Useless Facts
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Actress Halle Berry turned down the role of Annie, and Stephen Baldwin 
turned down the role of Jack in the 1994 "Speed". The blockbuster film 
catapulted Sandra Bullock as a major film actress, and greatly improved 
upon Keanu Reeve's box office appeal

- Arguably the largest state in the world, Western Australia covers 
one-third of the Australian continent. It spans over 2.5 million square 
kilometers (1 million square miles).

- The right arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty crossed the Atlantic 
Ocean three times. It first crossed for display at the 1876 Philadelphia 
Centennial Exposition and in New York, where money was raised for the 
foundation and pedestal. It was returned to Paris in 1882 to be reunited 
with the rest of the statue, which was then shipped back to the U.S.

- The number of dead bodies in the movies Scream and Scream 2 totals 17.

- Certain birds of prey (the African Serpent eagle and the American 
kestrel for example) have visual acuity 2.4 to 2.6 times greater than 
humans. They can see a 1mm long insect from a treetop 18 meters above 
ground.

- Permanent hearing loss can result from prolonged exposure to sounds at 
85 decibels (0 decibels is the threshold for hearing). For comparison, a 
busy street corner is about 80 decibels, a subway train from 20 feet is 100 
decibels, a jet plane from 500 feet is 110 decibels and loud thunder is 120 
decibels. A rock band amplified at close range is 140 decibels, which is 
100 trillion times threshold and more than 100,000 times as loud as the 
level that will produce permanent hearing loss.

* Einstein reportedly was unable to figure out the 1040 income tax form.
[Source: trivia book] Ironsun from Texas (31 march 1999) 

- The human heart beats about 70 times per minute, the shrew's 600 times a 
minute, a hummingbird's heart can beat up to 1,300 times per minute.
By comparison, the blue whale, the largest mammal in the world has a heart 
that weighs 1,300 lbs and beats only about 10 times per minute.

- Small animals like bats and shrews consume up to one and one half times 
their body weight in food every day. For an adult male this would be like 
eating 1,000 quarter-pound cheeseburgers a day, every day; or about 50 
Thanksgiving dinners a day.

- The lungs of an average adult, unfolded and flattened out, would cover 
an area the size of a tennis court.

- Most common sports drinks are the equivalent of sugar-sweetened human 
sweat. That is, they have the same salt concentration as sweat (but are 
less salty than your blood). An increase of as little as 1% in blood salt 
will cause you to become thirsty.

- The first known item made from aluminum was a rattle--made for Napoleon 
III in the 1850s. Napoleon also provided his most honored guests with 
knives and forks made of pure aluminum. At the time the newly discovered 
metal was so rare, it was considered more valuable than gold.

- Prior to migration a goose will consume the equivalent of up to 25% of 
its body weight per day, accumulating large amounts of fat. During the 
migration geese may cover up to 600 miles per day and at the end of the 
migration often weight less than before they started fattening up in 
preparation.

- The Bingham Canyon copper mine in Utah is the biggest manmade hole on 
Earth. It is more than a half-mile deep and 2.5 miles across. An 
astronaut can see this hole from the space shuttle with his bare eyes.

- Water makes up 60% of our body weight. Of the water, 8% is in the 
blood, 25% in the spaces between cells, and 67% inside the cells.

- Humans have between 100 trillion to 1 quadrillion living cells in their 
bodies.

- For the upcoming motion picture - "Mission To Mars", director Brian 
DePalma and crew needed to re-create the surface of the planet Mars. They 
chose the more than two million square feet of a 45-acre sand dune in 
Vancouver, Canada. To give the sand dune the color of the planet Mars, 
they covered it with over 15,000 gallons of red paint.

- What do bats' wings, elephants' ears, flamingos' legs, rabbits' ears, 
goats' horns and human skin all have in common? They radiate heat to 
providing cooling for the animal.

- A male moth can smell a female moth from 100 yards away.

- A bird's eye takes up about 50% of its head, our eyes take up about 5% 
of our head. To be comparable to a bird's eyes, our eyes would have to be 
the size of basketballs.

