Will you teach me something new?

How annoying that my mind has gone blank because this is a brilliant question. Watch this space, I will be back as soon as I think of something but GQ…..

I recently found out that “tune wedgy” is a slang term for an earworm.

In many countries (particularly asian) speech and language disorders (stuttering, hearing impairment, articulation errors) are considered an example of a person not trying hard enough instead of a disability like any other.

They are working on a blood testing machine for diabetic patients so that they no longer have to prick themselves. It works with infra-red light technology.

leopards can carry twice their body weight up into a tree. d tosh.

Trousers can be traced to ancient Scythians, Persians, Japanese, and Hindus. Until the end of the 18th century, Europeans wore breeches, knickerbockers, and pantaloons (by 1820, trousers as we know them today).

Google translates billions of HTML web pages into a display format for WAP and i-mode phones and wireless handheld devices, and has made it possible to enter a search using only one phone pad keystroke per letter, instead of multiple keystrokes.

@bb9335 Hey, I can do at least that.

Tarahumara Indians in Mexico’s Sierra Madre regularly engage in daylong drinking binges as part of their bastardized Christian/indigenous religion and they regularly run 100 mile or daylong races for fun while wearing sandals cut from old tire treads.

Like indigenous Kenyans, they as a group hunt animals by chasing them until the animal drops from exhaustion.

@JLeslie I recently learned that there were some Native American plantation owners during the slavery years, in America. I was surprised to say the least. The source of this information was a radio series on BBC Radio 4 called The History of the World in a Hundred Objects presented by the director of the British Museum, Neil McGregor.

Male bedbugs get the females pregnant through “traumatic insemination.” They use their sexual organ to stab the female in the abdomen and inject sperm that finds its way to her eggs. They also inseminate other males, so that their sperm replaces the original male’s sperm.

The white iPhone is delayed until Spring. Oh noes!

It’s ugly anyway.

I recently saw in a newsletter I receive for a waterfowl rescue group the coolest thing ever!

Prosthetic beaks, feet, legs, for badly wounded ducks and geese.

They can form lower beaks, uppers beaks & jaws so a badly broken beak or jaw can be functional again instead of a death sentence.

A man had invented a prosthetic foot for a one footed gosling. It was so precious! haha

I got a big kick out seeing this twist on technology. :-)

Aluminum and cast iron must be heated before you weld it.You must excite the metal first.How you do that is a private matter XD

Write Your Principal is an amazing site. Maybe not life altering, but…

Actually, I take that back. Given the right circumstance and it is life altering.

Marie-Antoinette’s husband, Louis-Auguste didn’t really have in interest in sleeping with her (he had more of an interest in lock and key making and hunting). Her mother wrote her letters telling her to “inspire passion” in her husband. A lot of this is what caused her excessive gambling and partying.

Watching Coast on the BBC yesterday, i learned of the enslavement of white people for the first time in my life.
For example, the whole population of Baltimore (UK) was being taken away by Algerian pirates in 1631.
“On 20 June 1631, in an event known as the Sack of Baltimore, the village of Baltimore in County Cork, Ireland was attacked by Algerian pirates from the North African Barbary Coast. The pirates killed two villagers and captured almost the whole population of over 100 people, who were put in irons and taken to a life of slavery in North Africa.” Wiki

You want to know a great way to learn neat things? Watch a TED talk. They’ve got a huge variety of subjects, and I haven’t found one yet that I haven’t found interesting.

For example,
Are mushrooms the new plastic?

In some parts of the world, nodding your head up and down means “no” and side to side means “yes.”

The Myth that George Washington Died of Syphilis

The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a person only tells them with all his might.—Mark Twain

Of all the myths about George Washington, perhaps none other is so grounded in ignorance. Washington died on 14 December 1799, at the age of 67. Hardly any other death in eighteenth-century America was better chronicled. He was attended by three doctors, plantation workers, family members, and slaves. At the time, Washington’s personal secretary left two separate accounts of his last illness and death; the doctors each left accounts as well; and later, Washington’s adopted stepgrandson, George Washington Parke Custis gave his recollections of Washington’s death. All were widely publicized.

Ted Mosby is a jerk.

Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable
Trivial but interesting, because it’s new to me:~)

Cotton can be grown in shades other than a natural white, including reds, greens and brown.

@BoBo1946 Also, George Washington did not have wooden teeth.

On average, a woman’s heart beats faster than a man’s heart.

@Pied_Pfeffer the phrase fair to middling came from the cotton industry, originally meaning great to ok. Fair was the higher quality cotton, middling towards the middle.

