March 2011
One in four Americans has a criminal record. However, these criminal records are the result of crimes ranging from violent crimes like rape and murder to minor drug offenses and writing bad checks. Whatever the reason, if you are one of the 1 in 4 Americans with a criminal record, you can expect that record to follow you for the rest of your life. If potential employers find out you have a...
Nintendo was sued in 2000 because Mario Partyrsquo;s joystick-spinning mini-games caused hand injuries to children. As a result of the lawsuit, the gaming giant agreed to invest $80 million in protective gloves for the owners of the game and another $75,000 for the cost of the investigation itself! The Big N was willing to provide up to four fingerless gloves with padded palms for each household...
Dogs predicted an earthquake in Turkey. Dogs were reportedly howling incessantly 24 hours before the 1999 Turkish Earthquake in Ismit. Not only that, but there were also reports of cats scratching the floor before the earthquake. (source)
If you were on Mercury, the Sun would appear over 2.5 times larger. This is because Mercury is less than 40% as far from the Sun as Earth. Also, because of Mercury’s unusual rotation patter, in parts of Mercury (for example, the North Pole) the Sun is always visible. Mercury actually rotates very slowly, so that each Mercury day lasts as long as 176 Earth days. In fact, Mercury only makes 1.5...
Pepsi is manufacturing new bottles that are made entirely of plant material. The new bottles, which are still in the testing phase, are made of grass, bark, and corn husks, and in the future they plan on using orange peels, potato scraps, and other leftover food. The amazing part is that the bottles still look the same and work the same. This puts Pepsi way ahead of Coke on the race to reduce...
Icebergs can have multi-colored stripes. Blue and green stripes are the most common, but icebergs can even have brown stripes. This is a phenomenon that occurs more often in the Southern Hemisphere. The images in this article are from Cape Town. These icebergs are the result of a process called “reverse snow” in which underwater ice crystals float up to the surface. Sediment and other tiny...
A 95-percent illuminated moon is half as bright as a full moon. Most observers probably can’t tell the difference between the Moon when 95% of it is lit up and when its 100% visible, but there’s a sizeable difference - 0.7 magnitudes. The apparent magnitude of any celestial body is a measure of how bright it appears to be from Earth - the brighter an object is, the lower its magnitude....
India is producing a soft drink that is made from cow pee. Dubbed “cow water”, the drink is being promoted as a healthy alternative to Pepsi and Coke. The Cow Protection Department of the nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) invented the drink and is marketing it based on its supposed health benefits. In India, cows are already revered, and in addition to selling their dairy...
Magellan gave the Pacific Ocean its name because he thought it was more peaceful than the Atlantic.
In an ironic twist, Magellan’s last voyage in the Pacific ended in his brutal murder.
In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan and a 270-man crew embarked on their historic voyage around the world. Nearly two months after setting out from Spain, the fleet reached the southernmost tip of South America....
People with full bladders make better decisions. This research was published in by Miriam Tuk, a scientist at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. She tested her theory by splitting volunteers into two groups. Half were given five cups of water to drink, and the other half was told to sip a small amount of water from each of the five cups. Forty minutes later, Tuk tested each group’s...
A California couple got married over Skype!
Actually, two couples have made use of Skype for their nuptials. Sean Murtagh and Natalie Mead were waylaid in Dubai when an Iceland volcano disrupted their flight plans. They had already been legally married in Australia, but they intended to exchange vows in a public ceremony back home in London. Rather than wait for the next flight to London to have...
Banana peels can be used to purify water.
Compounds in the peels contain nitrogen, sulfur, and organic compounds such as carboxylic acids. These acids contain negatively-charged electron pairs which can attract metals that are commonly found in water, such as lead or copper, because they typically have a positive charge.
Researchers in Brazil even found the banana peels to be superior to many...
More than 16,000 children in the U.S. and U.K. auditioned for the role of Harry Potter.
Ultimately, the went with Daniel Radcliffe, a 12-year-old kid at the time who had very little acting experience under his belt. Of course, 10+ years and 7 movies later, audiences couldn’t imagine anyone else playing the part.
(source)
Strangely enough, Radcliffe found out that he got the role while he was...
