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Illustration by Holly Randall
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Arizona Daily Wildcat
Tuesday, September 7, 2004
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Things you always never wanted to know
A mosquito has 47 teeth.
If the Nile River were stretched across the United States, it would run almost from New York to Los Angeles.
A space vehicle must move at a rate of seven miles per second to escape the earth's gravitational pull. This is equivalent to going from New York to Philadelphia in about 20 seconds.
Douglas MacArthur's mother used to send fawning letters to his army superiors suggesting that it was time for her son to be promoted to general.
Ladies in Europe took to wearing lightning rods on their hats and trailing a ground wire - a fad that began after Benjamin Franklin published instructions on how to make them in Poor Richard Improved, in 1753.
A volcano has greater power than does the greatest hurricane, tsunami or earthquake.
Isaac Newton's only recorded utterance while he was a member of Parliament was a request to open the window.
Kernels of popcorn were found in the graves of pre-Colombian Indians.
To make a one-pound comb of honey, bees must collect nectar from about 2 million flowers.
At the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, Richard Blechynden, an Englishman, had a tea concession. On a very hot day, none of the fairgoers were interested in hot tea. In a desperate attempt for business, Blechynden served the tea cold - and invented iced tea.
Most healthy adults can go without eating anything for a month or longer, but they must drink at least two quarts of water a day.
Snails produce a colorless, sticky discharge that forms a protective carpet under them as they travel along. The discharge is so effective that snails can crawl along the edge of a razor without cutting themselves.
A fully loaded supertanker traveling at its normal speed of 16 knots needs at least 20 minutes in order to stop. In the absence of lateral leeway, a collision would be inevitable if an immobile object loomed up as much as three miles away.
Until there was a pay raise in 1814, U.S. Congressmen were paid $6 per diem when Congress was in session.
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