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hearken the facts - vi

A few facts that you might never come across, but your life will be incomplete without:

  • The top 109 highest mountains in the world are all in Asia and 96 of them are in the Himalayas.
  • A beard grows an average of 140 mm a year.
  • Laika, a dog, was the world’s first ever space astronaut. She was sent into space in an artificial earth satellite in 1957 by the Russian government.
  • Al Gore coined the phrase information superhighway.
  • Four Corners is the spot in the United States where a person can stand in four states at the same time.
  • A mole will die if it doesn’t get food within 12 hours.
  • Las Vegas has more hotel rooms than any other place on Earth.
  • Every year, kids in North America spend close to half a billion dollars on chewing gum!
  • Cats step with both left legs, then both right legs when they walk or run. The only other animals to do this are the giraffe and the camel.
  • Cattle are the only mammals that pee backwards.
  • Englishman Roger Bacon invented the magnifying glass in 1250.
  • A pig’s orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
  • Starfish have no brains.
  • The typewriter is an Italian invention.
  • We forget 80 per cent of what we learn everyday.
  • By recycling just one glass bottle, the amount of energy that is being saved is enough to light a 100 watt bulb for four hours.
  • The ‘L.L.’ in L.L. Bean stands for ‘Leon Leonwood’.
  • The smell of peppermint improvers concentration.
  • Finland has about 190,000 lakes.
  • Tasmania, Australia has the cleanest air in the inhabited world.
  • Julius Caesar was known as a great swimmer.
  • Darwin once ate an owl.
  • Cows do not have any upper front teeth. Instead they have a thick pad on the top jaw.
  • The grey whale migrates 12,500 miles from the Arctic to Mexico and back every year.
  • Mineral deposits in caves: the ones growing upwards are stalagmites, the ones growing downward are stalactites.
  • Panspermia is the idea that life on the Earth originated on another planet.
  • You can tape a small mirror onto a cone speaker, play music and shine a laser on to the mirror and the reflection will look like a laser light show on your wall.
  • The infinity character on  the keyboard is called a lemniscate.
  • All porcupines float in water.
  • As much as 80% of microwaves from mobile phones are absorbed by your head!

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