Fast facts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday, March 9, 2005
A woodpecker can peck 20 times a second.
When asked to name a color, three out of five people will say "red."
Talk is cheap compared to what it once was. In 1915, a telephone call from New York to San Francisco cost $20.70 for the first three minutes.
At 90 degrees below zero, your breath will freeze in midair and fall to the ground.
"Pif, paf, pof" is the Dutch answer to the "Snap, crackle, pop" of Rice Krispies.
Most people take an average of seven minutes to fall asleep.
In ancient Rome, it was commonplace for a woman's bath to have a tub filled with donkey milk and spiced with perfumed swan's fat.
"Wanted: young, skinny, wiry fellows not over 18. Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages $25 a week." - if you fit this mid-1800s help wanted ad, you'd have been a perfect candidate for the Pony Express.
Bees flap their wings 300 times a second.
The word "taxi" is spelled the same in English, German, French, Swedish and Portuguese.
Smokey the Bear's original name was Hot Foot Teddy.
The actual playing time in a big league baseball game, which lasts 2 1/2 hours, has been clocked at 9 minutes and 55 seconds.
The average person will use the bathroom six times during the average workday.
German-sounding items were a no-no in the United States during World War I. Americans took to calling sauerkraut "liberty cabbage."
Dirty snow melts faster than white snow because it's darker and absorbs more heat.
The only mammal that can fly is the bat.