Shahrukh Khan's Wax Model at Madame Tussauds
Shahrukh Khan wax statue 40 Amazing Facts about Sleep
1. The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes during a rocking chair marathon. The record holder reported hallucinations, paranoia, blurred vision, slurred speech and memory and concentration lapses.
2. It's impossible to tell if someone is really awake without close medical supervision. People can take cat naps with their eyes open without even being aware of it.
3. Anything less than five minutes to fall asleep at night means you're sleep deprived. The ideal is between 10 and 15 minutes, meaning you're still tired enough to sleep deeply, but not so exhausted you feel sleepy by day.
4. A new baby typically results in 400-750 hours lost sleep for parents in the first year
5. One of the best predictors of insomnia later in life is the development of bad habits from having sleep disturbed by young children.
6. The continuous brain recordings that led to the discovery of REM (rapid eye-movement) sleep were not done until 1953, partly because the scientists involved were concerned about wasting paper.
7. REM sleep occurs in bursts totalling about 2 hours a night, usually beginning about 90 minutes after falling asleep.
8. Dreams, once thought to occur only during REM sleep, also occur (but to a lesser extent) in non-REM sleep phases. It's possible there may not be a single moment of our sleep when we are actually dreamless.
9. REM dreams are characterised by bizarre plots, but non-REM dreams are repetitive and thought-like, with little imagery obsessively returning to a suspicion you left your mobile phone somewhere, for example.
10. Certain types of eye movements during REM sleep correspond to specific movements in dreams, suggesting at least part of the dreaming process is analagous to watching a film
11. No-one knows for sure if other species dream but some do have sleep cycles similar to humans.
12. Elephants sleep standing up during non-REM sleep, but lie down for REM sleep.
13. Some scientists believe we dream to fix experiences in long-term memory, that is, we dream about things worth remembering. Others reckon we dream about things worth forgetting to eliminate overlapping memories that would otherwise clog up our brains.
14. Dreams may not serve any purpose at all but be merely a meaningless byproduct of two evolutionary adaptations sleep and consciousness.
15. REM sleep may help developing brains mature. Premature babies have 75 per cent REM sleep, 10 per cent more than full-term bubs. Similarly, a newborn kitten puppy rat or hampster experiences only REM sleep, while a newborn guinea pig (which is much more developed at birth) has almost no REM sleep at all.
16. Scientists have not been able to explain a 1998 study showing a bright light shone on the backs of human knees can reset the brain's sleep-wake clock.
17. British Ministry of Defence researchers have been able to reset soldiers' body clocks so they can go without sleep for up to 36 hrs. Tiny optical fibres embedded in special spectacles project a ring of bright white light (with a spectrum identical to a sunrise) around the edge of soldiers' retinas, fooling them into thinking they have just woken up. The system was first used on US pilots during the bombing of Kosovo.
18. Seventeen hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%.
19. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, the Challenger space shuttle disaster and the Chernobyl nuclear accident have all been attributed to human errors in which sleep-deprivation played a role.
20. The NRMA estimates fatigue is involved in one in 6 fatal road accidents.
21. Exposure to noise at night can suppress immune function even if the sleeper doesn’t wake. Unfamiliar noise, and noise during the first and last two hours of sleep, has the greatest disruptive effect on the sleep cycle.
22. The "natural alarm clock" which enables some people to wake up more or less when they want to is caused by a burst of the stress hormone adrenocorticotropin. Researchers say this reflects an unconscious anticipation of the stress of waking up.
23. Some sleeping tablets, such as barbiturates suppress REM sleep, which can be harmful over a long period.
24. In insomnia following bereavement, sleeping pills can disrupt grieving.
25. Tiny luminous rays from a digital alarm clock can be enough to disrupt the sleep cycle even if you do not fully wake. The light turns off a "neural switch" in the brain, causing levels of a key sleep chemical to decline within minutes.
26. To drop off we must cool off; body temperature and the brain's sleep-wake cycle are closely linked. That's why hot summer nights can cause a restless sleep. The blood flow mechanism that transfers core body heat to the skin works best between 18 and 30 degrees. But later in life, the comfort zone shrinks to between 23 and 25 degrees one reason why older people have more sleep disorders.
27. A night on the grog will help you get to sleep but it will be a light slumber and you won't dream much.
28. After five nights of partial sleep deprivation, three drinks will have the same effect on your body as six would when you've slept enough.
29. Humans sleep on average around three hours less than other primates like chimps, rhesus monkeys, squirrel monkeys and baboons, all of whom sleep for 10 hours.
30. Ducks at risk of attack by predators are able to balance the need for sleep and survival, keeping one half of the brain awake while the other slips into sleep mode.
31. Ten per cent of snorers have sleep apnoea, a disorder which causes sufferers to stop breathing up to 300 times a night and significantly increases the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke.
