Fact O' The Day

[Lady4Fiddy]

Fact.... Randy is a Weenis!!!!! 

[Krandall]

fact is...

[Spartan]

Fact.... Randy is a Weenis!!!!! 

Agreed!

[Lady4Fiddy]

fact is...

Well if I could find the damn thing!

Oh snap! Do I get another banning?

[Krandall]

Nematodes are the most numerous animals on Earth."


Of all multicellular animals on the planet, the simple nematode is the most common. Nematodes are essentially very tiny worms, and they have adapted to almost every conceivable ecosystem: thousands are present in any given handful of soil, and they represent the vast majority of life on the ocean floor. Many nematodes are parasitic and are responsible for diseases in humans and animals -- heartworm disease in dogs, for example.

[Krandall]

"Benjamin Franklin got his start writing ballads."


Young Benjamin Franklin worked as an apprentice to his brother James, who had started America's first independent newspaper, the New England Courant. Benjamin wrote for the paper while learning his brother's trade, and some of his writing appeared under the pseudonym Silence Dogood, a fictional widow around whom Franklin constructed an entire persona. The earliest piece of published writing that may be attributable to Franklin, however, is a ballad about Blackbeard called "The Taking of Teach the Pirate" or "The Downfall of Piracy." The teenage Franklin's writing
opportunities were curtailed when his brother discovered his Silence Dogood deception, whereupon Ben left the
apprenticeship and fled to Philadelphia.

[Krandall]

"Thunderstorms can create antimatter."



Fermi's Gamma-ray Burst Monitor is able to identify a phenomenon called "terrestrial gamma-ray flashes" -- bursts of energy that are relatively common on Earth (they're associated with thunderstorms but usually undetectable). These gamma-ray bursts, which expand upward from thunderstorms, indicate interaction between beams of electrons and positrons (the latter being antimatter). According to the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor Team at the University of Alabama, this is the first direct evidence of the production of antimatter by the TGF phenomenon.

[Krandall]

"Young men are more susceptible to turmoil in relationships than young women."



A Wake Forest study that examined 1,000 subjects aged between 18 and 23 found that relationship difficulties were more upsetting to male respondents than to female ones. The converse, however, was also true: young men received more benefit from ongoing positive relationships than their female counterparts. Researchers suggested that this might be due to male
respondents' insularity; they were perhaps more emotionally invested in romantic relationships because they had fewer outlets for emotional support elsewhere in their lives.

[Krandall]

"Some food coloring is derived from beetles."


Carmine (or cochineal) is a bold red coloring that comes from South American beetle-like scale insects. The dye dates back to the Aztecs and is still commonly used in cosmetics and food products, where it is often listed as "carmine", "cochineal extract" or "natural red 4". On January 5th, a years-old FDA ruling went into effect, requiring food and cosmetics containing carmine to declare their inclusion of the additive somewhere on their packaging.

om nom nom.

[Krandall]

"People are more likely to remember their first kisses than their first sexual experiences."


Research scientist Sheril Kirshenbaum, author of The Science of Kissing, writes that kissing's influence on brain chemistry is so significant that relevant kisses remain most people's most outstanding memories. Psychologist John Bohannon, she adds, surveyed 500 respondents to determine their most significant life experiences, and nothing - not even the subjects' loss of virginity - was as memorable as a first kiss.

[Krandall]

"The Super Bowl indirectly costs the U.S. workforce hundreds of millions of dollars."


Workforce analyst Kronos Incorporated investigated the claim that the Monday following the Super Bowl is one of the most frequently called-off days of the year. A 2008 survey indicated that 1.5 million employed Americans would call in sick the day after the game, costing employers hundreds of millions in lost productivity (and previous surveys indicated that more people actually call off than admit on planning to do so). The results aren't particularly surprising -- 20% of people admit to calling in sick even if they actually aren't, and Mondays and Fridays are the most popular days to do so.

[Krandall]

"Pepsi's first ad jingle became a hit record."


Pepsi was responsible for the first nationally-broadcast advertising jingle, "Nickel Nickel," in 1940. This came after a tough decade for the soft-drink company, which went bankrupt in 1931 and changed ownership several times afterward, but still sold a 12-ounce, five-cent bottle -- a larger size for the price than its competitors. The jingle highlights this point ("Pepsi-Cola hits the spot/Twelve full ounces, that's a lot..."), went on to become a hit record, and was eventually translated into 55 languages.

[Krandall]

"Dozens of different spellings existed for Shakespeare's name."


Shakespeare's name was spelled in such a wide variety of ways that some even make the case for two different historical figures living in the same era who went by the moniker. Though experts typically frown on this claim, it is true that the author's surname was spelled virtually every way one could think to spell it, from the reasonable (Shackspere, Shexspere) to the less-reasonable (Shaksper, Shaxberd).

[Krandall]

"People who grew up watching black-and-white TVs are more likely to have monochrome dreams."
Most young people (and most people in general) dream in color. But some, most notably those old enough to have grown up watching black-and-white TVs, sometimes dream in monochrome. During the height of black-and-white TV's popularity, most people seem to have dreamed in black and white, suggesting a significant link between media exposure and unconscious thought. Surveyed respondents who grew up with black-and-white TV had black-and-white dreams roughly 25% of the time, compared to only 5% of such dreams among respondents under the age of 25.

[Peelz]

I dream in binary