Monday, June 27, 2011

Travel Trivia for kids (and grown-ups)

"The World is a book and those who do not travel read only a page."
Saint Augustine (Acient Roman Christian Theologian)


This post is dedcated to all the mums who are planning looooooong car rides across the country or the continent. Following is a list of fun facts that should get your conversation going during your travels. Kids are a lot better company during a car ride if you keep them engaged in conversation I find, so here goes:

- It is impossible for most people to lick their own elbow. (try it!)
- A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
- A shrimp's heart is in its head.
- In a study of 200,000 ostriches over a period of 80 years, no one reported a single case where an ostrich buried its head in the sand, or attempted to do so.
- It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
- The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is believed to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.
- If you sneeze too hard, you could fracture a rib.
- Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.
- Wearing headphones for just an hour could increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
- In every episode of Seinfeld there was a Superman somewhere in the picture.
- In the course of an average lifetime, while sleeping you might eat around 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders, or more.
- Some lipsticks contain fish scales.
- Cat urine glows under a black-light.
- Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
- Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
- There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
- The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing (when using the proper position of the hands on the keyboard; Hunting and pecking doesn't count!).
- A shark is the only known fish that can blink with both eyes.
- The longest one-syllable words in the English language are "scraunched" and "strengthed." Some suggest that "squirreled" could be included, but squirrel is intended to be pronounced as two syllables (squir-rel) according to most dictionaries. "Screeched" and "strengths" are two other long one-syllable words, but they only have 9 letters.
- "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".
- Almonds are a member of the peach family.
- Maine is the only state that has a one-syllable name.
- There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
- Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula"
- A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
- An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
- Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
- In many advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
- The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life."
- A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
- The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
- The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
- Most people fall asleep in seven minutes.
- "Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.



Source: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

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