32. Snoring occurs only in non-REM sleep
33. Teenagers need as much sleep as small children (about 10 hrs) while those over 65 need the least of all (about six hours). For the average adult aged 25-55, eight hours is considered optimal
34. Some studies suggest women need up to an hour's extra sleep a night compared to men, and not getting it may be one reason women are much more susceptible to depression than men.
35. Feeling tired can feel normal after a short time. Those deliberately deprived of sleep for research initially noticed greatly the effects on their alertness, mood and physical performance, but the awareness dropped off after the first few days.
36. Diaries from the pre-electric-light-globe Victorian era show adults slept nine to 10 hours a night with periods of rest changing with the seasons in line with sunrise and sunsets.
37. Most of what we know about sleep we've learned in the past 25 years.
38. As a group, 18 to 24 year-olds deprived of sleep suffer more from impaired performance than older adults.
39. Experts say one of the most alluring sleep distractions is the 24-hour accessibility of the internet.
40. The extra-hour of sleep received when clocks are put back at the start of daylight in Canada has been found to coincide with a fall in the number of road accidents.
Sorce & Credit : www.abc.net.au
Please visit http://www.abc.net.au/science/sleep/facts.htm for more information
Amazing And True Facts
2. The term "bank teller" originated in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, when banks began hiring low-paid workers to "tell" throngs of frantic depositors that their money was gone.
3. The brand name "Jelly Belly" was created in 1982 after Nancy Reagan made a much-publicized quip about her husband's 20-pound weight gain.
4. The Internal Revenue Service audits 87 percent of women who claim breast implants as tax deductions.
5. Scandinavian berserkers used to cut out their eyes before battle to spare themselves the sight of the carnage they invariably wrought.
6. Human tonsils can bounce higher than a rubber ball of similar weight and size, but only for the first 30 minutes after they've been removed.
7. Comic duo Cheech and Chong were originally known as Spic and Span before changing due to pressure from Chicano organizations.
8. The city of Slaughter, Texas (population: 11,284), has never had a homicide occur within its boundaries.
9. Rubbing Tabasco on one's upper lip before bedtime is an effective temporary cure for sleep apnea.
10. British pop singer Baby Spice is the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandniece of Archduke William Pinkley-Hogue of Standishfordshire, making her 103rd in line for the throne of England.
11. The curved shape of a hockey stick is a throwback to prehistoric use of mastodon tusks in a similar game.
12. A Native American tribe in South Dakota collects bottle caps left by campers, using them as currency. Several banks in the area now recognize the caps as legal tender.
13. Fish have "dandruff" caused by flaking skin, and it is impossible to filter all traces of it from drinking water.
14. Moths are unable to fly during an earthquake.
15. The first case of the common cold was diagnosed in 1611 in Stratford, England. The patient? John Common, who coincidentally gave his cold to William Shakespeare who said the new malady exacerbated his lovesickness, thereby inspiring several of his most fondly remembered sonnets.
16. "Hello Kitty" began as part of a covert propaganda campaign originally proposed by Prime Minister Tojo during World War II.
17. When in heat, female hippopotami secrete an oil with a flavor similar to strawberries. Kalahari bushmen use the oil to make flat-bread treats for children.
18. If an average human scrotum were stretched until all its wrinkles were smoothed out, it could hold a basketball.
19. Ingesting small doses of ink over an extended period of time will change your eye color slightly.
20. To commemorate ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, U.S. playing card manufacturers replaced "staffs" with "hearts" as the fourth suit in the deck. The world soon followed.
21. In 1960, a then-unknown Dan Rather auditioned for the voice of cartoon character Dudley Do-Right but was turned down by animator/director Jay Ward.
22. When subjected to an electric current of at least 50 volts, a cat's tail always points toward the north.
23. If the current trend continues, by the year 2215 midgets will outnumber "normal-sized" people.
24. Scientists estimate that sleep lost due to daylight saving time reduces the average lifespan by nearly two full months.
25. In the late '90s, Microsoft secretly developed its own version of Linux, but shelved it after quality control researchers deemed it "too stable."
26. No NCAA basketball team from a school located in its state's capital has ever won the national championship.
27. The African black rhinoceros excretes its own weight in dung every 48 hours.
28. The top three names for female babies born in China last year were Huan Yue, Jia Li and -- unlikely as it seems -- Buffy.
29. Peter Maas, creator of the character Serpico, got his character's name from an ultra-expensive, highly-prized Malaysian liqueur made from fermented viper venom.
30. Shortly before his execution, Timothy McVeigh constructed a scale model of the Lincoln Memorial with soda crackers.
31. There have been four documented cases of humans who have hibernated through an entire winter.
32. Strains of bacteria similar to E. coli have been found in spent printer cartridges -- but only in the cyan ones. Scientists have no explanation.
33. The four different people who, at various times, tried -- and failed -- to become the Guinness Book of World Records' "Human Milkshake Volcano" by drinking five gallons of milk and then riding the Six Flags Screaming' Eagle roller coaster all shared the same birthday: September 18, 1970.
