FactsI was sent this via email the other day and realised I knew a fair few of these already, but some others were quite surprising.

  • It takes glass one million years to decompose, which means it never wears out and can be recycled an infinite amount of times!
  • Gold is the only metal that doesn’t rust, even if it’s buried in the ground for thousands of years
  • Your tongue is the only muscle in your body that is attached at only one end
  • If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water. When a human body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off.
  • Each year 2,000,000 smokers either quit smoking or die of tobacco-related diseases.
  • Zero is the only number that cannot be represented by Roman numerals.
  • Kites were used in the American Civil War to deliver letters and newspapers.
  • The song, Auld Lang Syne, is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the new year.
  • Drinking water after eating reduces the acid in your mouth by 61 percent.
  • Peanut oil is used for cooking in submarines because it doesn’t smoke unless it’s heated above 450F.
  • The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.
  • Nine out of every 10 living things live in the ocean.
  • The banana cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man.
  • Airports at higher altitudes require a longer airstrip due to lower air density.
  • The University of Alaska spans four time zones.
  • The tooth is the only part of the human body that cannot heal itself.
  • In ancient Greece , tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional proposal of marriage. Catching it meant she accepted.
  • Warner Communications paid $28 million for the copyright to the song Happy Birthday.
  • Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
  • A comet’s tail always points away from the sun.
  • The Swine Flu vaccine in 1976 caused more death and illness than the disease it was intended to prevent. 
  • Caffeine increases the power of aspirin and other painkillers, that is why it is found in some medicines. 
  • The military salute is a motion that evolved from medieval times, when knights in armor raised their visors to reveal their identity. 
  • If you get into the bottom of a well or a tall chimney and look up, you can see stars, even in the middle of the day. 
  • When a person dies, hearing is the last sense to go. The first sense lost is sight. 
  • In ancient times strangers shook hands to show that they were unarmed. 
  • Strawberries are the only fruits whose seeds grow on the outside. 
  • Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per hundred grams. 
  • The moon moves about two inches away from the Earth each year. 
  • The Earth gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust. 
  • Due to earth’s gravity it is impossible for mountains to be higher than 15,000 meters. 
  • Mickey Mouse is known as “Topolino” in Italy. 
  • Soldiers do not march in step when going across bridges because they could set up a vibration which could be sufficient to knock the bridge down. 
  • Everything weighs one percent less at the equator. 
  • For every extra kilogram carried on a space flight, 530 kg of excess fuel are needed at lift-off. 
  • The letter J does not appear anywhere on the periodic table of the elements.