@Pied_Pfeffer yes, he had teeth made from Ivory…. Also, there is no proof about him cutting down the cherry tree.

On his wedding night, Napolean was bitten on the penis by Josephine’s dog, who thought the Emperor was attacking his mistress!! Down boy….. down :¬(

Leonardo Da Vinci was leftanded and his was writing in mirror.
Links here and here

Please take the time to read some these…it will blow you away.

http://momel8.blogspot.com/2006/04/you-dont-need-to-know-these-things-but.html

@BoBo1946 Damn it, you just blew my source!!! I was trying ever so hard to appear clever as well…...shit bugger fart!! :¬(

LMAO…............... oh me! That really hit my funny bone!

Like these…just a few!

. 1. The penis has approximately 70 fewer nerve-endings than the clitoris.

2. Anne Boleyn, one of Henry VIII’s wives, had three breasts.

3. In Tibet, virgins are considered worthless.

4. During coitus, most men ejaculate in less than five minutes.

5. Farmers in Java make love in the fields at night to stimulate the growth of their rice crops.

6. Only 5 per cent of British men are circumcised, compared to 20 per cent in Holland, 50 per cent in Germany, and 90 per cent in America.

7. “Penis” is Latin for tail.

8. Sexual arousal can greatly relieve hay-fever.

9. Next to the genitals, the next hottest part of your body during sex is your thumbs.

10. Wealthy people enjoy sex less than poor people do.

11. Humans are the only animals who stimulate the female breasts during sex.

12. Sarah Bernhardt had more than a 1000 lovers; whereas Casanova had only 155.

13. Female porcupines sometimes engage in homosexual activities.

14. Soaking your testicles in iced water can increase sperm production.

15. Adolf Hitler frequently ejaculated during his speeches.

I know this is a meta quip, but once a question at Fluther is older than 3 months, the date that it was posted is displayed.

@BoBo1946 To be fair I already knew the “fuhrer was coming”, if you get my drift! still smarting :¬(

loll I’m sorry…did not mean to steal your thunder! hey, there are a bunch more on that list!

Yeah, did you see the one about placing your testicles in ice cold water? Apparently it aids sperm production! Ahh but what they don’t tell you is, it makes you talk like Michael Jackson!!! Hee eeh shamone XD

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

Chewing gum while peeling onions will reduce your tears.

The length of your arm from wrist to elbow is the same as the length of your foot.

Recent examination of skeletal remains exonerates Columbus’ crew for bringing back syphilis from the new world. These skeletal remains have leasions that indicate death from syphilis but date to a couple of hundered years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

And… from the bizzar knowledge department…

The appendix of a koala bear is over 3 feet long.

Here’s one nobody knows! Last night at agility my dingo, on her first try, absolutely tore through the barrel with the cloth tunnel/chute on the end! I was so proud. Who ever knew a dingo could be so easy to train. (She just walked in with her dead basketball in her mouth, it is one of her favorite toys, that and a lawn tractor tire.)

@BoBo1946

So Hitler was troubled by speechus interuptus?

Wow…he did get off on his power trip! hahaha

[mod says] This is our Question of the Day!

@BoBo1946 : is sex-obsessed before his hip surgery…what’s with that, eh? Is there a medical correlation?

@JilltheTooth
New hip = improved thrust. lolololol

@Coloma : Think you…er…nailed it there!

Pill bugs aren’t bugs. They’re actually crustaceans… “land shrimp”
http://www.kwantlenpark.ca/animals/pillbugX2.jpg

Some people actually care about a question of the day

In July, 1836, some boys were searching for rabbits’ burrows in the rocky formation, near Edinburgh, known as Arthur’s Seat. In the side of a cliff, they came upon some thin sheets of slate, which they pulled out to find a little cave containing 17 tiny coffins three or four inches long. In the coffins were miniature wooden figures. They were dressed differently both in style and material. There were two tiers of eight coffins each, and a third tier begun, with one coffin.

The coffins had been deposited singly, in the little cave, and at intervals of many years. In the first tier, the coffins were quite decayed, and the wrappings had moldered away. In the second tier, the effects of age had not advanced so far. And the top coffin was quite recent-looking.

From: Proceedings of the Society of Antiquarians of Scotland 3–12-460

@flutherother: very cool, indeed!

@JilltheTooth Three of the coffins can be seen in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

The average office desk has 400 times more bacteria than a toilet.

you’re welcome

うち に かえります is how you say ”[I’m] going home” in Japanese.

Blue whales can have penises that are 8 feet long.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Largest-Penis-in-the-World-43756.shtml

The word ‘byte’ is a contraction of ‘by eight.’

