leg at a time," and "keep it under your hat." As for keeping your shirt on when you get all huffy-puffy, there was once a practical reason for such behavior. In the 19th century men's shirts were more restrictive than they would later become. Men who were angry enough to throw a punch needed to take it off before they could get it on. Keeping their shirts on thus kept the peace. By the 1920s styles had changed, but by then the expression had entered the language and could be heard everywhere -- except in burlesque houses. (Source: HEAVENS TO BETSY! & OTHER CURIOUS SAYINGS by Charles Earle Funk)

A boustrophedonic layout is where alternating lines are oriented left-to-right and right-to-left instead of the standard Western layout of left page top-to-bottom, then right page top-to-bottom. It is the layout that was used in the infamous Florida "butterfly" ballots. The Chunnel officially opened May 6, 1994 The new public network will be cheaper. - Equipment will be 70 % cheaper; - Access lines, 60 to 80 % less; - Maintenance, 50 % less; - Provisioning, 72 % less The American Film Institutes "Top 10 All Time Movies": 1. Citizen Kane (1941) 2. Casablanca (1942) 3. The Godfather (1972) 4. Gone With The Wind (1939) 5. Lawrence Of Arabia (1962) 6. The Wizard Of Oz (1939) 7. The Graduate (1967) 8. On The Waterfront (1954) 9. Schindler's List (1993) 10. Singin' In The Rain (1952) The shuttle has 6,000,000 parts. Mountains are formed by a process called orogeny. A survey in Academic Medicine found that 89% of trainees personally observed unethical conduct by residents or attending physicians. http://upalumni.org/medschool/appendices/appendix-2b.html Gertrude Ederly was still a teenager when she became the first woman to swim the English Channel on August 6, 1926. Not only did she swim the channel, but she broke the speed record held by a man.

Singin' In the Rain, by the way, is how most people feel about this election according to the latest scientific poll. Can you say boustrophendonic?

I can say it because I took archaeology in college!!! Still want to be incarnated as one...*sigh* We had an election? This millennium?! Hope they decide the outcome before the next one begins!

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE INFORMATION CENTER World Data Center for Seismology, Denver Reply to: sedas@neis.cr.usgs.gov or neic@usgs.gov The following is a release by the United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center: A major earthquake occurred about 95 miles (150 km) west-northwest of Gyzylarbat, Turkmenistan at 10:11 AM MST today, Dec 6, 2000 (10:11 PM local time in Turkmenistan). A PRELIMINARY MAGNITUDE OF 7.2 WAS COMPUTED FOR THIS EARTHQUAKE. The magnitude and location may change slightly as additional data are received from other seismograph stations. No reports of damage or casualties have been received at this time; however, this earthquake may have caused substantial damage and casualties due to its location and size.

When it's exactly midnight, is it A.M. or P.M.? Welcome to the Twilight Zone. The correct answer is "neither." Midnight is a transitional, imaginary moment in time, neither here nor there. Midnight is defined as twelve hours after noon. At noon the sun reaches its zenith or high point -- the "meridian" in A. M. (before the meridian) and P. M. (after it). But since the sun never actually stops, that "point" doesn't really exist -- it's just a convenience. Similarly, midnight is the transitional moment between (P. M.) after the meridian, and (A. M.) before it. In reality the time may be just before (A. M.) or after (P. M.) midnight, but never midnight on the dot. Noon, at least, is in the middle of the day, whereas midnight is the dividing line between days. Poor midnight: it never has a nice -- or any -- day. (Source: THE STRAIGHT DOPE by Cecil Adams) FAST FACTS: One small step for whom? When Neil Armstrong became the first human being to set foot on the moon, what he also stepped on was his lines. He was supposed to say, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." And that's what encyclopedias and almanacs quoted. The only problem, as he acknowledged later, is that he left out the "a" and actually said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." "Man" and "mankind" mean the same thing in this sentence, so he has us taking a small step and leaping at the same time. Had he done that himself he would have fallen flat on his face. Heck, for that we could have sent Chevy Chase to the moon. (Source: BIG SECRETS)

