OUTER AND INNER

If an astronaut tried to land on a neutron star, he or she would be crushed by the extremely strong force of gravity, and squashed into a thin layer less than one atom thick

At least 100,000 different chemical reactions occur in the normal human brain every second

The multi-layered space suite worn by astronauts on the Apollo moon landings weighed 180 pounds on Earth and 30 pounds on the moon with the reduced lunar gravity

Rome has more homeless cats per square mile than any other city in the world

Americans hold more parties in their homes on Super Bowl Sunday, which is the finale of the football season, than any other day of the year 

Squirrels can climb trees faster than they can run on the ground

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary opened in 1927 in Brisbane, Australia, and it was the first and is still the largest koala sanctuary in the world. Tourists can cuddle one of 130 koalas, hand feed kangaroos and emus, and see a large variety of Australian native wildlife in the 50-acre sanctuary, such as wombats, Tasmanian devils, and dingoes. Koala cuddling has been banned in New South Wales since January 1997, but cuddling is still permitted in Queensland, and especially at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. In Queensland, koalas can only be cuddled for less than 30 minutes per day. They must also get every fourth day off. At Lone Pine, koalas are timed for “clock on” and “clock off” when they go to the koala cuddling area

A mother giraffe often gives birth while standing, so the newborn's first experience outside the womb is a 1.8-meter (6-foot) drop

About half of the energy entering the outer atmosphere from the sun reaches the ground. Of the radiation that reached the ground, about one-third is radiated back into space, one-third heats the lower atmosphere, and one-third is used in the process of evaporating water

The Alaskan moose is the largest deer of the New World. It attains a height at the withers in excess of 7 feet and, when fully grown, weighs up to 1,800 pounds

Of all cheese customs, one of the more unusual was that of the "groaning cheese." Years ago in Europe, a prospective father would nibble on a huge chunk of cheese while awaiting the home birth of his child. Instead of pacing outside the bedroom door, the father would eat from the center of the cheese until a large hole had been gnawed out. Later, his newborn infant was ceremoniously passed through the hole

For a short time in 1967, the American Typers Association invented a new punctuation mark that was a combination of the question mark and an exclamation point called an “interrobang.” It was intended to be used to express incredulity or disbelief. It never caught on with the general public, and it faded away 

The giant red star Betelguese – the red star in the shoulder of the constellation Orion – is 700 million miles across, about 800 times larger than the Sun. Light takes 1 hour to travel from one side of the giant star to the other

In Muddy, Illinois, the post office measures only 7½ by 10½ feet, about the size of a garden shed. If it wasn't for a sign hanging above the door stating, "U.S. Post Office, Muddy, IL., 62965," finding the tiny, wooden building could be difficult. It is believed to be one of the smallest post offices in the United States - it was officially closed in 2002 after fifty-three years of service

The building that was the US Post Office stands as an official national landmark

The Dalmatian dog is named for the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia, where it is believed to have been originally bred

Every time a ton of steel is recycled, it means 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,000 pounds of coal, and 40 pounds of limestone will not have to be mined from the Earth

Acorn, banana, buttercup, butternut, carnival, delicata, golden nugget, Hubbard, kabocha, spaghetti, sweet dumpling, turban, and pumpkin are varieties of winter squash

Studies have confirmed that men who are exposed to a lot of toxic chemicals, high heat, and unusual pressures, such as jet pilots and deep-sea divers, are more prone to father girls than boys

The three-toed sloth of tropical South America can swim easily, but it can only drag itself across bare ground

Most insect repellents used by humans work on the principle of either masking odors that might attract insects or by creating smells that are repulsive to them

When a snail hatches from an egg, it is a miniature adult, shell and all. The shell grows with the snail, and the snail never leaves the shell

Snails hatching from eggs

Kleenex® tissues were marketed as a cold cream remover when they were first introduced in 1924  - The Kimberly-Clark Corporation created the first Western facial tissue in 1924 (it had been in use for centuries before in Japan)

Print ad for Kleenex appearing in the US circa 1940

The Black Mission fig, the most popular variety of fig growing in desert areas, is so named because of its color and because it was the variety introduced at the California and Southwestern Spanish missions 

It takes the human eyes an hour to adapt completely to seeing in the dark. Once adapted, however, the eyes are about 100,000 times more sensitive to light than they are in bright sunlight

There are 48 teaspoons in a cup: three teaspoons make a tablespoon and 16 tablespoons to a cup

More than 60 percent of all recipients of organ donations are between the ages of 18 and 49   

NEWS FEED:

Former stripper Crystal Deans, who said she learned the trade at age 18 but later retired and turned to God for help through a rough patch of her life, now offers free pole-dancing classes in Spring, Texas, near Houston, expressly for Christian women. Her gyrations may be the same as when she was working, she said, but now everyone is clothed, and she dances only to "Christian music"

Marie Stopes International is a prominent London charity that robustly promotes a woman's right to choose abortion, but a whimsical public-service campaign in January has created unusually savage criticism. The organization partnered with the British comedy music band The Midnight Beast to produce a video suggesting anal sex as a contraceptive of choice. Among the lyrics of one song, "One up the bum, and it's no harm done / One up the bum, and you won't be a mum"