Catfish can grow to an adult human length in less than a decade if they have steady food and warm water. The more food, the bigger they keep growing. Ick.

Dogs toe pads smell like buttered popcorn. Next time you’re rubbing Rover’s tummy, gives his toes a smell.

@Kardamom
I think they smell like Fritos.

Yes! That is true, they do!

@Kardamom – That is so true and when they are starting to get sick the smell completely changes. If a dog is acting not quite right, I always smell their pads.

@JilltheTooth Loll… “there is snow on the roof, but still a lot of fire in the chimney!”

@BoBo1946 : Oh, you dog, you! ;-)

Loll… :)-

The Platypus is a mammal but it has no nipples. Milk is secreted from pores in the skin and runs down its belly hairs. Its babies lick the milk off the hairs or puddles on the skin.

With peaches, of the two ovules, usually one becomes fertilized and develops into a seed (enclosed in the stone) so often one half of the fruit is slightly larger than the other.

142 857 is the only cyclic number.

@Aesthetic_Mess what does cyclic number mean?

A cyclic number is an integer in which cyclic permutations of the digits are successive multiples of the number:
142 857×1 = 142 857
142 857×2 = 285 714
142 857×3 = 428 571
142 857×4 = 571 428
142 857×5 = 714 285
142 857×6 = 857 142

142 857 is the only cyclic number (in decimal) if leading zeros are not permitted… Otherwise, there are more than one cyclic number and the next one is 0588235294117647.

I get random facts on my iGoogle homepage. XD

If you play Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” backward, the lyrics:
“If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now
It’s just a spring clean for the May queen
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run…
There’s still time to change the road you’re on”

become:
“Oh here’s to my sweet Satan, the one whose little path would make me sad. Whose power is Satan? He’ll give those with him 666; there was a little tool shed where he made us suffer, sad Satan.”

Listen to it here: http://jeffmilner.com/backmasking.htm

The elephant is the only animal with 4 knees.

^^ Milo here; Except for me.

The invention of the stirrup, attributed to the Chinese but possibly dreamed up by the Assyrians earlier, changed the skills, strength and stamina of the riders.

Some posit that it was an important an invention as the wheel or printing press.

The catcher on a major league baseball team is the keystone in the arch. News to me. I assumed, erroneously, that the catcher has a relatively easy job, except for his knees.

http://www.fluther.com/102037/how-does-a-major-league-baseball-catcher-keep-his-knees-from/

There is a town in Arizona named “Bagdad”. That’s right, you can visit Bagdad, Arizona.

Onions have no flavor, only a smell.

@papayalily There is a great film that you need to see. A classic.

I learned today that the terminal velocity of an Acorn can be quite painful when flung into ones car while driving at 60 mph. lol

The hardness of writing pencils is related to the proportion of clay used as a binder in the lead (1 softest to 4 hardest); (artists’ pencils are 8B softest to F hardest) and drafting pencils HB softest to 10H hardest).

Teresa of Ávila died in the night of the 4th to the 15th of October, 1582.

Google has a world-class staff of more than 2,668 employees known as Googlers. The company headquarters is called the Googleplex.

Facts complementary of my iGoogle homepage XD

An infinite loop, in computer programming, is usually considered a programming mistake, an instruction to repeat something over and over, without specifying how and when it should ever end.
Apple Computer’s main office address is “1 Infinite Loop.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_1_Infinite_Loop.JPG

Wow! @JLeslie Who knew it would turn out this big!

I have also learned that one can condition an entire flock of wild turkeys to flee the feed pan in a corral by simply repeating the same aggressive phrase over and over again….’ Turks OUT!’

Some need a couple o’ rocks thrown at them to zing against the fence and drive the message home. lol

@Coloma: So, what’s the trick for scaring the white-tailed deer? They are almost escorting my car up the drive.

@Coloma I find that a well place .243 slug will not only scare most of the flock away, it also has a side effect of leaving behind a nice tom suitable for making some excellent tamales.

@YoBob

Meh..I’m a lover not a killer.
@gailcalled Yep, I know what you mean..trick is to keep a 100 lbs. of cracked corn in your garage as a diversion. lol

@Coloma
As for me, I’m a lover and an omnivore who believes if you are going to eat meat you should also be willing to take an active role in its harvest.

@YoBob

That could also apply to our fruit, veggies and water and clothing, gotta let industry step in somewhere. I eat very little meat as it is, so I am just fine with letting someone else do the killing for me.

I did harvest my own apples a few weeks ago, good enough.;-)

@Coloma

I’m not saying that everyone should be required to directly harvest all of their food and make all of their own clothing, I’m saying that just because an animal product is presented on a nice Styrofoam tray sealed in plastic wrap does not make it any more or less morally acceptable than taking an active role in the critter’s demise.=

Yum, fresh apples sound delicious!