Mars has a volcano, Olympus Mons, which is over 300 miles in diameter and 16 miles high. The dragonfly has about 30,000 lenses covering the retina of its eye, and thus sees many, many images where we see only one. Bryan J. Patrie, a Stanford graduate student invented the Watercolor Intelligent Nightlight, which informs midnight bathroom-goers if the toilet seat is up or down without having to turn on the light. There is about as much water on Earth now as there was three billion years ago. 80% of Americans sing in the car. Joseph Stalin refused a German request to swap prisoners in World War II. His son, who was captured during the war, died in a prison camp as a result.

that water thing is true. the water isn't going anywhere, just the locations of it has changed (although waterways may seem dried up, the water has actually just been evaporated back into the atmosphere in the form of rain, fog, etc.). think about it for a second. a very interesting fact! thanks marcia!!

Thanks Wolfie - you're the best!!! There are no rivers in Saudi Arabia. Elk River is the home of the Idaho Champion Western Red Cedar Tree, the largest tree in the state. Estimated to be over 3000 years old this giant is more than 18 feet in diameter and stands 177 feet tall. "BIC" is a shortened version of founder Marcel Bich's name. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled. Removable storage is about 100 times cheaper in 2000 vs 1985. India has 4,291 large dams, third most in the world. Seoul, the South Korean capital, means "the capital" in Korean. The official, neutral name of Switzerland, which has multiple official languages, is the latin "Confederation Helvetica", or the Helvetic Confederation, hence the "CH" on license plates. In 1998, 9,200,000,000 US legal notes were printed.

I love the new reddish spacer bars. Did you miss me? You don't have to answer that. Anyway, I've missed reading all the fun and interesting facts on this topic. So I hope that Marcia, the Goddess of the Geo Conference had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I also hope that things are going well for Curious Wolfie, the Alpha Male, and the Pups. One of the earlier posts concerned the word "psychic" and its etomology in the Greek word "psyche" meaning soul, and symbolized by the butterfly. The Greek mythologial character Psyche was noted as had fallen in love with Narcissus. She didn't. Psyche was loved by Eros, the Roman Cupid, much to the chagrin of his mother Aphrodite, the Roman Venus. I believe it was Echo who pined away until nothing but her voice was left for love of the beautiful youth Narcissus. I have a geographical fun fact, West Virginia is the only American state which sits entirely on a mountain range.

Of course we missed you, Cheryl! Marci's probably having her morning coffee about now. That image of Echo is powerful.

hi cheryl!! i love these facts too marcia!!!!

I'ze here! Yeah, part of the joy of having a conference is putting fun stuff on it. That you are also enjoying it is double pleasure! Yup, Cheryl I did miss you - but you know that *hugs*

Oooh, and you noticied my red horizontal bars!!! It took e mages to find just the right length and thickness to look right. I like these very well, indeed. You are the first to mention them (Wolfie was in on my choice when I posted them originally so she knew right away.)

Windmills always turn counter-clockwise, except in Ireland. 22% of computers break down every year, compared to 9% of VCRs, 7% of big-screen TVs, 7% of clothes dryers and 8% of refrigerators. Coffee only boosts intellectual speed and not physical power. It takes 286 kilowatts of power to produce a single six-inch silicon wafer. Salvador Dali once arrived to an art exhibition in a limousine filled with turnips. The street names in the game monopoly come from Atlantic City, New Jersey. The March Hare character in Alice in Wonderland is based on the behavior of hares in the spring, when they often jump up and down and bang the ground with their big hind feet. Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to slow the film down so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm. Pez was invented in 1927 by Eduard Haas, an Austrian anti- smoking fanatic, who marketed peppermint-flavored PEZ as a cigarette substitute.

