The Best Interesting Random Facts
These days, only special time travel will provide a chance of becoming a samurai warrior. The samurai began as a class of warriors in feudal Japan and stayed in power through the 17th century. But even if you could transport back to the days of the samurai, chances are you wouldn’t have measured up. Few […]
The orange stuff on Cheetos is a combination of various dyes and seasonings, and it’s the only part of Cheetos that has any cheese whatsoever in it. Like similar products, the main part of these “cheese” coated chip products is not cheese but a cornmeal concoction. The cornmeal, with whey and oil added, is mixed […]
In general, cactus plants are the slowest growing plants on earth. One kind of cactus, the saguaro, grows just one inch in the first ten years of its life. The saguaro cactus doesn’t grow a branch until it’s 16 years old, and after that, it grows just an inch a year. But some pine trees […]
The weight of an object is really a measure of the force of gravity exerted on it by the earth. So bodies such as the earth and the moon don’t really “weigh” anything. But the earth and the moon do have mass, which is a measure of how much matter these bodies are composed of. […]
Despite what you might have heard, camels don’t really store water in their humps. Instead, the humps are big chunks of fat. Sure, it looks funny, but it’s a system that works. In the desert camels may have to go for days and weeks without food, so the humps act as a storehouse of energy. […]
There really is no such fruit as the prune. A prune is a kind of sweet plum that can be dried out without removing its pit. These plums make good dried fruits because they’re high in iron and vitamins. Most of the plums that are to become prunes are grown in California and other western […]
The modern version of the marshmallow is only about a hundred years old, but it’s a new take on a several-thousand-year-old treat. The magical material we call marshmallow is named after the marsh mallow plant (Althaea officinalis), whose roots contain a sweet, gummy sap that has been used as a confection and for its supposed medicinal […]
Flying squirrels are a family of 44 species of squirrels that can glide between trees using a parachute-like membrane that stretches from wrist to ankle. As you may have guessed, they got their name from the way they glide from tree to tree. The higher they start, the farther flying squirrels can fly before they […]
Penguins don’t live in the Arctic because they don’t like having to swim across warm water. They are perfectly happy where they are, however, you’d be surprised how far north they can go. There are colonies in Australia and New Zealand, as well as at the southern tips of South America and Africa. But the […]
The AKC recognizes 150 breeds of dog in seven main categories. Sporting dogs (setters and the like) are used to hunt animals. Hounds (bassets, dachshunds, greyhounds, and beagles) are used to aid hunters with their keen eyesight and sense of smell. Working dogs (St. Bernards, boxers, and Great Danes) are bred to rescue, guard, and […]
Ladybug is the usual American name; ladybird is the usual name in England. So named, not, as childish fancy may have assumed, because these beneficial insects are all female, but in honor of “Our Lady,” the Virgin Mary.
The Cicada is loud enough to damage human ears, and loud enough to drown out lawn mowers. But think how loud it would be if the female cicadas joined in. Only the males make noise, and the silent females seek them out. A cicada is an insect with large eyes far apart on its head […]
The Giant Panda Bear’s gestation period varies widely from 97 to 163 days. The panda has a delayed implantation cycle in which the fertilized egg can float free for anywhere from one-and-a-half to four months before implanting in the uterus. Baby pandas are pink, naked, and very small, weighing a mere three to four ounces […]
From the 16th century Portugal was a world naval power, and the man-of-war was a large war ship armed with cannons and propelled mainly by sails and not by oars. The man-of-war was developed in England in the early 1600s from the carrack ship design, which later evolved into the galleon. The man-of-war was designed […]
Sheep are born with very long tails, long enough to reach the ground. When a lamb is born, the owner puts a rubber band tightly around the base of the lamb’s tail so that the circulation to the rest of the tail is stopped. In about a week or two, the tail, made mostly of […]
In the mid-1800s, white hunters started using rifles to kill buffalo for their hides, which could be sold for a high profit. Soon whites were killing many more buffalo than Indians were. And unlike the Indians, who used virtually every part of the buffalo, whites took only the skin and left the rest of the […]
A cobweb is a spiderweb. The word cob comes from the Middle English word coppe for spider. Apart from that, there is also a group of spiders specifically called “cobweb spiders.” Cobweb spiders build messy webs in corners and usually have a bulblike body and clawlike legs. Black widows fall into this category.
