Fascinating fact of the day

[Yellow Fang]

And that is my best fact.

 

[G2EWS]

The answer to the question:

If it takes a man a mile to walk a fortnight, how many apples in a pound of grapes?

Is
.
.
.
.
.
3 Bananas!

Chris

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Mr Bean has a degree in electrical engineering.

 

[dellzeqq]

As were Caesar and Napoleon.

likewise Julius Caesar and Jonty Rhodes. Although Julius Caesar never played cricket, so it didn't matter so much

 

[swee'pea99]

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

Durer famously drew a rhino without ever having seen one:

Not a bad try, I'd say.

(Incidentally, kiwi fruits are Chinese gooseberries - just rebranded for export.)

 

[pally83]

Woh, that's one big sugar cube!!

Nope - normal size. 99.9% of all matter is empty space. Of course, a sugar cube would then fill a teeny tiny (physics terminology) amount of space so a new reference would be needed.

 

[jonny jeez]

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.

Mrs Jeez'll love that

 

[Maz]

Nope - normal size. 99.9% of all matter is empty space. Of course, a sugar cube would then fill a teeny tiny (physics terminology) amount of space so a new reference would be needed.

Understood. That's about 1cm cubed (ish)?

I asked google how big a sugar cube was and it said 100 million km. Shows you can't believe everything on the internet!

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_big_is_a_sugar_cube

 

[Arch]

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.

My first thought was that there was an awful lot of incest going on in those days, but then there would have to be.

Bear in mind that genetic bottlenecks will have played a part in the genes that survive. It doesn't mean that that one woman slept with her brothers or anything, just that the children who survived happened to carry her genes. If a disaster wiped out a large proportion of a relatively small population a few generations down the line, then the survivors could all happen to carry her genes, and then interbreed without it being anything we'd call incest. Cousins, second cousins, etc....

According to QI, we're all descended from Charlemagne, simply due to stats. If you work on the usual 2 parents, 4 grandparents etc family tree, doubling every generation back, then in a short while you have more people than there have ever been in the world, for each of us, so there must be a lot of overlap. We're all related.

My fact: The 'may' in the saying "Ne'er cast a clout til May be out" isn't the month, but the folk name for Hawthorn blossom. So you don't have to keep your vest on until the 1st of June, just until the Hawthorn flowers are out.

 

[siadwell]

Cats can actually smell colours.

Unfortunately, there is no way to prove this.

 

[martint235]

The distance between your wrist and your elbow is exactly the same as the length of your foot.

 

[Melonfish]

One thimbleful of a neutron star would weigh over one hundred MILLION tonnes.

The average person accidentally eats 430 bugs each year of their life - cyclists possibly more..

Astronauts cannot burp! gravity is what separates liquid and gas in our stomach.

the fastest speed a falling raindrop can hit you is 18mph, this however fecking hurts.

 

[dan_bo]

My fact: The 'may' in the saying "Ne'er cast a clout til May be out" isn't the month, but the folk name for Hawthorn blossom. So you don't have to keep your vest on until the 1st of June, just until the Hawthorn flowers are out.

About the end of may then

 

[Archie_tect]

18mph + the speed you are cycling towards the falling raindrop when you reach it....

 

[Glow worm]

Drinking 3/4 of a bottle of low alcohol wine (5%) will still give you a headache next day as I found out this morning. Sigh...mutter...grumble.