Fascinating fact of the day

[ASC1951]

I think it was that all Europeans can be traced back to a single woman from Africa, but there were other migrations to elsewhere from which those races descend.

There have been major changes in the scientific consensus in the last few years. Not so long ago it was a universal African origin, now there is good evidence of separate origin for Asiatic humans and possibly for others. Add to that the dozen or so species of hominids going back half a million years, and the Neanderthals with whom we definitely interbred, and the planet seems to have been wick with us little scuttling creatures.

 

[dan_bo]

My Colleague Paul looks just like Gene hackman in 'Enemy of the State' in his new glasses:

 

[theclaud]

Have you ever been to see the Crystal Palace Park Dinosaur sculptures?
All of the sculptures have innacuracies . The Victorians built them to what they thought they would have looked like rather then what they actually may have looked like. One example being the nose horns on the Iguanadons were actually thumb spikes.

That reminds me. Have you seen the Walrus in the Horniman museum? Looks like someone gave Teef the pump and forgot to say when...

 

[ianrauk]

That reminds me. Have you seen the Walrus in the Horniman museum? Looks like someone gave Teef the pump and forgot to say when...

It is a big beast.........the Walrus... (Please do not touch the 'teef Walrus)
And thanks for the Horniman Museum mention.
I haven't been there in a while must make time to go.
It's a must visit.

 

[Night Train]

Actually, I discovered this particularly fascinating fact several days ago while reading New Scientist: the Brontosaurus never existed. What happened was that the original paleontologists who put the Brontosaurus together put a skull from a different species on the body. Once the right skull had been put on, it was renamed Apatosaurus.

I know a 5 year old who could have told you that!



Some soft woods are hard. Some hard woods are soft. Yew doesn't know if it is a hard wood or a soft wood as it is a botanical oddball.

 

[Glow worm]

The most northerly point of the island of Ireland is in Southern Ireland. And Alaska is the eastern (and western) most state in the USA. Apparently. Anyone still awake? And if you were to set off in a boat from Scolt Head Island on the North Norfolk coast and head off on a bearing one degree west of due north, the first land mass you'd hit would be Antarctica.

 

[ianrauk]

Alexander the Great was an epileptic.

 

[Archie_tect]

A group of owls is called a parliament....

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Alexander the Great was an epileptic.

As were Caesar and Napoleon.

 

[jonny jeez]

I was telling my 11 year old last night how all Christian churches were built in the shape of a cross and Mrs Jeezz piped up..."really, I never knew that".

So I'll throw it in here just in case.

 

[Maz]

Today is the anniversary of Concorde making its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic (1973).

 

[Maz]

If you removed all the empty space in atoms, the population of the world could fit in a space the size of a sugar cube.

Woh, that's one big sugar cube!!

 

[Archie_tect]

That's two too!!

 

[dellzeqq]

I was telling my 11 year old last night how all Christian churches were built in the shape of a cross and Mrs Jeezz piped up..."really, I never knew that".

So I'll throw it in here just in case.

I'll go further and say that Norman churches were built in the form of a cross slightly skewed, which was a representation of Christ's head falling to one side.

 

[Yellow Fang]

How about this for a killer fact: kiwi fruit were selectively bred from Chinese gooseberries.