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Random Facts


World facts


How much energy can the sun provide?

According to the American Solar Energy Society, enough sunlight falls on the earth's surface each minute to meet world energy demand for an entire year.

Reference: http://www.powerhousetv.com/

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The 7 wonders of the World

"Since Philon of Byzantium named the original Seven Wonders of the World in 200 B.C., the Western world has relegated them to an awed mental pedestal and then promptly forgot what was on the list.

In those centuries, six vanished.Still with us are the Pyramids at Giza

Earthquakes leveled the Lighthouse of Alexandria. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon may never have existed. Crusading Maltese knights purloined blocks from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus to build a fortress.

Other Wonders met more elaborate fates. The Colossus of Rhodes was felled by earthquake, left prone by oracle's decree and hauled off on mules by invading Arab merchants. A disaffected Ephesian burned the Temple of Artemis, after which it was razed by Goths.

Caligula tried to appropriate The Statue of Zeus, and broke it. A Roman successor closed its temple, which later suffered earthquakes, landslides and fire."

Reference: lost

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Ancient crystal skulls

It is claimed that 13 ancient crystal skulls have been found with mysterious properties.

The Mitchell-Hedges family loaned the skull to Hewlett-Packard Laboratories for extensive study in 1970. Art restorer Frank Dorland oversaw the testing at the Santa Clara, California, computer equipment manufacturer, a leading facility for crystal research. The HP examinations yielded some startling results.

Researchers found that the skull had been carved against the natural axis of the crystal. Modern crystal sculptors always take into account the axis, or orientation of the crystal's molecular symmetry, because if they carve "against the grain," the piece is bound to shatter -- even with the use of lasers and other high-tech cutting methods.
To compound the strangeness, HP could find no microscopic scratches on the crystal which would indicate it had been carved with metal instruments. Dorland's best hypothesis for the skull's construction is that it was roughly hewn out with diamonds, and then the detail work was meticulously done with a gentle solution of silicon sand and water. The exhausting job -- assuming it could possibly be done in this way -- would have required man-hours adding up to 300 years to complete.
Note: 5/08, crystal skulls find themselves in the lates Indiana Jones movie!

Reference: http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_6_1.htm

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Biggest animal in the world

The blue whale is the largest animal in the world. The largest blue whale caught was a 110-foot female. It is not known how the angler got this beast home or how they fit it in the freezer.

Reference: http://school.discovery.com/schooladventures/planetocean/bluewhale.html

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what is the world's oldest animal

The oldest animal on Earth was born in 1830 Her name is Harriet, she's a Galapagos land tortoise

Reference: http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/news/archive.asp?archive=111805

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Blue whale massacre crustaceans

The blue whale, the worlds largest animal at 110 feet according to guiness world records eat krill, which are shrimp-like crustaceans only about an inch-and-a-half long.

Pick on somebody your own size? Not whales! An adult whale might slaughter 40 million, or 4-6 tons of these little creatures in one day!!

Amazingly, the krill population persists, but you have to assume this perpetual atrocity affects the krills ability to develop a stable society.

Reference: Animal Planet

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What is the world's largest animal?

The world's largest mammal, the blue whale, weighs 50 tons at birth. Fully grown, it weighs as much as 150 tons.

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How tall is the world's tallest tree

A 379.1' Redwood in Redwood National Park is currently the world's largest tree

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What is the world's healthiest animal?

Sharks apparently are the only animals that never get sick. As far as is known, they are immune to every known disease including cancer.

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The world's least appealing alcohol

Chicha, an alcohol beverage which has been made for thousands of years in Central and South America, begins with people chewing grain and spitting into a vat. An enzyme in saliva changes starch in the grain to sugar, which then ferments.

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The longest coldest night on earth

The darkest time of year at the North Pole is the Winter Solstice, approximately December 21. There has been no sunlight or even twilight since early October. The darkness lasts until the beginning of dawn in early March Now you can see what's happening in the arctic at http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html

Reference: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html

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The biggest brands in the world

The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.

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What is the world's smallest mammal?

The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.

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What's the world's largest bird

The average adult male ostrich, the world's largest living bird, weighs up to 345 pounds.

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Can you name the world's biggest octopus?

The Pacific Giant Octopus, the largest octopus in the world, grows from the size of pea to a 150 pound behemoth potentially 30 feet across in only two years, its entire life-span.

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What color is a beam of white light?

A beam of white light is made up of all the colours in the spectrum. The range extends from red to violet, with orange, yellow, green and blue in between. But there is one colour that is notable by its absence, pink (or magenta, to use its official name) simply isn’t there.

Reference: http://www.null-hypothesis.co.uk/science/strange-but-true/profs-probings/colour_spectrum_magenta_complimentary_bizarre

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Soccer

Soccer is the most popular sport in the world!

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The Integration Age

"We have entered the Integration Age " - Steve Jobs CEO Apple... The integration age has been mentioned for nearly a decade as a product name or marketing slogan. Now in 2007 it's hard not to see that a new era has arrived.

The integration age is the evolution of the information age. The integration age is made possible by the evolution of information management (search engines, bill pay, etc.) and information sharing (wikipedia.org, meetup.com, myspace.com) .

In fact a whole new generation of businesses that emerged (or came of age in Apple's case). Google, Apple, eBay, Amazon, PayPal, myspace.com, youtube.com, craigslist.org, technorati.com, del.icio.us are just some of the big winners.

They share a common bond, right? They helped facilitate the creation and navigation of information and in the process dramatically affecting what is now possible.

The integration age is marked by globalization and specialization. It means highly integrated and efficient systems on the macro level thanks to specialization on the micro level. It is an age where Walmart rules because of their ability to effectively manage moving pieces. Did you know that Dell does not build computers and Nike does not make shoes?

