SOMETHING FISHY

Formally called Kiritimati, Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean is 52 square miles - it is the legal territory of Australia.  For centuries, Christmas Island's isolation and rugged coasts provided natural barriers to settlement. British and Dutch navigators first included the island on their charts from the early seventeenth century, and Captain William Mynors of the East India Ship Company vessel, the Royal Mary, named the island when he arrived on Christmas Day, 25th December, 1643. He was unable to land, however, and it was not until 1688, when the English buccaneering ship Cygnet arrived under Captain Swan, that the first recorded landing took place

Today, Christmas Island is known for tourism and deep sea fishing expeditions

People dream an average of five times a night, and each subsequent dream is longer than the one preceding it. The first dream of the evening is about 10 minutes long, and the last dream is about 45 minutes

In 1859, a shower of fish fell from the sky in Glamorgan, Wales. The fish covered an area the size of three tennis courts

In 1995, A Russian couple runs from a rainstorm of fishes (Frogs, fish, and other animals have "rained" from the sky in various parts of the world- scientists believe undercurrents of wind are able to pick up animals, including shallow-swimming fish, and drop them with the rain in nearby locations as the wind current fades)

A stack of $1 dollar bills one-mile high would be worth more than $14 million dollars

Chocolate can be lethal to dogs. Theobromine, an ingredient that stimulates the cardiac muscle and the central nervous system, causes chocolate's toxicity. As little as two ounces of milk chocolate can be poisonous for a 10-pound puppy

The English scientist Isaac Newton and the German mathematician Gottfried W. Leibniz, working independently at about the same time in the mid-18th century, both discovered calculus, the branch of mathematics that studies continuously changing quantities 

The huddle formation used by American football teams originated at Gallaudet University, a liberal arts college for deaf people in Washington, D.C., to prevent other schools from reading their sign language

American football, even professional, includes the huddle as a standard way to communicate plays - Pictured is the huddle formation (without sign language) as it became popularized in the 1940s

  
 Ovaltine, the drink was from milk, malt, egg and cocoa, was developed in 1904 in Berne, Switzerland. It was originally named Ovomaltine. A clerical error changed it when the manufacturer registered the name.  In many parts of the world Ovaltine is served in cafes, hot or cold

Ovaltine Cafe in Toronto, Canada

During the Alaskan Klondike gold rush, (1897-1898) potatoes were practically worth their weight in gold. Potatoes were so valued for their vitamin C content that miners traded gold for potatoes

The Eiffel Tower is painted approximately once every 7 years and requires nearly 50 tons of paint each time

Giants baseball catcher Roger Bresnahan introduced shin guards in 1907

The first women flight attendants in 1930 were required to weigh no more than 115 pounds, be nurses, and unmarried

The first macaroni factory in the United States was established in 1848 - It was started by Antoine Zegera in Brooklyn, New York  

A Rubik's cube has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible configurations.  With 6 colored sides, 21 pieces and 54 outer surfaces, there's a combined total of over 43 quintillion1400 trillion years to finish to go through all the configurations. If you had started this project during the Big Bang, you still wouldn't be done yet different possible configurations. To put that into perspective: if you turned the Rubik's cube once every second it would take you

According to one study, plant and animal species are becoming extinct at the rate of 17 per hour

In the early 1950s, Denver architect Temple H. Buell, often called the Father of the Mall, conceived of and built one of the first shopping malls in the U.S.: the Cherry Creek Mall

Overhead shot of the Cherry Creek Mall, circa 1955

A gaffer is the chief electrician on a film set  

Isaac Newton dropped out of school when he was a teenager, at his mother's request. She hoped he would become a successful farmer 

When asked to name his favorite among all his paintings, Pablo Picasso replied "the next one"

In the 1936 Swathling Cup Match in table tennis, Alex Ehrlich of Poland and Paneth Farcas of Rumania volleyed for 2 hours and 12 minutes on the opening serve

Sex is a pain reliever, and proven ten times more effective than Valium: immediately before orgasm, levels of the hormone oxytocin rise by five times, determining a huge release of endorphins. These chemicals calm pain, from a minor headache to arthritis or migraines, and with no secondary effects

Anatitaephobia is the intense fear that somewhere in the world a duck is watching you