@YoBob

Right, nothing to disagree with there from one who keeps food animals as pets.

I’ll teach you how to Dougie.

Big Bone Lick State Park 3380 Beaver Road Union, KY 41091–9627

@Bobo1946
I visited Shiti harbor on Taiwan last year.

The recent study of the physics of falling cats (Feline pesematology) discovered that a cat who falls between 5 and 9 stories has more injuries than those that fall either less than five or more than 9. (I heard this on NPR today.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/85/Falling-Cats

“The famous (or infamous) study was conducted by two scientists at
the Animal Medical Center in Manhattan who examined the survival rates of
some 115 previously airborne cats as a function of the number of stories
from which they fell.The cats fell from New York apartments at heights of
2 to 32 stories onto concrete pavement.”

@Coloma wow…you have done a lot of traveling. That is cool. Someday, I’m going to do that…well, I’ve traveled a lot in the USA and Caribbean, but not across the waters!

@Coloma… “an entire flock of wild turkeys to flee the feed pan in a corral?” I doubt very much anyone in the USA has a flock of wild turkeys. Wild turkeys are smart and notoriously difficult to catch, and unlike their domestic counterparts, they can fly, so you wouldn’t have them in a corral unless it’s carefully roofed over. Most hunters have a difficult time even shooting them as they may be actively hiding in a tree 40 feet in the air, let alone catching them and putting them in a corral. Perhaps you’re thinking of a breed such as the “Broad Breasted Bronze” that has markings similar to wild turkeys?

@GeorgeGee

Nope, I live in the midst of hundreds of wild turkeys, they jump into my corral to eat my geese feed. They are very tame around here, all flocking right now and they have no fear.

@Coloma: Many of them are now hanging around my neighborhood. Often in the mornings they saunter across the field in front of my house. Milo eyes them balefully from a safe distance.

@GeorgeGee The wild turkey is quite abundant here in Texas. It is true that they can fly and they do roost in trees. However, it is illegal to shoot them from their roosts. Generally they spend most of the daylight hours on the ground, and they tend to roam in groups.

And yes, they do make tasty tamales… ;)

When Napoleon was about to get leave to visit Josephine, he sent her a telegram: ” J’arrive. Ne te lave pas.”

@gailcalled Lave it! Lave it!

@janbb: No antibacterial soaps or vinegar douches for them.

@GeorgeGee

Wild turkeys are smart enough to get very tame if food is in the offing. They were introduced here in San Diego a couple of decades ago, and I have seen them hanging out in picnic grounds in parks where no hunting is allowed. I also think they may be a bit hungrier here since both fires and sudden oak death have so badly slammed the acorn supply.

This’ll change the way you open a Banana!

@Mat74UK – That was truly educational, thank you!!!

@Mat74UK: ^^ My life will be forever changed, for the better I guess.

@Mat74UK So very educational. I’m not a banana fan, but I’m going out to buy some just so I can open one and show the family my new found smarts. :D))))

Crossword puzzles are designed symmetrically. This knowledge isn’t particularly useful unless you enjoy word fill crossword puzzles, as I do. (No clues, just words sorted by length.) Then, it comes in very handy!

@augustlan What do the dots mean (I’m trying the small mystery out for size…)?

@papayalily I’ve never done a ‘mystery’ one before, but in looking at the one you’re doing, it appears that there are 4 mystery words, each 8 letters long, that will eventually be revealed in those spots. Interesting!

@augustlan So they aren’t words that are listed? Interesting…

@papayalily Right. The last listed words are all 7 letters long. It’s like a secret decoder puzzle!

@augustlan Noooo! Now you’ve said the magic James Bond 007 words and I HAVE to figure it out because then I can be a spy…

Then you’ll have a License to Fill. :p

@augustlan Or I could just Write Another Day :p

About 8 billion years ago our universe experienced a cosmic jerk.

^^A precursor to Rush Limbaugh?

Giant balls of gas, then and now.

Yes, but exposed to a whole new ball game.

@papayalily Did you solve the puzzle? Should I fear your James Bond-ness, now?

@augustlan Yup. And then I had a martini, shaken not stirred.

The TV series Circus Boy, was showing environmental awareness about 6 years before Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published in 1962.

In the episode I linked, a veterinarian discovers that the circus animals are getting sick, because arsenic being used in an upriver silver-processing plant is being dumped into the water.

@Brian1946 . . . lurve for the circus boy. i watched me quite a few episodes while i was on third shift this year.