A man stole Waltham, Massachusetts student Mark Bao's notebook computer in March 2011, but Bao used his automatic online-backup service to access the hard drive while the thief was using it, to discover a performance video of a man (presumably the thief) dancing (lamely, thought Bao) to a pop song. Bao uploaded the video to YouTube where 700,000 viewers showed it the proper disrespect, and also tracked down the thief's e-mail address and informed him of his new Internet "stardom." Shortly afterward, the still-unidentified thief turned in the notebook to Bentley University police with an apology to "Mark," begging him to take down the video
 

COST IN TRANSLATION

Outside of the bedroom, the most common place for adults in the U.S. to have sex is the car

Twenty nine percent of women spend more time shopping for shoes than they do looking for a life-long mate

In Chinese, the KFC slogan "finger lickin' good" comes out as "eat your fingers off"

According to statistics gathered by the World Health Organization from various NGOs (Non-governmental Organizations such as non-profits), Australian women are most likely to have sex on the first date 

The Yo-Yo originated as a weapon in the Philippine Islands during the sixteenth century 

Kampang School in northeastern Thailand is the first school to open a toilet for transvestite pupils

An example of a "gender-neutral" bathroom, this one at the high school in Thailand allows for males and females to use the same toilet/wash room

The U.S. Government spent $277,000 on pickle research in 1993

One in three snake bite victims is drunk - One in five is tattooed  

In 1895 Hampshire police handed out the first ever speeding ticket, fining a man for doing 6mph

Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung

Object most Americans will choke on this year:  Toothpick

The chances of you dying on the way to get your lottery tickets is greater than your chances of winning

If the population of China walked past you, in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction

Cherophobia is a fear of fun

About 200 frozen corpses remain on Mount Everest

In the United States, 1 in 4 women will be hit or beaten by their husband or boyfriend this year

It would take 17,000 McDonalds strawfuls of water to fill a standard bathtub

Lawrence Richard Walters, nicknamed "Lawnchair Larry" or the "Lawn Chair Pilot", (April 19, 1949 – October 6, 1993) was an American truck driver who took flight on July 2, 1982 in a homemade airship. Dubbed Inspiration I, the "flying machine" consisted of an ordinary patio chair with 45 helium-filled weather balloons attached to it. Walters rose to an altitude of over 15,000 feet (4,600 m) and floated from his point of origin in San Pedro, California into controlled airspace near Los Angeles International Airport    

In 1992, 29,000 rubber ducks washed off a ship. They were found thousands of miles away 8 years later

Globally, your statistical chance of being murdered is 1 in 20,000

Recent research from the Kinsey Institute reveals that women who went to college are more likely than high school dropouts to enjoy both the giving and receiving of oral sex  

Your home is ten times more likely to have a fire than be burglarized

Worms reportedly taste like bacon

Whispering is more wearing on your voice than a normal speaking tone

The U.S. Army accidentally ordered an 82 year supply of freeze-dried tuna salad mix for troops in Europe

The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven

The Saguaro Cactus, found in South-western United States does not grow branches until it is 75 years old  

This tree-size cactus may be as old as 100 years- some Saguaro live as long as 175 years.  Each arm helps the plant get more water from the air.

Robert Augustus Chesebrough, (January 9, 1837 – September 8, 1933) was a chemist and the inventor of petroleum jelly, which he trade-named as Vaseline.  The etymology of the word is believed to come from German wasser (=water) + Greek έλαιον (=oil).  Chesebrough earned knighthood in 1883. Upon knighting him, Queen Victoria extolled his product's usefulness, proudly claiming that she "used Vaseline every day." Chesebrough lived to be 96 years old and was such a believer in Vaseline that he claimed to have eaten a spoonful of it every day. He died at his house in Spring Lake, New Jersey. He also, reportedly, during a serious bout of pleurisy in his mid-50s, had his nurse rub him from head to foot with the substance. He soon recovered

NEWS FEED:      
Psychology professor Will Corbin, operating with National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grants, conducts studies of drunk students' memories, response times, and decision-making processes through extensive questioning-- after he has raised their blood-alcohol level to precisely 0.08 percent (which Arizona regards as presumed-impaired for drivers). Students are served one type of vodka cocktail, three drinks' worth, in a bar-like room on campus, and after 15 minutes to let the alcohol be absorbed, the questioning and testing begin. (At the end of the night, taxis are called for the students)

Ryan Letchford, 21, and Jeffrey Olson, 22, were arrested in Radnor, Pennsylvania in July 2011 fter they had
broken into a police van for the purpose of taking gag photos of themselves as if they were under arrest. However, the men somehow locked themselves inside the van, and neither they nor a friend they had called to come help could figure out how to open the doors. Finally, they were forced to call 9-1-1. Police arrived, unlocked the van, arrested the men, and locked them back up-- inside a cell 

Georges Marciano, co-founder of the clothing company Guess? Inc. and ostensibly in no trouble with IRS, nonetheless demanded in 2009 that the agency audit him over the previous several years.  IRS turned him down, and he sued the agency in federal court in Washington, D.C., but in July, a judge rejected the case, declaring that federal law and the U.S. Constitution do not give anyone a "right" to demand that IRS collect more taxes from them. (Marciano perhaps hoped for IRS to uncover cheating by his former employees and accountants, who he thought were stealing from him. Paying higher taxes might have been worth it if the agency had made it easier for him to sue any cheaters)