34. The Australian aborigine language has over 30 words for "dust."
35. Anyone convicted of animal cruelty in Sedalia, Missouri, is sentenced to a month's confinement in the county animal shelter.
36. Fewer divorces occur in families in which the children wake their parents before 6 a.m. on Saturdays.
37. A futuristic automobile designed by Ford for the movie Blade Runner was produced and sold in limited quantities as the "Ford Harrison."
38. John F. Kennedy was an accomplished ventriloquist.
39. A bad case of laryngitis forced Abraham Lincoln to lip-sync the Gettysburg Address. The speech was actually delivered by an aide hidden beneath the stage.
40. A prominent organization of anthropologists has predicted that by the year 5000, humans will have two rectums, but only one nostril.
41. For over a decade, the number of drive-by shootings has been directly proportional to increased gas prices.
42. Two-thirds of all the world's coriander comes from a single valley in Italy.
43. As the sheer volume of Internet traffic has increased, the friction of the electrons passing around the planet has increased the overall global temperature by .07 degrees.
44. Contrary to popular belief, the white is not the healthiest part of an egg. It's actually the shell.
45. A comprehensive multi-year study using pattern-recognition software determined that Millard Fillmore is the most common identifiable U.S. president seen in cloud formations.
46. Baking soda and vinegar will make your scrambled eggs fluffier.
47. The first prototype defibrillators delivered 1,200 joules of electrical energy instead of the now standard 360, occasionally causing dead bodies to sit upright momentarily as though they were still alive.
48. Ancient Egyptians used molted cobra skins as condoms.
49. Using its anal sphincter muscle, the Mongolian tapir is capable of creating high-pitched tones that can be heard by dogs nearly 30 miles away.
50. Customs officials have dogs that are trained to distinguish between Cuban cigars and all other cigars.
51. Archimedes' screw was the basis for Max Factor's invention of the twisting lipstick holder.
52. A Tokyo inventor has developed a laptop computer whose battery is recharged by energy generated from the movement of the user's mouse, yet Sony lawyers have successfully blocked every attempt to produce a product using the technology.
53. Female black cats can actually see their shadows at night.
54. Ballpoint pens were invented by a Michigan scientist attempting to reduce the number of birds killed for their quills.
55. Glamorous movie star Brad Pitt once had a summer job posting warning signs at coal mine entrances.
56. U.S. Army medics in World War I knew of the germ-fighting properties of rodent saliva and carried hamsters in their medical bags to sterilize wounds in the field.
57. An early draft of the Declaration of Independence included a line by Benjamin Franklin inviting King George to "kisse our collective arse."
58. Nearly three percent of the ice in Antarctic glaciers is penguin urine.
59. The sound made when a duck passes gas is the precise acoustic opposite of its quack; if it does both simultaneously, there's no audible sound.
60. Contrary to their popular image as spinsters, the average librarian has 5.9 random sex partners per year.
61. The rhesus monkey is the only animal that can be taught to hum a tune.
62. With the exception of a small 200-square-mile section of Antarctica, every single square kilometer of dry land on the planet has been walked on by at least one human being.
63. In the weightlessness of space a frozen pea will explode if it comes in contact with Pepsi.
64. The increased electricity used by modern appliances is causing a shift in the Earth's magnetic field. By the year 2327, the North Pole will be located in mid-Kansas, while the South Pole will be just off the coast of East Africa.
65. The idea for "tribbles" in "Star Trek" came from gerbils, since some gerbils are actually born pregnant.
66. Male rhesus monkeys often hang from tree branches by their amazing prehensile penises.
67. Johnny Plessey batted .331 for the Cleveland Spiders in 1891, even though he spent the entire season batting with a rolled-up, lacquered copy of the Toledo Post-Dispatch.
68. Smearing a small amount of dog feces on an insect bite will relieve the itching and swelling.
69. The Boeing 747 is capable of flying upside-down if it weren't for the fact that the wings would shear off when trying to roll it over.
70. The trucking company Elvis Presley worked at as a young man was owned by Frank Sinatra.
71. The only golf course on the island of Tonga has 15 holes, and there's no penalty if a monkey steals your golf ball.
72. Legislation passed during WWI making it illegal to say "gesundheit" to a sneezer was never repealed.
73. Manatees possess vocal chords which give them the ability to speak like humans, but don't do so because they have no ears with which to hear the sound.
74. SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below.
75. Catfish are the only animals that naturally have an ODD number of whiskers.
76. Replying more than 100 times to the same piece of spam e-mail will overwhelm the sender's system and interfere with their ability to send any more spam.
77. Polar bears can eat as many as 86 penguins in a single sitting.
78. The first McDonald's restaurant opened for business in 1952 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and featured the McHaggis sandwich.
