Unnecessary (but interesting) Knowledge

[Zuiderelle]

1 - An adult giraffe's kick is so powerful that it can decapitate a lion.
2 - Between 1902 and 1907, the same tiger killed 434 people in India.
3 - The word “lethologica” describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
4 - The brain continues sending electrical wave signals for 37 hours after death
5 - Every year approximately 2,500 left-handed people are killed by using object or machinery designed for right-handed people.
6 - The clown fish has the ability to change its sex. If a breeding female dies, the male fish will change its sex and mate with another male.
7 - During World War II, the very first bomb dropped on Berlin by the Allies killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
8 - Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.
9 - In “Silence of the Lambs”, Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) never blinks.
10- During their periods womens middle fingers shrink. No one knows why.
11- 45% of Americans don't know that the sun is a star.
12- When the divorce rate goes up in the United States, toy makers report that the sale of toys also rise.
13- Dolphins can swim and sleep at the same time.
14- Human hair is almost indestructible, only fire can destroy it
15- More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.


http://www.unkno.com/toplist/

I wonder if these are all true. I'm going to have to measure my middle finger now.

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. It's doubly bad when you're in a verbal trainwreck and also cannot remember the word “lethologica”..

[Fire Walk With Me]

10. The Universe being the humorous place it is, this just happened to me

in a phone conversation.

[DarkTirade]

20. Kind of like having a lisp and trying to inform someone of that fact.

[Fire Walk With Me]

23. This reminds me of a song that I used to listen to as a child.

[MonkeyFunk]

2. Number 4 seems unlikely

and some of the others sound iffy.

[Zuiderelle]

3. Yeah, many sound a bit iffy...

but I'm way too uninterested in that to actually find out. :D But I will measure my middle finger out of curiosity.

[Redstone]

4. So, “lethologica” means the same thing as "getting old."

(Interesting list; thanks for posting it.)

Redstone

[Robb]

5. I can believe the bit about donkeys

...Donkeys are complete bastards. :D

Here's another: in a group of hens with no rooster, one hen will take charge and act like a rooster. And stop laying eggs.

[struggle4progress]

8. I agrees donkeys is bastids, havin been kicked m'self, but I dunno where

one gits donkey kick fatality stats

Plane crash stats ain't too hard: they're spiky but maybe there are about 440 plane crash deaths per year 1998-2007
http://www.airfleets.net/crash/fatalities_year.htm

[YellowRubberDuckie]

21. Do you always use such terrible grammar?

[struggle4progress]

24. nye nat alwus bud i phinds it relaxin frum tyme too tyme

[bluesbassman]

6. Great, now I have to put dolphins on my "dead to me list"!

They can swim and sleep at the same time? I can't even walk and chew gum at the same time!!!:rofl:

[struggle4progress]

7. "Only elephant" story is widely repeated but seems not to be true:

There is a completely opposite tale floating about as well:

A bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed every animal in the Berlin Zoo except the elephant, which escaped and roamed the city. When a Russian commander saw hungry Germans chasing the elephant and trying to kill it, he ordered his troops to protect it and shoot anyone who tried to kill it. http://www.factslot.com/browse7.html

Local lore seems to have provided the following tale:

The Future Of Nostalgia
By Svetlana Boym <p 210>

... The local residents told a tragic story of the last elephant, Siam, who was driven to insanity by the brutalities of the war, and after the fatal bombing raid, trumpeted madly at the gates of the zoo ...

http://books.google.com/books?id=7BbTJ6qVPMcC&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=%22berlin+zoo%22+elephant+bomb&source=web&ots=XTvM7OdjSB&sig=X6vnGQK4V1lMm2vcA1-NMsKM900&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=28&ct=result

The zoo was devastated by the end of the war:

Last Battle: The Classic History of the Battle for Berlin
by Cornelius Ryan

... One hundred yards away was the jungle of wreckage that had been the internationally famed Berlin Zoo. The aquarium was completely destroyed. The reptile, hippopotamus, kangaroo, tiger and elephant houses, along with scores of other buildings, were severely damaged. The surrounding Tiergarten, the renowned 630-acre park, was a no man's land of room-sized craters, rubble-filled lakes and partly demolished embassy buildings. Once the park had been a natural forest of luxuriant trees. Now most of them were burned and ugly stumps ...

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Battle-Classic-History-Berlin/dp/product-description/0684803291

[bertha katzenengel]

9. You are so cute.

;)

[Drunken Irishman]

11. The more you know...

[NV Whino]

12. 4 - The brain continues sending electrical wave signals for 37 hours after death

That could account for some of the lounge posts.

[bluesbassman]

13. Thanks Whino, I now own another worthless coffee soaked keyboard!

:rofl:

[NV Whino]

16. You're going to have to get one of those keyboard covers.

[Zuiderelle]

14. !

:rofl:

[XemaSab]

15. #14 can't be true

Otherwise we'd be up to our eyeballs in the hair of dead people.

There have to be bacteria and little insects that eat it.

[sakabatou]

17. Well it can be cut

So :/

[Zuiderelle]

18. Good point. But, it could just get chewed up and ...

pooped out in microscopic fragments. :)

[Aristus]

19. Spiders recycle.

Many species of spider will eat their old web before spinning a new one.

[begin_within]

22. Ohhhhh... I love donkeys.