Why is it that if you do something from the beginning, you're starting from scratch? If you know the origins of the expression, "to toe the mark," you should have a good idea of what starting from scratch is all about. If that includes you, please leave the room now. How can I feel like a smarty-pants if you know as much as I do? That mark you are asked to toe is the starting line of a race, a line that was originally scratched on the ground. Ordinarily everyone starts from that scratch line, beginning at the beginning. But sometimes contestants in sports such as golf or horse racing are given an advantage and don't have to start from scratch. Handicaps are useful when uneven experience, skill, or size dictate that fairness can only be served by artificially leveling the playing field.

how come ireland's windmills turn backwards?

Yeah, I wondered that too. Will check the prevailing winds and the methods of attaching sails to the mills. However, did you ever have a pinwheel on a stick when you were a kid? I used to make them, and by attaching alternate corners to the usual ones you could reverse the rotation. I think this is just a local tradition of pinning the sails in Ireland. But, I will search further so see if that is the case.

interesting--i never tried to mess with the pinwheels. now let me see if my kids have any left! *grin*

You can make them out of manila folders or construction paper, too... ----- Hydrogen is less hazardous than gasoline. Spain grows 98% of all green olives. "Beijing" means northern capital in Chinese. Butterflies taste with their feet. The statue "The Thinker" by Rodin is actually a portrait of the Italian poet Dante. In a 1998 sampling of 1700 American second year residents, 46% saw others falsifying patient records; 70% saw others mistreating patients. 28% of the residents stated that they had been required to do something that they believed was, "immoral, unethical or personally unacceptable. http://upalumni.org/medschool/appendices/appendix-2b.html

George Washington never pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Nor did John Adams, Thomas Jefferson or Andrew Jackson put their hands over their hearts and recite the litany so familiar to Americans. Lincoln didn't do it either. Even President Chester A. Arthur �of course you remember him�never took the Pledge. That's because the Pledge dates only from 1892. The words familiar to every American school child were written that year by Francis Bellamy, a staff member at Youth's Companion, a boy's magazine, as part of a Columbus Day celebration. (Source: DICTIONARY OF MISINFORMATION by Tom Burnam) ------- Not so mellow yellow There's been much concern in recent years about the danger posed to artists' health by some of the materials they use in their work. But when the British government banned a paint color called Indian Yellow back in 1908, it had nothing to do with protecting artists. This color was produced by feeding mangos to cows and then collecting their urine, from which were derived the magnesium and calcium salts used to make the paint. (Don't try that at home!) The government banned the color because officials thought it unfair to make cows pig out on mangos. (Source: JUST CURIOUS, JEEVES)

euw!!!

yeah, I just sent it to an eminent artist friend of mine. Have you sniffed your Old Masters paintings lately???

nope (don't have any)....but it made me wonder about the red M&M's!!

The ball at the top of the flagpole is purely decorative now, but it originally contained one match and one .45 caliber bullet, for the Color Guard to burn the flag and shoot himself in the event of inevitable capture. Venture capital invested in Internet companies has topped $80 billion in the first three quarters of 2000, compared with $60 billion for all of 1999. Ants stretch when they wake up in the morning. When the shuttle comes in for a landing, it does so at a 22% descent angle. Normal commercial aircraft descend at a 2% descent angle. Minneapolis, Minnesota is home to the oldest continuously running theater (the Old Log Theater) in the U.S. Some people think that the stage musical Les Miserables runs a bit long, but it's a mere flash in time compared with one of the sentences in the novel on which it is based. This 3-page, 823-word sentence is divided by 93 commas, 51 semi- colons and 4 dashes. Waste products from the production of a single six-inch silicon wafer include 25 pounds of sodium hydroxide. Ostriches stick their head in the sand to search for water. The Chunnel is 31 miles long (23 miles under the sea and 8 under land).

i've also heard that ants yawn!!

never got that close to one. Wonder how they saw that? Maybe I don't want to know the grad student laboring so hard to create a thesis...

haha!!

(you ok?)

(yeah, I am, but B is not and I am concerned!) Heard back from artist about the Mango and urine yellow paints: I DID know about Indian yellow, and in fact, I have a large tube of it. I think it is a synthetic version of the urinary product, but has some marvelous effects unattainable with any other yellow. The fact that each of these colors has a very unique and tangible base is one of the things I think of as the very esoteric (while remaining thoroughly earthbound) aspects of the art and science of painting. I can actually smell the difference in colors, since they are made from distinct elements, basically. I know them as a cook knows the fragrance of each spice. Fortunately, my Indian yellow is synthetic.

