There is an elephant on the loo! - Page 30

[woooee]

"Chinese authorities are investigating eggs which bounce after being boiled and may make men sterile...the eggs' hardness could be a natural occurrence, caused by hens consuming large amounts of food enriched with a compound called gossypol, which binds to protein in egg yolks...While gossypol normally exists in the residue of cotton seeds [and is] added to chicken feed as an extra protein source, large doses of the compound will suppress sperm activity as gossypol has been tested to be used in male contraceptive pills,"

[woooee]

Washington, D.C. driver Danny White thought he had a really good idea for a joke. But the joke's on him--to the tune of $20,000, reports local affiliate NBC4.

White's prank started 25 years ago when he got a vanity license plate reading, "NO TAGS." He told NBC4 that he was "Just having fun!" and that "D.C. don't get the joke. They don't get it."

The issue? Each time a car without proper identification is cited for a violation, a DMV employee enters "NO TAGS" into their paperwork. Because White's vanity plate is registered with the District of Columbia's DMV, his name and vehicle appear in the computer's system whenever a "NO TAGS" violation is entered. Notices for the fines are then mailed to White's residence.

[woooee]

From Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland, was not Irish. He was a Frenchman. His real name was Succat, his father’s name was Calpurnius and his mother was a sister of St. Martin, the Bishop of Tours.

St. Patrick (385-461 A.D.) did not see Ireland until he was kidnapped by Irish Raiders! (he was sent to tend sheep as a slave at age 16)

The first celebration of St. Patrick’s Day in the U.S. was a dinner and a parade by The Charitable Irish Society of Boston, Mass., on March 17, 1737.

[rohitorque]

Hey Hey!!! You cant lick your elbow....

Type about:robots and see in mozilla firefox...

[vegaseat]

In 1947, American computer engineer Howard Aiken said that just six electronic digital computers would satisfy the computing needs of the United States.

[vegaseat]

Not for sale yet:
Quantum computers that will harness the power of atoms and molecules to perform memory and processing tasks.

Note:
Current computers work by manipulating bits that exist in one of two states: a 0 or a 1. Quantum computers aren't limited to two states; they encode information as quantum bits, or qubits, which can exist in superposition. Qubits represent atoms, ions, photons or electrons and their respective control devices that are working together to act as computer memory and a processor. They have the potential to be millions of times more powerful than today's most powerful supercomputers.

[woooee]

Spring Fever: Why You Feel Different With The Change In Season

Just as your bare legs are soaking in the sun, our brains are busy processing the bright light as well. The increased sunshine signals the body to produce less melatonin, which plays an important role in sleep.

"There's more daylight, so people have more energy, sleep a little less," Sanford Auerbach, M.D., director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Boston University, told Web MD.

With less melatonin pumping through your veins, you may also feel a lift in your mood and a more revved-up sex drive.

[Lardmeister]

A stay in a simple country vacation cottage during many cloudy or rainy days can lead to "cabin fever". The cabin fever symptoms include restlessness, irritability, paranoia, irrational frustration with everyday objects, forgetfulness, excessive sleeping, distrust of anyone you are with, computer programming, and an urge to go outside even in a strom.

[ZZucker]

The largets hailstone recovered in the USA was found in Aurora, Nebraska on June 22. 2003. It measured 7 inches in diameter. .The hailstone is now at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, where it is preserved in a special chiller.

[HiHe]

60% of US citizens can not locate Iraq or Afghanistan in the map.

[vegaseat]

Amorphophallus titanum (Araceae), also called "cadaverous flower"
has the peculiarity of blooming only during three (3) days every 40 years.
The flower is 2 meters (6.6 feet) high and weighing 75 kilos (165 lbs).

[HiHe]

Tourists visiting Iceland should know that tipping at a restaurant is considered an insult!

[vegaseat]

Twitter will soon reach the 500 million messages per day mark.

[vegaseat]

The year 2011 observed close to 2 zettabytes of digital data passing through exisitng data channels.
A zettabyte is 1 trillion gigabytes.