You cannot hum while pinching your nose closed

If you touch your tongue while yawning, you will usually stop the yawn

Jellyfish evaporate in the sun- they are 98% water

When a human is tickled, the response is actually a form of panic as the brain interprets the tickling sensation as produced by something foreign and potentially dangerous, such as a spider or snake, and the uncontrollable laughter is a panic response

Research shows that 11-week-old fetuses yawn. Yawns become contagious to people between the first and second years of life. When one person in a group yawns, over half of the people in the group will yawn within 5 minutes, and the rest will at least be tempted to yawn. Even animals yawn when they see another animal yawn. The average duration of a yawn is about 6 seconds, and men yawn for longer than women

Ants outnumber humans a million to one.  The total weight of all ants on earth is about the same as the total weight of all humans, and they can lift twice their weight

NEWS FEED:
In April, officials in the northern Swedish city of Angermanland temporarily shut down the operator of a colonic cleansing service, and issued fines, because it was not up to code. It had insufficient restroom facilities, thus requiring some of its clients to cleanse their colons in front of other clients


"Dog Stylist" Dara Foster ("I show people how to live together with their dogs in a stylish way") told a TV audience recently that some dog owners are dressing their pooches in "'80s-inspired punk," "giving way to a grunge movement in dog fashion--I swear to God."  The ubiquitous TV guest and apparel designer estimates that since Americans already spend $47 billion a year on pets, they need more than ever to know what's hot --fluorescent styling gel, for example, and pre-cooked meals for dogs, and owners getting matching tattoos
with their dogs, and a recently-spotted synthetic mullet wig for dogs

To hype attendance for Easter services this year, Lindenwald Baptist Church in Hamilton, Ohio, raffled off $1,000 on Easter Sunday. As a result, attendance more than doubled, to 1,137 (including 1,135 raffle losers)

A month earlier, Pastor John Goodman of the Houston, Texas Unity Baptist Church tried a different approach, calling on parishioners to cede their income-tax refunds to the church and warning that anyone who failed to come to the aid of the church is a "devil" and could be refused communion

Joseph Price, 61, left the PNC Bank in Okeechobee, Florida empty-handed on May 6, 2011 despite having passed the teller a note demanding a "sack full of cash." However, he hadn't brought a sack with him, and the teller said she didn't have one, either. He was arrested seven minutes after leaving the bank

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)
  

THE ACCIDENTAL COOKIE

Thomas Edison held a record 1,093 patents during his lifetime- Some of Edison’s most famous inventions include: the carbon transmitter (which allowed for the later invention of the telephone), the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb, the dictaphone, the mimeograph, and the kinetoscope (the precursor to our modern film projector) and the unsuccessful concrete piano

The Beatles song “Hey Jude” was written to comfort John Lennon’s son during his parents’ divorce- The tune was originally called “Hey Jules” for Lennon’s son Julian. Paul McCartney composed the song to cheer the boy up during John’s split from Julian’s mother Cynthia in 1968

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear

A bucket filled with earth would weigh about 5 times more than the same bucket filled with the substance of the Sun. However, the force of gravity is so much greater on the Sun that a person weighing 150 pounds on our planet would weigh 2 tons on the Sun 

A Chinese designer made a Coca-Cola powered cell phone- Daizi Zheng came up with the idea of a cell phone powered by sustainable energy sources. She designed a battery that uses enzymes generate electricity from carbs. That way she can use sugary drinks like Coke or Pepsi to charge the battery. The by-products of the charging process are just water and oxygen.  As a side-benefit, this battery is more efficient. It can last 4 times as long as a standard lithium battery on a full charge. The phone is biodegradable

Ants can be used as stitches: The ant can be placed on a cut, and the ant will bite the edges. It will lock on with its mandibles sealing the wound closed like a stitch or a suture. At this time you can remove the ant from it mandibles. The mandibles can remain in place for days as the wound heals  (Watch this video to see how it works)

The City Mall in Christchurch, New Zealand has taken to playing music from classical composer Mozart. As a result they have seen fewer instances of crime. This mall had seen an average of 77 crimes per week in October of 2008. After implementing their new classical music crime-fighting strategy, by October of 2009 that number went down to 2 crimes per week, and continues to decline

Men average less than 3 hours of orgasm over their entire lifetime.  Singapore Gleneagles Hospital gynecologist Dr. Fang Zhuang Wei said that because of our busy modern lifestyle, couples are typically sexually active only before and immediately after their marriage. For instance, if a man has an average orgasm of about 2.5 seconds over 40 years (from age 18 to 58), having sex twice weekly with his partner would result in two hours, 53 minutes and 20 seconds of orgasm in his lifetime