- The Pentagon was allowed to choose some of the clothes that John 
Travolta wore in the movie "Broken Arrow" so that the military would be 
portrayed positively.

- Pigs, dogs, and some other animals can taste water, but people cannot. 
Humans don't actually taste the water, they taste the chemicals and 
impurities in the water

- Wood Frogs are freeze tolerant and spend winters frozen on land, only to 
thaw in the spring and begin their breeding process in vernal ponds.

- Pigeons and hummingbirds have tiny magnetic particles in their heads 
that respond to the Earth's magnetic fields and are used for navigation

Body Language Customs From Around The World

- In Sweden, when leaving someone's home, wait until you get to the 
doorway to step outside before putting on your coat. To do so earlier 
suggests you are eager to leave. When entering or departing a Russian 
home, it is considered very bad form to shake hands across the threshold.

- In Germany, shaking hands with the other hand in a pocket is considered 
impolite. In Mali, men shake hands with women only if women offer their 
hand first. The handshake is often done with the left hand touching the 
other person's elbow as well.

- In Thailand, the left hand is considered unclean, so you should not eat 
with it. Also, pointing with one finger is considered rude and is only 
done when pointing to objects or animals, never humans.

- A recent Gallup survey showed that in the United States 8 percent of 
kissers kept their eyes open, but more than 20 percent confessed to an 
occasional peek. Forty-one percent said they experienced their first 
serious smooch when they were age thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen; 36 
percent between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. The most memorable 
kiss in a motion picture was in "Gone With The Wind" according to 25 
percent of those polled.

- The secret recipe for Coca Cola, code-named "Merchandise 7X" is kept 
under lock and key in a vault in the SunTrust Bank Building in Atlanta, 
Georgia, the home of Coke inventor Dr. John S. Pemberton and current world 
headquarters of Coca Cola International.

- The escalator in the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia is the longest 
freestanding escalator in the world, rising 160 feet or approximately eight 
stories in height.

- Richard Milhouse Nixon was the first US President whose name contains 
all the letters from the word "criminal." William Jefferson Clinton is the 
2nd.


- An ear of corn averages 800 kernels in 16 rows. A pound of corn consists 
of approximately 1,300 kernels. 100 bushels of corn produces approximately 
7,280,000 kernels. Corn is produced on every continent of the world with 
the exception of Antarctica.

- Interesting Facts About Deaf People:

o In the United States, deaf people have safer driving records
than hearing people nationally.

o Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, was
originally an instructor for deaf children and invented
the telephone to help his deaf wife and mother to hear.

o The man who invented shorthand, John Gregg, was deaf.

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

- Gray whales migrate 12,000 miles each year, farther than any other 
mammal.

- The "last meal" for Death Row inmates has became embedded in the 
American death-penalty ritual. Reporters have dutifully recorded the last 
meal menus: John Wayne Gacy had fried chicken and strawberries; Ted Bundy 
passed on steak and eggs; James Smith, executed in Texas in 1990, requested 
a "lump of dirt" (request was denied); Missouri inmate Lloyd Schlup asked 
for venison and hare (request was granted).

- Many sharks lay soft-shelled eggs but hammerheads give birth to live 
young that look like miniature versions of their parents. Young 
hammerheads are often born headfirst, with the tip of their hammerhead 
folded backward to make them more streamlined for birth.

- Fourteen years before the Titanic sank, novelist Morgan Robertson 
published a novel called "Futility". The story was about an ocean liner 
that struck an iceberg on an April night. The name of the ship in his 
novel - The Titan.

- Rafflesia flowers can measure 3 feet across -- the biggest flowers of 
any plant. They are also the smelliest flowers, reeking of rotten meat. 
This is a trick designed to attract flies for pollination.

- A "fulgerite" is fossilized lightning. It forms when a powerful 
lightning bolt melts the soil into a glass-like state.

- George Washington, who was nearly toothless himself, was meticulous with 
the teeth of the six white horses that pulled his presidential coach. He 
had their teeth picked and cleaned daily to improve their appearance.

- Whoopi Goldberg was a mortuary cosmetologist and a bricklayer before 
becoming an actress.