Fast facts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
Things you always never wanted to know
The oldest and deepest part of the brain, the brain stem, is often referred to as the "reptilian brain." It is the center of sensory reception and monitors vital bodily functions such as heartbeat and body temperature.
The human body produces its own supply of alcohol naturally on a continuous basis, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Bats are not blind at all, and most species see quite well in the dark.
Anyone under the age of 21 who takes out household trash containing even a single empty alcohol beverage container can be charged with illegal possession of alcohol in Missouri.
The state beverage of Massachusetts is cranberry juice. The state dessert, naturally, is the Boston cream pie.
Dolphins must consciously breathe. If they became unconscious they would sink to the bottom of the sea. Without the oxygen they need to take in periodically, they would die.
In 1807, the mathematician Johann Karl Friedrich Gauss was caught up in a problem while his wife lay sick upstairs. When the doctor told him his wife was dying, Gauss waved him away and, never looking up from his problem, muttered, "Tell her to wait a moment 'til I'm through."
So sharp was Voltaire's tongue that no one is on record as having beaten him in an argument.
It was in spite of President Andrew Johnson's vote that African-Americans were given voting rights in the District of Columbia, in 1867.
Nearly 87 percent of the 103 people asked in a poll in 1977 were unable to identify correctly an unlabeled copy of the Declaration of Independence. The poll was conducted at a shopping area in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.