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Illustration by Arnie Bermudez
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Arizona Daily Wildcat
Thursday, December 4, 2003
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Things you always never wanted to know
Most healthy adults can go without eating anything for a month or longer. But they must drink at least two quarts of water per day.
Larger animals generally live longer than smaller animals of the same type. An odd exception is the human being. The human being lives longer than larger mammals, such as gorillas, elephants and whales. In fact, of all existing mammals, the human being has the longest lifespan. No one knows why, but it isn't due to medical advances. Even in ancient times, human beings occasionally lived more than a century; no other mammal ever does.
It took five months to get word back to Queen Isabella about the voyage of Columbus, two weeks for Europe to hear about Lincoln's assassination, and only 1.3 seconds to get the word from Neil Armstrong that man could walk on the moon.
Each time the tide rises, every one of us loses a fraction of an ounce in weight; sorry, but the weight is regained as the tide falls. We are affected by these tidal waves, just as the ocean is, because of the water and salt content of our bodies. The land and the air are affected as well by the tides. Every time the water rises in a 10-foot tide, the continents rise about 6 inches and the atmosphere expands by many miles.
"Take this script," Rudyard Kipling said to the nurse who had cared for his firstborn child, "and someday if you are in need of money, you may be able to sell it at a handsome price." Years later, when the nurse was actually in want, she sold the manuscript - of the first "Jungle Book" - and lived in comfort for the rest of her life.
An authentic "lost weapon" is Greek fire, which the Byzantine Empire used on several occasions between the seventh and ninth centuries to defend Constantinople against attacking Muslims. Constantinople might have fallen but for Greek fire, and conceivably the Muslims might have taken over a weak and divided Europe. To this day, we don't know exactly what the "recipe" for Greek fire was. All we know is that it burned all the more fiercely when wet, and that it could be floated toward the enemy's wooden ships.
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