Fast facts


Arizona Daily Wildcat
Thursday, November 4, 2004

Things you always never wanted to know

  • Every ton of paper that is recycled saves 17 trees.

  • The United States has nearly 275 billion tons of recoverable coal. That's more than 250 years of supply at today's usage rates.

  • In 2003, 15 lungs were donated from living donors. There were also three kidneys donated from living donors last year.

  • At Denny's Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield, Pa., a 6-pound "Ye Olde 96er" (named for the 96 ounces of beef) burger is offered that also contains two whole tomatoes, a half-head of lettuce, 12 slices of American cheese, a cup of peppers, two whole onions, six dill spears skewered on an enormous toothpick and a proportional amount of mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard. The 96er costs $23.95.

  • There are 35 million digestive glands in the stomach.

  • On Jan. 15, 1919, a tank of molasses burst in the summer heat. Nearly 2,320,000 gallons of molasses turned into a 30-foot wall of goo that ripped buildings from their foundations, killed 21 people and injured 150.

  • Gin and canasta are both descended from an ancient Chinese game, mah-jongg, which is more than a 1,000 years old.

  • In the 1900 Sears Roebuck company catalog, a piano cost $98.00.

  • The Wright brothers' historic flight covered a distance less than the length of today's space shuttle.

  • Ron Hunt, a construction worker, fell from a ladder on site in September 2003, landing eye-first onto a drill bit 18 inches long and 1.5 inches in diameter. But he survived. Miraculously, the bit pushed his brain aside instead of going through it, emerging six inches out of the back of his skull above the right ear. "I ran my hands up the drill bit, up to my eye, and put my other hand in the back of my head and felt it coming through the back of my head," he said. "And that's where pretty much the shock set in."

  • Bore-hole seismometry indicates that the land in Oklahoma moves up and down 25 centimeters throughout the day, corresponding with the tides. Earth tides are generally about one-third the size of ocean tides.