79. The Air Force's F-117 fighter uses aerodynamics discovered during research into how bumblebees fly.
80. You *can* get blood from a stone, but only if contains at least 17 percent bauxite.
81. Silly Putty was "discovered" as the residue left behind after the first latex condoms were produced. It's not widely publicized for obvious reasons.
82. Approximately one-sixth of your life is spent on Wednesdays.
83. The skin needed for elbow transplants must be taken from the scrotum of a cadaver.
84. The sport of jai alai originated from a game played by Incan priests who held cats by their tails and swung at leather balls. The cats would instinctively grab at the ball with their claws, thus enabling players to catch them.
85. A cat's purr has the same romance-enhancing frequency as the voice of singer Barry White.
86. The typewriter was invented by Hungarian immigrant Qwert Yuiop, who left his "signature" on the keyboard.
87. The volume of water that the Giant Sequoia tree consumes in a 24-hour period contains enough suspended minerals to pave 17.3 feet of a 4-lane concrete freeway.
88. King Henry VIII slept with a gigantic axe.
89. Because printed materials are being replaced by CD-ROM, microfiche and the Internet, libraries that previously sank into their foundations under the weight of their books are now in danger of collapsing in extremely high winds.
90. In 1843, a Parisian street mime got stuck in his imaginary box and consequently died of starvation.
91. Touch-tone telephone keypads were originally planned to have buttons for Police and Fire Departments, but they were replaced with * and # when the project was cancelled in favor of developing the 911 system.
92. Human saliva has a boiling point three times that of regular water.
93. Calvin, of the "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip, was patterned after President Calvin Coolidge, who had a pet tiger as a boy.
94. Watching an hour-long soap opera burns more calories than watching a three-hour baseball game.
95. Until 1978, Camel cigarettes contained minute particles of real camels.
96. You can actually sharpen the blades on a pencil sharpener by wrapping your pencils in aluminum foil before inserting them.
97. To human taste buds, Zima is virtually indistinguishable from zebra urine.
98. Seven out of every ten hockey-playing Canadians will lose a tooth during a game. For Canadians who don't play hockey, that figure drops to five out of ten.
99. A dog's naked behind leaves absolutely no bacteria when pressed against carpet.
100. A team of University of Virginia researchers released a study promoting the practice of picking one's nose, claiming that the health benefits of keeping nasal passages free from infectious blockages far outweigh the negative social connotations.
101. Among items left behind at Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan were 27 issues of Mad Magazine. Al Qaeda members have admitted that bin Laden is reportedly an avid reader.
102. Urine from male cape water buffaloes is so flammable that some tribes use it for lantern fuel.
103. At the first World Cup championship in Uruguay, 1930, the soccer balls were actually monkey skulls wrapped in paper and leather.
104. Every Labrador retriever dreams about bananas.
105. If you put a bee in a film canister for two hours, it will go blind and leave behind its weight in honey.
106. Due to the angle at which the optic nerve enters the brain, staring at a blue surface during sex greatly increases the intensity of orgasms.
107. Never hold your nose and cover your mouth when sneezing, as it can blow out your eyeballs.
108. Centuries ago, purchasing real estate often required having one or more limbs amputated in order to prevent the purchaser from running away to avoid repayment of the loan. Hence an expensive purchase was said to cost "an arm and a leg."
109. When Mahatma Gandhi died, an autopsy revealed five gold Krugerrands in his small intestine.
110. Aardvarks are allergic to radishes, but only during summer months.
111. Coca-Cola was the favored drink of Pharaoh Ramses. An inscription found in his tomb, when translated, was found to be almost identical to the recipe used today.
112. If you part your hair on the right side, you were born to be carnivorous. If you part it on the left, your physical and psychological make-up is that of a vegetarian.
113. When immersed in liquid, a dead sparrow will make a sound like a crying baby.
114. In WWII the US military planned to airdrop over France propaganda in the form of Playboy magazine, with coded messages hidden in the models' turn-ons and turn-offs. The plan was scrapped because of a staple shortage due to rationing of metal.
115. Although difficult, it's possible to start a fire by rapidly rubbing together two Cool Ranch Doritos.
116. Napoleon's favorite type of wood was knotty chestnut.
117. The world's smartest pig, owned by a mathematics teacher in Madison, WI, memorized the multiplication tables up to 12.
118. Due to the natural "momentum" of the ocean, saltwater fish cannot swim backwards.
119. In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families were dipped in olive oil at birth to keep them hairless throughout their lives.
120. It is nearly three miles farther to fly from Amarillo, Texas to Louisville, Kentucky than it is to return from Louisville to Amarillo.
121. The "nine lives" attributed to cats is probably due to their having nine primary whiskers.
122. The original inspiration for Barbie dolls comes from dolls developed by German propagandists in the late 1930s to impress young girls with the ideal notions of Aryan features. The proportions for Barbie were actually based on those of Eva Braun.