A Chinese college student was able to memorize 67,890 digits of pi.
This sounds impossible, but 24-year-old Lu “The Human Calculator” Chao was able to accomplish this ridiculous feat back in 2006. He accomplished the deed in 24 hours and 4 seconds, as Guinness does not allow for any breaks longer than 15 seconds between numbers. What’s even scarier is that Lu intended to recite even more digits!...
Japanese scientists have developed a human-shaped mobile phone that allows users to ��feel closer�� to the people they call.
According to Japan’s Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), this new cell phone model is ‘revolutionary’ because it can feel like the person to whom you are talking! The palm-sized prototype was designed to resemble a unisex doll of a...
Dimples are caused by an abnormally short facial muscle.
The zygomaticus major, a facial muscle, is attached to the skin of your cheeks. Dimples appear when the muscle pulls hard enough on your cheeks to cause visible indentations on your face. This usually occurs when we speak or smile, when the muscle is contracting. For some people, the dimples are always there. This occurs when the muscle is...
According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, at the end of 2010 there were 33,749 Subway restaurants worldwide, compared to 32,737 global McDonald’s branches. Most of the growth for both companies over the past decade has been in Asia, where Subway recently opened its thousandth restaurant and also its first location in Vietnam.
Subway began outgrowing its rival ten years ago by...
It lasted from 1337 until 1453, so it was actually 116 years long! It’s hard to imagine, but that would mean that many of the soldiers in the war were born after it started and died before it ended! Read more.
A variety of ant in South America runs the risk of dying by walking in a circle.
These ants can be found circling around en masse until they die from exhaustion or starvation. This seems insane, so why do they do it?
These ants can’t see. They get around by sense of smell, and they learn where to go by following the scent of their comrades. The lead ants voyage out for food to return to the...
Wheel of Fortune’s Vanna White claps more than anyone else on television.
One of the most famous faces in game show history and its first female co-hostess, Vanna White is best known for her way with words…or maybe just letters. In fact, Vanna has been turning the show’s various vowels and consonants for nearly 30 years. In 1982, she was hired by the show’s creator, Merv Griffin, not...
By some estimates, there as many neurons in the human brain as there are stars in the Milky Way
According to astronomers there are between 200 billion and 400 billion stars in the Milky Way. A normal healthy human brain has as many neurons as the low estimate of stars in the galaxy: 200 billion! Pretty impressive when you compare the vastness of space to the size of the human brain.
In fact,...
Charlie Sheen reached a million Twitter followers faster than anyone else.
Crazy Charlie first joined Twitter on March 1st, and his account (@CharlieSheen) now has over 1.7 million followers. Before he had even posted a single tweet that first day, he already had 60,000 followers - in a matter of minutes! It was clear from that point onward that he was well on his way to a million - it only took...
George Washington hired his own Batman.
Or rather, he had several of them under his command. In fact, long before Batman was a superhero, a “batman” was a military position. Officers in the U.S. and British armies had their own personal servants or assistants called batmen (or batwomen, if they were women). The batmen were also alternatively referred to as “orderlies” which kind of makes sense...
Update: the Harry Potter bathroom stall has been painted over.
Sad day…but come on, we all knew it was bound to happen, right? If you haven’t read this OMG-Fact yet, you can check it out here and get yourself up to speed. Caitlyn updated fans of her graffiti feat on her Tumblr. Here is a transcript of her summary of the events that followed her ‘accomplishment’:
“okay...
A fox was found living on the 72nd floor of Britain’s tallest skyscraper.
The animal, nicknamed ‘Romeo’ by workers, somehow found its way to the top of the Shard Tower, which is to be completed in 2012. He is thought to have gained entered through the building’s central staircase and managed to live off food scraps that were left lying around by construction workers. After being captured, Romeo...
A boy born without a cerebellum is learning to walk.
3-year-old Chase Britton is truly a medical marvel. He was born without a cerebellum, the part of the brain that regulates balance, motor skills, and emotions. He also lacks a pons, the brain structure that controls breathing and sleeping. His doctors claimed that walking was impossible because he has the “MRI of a vegetable,” but this is...
