Tongue Facts

Close to fifty percent of the bacteria in the mouth lives on the surface of our tongue.

There are approximately 9,000 taste buds on the tongue.

Your tongue has 3,000 taste buds.

85% of the population can curl their tongue into a tube.

Other Universe Facts

• The universe is so vast in relation to the matter it contains that it can be compared in the following way: A building 20 miles long, 20 miles wide and 20 miles high that contains 1 grain of sand.

• The three most common elements in the universe are 1) hydrogen; 2) helium; 3) oxygen.

• As late as 1820, the universe was thought to be 6,000 years old. It is now thought to be between 15 and 20 billion years old.

• Scientists believe that hydrogen comprises approximately 90 to 99 percent of all matter in the Universe.

• A bucket filled with earth would Weigh about five times more than the same bucket filled with the substance of the sun. However, the force of Gravity is so much greater on the sun that a man Weighing 150 pounds on our planet would Weigh 2 tons on the sun.

• A space vehicle must move at a rate of 7 miles per second to escape the earth's Gravitational pull. This is equivalent to going from New York to Philadelphia in about twenty seconds.

• There are approximately 10,000 pieces of equipment revolving around the earth. About 3,000 of these pieces are satellites, the rest are odd bits of Debris.

• Astronomers believe that the universe contains one atom for every 88 gallons of space.

Earth Facts

• Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day.

• At one time the earth consisted of one land mass and a huge body of water. Geologists today call the land Pangaea (from the Greek words "all land" while the water was called Panthalassa (from the Greek words "all sea"). Between 180 and 200 million years ago, Pangaea split into two parts: Laurasia, which consisted of North America, Europe and Asia; and Gondwanaland, which consisted of Africa, South America, India, Antarctica and Australia.

• Astronauts brought back about 800 pounds of lunar rock to Earth. Most of it has not been analyzed.

• Approximately 40,000 tons of meteoric dust hits the Earth each year.

• According to Hawaiian lore, the earth mother Papa mated with the sky father Wake to give birth to the Hawaiian Islands.

• About one-tenth of the earth's surface is permanently covered with ice.

• A Red Giant(a kind of exploded star) has a lower density than any vacuum here on earth.

• A Blue Earth, Minnesota, law declares that no child under the age of twelve may talk over the telephone unless monitored by a parent.

• You would need to travel at 6.95 miles per second to escape the Earth’s gravitational pull. This is equivalent to traveling from New York to Philadelphia in about twenty seconds.

• Venus rotates so slowly that in a typical day lasts approximately 244 Earth days (5,856 hours).

• If you dig in your backyard, don’t worry about running into the earth’s core. You’d have to dig a hole 4,000 miles (6,437 kilometers) deep!

• Some scientists believe that the earth began billions of years ago as a huge ball of swirling dust and gases.

• Some parts of the earth receive direct rays from the sun all year and are always warm. Other places receive indirect rays, so the climate is colder.

Reference from Amazing EarthFacts

Crazy Facts

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would produce enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.(Hardly seems worth it.)

If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. (Now that's more like it!)

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body that it could squirt blood 30 feet. (O.M.G.!)

A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes long. (In my next life, I want to be a pig.)

A cockroach can live up to nine days without it's head before it starves to death. (Creepy. I'm still not over the pig.)

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. (Warning: Do not try this at home........ maybe at work.)

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off. ("Honey, I'm home. What the......?!")

The flea can jump up to 350 times its body length. For a human, that would be equivalent to jumping the length of a entire football field. (30 minutes....lucky pig.... Can you imagine 30 minute orgasm??)

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. (What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond or the sea?)

Some lions mate over 50 times a day. (I still want to be a pig in my next life.... quality over quantity!)

Butterflies can taste with their feet. (Something I always wanted to know.)

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. (Hmmmmmmm........ won't go there.)

Right-handed people live, on an average, live nine years longer than left-handed people. (Glad to be right handed.)

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump. (OK, so that would be a good thing.)

A cat's urine glows under a black light. (I wonder who was paid to figure that out.)

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. (I know some people like that.)

Starfish have no brains. (I know some people like that too.)

Polar bears are left-handed. (If they switch, they'll live a lot longer.)

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. (What about that pig???)

No Sun link to climate change

A new scientific study concludes that changes in the Sun's output cannot be causing modern-day climate change.

It shows that for the last 20 years, the Sun's output has declined, yet temperatures on Earth have risen.

It also shows that modern temperatures are not determined by the Sun's effect on cosmic rays, as has been claimed.

Writing in the Royal Society's journal Proceedings A, the researchers say cosmic rays may have affected climate in the past, but not the present.

"This should settle the debate," said Mike Lockwood, from the UK's Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, who carried out the new analysis together with Claus Froehlich from the World Radiation Center in Switzerland.

This paper re-enforces the fact that the warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity Dr Piers Forster

Dr Lockwood initiated the study partially in response to the TV documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, broadcast on Britain's Channel Four earlier this year, which featured the cosmic ray hypothesis.

"All the graphs they showed stopped in about 1980, and I knew why, because things diverged after that," he told the BBC News website.

"You can't just ignore bits of data that you don't like," he said.

Warming trend

The scientists' main approach on this new analysis was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature, which has risen by about 0.4C over the period.

Temperatures have continued rising irrespective of cosmic ray flux

The Sun varies on a cycle of about 11 years between periods of high and low activity.