123. The Venezuelan brown bat can detect and dodge individual raindrops in mid-flight, arriving safely back at his cave completely dry.
124. The Mongolian pony is the only animal other than an elephant capable of fending off an attack by a healthy adult tiger.
125. Because of their unusual shape, Hershey's Kisses contain more calories per ounce than the same amount of chocolate in other forms.
126. The French language has seventeen different words for "surrender."
127. The average person can fit exactly one half of their pinky finger in one of their nostrils. However, if an attempt is made to put a pinky finger in EACH nostril, only one quarter of each will fit.
128. Showing off at a party one evening, Chopin played the entire "Minute Waltz" in under 10 seconds.
129. If the air in your car's tires is not completely replaced every two years, it can turn to liquid and cause severe damage.
130. If you tar and feather a 2x4 and place it in your yard, it will ward off bats.
131. The largest home in the United States, North Carolina's Biltmore House, was originally intended to be the official residence of a new monarchy to be established when the South rose again.
132. The Toltec calendar was based on a 360-day year, with each day being about 24 hours and 20 minutes long.
133. The universal size of the credit card is based entirely on the size of the 1960s US Communist Party membership card. Credit cards were designed so that they wouldn't cause the Communist Party card to stand out.
134. Nobody born in Kentucky has ever been elected to Congress.
135. In an effort to improve the nutritional value of its "Shamrock shakes," McDonald's colors them with broccoli extract.
136. Winston Churchill was born with a third nipple, which he removed himself with nail-clippers at the age of 14.
137. Only a single dissenting vote prevented the death penalty in Texas from being carried out by immersing the convicted person in a nest of fire ants.
138. If you place a fresh Viagra tablet in a houseplant's soil every six months, the plant will not wilt.
139. The ancient Arabic word "jorgbushii" translates roughly to "evil one who comes disguised in peace to drink Earth's black blood."
140. In Finland, "Sintter Klaas" brings bad children a small bag of old toenail clippings.
141. The practice of putting a letter "e" in front of words to mean "web-based" (e.g., eBusiness, eLearning, etc.) was patented by Microsoft in 1992. They are waiting until their anti-trust trial has been officially completed to begin enforcing it.
142. The noun "sled" originates from the name of a 18th-century mountaineer from Finland, Schletz Linden, whose body was used by his climbing partner to slide down a mountain during a winter storm after he froze to death.
143. If a cricket were the size of Mount Rushmore, it could jump to the moon.
144. The increase in the amount of metals mined and brought to the surface of the earth in order to manufacture SUVs has caused higher tides in the Northern Hemisphere.
145. Children conceived on airplanes never suffer from motion sickness.
146. The life span of dogs allowed to dine in cat litter boxes is on average 18 percent longer than that of dogs restricted to commercial diets.
147. Charles Darwin once attempted to breed flying monkeys by crossing chimpanzees with vultures.
148. The steady, rhythmic sound produced by dripping water increases the capacity for sleeping males to experience lucid sexual dreams.
149. Blue water in a toilet bowl causes males to urinate 7 percent more.
150. Women who use chewing tobacco are three times LESS likely to accidentally swallow it while they are pregnant.
151. The melody of the classic hymn "Amazing Grace" originated from a 12th-century pagan song celebrating masturbation.
152. The Federal Department of Online Commerce has been compiling a list of US-based e-mail addresses. Once 100 million addresses have been collected, the list will be sold to online marketers as part of President Bush's plan to reduce the deficit.
153. A 9-volt battery contains roughly the same amount of kinetic energy as a bowl of Lucky Charms.
154. The Yanomami tribesmen of the Amazon basin can track game birds by the slight difference in warmth their shadows create on the forest floor as they fly by, for up to an hour after the birds have departed.
155. Contrary to the popular saying, 99 percent of the time you lead a horse to water, it'll drink on its own.
156. The first Ford Excursion was actually designed and built in 1951. It was never marketed because the then-current braking technology required a drum 3 feet wide on each wheel.
157. Rapid deforestation has decreased the friction of the surface of the Earth, causing it to spin infinitesimally faster and thereby cool the air, combating global warming.
158. The flush toilet was invented in Flushing, NY.
159. The inner core of most standard golf balls is made of nougat, which helps the balls remain aloft longer.
160. On occasions when the sun is shining brightly on falling snowflakes, they contain enough ionic charge to stun insects. Observation of this phenomenon inspired the invention of the bug zapper.
161. Over the last two decades, more Americans died of heart attacks while watching horror movies in movie theaters than died while sky-diving.
162. A common misconception is that the term "salsa dancing" derives from the food condiment called salsa. Actually, the dance was invented in the 1930s by a dance teacher named Frankie Salsa.
163. Every common food product, with the exception of fish and veal, contains some traces of peanut enzymes.
164. The number of words in the Bible divided by the number of verses equals exactly 666.
165. An 18th-century law still on the books in Vermont makes it illegal for a woman to lick a stamp in a public place.
166. Anthropologists have discovered a tribe of South American monkeys with a rudimentary system of government analogous to our own three-branch form of government.