[vegaseat]

The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1!

I read this, but have to test it:
No piece of square dry paper can be folded in half more than 7 times!

[vegaseat]

95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.

[woooee]

In 1947, American computer engineer Howard Aiken said that just six electronic digital computers would satisfy the computing needs of the United States.

That may come true in our lifetime.

Here's a good one: Did you know Some insects’ eyes have hair?

[DavidKroukamp]

@vegaseat Mythbusters proved the 7 times dry paper folding thing as busted! OIS (Out of Interests Sake)

If you could theoretically fold a 1mm thick piece of paper 100 times it would be thicker than that observable diameter of the universe!!!!

See here for more info: http://therealsasha.wordpress.com/2011/08/

[woooee]

Three of the first five presidents—John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe—died on July 4. Calvin Coolidge, on the other hand, was born on the Fourth, as was Malia Obama.

[Reverend Jim]

If all of the people on Facebook were considered a country, it would be the world's third largest.

[Mike Askew]

There is only one station on the London Underground that does not have any letters from the Word Mackerel in it. I'll give you a few hours to find it....

Took me 15 mins and a bit of C# :)

[sneekula]

At least in the USA July 2012 was the hottest in recorded history.

[woooee]

The direct inspiration for Labor Day occurred in New York City on Tuesday, September 6, 1882, when 10,000 workers left their jobs to parade through Manhattan demanding an eight-hour workday. The organizers called it "Artisans' Day" and encouraged workers in other cities to follow. The practice spread across the country within a few years.

[Ene Uran]

Tobacco kills more Americans than AIDS, drugs, homicides, fires, and auto accidents combined.

[vegaseat]

Athletes can increase their red blood cells by temporarily extracting a unit of blood a few weeks before an event, waiting for their body to naturally recoup the missing red blood cells and then transfusing the backup unit into their bloodstream when they want a boost.

[vegaseat]

The U.S. health care system squanders $750 billion a year — roughly 30 cents of every medical dollar — through unneeded care, byzantine paperwork, fraud and other waste. A good computer system could eliminate much of that.

[Reverend Jim]

A single billing system with a good computer system. And a good portion of the waste (I'd like to know how much) is drained out of the system as profit.

[woooee]

researchers reported Sept. 5 in the journal PLoS ONE that black mustard gives off a specific scent when large cabbage white butterflies (Pieris brassicae), as they are called, lay eggs on it. This odor both repels other pregnant butterflies from laying more eggs on the plant and attracts two species of parasitic wasps, Trichogramma brassicae and Cotesia glomerata. The wasps swoop in and attack the butterfly eggs and the caterpillars that have hatched from them, the researchers said. This defense mechanism prevents a colony of caterpillars from feasting on its leaves. (In return, the wasps parasitize, or live off, these eggs.)

[woooee]

From NYTimes.com

Bradley Birkenfeld, a former banker at UBS, recently completed a 2.5-year prison sentence for conspiring with a wealthy California developer to evade United States income taxes.

But Mr. Birkenfeld, 47, has a lot to show for his time and effort: The Internal Revenue Service acknowledged Tuesday that information he provided was so helpful he would receive a $104 million whistle-blower award for revealing the secrets of the Swiss banking system.

Divulging the schemes that UBS used to encourage American citizens to dodge their taxes, Mr. Birkenfeld led to an investigation that has greatly diminished Switzerland’s status as a secret haven for American tax cheats and allowed the United States Treasury to recover billions in unpaid taxes.

In addition to the $780 million that the Swiss bank paid in 2008 to avoid criminal prosecution, the bank turned over account information regarding 4,700 American clients.

The unprecedented disclosure of Swiss banking information — which caused a fierce political debate in Switzerland before ultimately winning approval from the country’s parliament — set off such a panic among wealthy Americans that more than 14,000 of them joined a tax amnesty program. I.R.S. officials say the amnesty has helped them recover more than $5 billion in unpaid taxes.