Fastfacts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Monday, September 27, 2004
Things you always never wanted to know
Weimaraner dogs were first bred in Germany for hunting deer in a peculiar manner: The dogs were trained to pursue stags low and from behind, and to leap at their victim's genitals and rip off these most vulnerable organs in a single bite. Today, if given a chance, many members of this breed will instinctively perform the same feat.
The real name of the "Mona Lisa" is "La Giaconda." It is a portrait of a middle-class Florentine woman, the wife of a merchant named Francesco del Giacondo.
The average hummingbird weighs less than a penny. It has a body temperature of 111 degrees and beats its wings more than 75 times a second. Its newborns are the size of bumblebees and its nest is the size of a walnut. The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backward.
Rennet, a common substance used to curdle milk and make cheese, is taken from the inner lining of the fourth stomach of a calf.
Rice is the chief food for half the people of the world.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were all avid collectors and players of marbles. In their day, marbles were called "small bowls" and were as popular with adults as with children.
On a clear day one can see five states from atop the Empire State Building in New York City: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
In the 19th century, flypaper, hat linings, playing cards, paper collars, Christmas-tree candles, wallpaper dyes and wreaths of artificial flowers all contained lethal amounts of arsenic and all caused countless cases of accidental poisoning.
A flea is capable of jumping 13 inches in a single leap. In human terms, this would be equivalent to a person leaping 700 feet in one bound.
The bowie knife, a knife with a guard between the long, heavy blade and the handle to protect the user, though associated with and credited to the famous defender of the Alamo, James Bowie, was actually invented by his lesser-known brother, Rezin Pleasant Bowie. James was more adept at using the knife, carried it everywhere and soon became identified with it.