167. Constipation kills nearly twice as many people as diarrhea, mainly because the former mostly afflicts the old and weak while the latter mostly affects young, strong children.
168. It is physically impossible to urinate and give blood at the same time.
169. If you fill a standard 750ml wine bottle with live hornets, their angry buzzing will resonate at precisely the right frequency to shatter the glass.
170. During his famous "Blue Period," Pablo Picasso invented the substance that eventually became known as Play-Doh.
171. Every year in the fall, Niagara Falls is shut down for maintenance for 24 hours. The flow is diverted using a massive series of pipes and spigots built for this purpose in 1837.
172. The rare Chilean hummingbird has been known to suck blood from animals like a giant mosquito.
173. Tap dancers frequently forget to breathe normally during difficult routines, resulting in an average of 200 tap dancing-related tragedies per year.
Source & Credit : topfive.com
50 Completely Useless Facts
1. The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.
2. Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts, and worms like fried bacon.
3. Of all the words in the English language, the word 'set' has the most definitions!
4. What is called a "French kiss" in the English speaking world is known as an "English kiss" in France.
5. "Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
6. "Rhythm" is the longest English word without a vowel.
7. In 1386, a pig in France was executed by public hanging for the murder of a child
8. A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off!
9. Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
10. You can't kill yourself by holding your breath
11. There is a city called Rome on every continent.
12. It's against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland!
13. Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day!
14. Horatio Nelson, one of England's most illustrious admirals was throughout his life, never able to find a cure for his sea-sickness.
15. The skeleton of Jeremy Bentham is present at all important meetings of the University of London
16. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people
17. Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, everytime you breathe!
18. The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump!
19. One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!
20. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different!
21. The first known transfusion of blood was performed as early as 1667, when Jean-Baptiste, transfused two pints of blood from a sheep to a young man
22. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!
23. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!
24. The present population of 5 billion plus people of the world is predicted to become 15 billion by 2080.
25. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
26. Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, and had only ONE testicle.
27. Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.
28. Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
29. Coca-Cola would be green if colouring weren’t added to it.
30. On average a hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute.
31. More people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.
32. The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words.
33. More people are allergic to cow's milk than any other food.
34. Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
35. The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all four feet at all times!
36. The six official languages of the United Nations are: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish.
37. Earth is the only planet not named after a god.
38. It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a church in Nebraska, USA.
39. You're born with 300 bones, but by the time you become an adult, you only have 206.
40. Some worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food!
41. Dolphins sleep with one eye open!
42. It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open
43. The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old!
44. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds
45. Queen Elizabeth I regarded herself as a paragon of cleanliness. She declared that she bathed once every three months, whether she needed it or not
46. Slugs have 4 noses.
47. Owls are the only birds who can see the colour blue.
48. A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years!
49. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!
50. The average person laughs 10 times a day!
51. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain
Source & Credit : world-english.org
Amazing Facts
1. In the weightlessness of space a frozen pea will explode if it comes in contact with Pepsi.
2. The increased electricity used by modern appliances is causing a shift in the Earth's magnetic field. By the year 2327, the North Pole will be located in mid-Kansas, while the South Pole will be just off the coast of East Africa.
3. The idea for "tribbles" in "Star Trek" came from gerbils, since some gerbils are actually born pregnant.
4. Male rhesus monkeys often hang from tree branches by their amazing prehensile penises.
5. Johnny Plessey batted .331 for the Cleveland Spiders in 1891, even though he spent the entire season batting with a rolled-up, lacquered copy of the Toledo Post-Dispatch.
6. Smearing a small amount of dog feces on an insect bite will relieve the itching and swelling.
7. The Boeing 747 is capable of flying upside-down if it weren't for the fact that the wings would shear off when trying to roll it over.
8. The trucking company Elvis Presley worked at as a young man was owned by Frank Sinatra.
9. The only golf course on the island of Tonga has 15 holes, and there's no penalty if a monkey steals your golf ball.
10. Legislation passed during WWI making it illegal to say "gesundheit" to a sneezer was never repealed.
11. Manatees possess vocal chords which give them the ability to speak like humans, but don't do so because they have no ears with which to hear the sound.
12. SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below.
13. Catfish are the only animals that naturally have an ODD number of whiskers.
14. Replying more than 100 times to the same piece of spam e-mail will overwhelm the sender's system and interfere with their ability to send any more spam.
15. Polar bears can eat as many as 86 penguins in a single sitting.
16. The first McDonald's restaurant opened for business in 1952 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and featured the McHaggis sandwich.
17. The Air Force's F-117 fighter uses aerodynamics discovered during research into how bumblebees fly.
18. You *can* get blood from a stone, but only if contains at least 17 percent bauxite.
19. Silly Putty was "discovered" as the residue left behind after the first latex condoms were produced. It's not widely publicized for obvious reasons.
