Fastfacts


Arizona Daily Wildcat
Tuesday, December 2, 2003

Things you always never wanted to know

  • When they die, some fish spectacularly change colors. The dying mullet, for example, flashes patches of red, ocher and green. In ancient Rome, it was custom for a host at a posh banquet to have a still-living mullet brought in a vase to the table. When the water was removed from the vase, guests watched the fish change colors as it gasped out its life. Pale in death, the mullet would be returned to the kitchen.

  • Among the memorable quotations of the 1920s are "Public service is my motto" and "I want peace, and I'm willing to live and let live." They were spoken by Al Capone when he was the most notorious public enemy in America and the most murderous of Chicago gangsters. He also said, "The American system of ours... gives each and everyone of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it." Arguing sharply against communism, Capone said, "We must keep America whole and safe and unspoiled."

  • Artists say the primary colors are red, yellow and blue, but scientists say they are red, green and blue. No pigment combination of red, green and blue will produce yellow. Yet, if a beam of red light and green light overlap, the result is yellow. The answer to this riddle lies primarily in the totally different ways colors are achieved with light and with pigments.

  • The cat, although not related to the camel or giraffe, shares one striking trait with them. When other animals move, the front leg on one side and the hind leg on the other move together, followed by the other two diagonally opposed legs. The cat, camel and giraffe move their front and hind legs on one side and then the front and hind legs on the other side.

  • Toads and frogs use their eyes to eat. In swallowing, they close their eyelids, press down with their extremely tough eyeballs, and lower the roof of their mouth against their tongue, forcing the food down and into their stomach.

  • If we imagined the entire solar system shrank in size to the point where it would fit in the island of Manhattan, the sun would be only a foot across. On the same scale, the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, would be 5,500 miles away from Manhattan - that is, in Jerusalem.