Aside from Tech Tips, another section in my Google Reader is what I tagged “What’s New”. One notable site in this section is a fun site called Neatorama.com. I found a lot of interesting stories, posts, and much more from the site. You can notice that most of the entries I post at Tambayan.ph comes from Neatorama.

Aside from the most often interesting stories from their site, there are the usual popups of trivias that appears on the site. Here are some interesting trivias (minus the images) I found at Neatorama.

• The Road Runner in Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes cartoons is actually named Beep Beep.
• Trace amounts of cocaine are found in 4 out of every 5 dollar bills in circulation. The average amount of cocaine found is 16 micrograms (0.000016 gram)
• King James II of Scotland banned golf in 1457 because it was distracting his soldiers from practicing archery.
• A jiffy is actually an actual unit of time. It’s 1/100th of a second!
• In a room of 57 or more people, the probability of two people having the same birthday is 99%. In a group of 23 randomly chosen people, that probability is 50%. For a full explanation, see Birthday Paradox [wiki]
• The holes in Swiss cheese are known as “eyes.” These holes are caused by bubbles that are produced by bacteria called Propionibacter during the late stage of cheese production. The larger the eyes, the better flavor of the cheese. Swiss cheese with no eyes are known as “blind.”
• Wilma Flintstone was the first animated character that was portrayed as pregnant.
• A typical mattress is home to 100,000 to 10 million dust mites. If that’s not enough to gross you out, consider this: dead mites and their droppings constitute one-tenth of the weight of a two-year-old pillow. Oh, and what exactly do they eat? Dead human skin cells.
• Chocolate, coffee, onions and avocados are highly toxic to parrots and can be fatal.
• Captain Kirk NEVER said “Beam me up, Scotty!” The exact quotes were: “Scotty, beam me up” and “Beam them out of there, Scotty.” The phrase got so popular, however, that James Doohan (1920 - 2005), the actor who played Montgomery “Scotty” Scott in Star Trek, used it as the title of his autobiography.
• You CAN float a rock on water. Just use pumice.
• In the United States, pit bulls make up less than 3% of the dog population but cause more than 50% of serious dog attacks. Most dog bites are from mutts (mixed breed), German shepherds and chow chows. Most fatal attacks are by rottweilers and pit bulls.
• The red and white stripes of the barber pole symbolize the bandage used during bloodletting, which in addition to cutting hair, was a service used to be performed by medieval barbers!
• Kangaroo rats can last longer without water than camels. In fact, a kangaroo rat never has to drink water. Instead, its body can manufacture water by metabolizing foodstuff.
• Camels have three eyelids to protect their eyes from blowing sand. Two of the eyelids (the upper and lower eyelids) have eyelashes. The third one is a thin membrane that they can see through in a sandstorm. Actually, cats and dogs also have three eyelids. No words whether they can see in a sandstorm.
• Ailurophobia is the irrational fear of cats. Some famous sufferers include Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Benito Mussolini.
• In 1781, a group of 44 settlers founded a town named “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula,” (”The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels on the River Porciúncula”). We now know it simply as Los Angeles.
• The ZIP in ZIP code stands for “Zone Improvement Plan.” In addition to the publicly known one, the White House has a secret ZIP code for the President and the First Family to receive private mail.
• Pufferfish or fugu is a delicacy in Japan. The fish is eaten raw as a sashimi. When prepared correctly, the flesh of the fish gives a tingling sensation on the tongue. This, turns out is due to a non-lethal dose of tetrodotoxin, a potent neurotoxin with no antidote. If prepared improperly, say if the chef cut into the liver by accident, then you could die from it. Because it is a neurotoxin, you would be completely paralyzed and cannot breathe. Death occurs within 4 to 24 hours, during which you are completely conscious over what’s happening. Because of this reason, fugu is the only delicacy officially forbidden to the Emperor of Japan. For his own safety.
• Nepal is the only country in the world that doesn’t have a rectangular flag. Nepalese flag is shaped like a two overlapping triangles.

You can visit their site for more trivias. As usual, I really recommend you to add their site to your feed reader if you like interesting stories.

Tags: Neatorama, trivia, websites