We have some interesting facts on this page that are not necessarily about Native American Indian culture.
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The oldest known viable seeds were found in 1954 in a lemming burrow in Canada's frigid Yukon. 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.
An ampersand...&... is the character which means "and." 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.
All around the world there are underwater volcanoes that may produce new islands at any time. 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.
According to various estimates by scientists, every day 35-150 species of life become extinct. 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.
For more than sixty percent of the world's population, rice is the
main food.
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.
Saturn is the only planet in the solar system that is less dense than
water. Any object with the same density as the planet Saturn will actually float on water.
If you practice pogonotomy, then you are shaving off your beard.
The word comes from two Greek words, pogon (beard) and tomos
(cutting).
An extremophile is a life form that lives in conditions that are so
severe that they would kill other kinds of life. There are
extremophile life forms that grow in boiling water, and others that
thrive in caustic acid, or under pressures that would crush other
life forms.
For most flying birds, their feathers weigh more than their bones.
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).
The first person to predict an eclipse of the sun was reputedly Thales
of Miletus, a Greek philosopher, statesman, and scientist. According
to the Greek writer Xenophanes, he predicted an eclipse that took
place in 585 BC.
If something is OK, then it's good, fine, and acceptable. Is OK a
word or an abbreviation? This common expression has been the subject
of much debate, and many explanations of its origins have been
offered.
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 troglobite is a creature that spends its entire life inside an underground cave.
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.
The lowest place on Earth's surface is the shore of the Dead Sea. Bordering Israel and Jordan, the surface of the Dead Sea is 400 m (about 1300 ft) below sea level.
The barn owl's ears are placed asymmetrically, with one ear high up near the owl's forehead and the other lower down, about level with the bird's nostrils. 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.
In the 1500s, houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. 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."