Saturday, October 2, 2010

The words regardless and irregardless mean the same thing. The words regardless and irregardless mean the same thing.

The words regardless and irregardless mean the same thing.

However, regardless is the more commonly used of the two because the prefix “ir” and suffix “less” are two negative elements that together cause the meaning of irregardless to be unclear.

Irregardless is primarily used in speech and not in written prose. Regardless is generally the more accepted word.

The Titanic crashed because its helmsman turned the wrong way

The Titanic crashed because its helmsman turned the wrong way.

Until now, it has been widely accepted that the great ship was sailing too fast and its crew did not see the iceberg soon enough to avoid it. However, a new book that has recently been released by the granddaughter of the Titanic’s second officer begs to differ.

According to Lady Patten (the granddaughter of Second Officer Charles Lightoller), the crew spotted the iceberg with plenty of time to dodge it. However, the helmsman at the wheel panicked and turned right instead of left (you had to steer the opposite way that you wished to turn!), dooming the vessel.

All the passengers and crew could have been saved after the ship struck the iceberg if they had just stayed put. Instead, the ship kept moving, allowing water to flood the hull and sink it.

About 600 cows are used to manufacture a full season’s worth of NFL footballs

About 600 cows are used to manufacture a full season’s worth of NFL footballs.

And all of these footballs are manufactured at ONE factory in a same town called Ada, Ohio! Wilson Sporting Goods Company has been the official football supplier for the National Football League since 1941, and 150 workers at the plant in Ada construct 700,000 regulation-sized footballs BY HAND each year!

If you're a cow (in which case, congrats on learning how to read!) you have only a 1 in 17,420,000 chance of becoming a football that is used in the Super Bowl (roughly the same odd of catching the black plague).

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Linfen, China has been deemed the most polluted city in the WORLD. How dirty is it?

Linfen, China has frequently been deemed the most polluted city in the world.

Because Linfen is located in the middle of China’s colt belt, its residents must breathe air thick with coal dust and deal with arsenic-laden drinking water. It is said that if a person were to hang their laundry out to dry here, it would turn black from all the industrial pollutants in the air!

However, China’s environmental misconduct does not end with Linfen. The World Bank claims that 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are Chinese. China is also reportedly responsible for one-third of the sulfur dioxide, nitrogen, and ozone that is polluting our air worldwide.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Men’s shirts and women’s shirts have buttons on OPPOSITE sides! Why?

Men’s shirts and women’s shirts have buttons on opposite sides.

Fastening a button left over right (the male way) is supposedly easier for right-handed people than it is for southpaws. The reason for the gender variance is not known for sure, but a widely accepted explanation is that women’s buttons are reversed comes from back in medieval times. In those days, it was common for women to be dressed by their servants, who were typically right-handed.

Another popular (and probably not true) alternative is that men had to keep their right hands tucked into the coats to be ready for swordplay, and that women used the left side of their dresses to protect their babies when breastfeeding.

Mathematician William Shanks spent 15 years calculating the value of pi to 707 places…but he made a mistake on the 528th digit.

Mathematician William Shanks spent 15 years calculating the value of pi to 707 places…but he made a mistake on the 528th digit.

Luckily, this discovery was made over 60 years after his death – Shanks would not have been pleased to know that he’d accidentally written a 5 instead of a 4 – which threw off the next 179 calculations!

Pi is an irrational number that describes the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. It has an infinite number of digits, but that doesn't stop mathematicians from calculating it to as many places as they can.

Thankfully, now that we're calculating pi to trillions of places, we have advanced computers to help, so no more careless human errors!

In China, finishing all the food in a meal is considered to be rude.

In China, finishing all the food in a meal is considered to be rude.

The reason this is regarded as impolite is because, in their view, this implies that the host did not provide enough food and you are still hungry!

It is also important to remember to use communal chopsticks for serving yourself food – using your own personal chopsticks to do is basically the equivalent of “double dipping.”

You're not supposed to point your chopsticks at other people, or stick your chopsticks vertically into a bowl of rice. However, talking with your mouth full, burping, and putting your elbows on the table are all ok.

