[lfjokes] Even more fun facts

[Adam Shand]

Via: security curmudgeon <jericho at attrition.org>

==================================================================
            A M A Z I N G - B U T - T R U E  F A C T S
==================================================================

* The increased electricity used by modern appliances is causing 
  a shift in the Earth's magnetic field.  By the year 2327, the 
  North Pole will be located in mid-Kansas, while the South Pole
  will be just off the coast of East Africa.

* The idea for "tribbles" in "Star Trek" came from gerbils, since 
  some gerbils are actually born pregnant.

* Johnny Plessey batted .331 for the Cleveland Spiders in 1891,
  even though he spent the entire season batting with a 
  rolled-up, lacquered copy of the Toledo Post-Dispatch.

* Smearing a small amount of dog feces on an insect bite will 
  relieve the itching and swelling.

* The Boeing 747 is capable of flying upside-down if it weren't 
  for the fact that the wings would shear off when trying to roll
  it over.

* The trucking company Elvis Presley worked at as a young man 
  was owned by Frank Sinatra.

* The only golf course on the island of Tonga has 15 holes, and 
  there's no penalty if a monkey steals your golf ball.

* Legislation passed during WWI making it illegal to say 
  "gesundheit" to a sneezer was never repealed.

* Manatees possess vocal chords which give them the ability to 
  speak like humans, but they don't do so because they have 
  no ears with which to hear the sound.

* SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below.

* Catfish are the only animals that naturally have an ODD number
  of whiskers.

* Replying more than 100 times to the same piece of spam e-mail 
  will overwhelm the sender's system and interfere with their 
  ability to send any more spam.

* Polar bears can eat as many as 86 penguins in a single sitting.

* The first McDonald's restaurant opened for business in 1952 in 
  Edinburgh, Scotland, and featured the McHaggis sandwich.

* The Air Force's F-117 fighter uses aerodynamics discovered 
  during research into how bumblebees fly.

* Silly Putty was "discovered" as the residue left behind after
  the first latex condoms were produced.  It's not widely 
  publicized for obvious reasons.

* A cat's purr has the same romance-enhancing frequency as the 
  voice of singer Barry White.

* The typewriter was invented by Hungarian immigrant Qwert Yuiop,
  who left his "signature" on the keyboard.

* The volume of water that the Giant Sequoia tree consumes in a 
  24-hour period contains enough suspended minerals to pave 
  17.3 feet of a 4-lane concrete freeway.

* King Henry VIII slept with a gigantic axe.

* Because printed materials are being replaced by CD-ROM, 
  microfiche and the Internet, libraries that previously sank 
  into their foundations under the weight of their books are 
  now in danger of collapsing in extremely high winds.

* In 1843, a Parisian street mime got stuck in his imaginary box 
  and consequently died of starvation.

* Touch-tone telephone keypads were originally planned to have 
  buttons for Police and Fire Departments, but they were replaced 
  with * and # when the project was cancelled in favor of 
  developing the 911 system.

* Human saliva has a boiling point three times that of regular
  water.

* Calvin, of the "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip, was patterned 
  after President Calvin Coolidge, who had a pet tiger as a boy.

* Watching an hour-long soap opera burns more calories than 
  watching a three-hour baseball game.

* Until 1978, Camel cigarettes contained minute particles of real
  camel hair.

* Seven out of every ten hockey-playing Canadians will lose a 
  tooth during a game.  For Canadians who don't play hockey, 
  that figure drops to five out of ten.

* A dog's naked behind leaves absolutely no bacteria when 
  pressed against carpet.

* A team of University of Virginia researchers released a study 
  promoting the practice of picking one's nose, claiming that the 
  health benefits of keeping nasal passages free from infectious 
  blockages far outweigh the negative social connotations.

* Among items left behind at Osama bin Laden's headquarters in 
  Afghanistan were 27 issues of Mad Magazine. Al Qaeda members 
  have admitted that bin Laden is reportedly an avid reader.

* Urine from male cape water buffaloes is so flammable that 
  some tribes use it for lantern fuel.

* At the first World Cup championship in Uruguay, 1930, the 
  soccer balls were actually monkey skulls wrapped in paper 
  and leather.

* Every Labrador retriever dreams about bananas.

* If you put a bee in a film canister for two hours, it will go 
  blind and leave behind its weight in honey.

* Due to the angle at which the optic nerve enters the brain, 
  staring at a blue surface during sex greatly increases the 
  intensity of orgasms.

* Never hold your nose and cover your mouth when sneezing, as
  it can blow out your eyeballs.

* Centuries ago, purchasing real estate often required having
  one or more limbs amputated in order to prevent the purchaser
  from running away to avoid repayment of the loan.  Hence an 
  expensive purchase was said to cost "an arm and a leg."

* When Mahatma Gandhi died, an autopsy revealed five gold 
  Krugerrands in his small intestine.

* Aardvarks are allergic to radishes, but only during the summer.

* Coca-Cola was the favored drink of Pharaoh Ramses.  An 
  inscription found in his tomb, when translated, was found to 
  be almost identical to the recipe used today.

* If you part your hair on the right side, you were born to be 
  carnivorous.  If you part it on the left, your physical 
  and psychological make-up is that of a vegetarian.

* When immersed in liquid, a dead sparrow will make a sound like
  a crying baby.

* In WWII the US military planned to airdrop over France 
  propaganda in the form of Playboy magazine, with coded 
  messages hidden in the models' turn-ons and turn-offs. 
  The plan was scrapped because of a staple shortage due to 
  rationing of metal.

* Although difficult, it's possible to start a fire by rapidly
  rubbing together two Cool Ranch Doritos.

* Napoleon's favorite type of wood was knotty chestnut.

* The world's smartest pig, owned by a mathematics teacher in 
  Madison, WI, memorized the multiplication tables up to 12.

* Due to the natural "momentum" of the ocean, saltwater fish 
  cannot swim backwards.

* In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families were dipped 
  in olive oil at birth to keep them hairless throughout their
  lives.

* It is nearly three miles farther to fly from Amarillo, Texas 
  to Louisville, Kentucky than it is to return from Louisville 
  to Amarillo.

* The "nine lives" attributed to cats is probably due to their
  having nine primary whiskers.

* The original inspiration for Barbie dolls comes from dolls 
  developed by German propagandists in the late 1930s to impress
  young girls with the ideal notions of Aryan features.  The 
  proportions for Barbie were actually based on those of Eva Braun.

* The Venezuelan brown bat can detect and dodge individual 
  raindrops in mid-flight, arriving safely back at his cave
  completely dry.