20. Approximately one-sixth of your life is spent on Wednesdays.
21. The skin needed for elbow transplants must be taken from the scrotum of a cadaver.
22. The sport of jai alai originated from a game played by Incan priests who held cats by their tails and swung at leather balls. The cats would instinctively grab at the ball with their claws, thus enabling players to catch them.
23. A cat's purr has the same romance-enhancing frequency as the voice of singer Barry White.
24. The typewriter was invented by Hungarian immigrant Qwert Yuiop, who left his "signature" on the keyboard.
25. The volume of water that the Giant Sequoia tree consumes in a 24-hour period contains enough suspended minerals to pave 17.3 feet of a 4-lane concrete freeway.
26. King Henry VIII slept with a gigantic axe.
27. Because printed materials are being replaced by CD-ROM, microfiche and the Internet, libraries that previously sank into their foundations under the weight of their books are now in danger of collapsing in extremely high winds.
28. In 1843, a Parisian street mime got stuck in his imaginary box and consequently died of starvation.
29. Touch-tone telephone keypads were originally planned to have buttons for Police and Fire Departments, but they were replaced with * and # when the project was cancelled in favor of developing the 911 system.
30. Human saliva has a boiling point three times that of regular water.
31. Calvin, of the "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip, was patterned after President Calvin Coolidge, who had a pet tiger as a boy.
32. Watching an hour-long soap opera burns more calories than watching a three-hour baseball game.
33. Until 1978, Camel cigarettes contained minute particles of real camels.
34. You can actually sharpen the blades on a pencil sharpener by wrapping your pencils in aluminum foil before inserting them.
35. To human taste buds, Zima is virtually indistinguishable from zebra urine.
36. Seven out of every ten hockey-playing Canadians will lose a tooth during a game. For Canadians who don't play hockey, that figure drops to five out of ten.
37. A dog's naked behind leaves absolutely no bacteria when pressed against carpet.
38. A team of University of Virginia researchers released a study promoting the practice of picking one's nose, claiming that the health benefits of keeping nasal passages free from infectious blockages far outweigh the negative social connotations.
39. Among items left behind at Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan were 27 issues of Mad Magazine. Al Qaeda members have admitted that bin Laden is reportedly an avid reader.
40. Urine from male cape water buffaloes is so flammable that some tribes use it for lantern fuel.
41. At the first World Cup championship in Uruguay, 1930, the soccer balls were actually monkey skulls wrapped in paper and leather.
42. Every Labrador retriever dreams about bananas.
43. If you put a bee in a film canister for two hours, it will go blind and leave behind its weight in honey.
44. Due to the angle at which the optic nerve enters the brain, staring at a blue surface during sex greatly increases the intensity of orgasms.
45. Never hold your nose and cover your mouth when sneezing, as it can blow out your eyeballs.
46. Centuries ago, purchasing real estate often required having one or more limbs amputated in order to prevent the purchaser from running away to avoid repayment of the loan. Hence an expensive purchase was said to cost "an arm and a leg."
47. When Mahatma Gandhi died, an autopsy revealed five gold Krugerrands in his small intestine.
48. Aardvarks are allergic to radishes, but only during summer months.
49. Coca-Cola was the favored drink of Pharaoh Ramses. An inscription found in his tomb, when translated, was found to be almost identical to the recipe used today.
50. If you part your hair on the right side, you were born to be carnivorous. If you part it on the left, your physical and psychological make-up is that of a vegetarian.
51. When immersed in liquid, a dead sparrow will make a sound like a crying baby.
52. In WWII the US military planned to airdrop over France propaganda in the form of Playboy magazine, with coded messages hidden in the models' turn-ons and turn-offs. The plan was scrapped because of a staple shortage due to rationing of metal.
53. Although difficult, it's possible to start a fire by rapidly rubbing together two Cool Ranch Doritos.
54. Napoleon's favorite type of wood was knotty chestnut.
55. The world's smartest pig, owned by a mathematics teacher in Madison, WI, memorized the multiplication tables up to 12.
56. Due to the natural "momentum" of the ocean, saltwater fish cannot swim backwards.
57. In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families were dipped in olive oil at birth to keep them hairless throughout their lives.
58. It is nearly three miles farther to fly from Amarillo, Texas to Louisville, Kentucky than it is to return from Louisville to Amarillo.
59. The "nine lives" attributed to cats is probably due to their having nine primary whiskers.
60. The original inspiration for Barbie dolls comes from dolls developed by German propagandists in the late 1930s to impress young girls with the ideal notions of Aryan features. The proportions for Barbie were actually based on those of Eva Braun.
61. The Venezuelan brown bat can detect and dodge individual raindrops in mid-flight, arriving safely back at his cave completely dry.