A chapel in the Czech Republic uses 40,000-70,000 human SKELETONS as DECORATION

A chapel in the Czech Republic uses 40,000-70,000 HUMAN SKELETONS as decoration.

The most prominent decoration is a gigantic chandelier made from at least one of every bone in the human body!

The Sedlec Ossuary is a small Roman Catholic Chapel located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints in Sedlec, Czech Republic. In the late 13th century, Henry, the abbot of the neighboring monastery, took a pilgrimage to Jerusalem by order of the king of Bohemia.

Upon his return, he sprinkled dirt from Golgotha (the hill on which Jesus Christ is said to have been crucified) upon the Sedlec cemetery – which is the reason this site became an extraordinarily popular burial location.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

It took Leonardo da Vinci at least FOUR YEARS to finish the Mona Lisa. Why?

It took Leonardo da Vinci at least four years to finish the Mona Lisa.

Scientists have recently analyzed the painting with modern techniques such as X-ray florescence spectroscopy. Their conclusions show that Da Vinci applied over 40 different layers of glaze (each up to 50 times thinner than the width of a human hair!) to create Mona’s world famous smile.

Unfortunately, each of these layers required several weeks to dry – with 40 different layers, you can see why it took Leonardo a few years to finish her!

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

There is actually an ATM in Antarctica! Why?

 Actually, there are two machines, operated by Wells Fargo & Company. They are located in McMurdo Station, an American research center and Antarctica's largest community, capable of supporting up to 1,258 residents!

Since maintanence is performed only once every two years, one machine serves mainly as a backup. These were also the first ATM machines to become Y2K compliant (requiring a century indicator in the program and accounting for leap years). Technically, one could say that Wells Fargo manages the ATM banking for a whole continent!

Webster’s Dictionary contained a non-existent word for 5 YEARS. How did this happen?

                                      
Webster’s Dictionary contained a definition of a non-existent word for five years.

In 1931, an abbreviations card containing an abbreviation for density marked “D or d, cont” was accidentally mixed in with the definitions cards. This confused the editors,  who mistakenly printed the notation as the word “dord,” which was classified as a synonym for density.

Greyhound dogs can reach a speed of 40 MPH(64 KMH)!

Greyhounds can reach a speed of 40 MPH(64 KMH)
Greyhounds have been around as early 2900 BC. There are carvings depicting greyhounds in ancient Egyptian tombs. They are one of the earliest dog breeds to be used in dog shows, and in addition to racing they have also been put to work as hunting dogs.

Despite their incredible speeds, greyhounds are supposedly very calm pets, and when they live indoors they are considered pretty lazy.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling DOES NOT have a middle name! So why is she called "JK" ?

J.K. Rowling, author of the popular Harry Potter series, doesn't have a middle name.

Joanne Rowling doesn't have a middle name. Her publishers wanted her to use a gender neutral name on the cover of Harry Potter. Instead of Joanne, she went by J.K. The hope was that this would earn the book some male readers that would otherwise avoid a book written by a woman.

The K was chosen by Rowling as a tribute to her grandmother, Kathleen Ada Bulgen Rowling. The "Kathleen" part, however, is, to this day, not part of Rowling's real legal name.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Worlds smallest monkey

The smallest monkey in the world is only about 15 cm tall.

Native to the rainforests of northern South America, the pygmy marmoset tops out at an adult weight of approximately 4 ounces! They typically reside in social groups of about 15 members, which consist of a mating couple and all theiroffspring.                                   
                     They defend their home area of less than an acre through calling, chasing, and exposing their distinct white genitals.

A city in India that has NO LOCKS and NO DOORS

Sonai, also known as Shingnapur, is home to about 12.5 thousand residents. This is a relatively unremarkable statistic until you start to consider that the village has no doors whatsoever, only doorframes.
                                                     Citizens do not even lock up their valuables because no robberies ever take place in the village! The reason for this is because locals believe that it is a jagrut devasthan, or 'alive temple.' This means that the god Shani dwells within and will punish wrongdoers.

TRY THIS

The length of your foot is the SAME as the length of your forearm.

Sahara=Desert

Sahara is an Arabic word that literally means “desert.” (Who ever named the Sahara Desert must’ve been feeling really creative.)

Saturday, September 11, 2010