Interesting Trivia
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The burrow, which was buried in silt and sediment, had been frozen since the last ice age.
The arctic tundra lupine seeds (Lupinus arcticus) were found with lemming remains that were at least 10,000 years old.
When they were placed in favorable conditions, several seeds sprouted within 48 hours.One of the plants later bloomed.
Other cases of extremely old seeds that sprouted include a 3400-year-old bean from the tomb of Tutankhamun
and water lily seeds that were found with a canoe that had been buried in a bog near Tokyo for more than 3000 years.
Although it is not usually used in formal text, it has become quite common in commercial writing, and is even part of some corporate names.
The ampersand also has special meanings in various computer programming languages.
The ampersand was invented in 63 BC by a Roman named Tiro as part of his Latin shorthand system.
The symbol is a condensed form of the Greek word et (and). Depending on which font your computer is using to show this text, you might be able to see the crossed "t" at the lower right corner of the "and" symbol.
As of July, 1999, the youngest island in the world is a 21 acre (8.4 hectare) island near Metis Shoal in the Tonga Archipelago.
It erupted from the sea on June 6, 1995.
Most of these vanishing species are(or were) inhabitants of tropical rain forests.
A majority of them are insects or plants, and most remain undiscovered by humans at the time of their extinction.
Although the production of wheat is greater in absolute tonnage, rice directly supports more of the world's people than any other crop.
In China, the most populous country in the world, each person eats about a pound of rice, on average, every day.
Any object with the same density as the planet Saturn will actually float on water.
The word comes from two Greek words,
pogon (beard) and tomos (cutting).
Flying birds have hollow bones that are specially adapted to reduce weight and facilitate flight.
For many birds, this means the weight of their feathers can be double the weight of their entire skeleton and as much as 20% of their total body weight. For example, a bald eagle's skeleton may weigh only about 250 grams (0.55 lbs), while its feathers weigh more than twice as much,
about 630 grams (1.4 lbs).
Woodrow Wilson said that it came from a Choctaw Indian word, and it should be spelled okeh.
A respected Columbia professor said it got started as an abbreviation for the Old Kinderhook club, a political organization that supported James Van Buren in 1840. But in the mid-1960's, another professor proved that a Boston newspaper had OK in print in 1839, before the OK club existed.
The linguist Charles Berlitz thought it might have come from Aux Cayes, a Haitian port famous for its superior rum. Did sailors start saying "Aux Cayes" when things were going well?
Today, the most commonly accepted story is that OK is an abbreviation for "orl korrect," a playful misspelling of "all correct" that may have been generated during the 1830's, when such wordplay was in fashion.
A very similar word is troglodyte. This is a mythological human-like being said to live in caves or holes, and the word is also used for animals that live underground.
Bordering Israel and Jordan, the surface of the Dead Sea is 400 m (about 1300 ft) below sea level.
The lopsided placement of the ears helps these owls use their acute hearing to pinpoint prey.
Barn owls' ears are also surrounded by feathers which can be opened up to catch the faint sounds of small prey or closed down to protect against loud sounds.
It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals lived in the roof.
When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof.
Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."
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