Fast facts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday, December 1, 2004
Researchers at the University of Manchester have made the world's first single-atom-thick fabric, which reveals the existence of a new class of materials and may lead to computers made from a single molecule. They call it "graphene," because it's "webbed" by extraction of individual planes of carbon atoms from graphite crystal.
In the 1960s, animal behavior researchers studied the effects of various substances on spiders. When spiders were fed flies injected with caffeine, they spun very "nervous" webs. When spiders ate flies injected with LSD, they spun webs with wild, abstract patterns. Spiders that were given sedatives fell asleep before completing their webs.
The UA receives $400 million in research funding annually, roughly 75 percent of the Arizona university system's research dollars and triple the total research funds generated by Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University combined.
Rice has been cultivated for more than 5,000 years, and 50 percent of all the world's rice is eaten within eight miles of where it is grown. Americans eat a little more than 21 pounds of rice per person each year. Asians eat as much as 300 pounds per person each year.
A human has a lower biting pressure of 300 pounds per square inch. A German shepherd has a biting pressure of 750 psi. The biting capacity of a wolf is 1,500 psi, making it possible for a wolf to bite through a moose femur in six to eight bites.
"Rocky and His Friends" premiered on ABC on Nov. 19, 1959. The series featured a segment called "Rocky and Bullwinkle," about Rocky the flying squirrel and Bullwinkle the moose going up against Mr. Big/Fearless Leader, who sent agents Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale to deal with the "Moose and Squirrel."
In July of this year, two Russian spies were sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Qatar for killing a Chechen rebel leader in the Gulf emirate. The presiding judge said Moscow was behind the assassination.