There are 1,600 known species of starfishes in the world

The 1,340-foot-long wall that gave New York's Wall Street its name was only 12 feet tall. It was erected in 1653 by Dutch colonists to protect against their enemies, namely the indigenous Native Americans

Susanna Salter was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas in 1887 at the age of 27, making her the first woman mayor in the United States

Susan Salter, 1860 - 1961

The chocolate chip cookie was invented by accident:  In 1930 Ruth Wakefield was preparing cookies for her guests at the Toll House Inn when she realized she was out of baker’s chocolate. She used broken chunks of Nestle’s semi-sweet chocolate instead, expecting it to melt into the dough to make chocolate cookies. She was surprised when the chocolate “chips” were still intact!  She called the resulting creation “Toll House Crunch Cookies.” As their popularity increased locally, so did the demand for Nestle’s semi-sweet chocolate bars. Wakefield and proprietor Andrew Nestle therefore decided to make a mutually beneficial deal. Nestle would be allowed to print the Toll House Cookie recipe on its package, and Wakefield would be granted a lifetime supply of Nestle chocolate. This partnership helped the chocolate chip cookie quickly become the most popular cookie variety, a distinction it still holds to this day

Spaniards brought the first cattle to the United States in the sixteenth century. Originally, the white settlers regarded them as beasts of burden, but the indigenous peoples found them delicious. The  Native Americans, in fact, were the first cattle herders, and they were the ones who moved the cattle across the Mississippi River to the grasslands of the plains

France and Italy produce over 40% of all wine consumed in the world

Many parts of a tree can die without killing the whole tree. In fact, much of a normal, healthy tree is dead — the wood in the center, for example

The longest tapeworm to ever be withdrawn from a human was removed from Sally Mae Wallace of Great Grits, Mississippi on September 5, 1991. In all, doctors pulled 37 FEET of tapeworm out through Sally Mae’s mouth

An ostrich’s egg is the largest bird egg and can support an adult human’s weight

At the height of U.S. war in Iraq, the U.S. armed forces were using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition every year. In 2005, American ammunition makers couldn't keep up with demand and the U.S. had to import more supplies from Israel

The world’s oldest college graduate, Nola Ochs of Kansas, began taking classes 30 years ago. On May 12, 2007 she graduated from Fort Hays State University with a bachelor’s degree in history. In an interesting twist, Ochs graduated alongside her 21-year-old granddaughter Alexandra. Nola said that she wants to use her degree to seek employment on a cruise ship, traveling the world as a storyteller

Nola and Alexandra Ochs at their graduation ceremony in 2007

The “Gotta Go Briefcase,” manufactured by Niban Too Corporation in Japan, contains stainless steel toilet bowl surrounded by mahogany leather. It contains everything you could possibly need while going about your ‘business’: a pop-out toilet paper roll, hand sanitizer dispenser, cup holder, and even a mirror

In Albania, nodding your head means ‘no’ and shaking your head means ‘yes’  

Yoo-hoo, the chocolate milk drink, won’t spoil if you keep it in its sealed bottle

The director of Nokia received a speeding ticket for 116,000 euros (roughly $152,725) in Finland-  In 2002, police caught Anssi Vanjoki breaking the speed limit on his Harley Davidson. In Finland, fines for traffic violations are based on the offender’s income. Vanjoki’s fine was an estimate of how much he would make in 14 days, based on his income in 1999. In 1999, he made 14 million euros (over $18 million).  Vanjoki appealed the fine, saying that the 1999 figure was inaccurate, and his income dropped considerably between 1999 and 2002 

All the proceeds earned from James M. Barrie's book "Peter Pan" were bequeathed to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for the Sick Children in London

"Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order  

THE JESUS AND MARY TOUR, USA
December, the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin,  announced it had received approval to designate a site in Champion, Wisconsin as the 11th official, Vatican-authorized location of a Virgin Mary apparition (witnessed by a nun in 1859)

Yucca Valley, California in April Jesus appeared on the petal of a poppy plant

Brisbane, Australia, in March Jesus appeared on a pie from the Posh Pizza restaurant