The photo most often requested from the U.S. National Archives is that of the meeting between Elvis Presley and President Nixon in 1970. Presley had requested that Nixon make him an honorary drug enforcement agent and Nixon accommodated him. The name LEGO is from the Danish, "LEg GOdt," that translates to "play well." The deepest London Underground tunnel is 221 feet below ground. There is no rice in rice paper. Pez candy gets its name from the German word for peppermint, Pfefferminze. An eagles nest can weigh as much as two tons. The MGM lion lived in Memphis until his death. The plural of piecemeal is flockmeal. Strawberry Point, Iowa is home of the world's largest strawberry.

More then 25% of the world's forest are in Siberia. Edwin Land received 535 patents during his lifetime, then second only to Thomas Edison. Thomas Jefferson anonymously submitted design plans for the White House. They were rejected. A snail can sleep for 3 years. If a spider dismantles his web, that means a bad storm is near. Historically, only Hawaiian men danced the Hula. The US has 6,575 large dams, second most in the world. Many sailors used to wear gold earrings so that they could afford a proper burial when they died. "Tug of War" was an Olympic event between 1900 and 1920.

(i shall keep B in my prayers) these facts are really fun. i mean, we knew snails were slow but three years to sleep? so do they take a year to actually fall asleep, a year to sleep, and a year to do the waking up? *laugh*

(Thanks, Sweetie! Me too!) Good questions about the snails. Dontcha wonder who bothered to watch them for 3 years...! Think I dated him once...

"Smith" is the most common last name in the USA. Rounding out the top ten, in order, are: -Johnson -Williams -Brown -Jones -Miller -Davis -Wilson -Anderson -Taylor Paul Revere took his midnight ride on a horse named Brown Beauty. In China, the day a child is born it is considered one year old. There are 1,792 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower, 296 steps to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and 168 steps to the crown of the Statue of Liberty.

What do the letters "S-O-S," as in "help" stand for? Well, it doesn't stand for anything. These letters were chosen for Morse Code as a distress signal because of their somplicity - three dots, three dashes, and three dots. It *doesn't stand for "Save Our Ship."

CHRISTMAS SOLAR ECLIPSE FOR NORTH AMERICA http://www.skypub.com/sights/eclipses/solar/001225partial.html

In 1899 an electric vehicle captured the world land speed record with a speed of 66 MPH. The press as a whole refused to believe the Wright Brothers for nearly five years after their first flight. Editors discarded invitations to witness numerous flights. "Bandwidth will increase in the same way that memory has increased in PCs," says Don Listwin, senior vice president at Cisco Systems Inc. He expects performance to double and prices to be cut in half every 18 months. Olympic games in 1900 included croquet, fishing, billiards, and checkers. Sequoia trees can be over 3,000 years old because the bark is virtually impervious disease, insects and even fire.

(I have done this - straight under one!) Is it possible to drive around a rainbow? Legend has it that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and a song in a famous movie suggests that we can expect to find a wizard and a wicked witch over the rainbow. But what's on the reverse side of that colorful arc? Whatever it might be, it's all in the eye of the beholder. Put away that roadmap because rainbows don't exist in an actual location. They are the product of sunlight hitting tiny drops of moisture in the air. The light is refracted and broken up into its component colors, producing the light show we call a rainbow. If you move, your change in perspective will change the rainbow, but you can never get around it. Well since it's all inside your head, so to speak, you could spin around to try to get behind it. But then you'll fall down, banging your head, and all you'll see are stars. (Source: TRIUMPH OF THE STRAIGHT DOPE by Cecil Adams)

An average American uses 168 gallons of water per day. Every year, without fail, the Amazon river bursts its banks, flooding an area of forest the size of England. A grain elevator in Hutchinson, Kansas is 1/2 mile long and can hold 46 million bushels in 1,000 bins. There are only four sports that are completely native to the U.S.: baseball, volleyball, basketball, and roller derby. 109 people have cancelled their subscription to National Geographic to protest their use of metric measurements. The two hemispheres of a dolphin's brain work independently. For 8 hours, the entire brain is awake. The left side then sleeps for 8 hours. When it wakes up, the right side sleeps for 8 hours. Thus the dolphin gets 8 hours of sleep without ever having to stop physically. The number of births in India each year is greater than the population of Australia. Waste products from the production of a single six-inch silicon wafer include 2,840 gallons of waste water.

