I thought today I would add a few little known Science facts. With all of the space related science discussions of late I thought this would be a good time to join in. Enjoy!
In five years, a woman who wears lipstick will use enough to draw a line equal to her height.
Beards are the fastest growing hairs on the human body. If the average man never trimmed his beard, it would grow nearly 30 feet long in his lifetime.
A general rule of thumb for distinguishing fruits from vegetables: For fruits, seeds are on the inside; for vegetables, seeds are on the outside.
Tomatoes are native to the Americas and were initially cultivated by Aztec Indians as early as A.D. 700. They are also a common source of allergies.
The roller coaster was invented and patented in Ohio by a toboggan designer, John Miller in 1926. It featured small cars sliding down incline ramps.
The barcode was patented in 1952 by Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver. In June of 1974, the first barcode scanner was installed at a Marshes supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The first product to carry a barcode was Wrigley’s gum.
IBM called its first laptop computer “The Convertible”. It was the size of a suitcase.
On April 12, 1934, the highest surface wind speed ever recorded occurred over Mount Washington, New Hampshire. It was clocked at 231 miles per hour.
The 400 mg of nicotine that an average pack-a-day smokers inhale in a week would instantly kill them if ingested in a single hour.
Six-year-olds laugh on average of 300 times a day.
🔬🔬🔬
Here’s a favorite tongue twister that is considered the most difficult in the English language due to the complex brain and motor coordination it requires,
While we are all waiting for Christmas to arrive, let me rant on for a few minutes. I’ve been reading a book called Number Freaking. It’s a book of statistics about things you would never normally think about. It allows you to discover how far you might have walked in your lifetime, how many people have lived since the beginning of time, and how to cure the world debt. I’m going to use some of the information gleaned from that book to convince anyone in their right mind to never smoke.
I began smoking cigarettes at age 14. I never bought cigarettes, but I stole most of them from my parents who were both fairly heavy smokers. I did it to look cool because it was the thing to do in high school at that time. I continued smoking more than two packs a day from the time I attended college until 1983. That was the last time I ever held a cigarette which makes me a former smoker who hasn’t smoked for 38 years. As always, I seem to be arriving late to the game, but good sense finally prevailed. Here are a few facts you might find interesting or maybe not, but here goes anyway.
The average smoker in America smokes 13 cigarettes a day. One of the maxims of the anti-smoking lobby is that every cigarette smoked knocks 11 min. off your life. Based on this truism, about one year will be lost for every 10 years that the average smoker smokes.
95% of smokers start at or near the age of 16. The average life expectancy at birth in the United States is approximately 78 years, i.e., 62 years after the age of 16. We’ll assume the life lost due to smoking is deducted from these 62 years. Here are three questions to make things a little clearer.
Question: How much life does an average American smoker lose per year of smoking. Answer: 36 days, six hours, 30 min., and 45 seconds
Question: At what age, approximately, will average American smokers who start smoking at age 16 reach the age that the habit is predicted to kill them? Answer: 71 years and six months.
Question: At what age, approximately, will 40-a-day American smoker, starting at age 16, reach the age that the habit is predicted to kill them? Answer: 62 years and nine months.
? ? ? ? ?
By this calculation even one cigarette a day would cost you nearly 6 months of your life.
If the nicotine in 200 cigarettes were to be taken as a single dose, you would die.
“Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and as sweet as love.” Turkish Proverb
Let’s talk about coffee. It’s the only major addiction I have left and I cherish it. When I stopped smoking twenty-eight years ago it was coffee that helped me through all those terrible days without nicotine. That and Tootsie Pops of course. I don’t know for sure how many Tootsie Pops are in a pound but I gained thirty-five pounds eating them over the course of five months. Coffee helped to keep me going until I was free of the damn nicotine and then the Tootsie Pops. Unfortunately by the time that was all over I was also addicted to the coffee as well. I replaced one killer addiction with a much milder version and was happy as hell about it.
My second major addiction was alcohol. I never drank enough to join that infamous club of alcoholics but I drank my share. Now at this stage of my life I’ve given up up drinking almost completely. Coffee again has been there to help replace the stimulation I received from alcohol with a much milder version.
My third big addiction was eating. Not the food itself but the eating of the food. I’ve been a nervous eater for most of my life and once my metabolism slowed it became a problem. With each passing year it became more of an issue but I waged a good battle to maintain my weight. My good buddy “Coffee” again came to my rescue and for that I’m grateful.
I decided to take a closer look at coffee and to learn as much as I could in the context of this blog.. Today will be Coffee Trivia Day. I’m celebrating my last great addiction that has made it possible for me to defeat three others. Here is a list of twenty trivia tidbits, the first of three Coffee Trivia planned postings.
“A 41-inch bust and a lot of perseverance will get you more than a cup of coffee – a lot more.” ~Jayne Mansfield
Until the 18th century coffee was almost always boiled.
Until the late 1800’s, people roasted their coffee at home. Popcorn poppers and stove-top frying pans were favored.
When a coffee seed is planted, it takes five years to yield consumable fruit.
William Penn purchased a pound of coffee in New York in 1683 for $4.68.
Hawaii is the only state that commercially grows coffee.
In the ancient Arab culture there was only one way a woman could legally divorce: If her husband didn’t provide enough coffee.
52% of Americans drink coffee.
A acre of coffee trees can produce up to 10,000 pounds of coffee cherries. That amounts to approximately 2000 pounds of beans after hulling or milling.
A scientific report form the University of California found that the steam rising from a cup of coffee contains the same amounts of antioxidants as three oranges. The antioxidants are heterocyclic compounds which prevents cancer and heart disease.
Adding sugar to coffee is believed to have started in 1715, in the court of King Louis XIV, the French monarch.
Advertisements for coffee in London in 1657 claimed that the beverage was a cure for scurvy, gout and other ills.
“Decaffeinated coffee is the devil’s blend.” ~Author Unknown
Espresso Coffee has just one third of the caffeine content of ordinary coffee.
Coffee beans are really berries. Each berry contains two beans (pips).
An expert in preparing Turkish coffee is known as a “kahveci”.
Irish coffee was actually invented to warm up cold American plane passengers leaving from Ireland.
And lastly, Teddy Roosevelt is and was the greatest American coffee drinker, consuming a gallon a day. But you probably shouldn’t attempt to do that.
An Arabica coffee tree can produce up to 12 pounds of coffee a year, depending on soil and climate.
Australians consume 60% more coffee than tea, a six-fold increase since 1940.
Caffeine is on the International Olympic Committee list of prohibited substances. Athletes who test positive for more than 12 micrograms of caffeine per milliliter of urine may be banned from the Olympic Games. This level may be reached after drinking about 5 cups of coffee.
Citrus has been added to coffee for several hundred years.
“Coffee, the finest organic suspension ever devised.” ~Star Trek: Voyager
everyuselessthing.com 