Los Angeles in February Jesus appeared on a rocking chair

Pequabuck, Connecticut in February Mary appeared in an ice formation on a neighbor's roof

Comal County, Texas in December Mary appeared "floating" on the wall of an apartment building

Elwood, Indiana in December Jesus appeared on a woman's chest x-ray  

NEWS FEED: 
In Chinese legend, tea leaves picked by fairies using not their hands but just their mouths yielded brewed tea that would bring prosperity and cure diseases, and now the historic, picturesque Jiuhua Mountain Tea Plantation (in Gushi, Henan province) has promised to hire up to ten female virgins to provide the equivalently
pure and delicate tea leaves, picked with the teeth and dropped into small baskets worn around the women's necks. According to an April report in London's Daily Mail, only virgins with strong necks and lips (and a bra size of C-cup or larger), and without visible scars or blemishes, will be considered for the equivalent $80-a-day jobs (an almost unheard-of salary in China, especially for agricultural field work 

In April, academic researchers at Boston College reported that gallery patrons correctly differentiated serious
works from squiggles only about 60-70 percent of the time.  Commented one survey subject, apparently realizing his confusion:  "The chimpanzee's stuff is good. I like how he plays with metaphors about depth of field, but I think I like this guy [Mark] Rothko a little bit better"
 

OLYMPIA SMILES

The world's tallest snowwoman was created in Bethel, Maine in 2008. It measured in at 122 feet / 1 inch and weighed 13,000,000 lbs.

A local radio station had a contest to name her:  Olympia the SnowWoman won out

A green flash is sometimes seen just as the sun sets or rises. This occurs because green light is bent most strongly by the atmosphere. So the green is seen before other colors at sunrise, and after the other colors have vanished at sunset

The oak tree can take as long as 30 years to produce its first crop of acorns

In the opening procession of the Olympics, the team representing the host nation always marches last

At Caesars Palace alone, an average of 7,700 eggs are prepared each day, with 2.8 million eggs delivered each year to that one resort. Caesars serves over 427 pounds of coffee each day and pours more than 3,000 ounces of orange juice every 24 hours  

Berengaria, Queen of England and wife of Richard the Lionhearted, never set foot in England. She lived in Italy most of her life while her husband was off on adventures and crusades

The Moon weighs 81 billion tons  

The Navajo Indian language was used successfully as a code by the United States in World War II - The Navajo who participated in encoding messages in their native language were referred to as "Windtalkers"

The name Oz, as in "The Wizard of Oz," was thought up when the author and creator, L. Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N and O-Z, hence "Oz"

The footprints left by the Apollo astronauts will not erode since there is no wind or water on the Moon. The footprints should last at least 10 million years

Isaac Asimov wrote more than 500 books during his lifetime (1920-1992). He has the honor of being the only person who has authored a book in each of the Dewey Decimal System classifications

NEWS FEED:
In January 2011, a baby was born to Canadians Kathy Witterick and David Stocker, but seven months later, they still have not revealed to family or friends whether little "Storm" is a boy or a girl. The couple are intending to raise Storm free of gender-specific cultural stereotypes (i.e., such things as domesticity, aggressiveness,
preferences for arts or mathematics) because society tends to overvalue "boy" norms. On a larger scale, in Stockholm, according to a June Associated Press dispatch, the 33 Swedish pre-schoolers at the Egalia school socialize in daily environments scrubbed of all gender references. For example, boys and girls alike play with kitchen toys and building materials, and when playing "family," parental roles are interchangeable. Critics say the children will be left unprepared for the "real" world 

"The sidewalks of 47th Street are literally paved with gold," said one of New York City's gold wranglers, as he, down on all fours and manipulating tweezers, picked specks of gold, silver, and jewels that had fallen off of clothing and jewelry racks as they were rolled from trucks into stores. The man told the New York Post in June 2011 that he had recently earned $819 in redemptions for six days' prospecting

Grasshopper tacos (at San Francisco's La Oaxaquena Bakery, were pulled in June 2011 by local health authorities, who were concerned that the Bakery was importing Mexican insects rather than using American ones

In June 2011, scientists at China's Agricultural University in Beijing announced that they had produced human breast milk from genetically modified dairy cows and expect supplies to be available in supermarkets within three years. Employing technology once used to produce the sheep "Dolly," researchers created a herd of 300 modified cows, which yielded milk that was reported as "sweeter" and "stronger" than typical cow milk