Source & Credit:- topfive.com
Ek Chidiya :Refreshing the memory
The Films Division masterpiece --- “Ek Chidia” . The video uploaded on the You Tube conjures up memories of childhood when the kids played langdi tang and gallery while humming the lines of this beautiful song that encourages harmony and unity in diversity--- the mottos that best describe India . In a time when the TV News channels are fighting tooth and nail to create an atmosphere that generates news (read chaos, riots, disharmony and sensationalism), the song is something of a reminder of simpler times.
Since the day I received this particular link in the mail I have been trying to find the elder community Didi, who shares wisdom with the aid of simple tools like beads or seeds, mangoes and short stories; the kid who actually truly believes that the elder Didi is the wiser one and listens to her solution; the other kids whose appetite is satiated with fresh mangoes plucked from the trees unlike those dissatisfied bundles of trouble I spot around with designer shoes and garb outside Mc Donald’s always greedily asking for one more Happy Meal. The simple solution that the animation (though not of the state of the art category) provides to a problem that infects and threats not only India but the entire globe in today’s times is incomparable to anything I have seen so far.
The melody is something that beats the best of the pop songs and the filmi latka jhatkas of today. Its simple and I am ready to wager a fortune that once the tune registers in your mind it is a difficult one to let go. The innocence in the voice of Sadhna Sargam, who rendered her voice to the character of Didi, is of the quality that you can almost touch it if you try hard enough. The music by Vasant Desai complements the simplicity of the narrative without actually ever underestimating the power or the importance of the message.
The illustrations are single line figures without too much detailing, yet aptly defining and demarking each n every character. The regional and religious characters of all the varied segments of Indians are fittingly depicted in the 5 minute animation. Bhim Sain, better known today as the creator of the animated series on Hanuman, did the animations for Ek Chidya which I believe laid the foundation for other Indian animations as well.
The credit of the final product as usual goes to the captain of the ship i.e., the director Vijaya Mule. The conceptualization and execution is something that touches a chord with the audience even today. There is no better way to end the piece than to quote the chorus of the song. But writing just the chorus feels like doing injustice to the rest of the lyrics. So to refresh your memories I present the transcript of the song of our childhood and something that I hope passes down to our children one day as folklore or verbal tradition.
Didi ye anek kya hota hai ?
Anek.... anek yani bahut saare....
jaise...
suraj ek...
chanda ek.....
taare anek....
achcha to taron ko anek bhi kehte hain ?????
nahi nahi !!
dekho phir se batati hoon
suraj ek...
chanda ek.....
taare anek....
ek gilhari, ....
ek aur gilhari......
ek ek ek karke ho gayee ab anek gilhariyaan...
ek titali, anek titaliyaan....
ek chidiya.. ek ek anek chidiyaan......
anek chidiyon ki kahani sunoge ....
haan sunao...
ek chidiya anek chidiya....
dana chugne baith gayee thi .....
chorus : didi humen bhi sunao.......
phir se suno...
ek chidiya, anek chidiyan
dana chugne baith gayee thi .....
WahiN ek byaadh ne jaal bichhaya tha...
byaadh, byaadh kya hota hai didi ?
byaadh ... chidiya pakadne wala
to phir kya hua, usne chidiyoN ko pakad liya,...
unhe maar diya ......
un..huh...
Himmat se jo jute rahe to bada kaam bhi hove
Bhaiya.. bada kaam bhi
hove bhaiya ...
1..2..3.. furrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Chaturrr cidiyaaN sayaani chidiyaaN,
miljul kar, jaal le kar...
Bhaagi chidiyaaN....
furrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
door ek gaaon mein chidiyon ke dost chuhe rahte the....
unhone unka jaal kaat diya.........
dekha ekta mein kitni shakti hai......
didi agar hum ek ho jaayen to kya koi bhi kaam kar
sakte hain ?
haan haan kyon nahi ...
to kya is ped ke aam bhi tod sakte hain ???
haan magar jugat lagani hogi ...
JUGAT ???
*
* *
* * *
* * * *
achchha ye jugat .... wah bada mazaa aayega....
HO GAYE EK ...
BAN GAYEE TAKAT..
BAN GAYEE HIMMAT...
hind desh ke niwasi sabhi jana ek hain, -2
rang-roop vesh-bhaasha chahe anek hain -2> > ---- repeat...
bela gulab juhi champa chameli..... -2
phool hain anek kintu mala phir ek hai ...-2>
ek-anek-ek anek
suraj ek, chanda ek, taare anek,
ek gilhari , anek gilhariyaaN,
ek titli, anek titaliyaaN,
ek chidiyaa , anek chidiyaaN......
are bela gulab juhi champa chameli.. -2
phool hain anek kintu mala phir ek hain.....2
Screenplay and direction: Vijaya Mule
Compilation: Vaman Guru
Hind desh ke nivasi: Pandit Vinay Chandra
Music: Vasant desai
Animation: Bhim Sain
