|
Illustration by Arnie Bermudez
|
|
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Print this
To provide a modern person with the necessities and luxuries of his/her accustomed life, at least 20 tons of raw materials must be dug up from the Earth every year.
President Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, never went to school. He had not learned to write and could barely read when his wife undertook teaching him these skills.
Walt Whitman was dismissed from his clerical post in the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior when secretary of the interior, James Harlan, read a portion of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" and deemed it "pernicious poetry."
"If I had been technically trained, I would have quit," said King Gillette, after spending eight frustrating years striving to invent and introduce his safety razor.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match. In 1816, a German chemist, J. W. Dobereiner, devised a way of automatically igniting a jet of hydrogen. The only problem was it required powdered platinum to act as a catalyst, so it wasn't very practical.
A sizable oak tree, during the typical growing season, gives off 28,000 gallons of moisture.
Human beings can neither smell nor taste a substance that is not soluble. On a dry tongue, sugar has no taste. In a dry nose, the smell of a flower would not be noticed.
Sharks can be dangerous even before they are born. Scientist Stewart Springer was bitten by a sand tiger shark embryo while he was examining its pregnant mother.
Thomas Edison had a collection of 5,000 birds.
If harnessed, the energy released by an average hurricane could supply the electrical energy used in the United States during half a year. The amount of energy would be equivalent to exploding 10 atomic bombs every second.
Write a Letter to the Editor
|
|
|