But that cycle comes on top of longer-term trends; and most of the 20th Century saw a slight but steady increase in solar output.

However, in about 1985, that trend appears to have reversed, with solar output declining.

Yet this period has seen temperatures rise as fast as - if not faster than - any time during the previous 100 years.

"This paper reinforces the fact that the warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment of climate science.

Cosmic relief

The IPCC's February summary report concluded that greenhouse gases were about 13 times more responsible than solar changes for rising global temperatures.

But the organisation was criticised in some quarters for not taking into account the cosmic ray hypothesis, developed by, among others, Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen of the Danish National Space Center.

FEELING THE HEAT Three theories on how the Sun could be causing climate change In graphics

Their theory holds that cosmic rays help clouds to form by providing tiny particles around which water vapour can condense. Overall, clouds cool the Earth.

During periods of active solar activity, cosmic rays are partially blocked by the Sun's more intense magnetic field. Cloud formation diminishes, and the Earth warms.

Mike Lockwood's analysis appears to have put a large, probably fatal nail in this intriguing and elegant hypothesis.

He said: "I do think there is a cosmic ray effect on cloud cover. It works in clean maritime air where there isn't much else for water vapour to condense around.

"It might even have had a significant effect on pre-industrial climate; but you cannot apply it to what we're seeing now, because we're in a completely different ball game."

Drs Svensmark and Friis-Christensen could not be reached for comment.

How to Predict Where Forest Fires Will Strike

It's wildfire season again in California and the West. Researchers have developed a new way to predict when vegetation dries to the point it is most vulnerable to large- scale fires in the Santa Monica Mountains near Los Angeles. This year's forecast says the highest-risk fire period will begin July 13—weeks earlier than usual.

Despite that, the new study also shows that unlike other areas of the western United States, global warming has not caused any apparent long-term trend toward early fire seasons in the Santa Monicas.

The scientists eventually hope to expand their unique fire-risk forecasting method to all of Southern California and beyond.

Researcher Philip Dennison says, "We developed a way to predict when the time of highest fire danger begins in the Santa Monica Mountains, based on the amount of spring precipitation. We estimate that this year, the highest fire danger will begin July 13." He hopes that "in future years this method can be used to better plan for the start of high fire danger. Fire agencies could use this to help them plan where and when to put their people and equipment. Homeowners may find this useful for knowing when fire danger will be high so they can be better prepared to evacuate, clear brush from around their homes and watch for arsonists."
Dennison says that researchers who conducted a 2006 study "found that fire season is starting earlier across the western United States, and they attributed it to earlier snowmelt which is caused by global warming."

Art credit: gimp-savvy.com
Remember when you first heard about global warming? Everybody seems to be talking about it now, but chances are, you first heard about it HERE, on unknowncountry.com. Make sure WE survive, by shopping at our big sale (and check out our NEW DVDs as well) and giving us your support. And don't miss this week's Dreamland, when Whitley interviews William Henry about his incredible adventures in France!

If You Eat & Run—Better Be Messy

Not everyone gets supersized on a fast food diet—what about the ancient Romans who lived in Pompeii? Since the city was buried beneath a volcano in 70 AD, we can only understand how they lived by studying the artifacts they left behind. Some of these show that the residents were fans of fast food as well—at least they liked to eat on the run.

In LiveScience.com, Heather Whipps quotes archaeologist Penelope Allison as saying, "I am looking at pots and pans and how houses actually functioned." She didn’t find many sets of dishes, but did find lots of small barbecue grills, "indicating that people were eating-and-running on the go."

If they stayed slim, it might be because they didn't clean up after themselves. A recent study showed that people watching the Super Bowl who saw how much they had already eaten—in this case, leftover chicken-wing bones—ate 27% percent less than people who had no such environmental cues.

The difference between the two groups—those eating at a table where leftover bones accumulated compared with those whose leftovers were removed—was greater for men than for women. Researcher Brian Wansink says, "The results suggest that people restrict their consumption when evidence of food consumed is available to signal how much food they have eaten." He suggests that at parties, we should encourage (or require) fresh plastic glasses for each drink and that the glasses be stacked as they accumulate for each person. This would discourage binge drinking, as well as overeating.

If eating and running has supersized YOU, you need the FREE diet book that’s right here on our website. To read it, click here and scroll down to What I Learned From the Fat Years. Anne Strieber, who used to be a diabetic, devised this diet herself, using scientific principles, and lost 100 pounds by following it—and you can too. Click on unknowncountry.com every day to learn the latest health tips and if you want us to be here tomorrow, and also CHAT and enjoy

Can You Write With Both Hands Simultaneously ?

Ever tried to write or draw something using both the left and right hand at the same time ? It's tough. Though there is a good population of ambidextrous souls in this world who can write with both hands equally well, they still can't write with both hands simultaneously.

But there are always exceptions - Joseph Clark Baldwin could write and draw with both hands and both feet simultaneously (after first removing his shoes). Veena Vadini School in India is teaching students to write with both hands at the same time so that they can take notes in two different languages on two different subjects simultaneously.

And this multitasking human from China [see picture above] can focus on doing 5 things all at once - he wrote 5 different Chinese characters all at once - using 2 brushes in his left hand, another 2 in his right, plus one more held using his mouth.

All I can do is touch type with both hands simultaneously.