While performing her duties as queen, Cleopatra sometimes wore a fake beard. 40,000,000,000 packages/yr of Ramen noodles are consumed. An opossum does not sleep while hanging upside down by its tail. As much as 40% of the entire world's varieties of freshwater fish are to be found in the Amazon River basin. Grants, New Mexico was at one time known as the carrot capital of the country. In 1962, the FDA tried to prohibit the sales of vitamins and minerals in all but very limited potencies and combinations, by first classifying, and then regulating them as prescription drugs. Coffee is the second largest item of international commerce. The largest is petrol. Neptune has not yet completed one orbit since its discovery.

A rat can last longer without water than a camel. Recent studies have found that the increase in moral reasoning and moral development normally expected for the age and education level of medical students are not occurring over their four years of undergraduate medical education..." Evidence is beginning to appear that demonstrates that the structure of medical education may actually inhibit moral reasoning ability rather than facilitate it. Ethical sensitivity increases between the 1st and 2nd year but then decreases throughout the rest of medical school, such that the 4th-year students are less ethically sensitive than those entering medical school. - "Medical Education" Journal http://upalumni.org/medschool/appendices/appendix-2b.html There are significant problems with storing hydrogen. A tank full of hydrogen gas at atmospheric pressure would need to be 3000 times larger than a gasoline tank for a similar journey. Six Major Actors Who Never Won an Oscar (times nominated): Richar Burton (7) Peter O'Toole (7) Greta Garbo (4) Kirk Douglas (3) Cary Grant (2) Morgan Freeman (2) Michael Jackson owns the rights to the South Carolina anthem. The subject of the Mona Lisa was a Florentine merchant's wife. Her lack of eyebrows reflected the custom in Florence in those days to shave them off.

Ursid Meteor Surprise NASA Science News for December 18, 2000 The normally meek Ursid meteor shower could surprise sky watchers with a powerful outburst on Dec 22nd when Earth passes through a dust stream from periodic comet Tuttle. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast18dec_1.htm?list89800

Yes Virginia, there really is a Christmas eclipse! Thursday's Classroom for Dec. 18, 2000 http://www.thursdaysclassroom.com Reliable sources at the North Pole report that Santa Claus and his reindeer plan to linger over North America after sunrise on Christmas Day, long after all the presents have been delivered. Why? The Jolly Old Elf is hoping to catch a glimpse of a partial solar eclipse! This week's episode of Thursday's Classroom features stories for kids and seven original lesson plans about the coming solar eclipse. For details visit http://www.thursdaysclassroom.com The Dec. 25th eclipse will be limited to North America, but if you live elsewhere we have lessons for you, too. Please see "Interplanetary Christmas" for plenty of educational holiday activities: http://www.thursdaysclassroom.com/index_09dec99.html Happy Holidays!

A hippo can opens its mouth wide enough to fit a four foot tall object inside. The opera singer Enrico Caruso practiced in the bath, while accompanied by a pianist in a nearby room. Coffee seems to help extroverts more than it helps introverts. Wyoming was the first state to give women the right to vote. A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has 118 grooves. Douglas MacArthur's mother used to send letters to his military superiors suggesting they promote her son. The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven is $6,400. A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.

Happy Winter Holidays to one and all! Merry Christmas, Happy Boxing Day, Happy Hannukah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Blessed Ramadaan, and Happy Winter Soltace, unless you're in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case, Happy Summer Soltace, and for any antique Romans out there, Happy Saturnalia!