Things you didn't know (and probably never needed to)

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Mike Channin
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I row on...: Model C with PM4

Things you didn't know (and probably never needed to)

Post by Mike Channin »

From the bbc website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4566526.stm


Particularly liked these ones:
If all the Smarties eaten in one year were laid end to end it would equal almost 63,380 miles, more than two-and-a-half times around the Earth's equator.
Sounds like a team challenge...
The = sign was invented by 16th Century Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde, who was fed up with writing "is equal to" in his equations. He chose the two lines because "noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle".
When faced with danger, the octopus can wrap six of its legs around its head to disguise itself as a fallen coconut shell and escape by walking backwards on the other two legs, scientists discovered.
Sounds like some people I've met...

Train passengers in the UK waited a total of 11.5m minutes in 2004 for delayed services.
Is that all?
The name Lego came from two Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well". It also means "I put together" in Latin.
One for me, Thomas and the other pictured nonathletes...
Cyclist Lance Armstrong's heart is almost a third larger than the average man's.
Newborn dolphins and killer whales don't sleep for a month, according to research carried out by University of California.
You have some way to go to top that, DerryLad!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar has sold one copy every minute since its 1969 publication.
Cool book 8)
One in six children think that broccoli is a baby tree.
Any junior spirits' parents want to try this one out?
Each successive monarch faces in a different direction on British coins.
Image
5'11", 50 - older, slower, greyer, fatter (and needs to update the sig times too)
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