The information age meant more information than any person or corporation could possibly handle, and businesses that specialized in the information age thrive in the integration age.

It is the IPhone that will likely be the symbol of the dawn of the integration age. An elegant merger of technologies, who would've thought it would take so long to merge the cell phone with the music player effectively.



Evidence that the integration age is well under way is seen in more and more places every day.
  • You can use www.salesforce.com to find clients, subcontractors off the Internet to implement services, and an accountant to keep track of it.
  • VA hospitals can access patient records from any location
  • www.zillow.com integrates Google maps and publicly available housing information giving anybody a reasonable estimate of the house prices on your block
  • Today's vehicles offer GPS, video screens, satellite, radio, oh, and talking maps
  • Social networks like www.myspace.com, www.blogger.com, and www.youtube.com, and open-source software all leverage information-age technologies to create a new type of social system that has had a profound impact on culture and the media.
  • You can now run Windows on your Macintosh
  • hackers now can control massive networks of zombie machines (1.5 million computers in one case) that act in co-operation (called botnets). These botnets might peddle spam and attack networks.


Welcome to the integration age.



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The longest word in the world

The longest word in the English language is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

Reference: http://www.teentwist.com/fun-randomfacts

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What is the world flagpole-sitting record you ask?

In 1992, Frank Perkins of Los Angeles made an attempt on the world flagpole-sitting record. Suffering from the flu he came down eight hours short of the 400 day record, his sponsor had gone bust, his girlfriend had left him and his phone and electricity had been cut off.

Reference: Bizzare News

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What is the world flagpole-sitting record you ask?

In 1992, Frank Perkins of Los Angeles made an attempt on the world flagpole-sitting record. Suffering from the flu he came down eight hours short of the 400 day record, his sponsor had gone bust, his girlfriend had left him and his phone and electricity had been cut off.

Reference: Bizzare News

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Creepy crawly fact about planet Earth

The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.

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Energy released by a hurricane vs. a nuclear weapon

In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.

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What is the world's smallest mammel?

The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.

Reference: Animal Planet

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The world's largest living bird

The average adult male ostrich, the world's largest living bird, weighs up to 345 pounds.

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Fun fact about cheetah's

The cheetah is the only cat in the world that can't retract its claws.

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The world's fastest bird

The fastest bird is the Spine-tailed swift, clocked at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour.

Reference: Animal Planet

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The world's fastest snail

The fastest moving land snail, the common garden snail, has a speed of 0.0313 mph.

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The world's most poisonous octopus

The worlds most smallest octopus, the Blue Ring, is also the worlds most poisonous.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-ringed_octopus

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What is the highest point on earth?

The highest mountain in the world is not Mt. Everest. The Earth is not perfectly round, it is like when you roll a piece of silly putty in a ball and squish the top a little bit. Therefore, the equator is popped out. Seeing as how the Himalayas are some ways away from the equator, although Mt. Everest is highest above sea level, the highest point on Earth is somewhere in the Andes in South America

Reference: Discovery Channel

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Libya was transformed in the 60s by what resource?

Libya had one of the lowest standards of living in the world until the oil boom of the 1960s.

Reference: http://www.worldinfozone.com/facts.php?country=Libya

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Proof that football (soccer) is the most popular sport in the world

At World Cup 2010 2.72 million tickets will be sold.

Reference: http://www.cup2010.info/Facts/SoccerWorldCup_facts.html

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What do yeti & sasquatch, & bigfoot have in common?

Bigfoot, Yeti & Sasquatch refer to the same mysterious man / ape beings which have been reported around the world from the Pacific Northwest in the united states to the Canadian wilderness, to the slopes of the Himalayas, and to the forests of Siberia.

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What was the battle of Normandy anyways?

The Battle of Normandy was the decisive battle of World War II fought in the summer of 1944 between the Allied nations and German forces. The Normandy Invasion, or D-Day, is the largest ocean-based invasions in history with nearly three million troops participating. The battle stretched from the English Channel to Normandy, France in German-occupied Western Europe.

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No big men in the black widow world

Male black widow spiders are half the size of the female or smaller. Female black widows can get as long as 55mm or 2.165 inches.

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Who is the world's largest producer of coconuts?

The Philippines is considered to be the largest producer of coconuts in the world

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Fun facts about the human consumption of rice

Rice is the second most consumed grain in the world. Rice provides more than one fifth of the calories consumed worldwide by humans. In early 2008, some governments and retailers began rationing supplies of the grain due to fears of a global rice shortage.

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4 ways to make use of your urine

Ancient romans used it for tanning hides, pee breaks down gristle. 1) Mix urine & rosemary in your washing machine to make a dark die.

2) Urine is in cosmetics, an ingredient called urea which is an excellent moisturizer.

3) Urine can also be used to make gunpowder!

4) 10 million chinese and many other peoples of the world drink it for it's supposed health benefits.

Reference: Manswers on SpikeTV

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U.S. population, and how many people do you have to poll?

When a poll tells us a candidate for president of the United States is favored by ___% of the population, they tell us it has a "margin of error" of +-__% .

For example, August 6, 2008, CBS poll on the president of the United States put John McCain with 39% of the vote and Barrak Obama 45% of the vote, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The World Fact Book reports U.S. population at over 300 million, 301,139,947 (estimate as of 2007).

How many people do you think you'd have to poll to get within plus or minus 3% or 300,000 of the correct vote?

10 million? 1 million? This particular CBS pre-poll accurately extrapolates the minds of over 300 million people by polling just 906 people, or .00009 % of the population.

We're not so different after all!

Reference: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/06/opinion/polls/main4325670.shtml

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