The term Ivy League has nothing to do with the ivy-covered walls of the prestigious schools to which it refers. Several Eastern U.S. schools such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia, became known collectively as the “Interscholastic Four League,” but the four was always written in Roman numerals, “IV”, and was pronounced “eye-vee.” By the […]
Clams, like oysters, have no eyes, ears, or noses, so they cannot see, hear, or smell. But they do have a large number of feelers, or tiny hairy projections on their gills. When the clam’s shell is open, these hairs fan the water, which is rich with small organisms, into the clam’s small mouth. From […]
Fred Astaire’s shoe size was a pretty average, 10 1/2. His height, however, sometimes caused problems. He looks tall on screen because he was very thin and angular. In reality, however, he was quite short, 5′ 8″, and sometimes needed his dancing partners to take off their high heels for dialogue scenes. Ginger Rogers, at […]
There are four basic “ingredients” that go into the “recipe” for making soil: tiny pieces of rock, decayed plants and animals, water, and air. When small pieces of rock break off larger ones, they form the basis of all soil. This breaking can occur in several ways: through the action of glaciers pushing rocks along […]
The sign “No Pepper” is seen in many baseball dugouts and refers to a game played to warm up the players. During pepper, one player bunts grounders and hits line drives to a group of infielders standing about twenty feet away. The fielders play the ball then throw it back to the batter as quickly […]
First, what gets them up there at all? “Youth is number one,” says John Kelly, coordinator of the Joint Apprenticeship and Trainee Committee of Ironworkers Locals 40 and 361 in New York. “Adventure is number two. And it used to be a hand-me-down, father-to-son business. Or you’d be hanging around on the street like a […]
Badgers, also known as brocks, are short-legged, heavy-set omnivores in the weasel family, and the 8 species can be found throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. The name badger probably came from the French word “bêcheur”, which means “digger”, introduced during the reign of William the Conqueror. The less common name brock is from the […]
Who was La Salle? Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle, was born in 1643 and studied in Jesuit schools to become a priest. But lured by the opportunity of adventure and fortune in North America, the 22-year-old Frenchman traveled to Montreal, a city on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. He cleared a patch […]
The Portuguese Man of War is a marine invertebrate also known as Physalia physalis from the Physaliidae family, and is very similar to a jellyfish but isn’t. Technically a siphonophore, other names for the Portuguese Man of War include Portuguese Man o’ War, bluebottle, and man-of-war. The Portuguese Man of War’s name comes from a […]
An amphitheater is an arena surrounded by rows of seats, much like the modern football stadium. Many amphitheaters were built in the Roman Empire. However, none could match the huge Flavian Amphitheater in Rome, which became known as the Colosseum because of its “colossal” size. The largest amphitheater of the ancient world, the Colosseum was […]
The Arctic is a lush paradise compared to Antarctica. The temperature is higher, there are more snow-free areas during the summer, the soil is richer, and the precipitation is heavier. Antarctica is, by virtue of its dryness, a desert; the Arctic is not. The Arctic has more than 400 species of flowering plants as well […]
Poor old Hogan is merely an innocent bystander in the modern Americanism “like Hogan’s goat”. Just as with “Hogan’s brickyard,” a slang designation of a baseball diamond, the goat could be the property of Jones, Smith, or Rockefeller, or VanTassel. That is, the name of the owner has no bearing whatever on the meaning of […]
Iron plus oxygen plus water equals rust. That’s it. When all three are present, rust will inevitably occur. But if any member of this unholy triumvirate is missing, there can be no rust. Fortunately for us living creatures, but unfortunately for our garden tools and automobiles, oxygen and water vapor are present everywhere in the […]