Monday, January 08, 2007

Some "useless" facts


- A person standing under an oak tree is 16 more times liable to be hit by lightning than if he had taken refuge beneath a beech tree. The oak tree has vertical roots which provide a more direct route to ground water.

- Oak trees do not have acorns until they are fifty years old or older.

- Lightning keeps plants alive. The intense heat of lightning forces nitrogen in the air to mix with oxygen, forming nitrogen oxides that are soluble in water and fall to the ground in rain. Plants need nitrates to survive, so without lightning, plants could not live.

- The giant sequoia, which produces millions of seeds, can take 175 to 200 years to flower. No other organism takes this long to mature sexually.

- Pine, spruce, or other evergreen wood should never be used for barbecuing. These woods, when burning or smoking, can add harmful tar and resins to the food. Only hardwoods should be used for smoking and grilling, such as oak, pecan, hickory, maple, cherry, alder, apple, or mesquite, depending on the type of meat being cooked.

- The telegraph plant of Asia has leaves that flutter constantly, even when there is no breeze.

- Orchids are grown from seed so small that it would take thirty thousand to weigh as much as one grain of wheat.

- A single coffee tree yields only one pound of roasted, ground coffee annually.

- The giant puffball, lycoperdon giganteum, produces 7,000,000,000,000 spores, each of which could grow into a puffball a foot in diameter and collectively cover an area of 280,000 square mile, greater than the size of Texas. Fortunately, only one of the spores actually becomes a puffball, and all the others die.

- The primary purpose of growing rice in flooded paddies is to drown the weeds surrounding the young seedlings. Rice can, in fact, be grown in drained areas.

- The bark of a redwood tree is fireproof. Fires that occur in a redwood forest take place inside the trees.

- March 14 is "Save a spider day."

- There is an average of 50,000 spiders per acre in green areas.

- Spiders have transparent blood.

- The tarantula spends most of its life within its burrow, which is an 18-inch vertical hole with an inch-wide opening. When male tarantulas are between the ages of 5 to 7 years, they leave the burrow in search of a female, usually in the early fall. This migration actually signals the end of their life cycle. The males mate with as many females as they can, and then they die around mid-November.

- A spiders web is made of two types of silk, one sticky and the other not. The spider begins the web with the non sticky silk and forms the "spokes". After the frame is constructed and secure, the spider goes back with the sticky silk and completes the web design we are so familiar with, connecting spoke to spoke. They will also add rows connecting the spokes to allow them access for web maintenance.Spend time watching a spider and you will see that they painstakingly avoid the sticky silk and walk on the spokes. Should the spider be startled and walk in the sticky silk it will affix to the spider the same as it would you or any thing else.Spiders recycle their webbing, so a spider that gets stuck in its own web may eat its way out.

- 62 degrees Fahrenheit is the minimum temperature required for a grasshopper to be able to hop.

- You're more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day that in any other weather.

- The silkworm's silk comes out of its mouth as a thread of gooey liquid, so that nice silk blouse you spent a fortune on is really just worm spit.

- According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the best time to spray household insects is 4:00 p.m. Insects are most vulnerable at this time.

- Ants stretch when they wake up. They also appear to yawn in a very human manner before taking up the tasks of the day.

- Ladybugs bleed to protect themselves. When alarmed, they release drops of a reddish or yellowish bitter tasting liquid from their mouths and from the pores at their joints. This repels prospective attackers.

- The beautiful but deadly Australian sea wasp (Chironex fleckeri) is the most venomous jellyfish in the world. Its cardiotoxic venom has caused the deaths of 66 people off the coast of Queensland since 1880, with victims dying within 1-3 minutes if medical aid is not available.

- Tarantulas are poisonous, but the concentration of the venom in those found in North America is low enough that they're usually not a threat to human life.

- Certain fireflies emit a light so penetrating that it can pass through flesh and wood.

- Worms can have up to ten hearts.

- If two flies were left to reproduce without predators or other limitations for one year, the resulting mass of flies would be the size of the Earth.

- Maggots were once used to treat a bone infection called osteomyelitis.

- Butterflies taste with their hind feet.

- Honeybees navigate using the sun as a compass, even when it is hidden behind clouds - they find it via the polarization of ultraviolet light from areas of blue sky.

- A dragonfly's penis is shovel-shaped at the end, to scoop a rival male's sperm out of the female it's impregnating.

- Every year about 98% of atoms in your body are replaced.

- Rain contains vitamin B12.

- Clothes that are dried outside DO smell better because of a process called photolysis. Why?: Sunlight breaks down compounds in the laundry that cause odor, such as perspiration and body oils.
Posted by kev :: 3:55 PM ::