Interesting Facts About Armadillos

Interesting Facts About Armadillos

1. The name “Armadillo” comes from the Spanish language and means “little armored one”. It refers to the bony plates that cover the back, head, legs and tail of most of these remarkable looking creatures. 

2. Wild armadillos live in the grasslands, forests, and deserts of North and South America. One species, the nine-banded armadillo, has extended its range as far north as the United States. They can be found in several states, including Texas, Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Most other species live in South America, with some also in Central America and Mexico.

3. The smallest armadillo, the pink fairy armadillo, is only six inches long. Meanwhile, the giant armadillo can be five feet long and weigh up to 100 pounds! The nine-branded variety that is found in the United States can grow up to two feet long and weigh up to 22 pounds.

4. While the animal's armor provides some protection, only the small three-banded armadillo can roll into a complete ball. Other species escape predators like wild cats and birds of prey by racing into thorny bushes or by burrowing into the ground with their sharp claws. In fact, most armadillos sleep in the warmth of an underground burrow.

5. You could say that armadillos are crunchy on the outside but soft on the inside.

6. There are over 20 varieties of armadillos and most of them live in Latin America. The nine-banded armadillo is a species that has moved northwards into the United States.

7. Armadillos have poor eyesight. They utilize their sense of smell to hunt. Their strong legs und big front claws are used for digging and their long and sticky tongue is used for extracting e.g. termites from their tunnels.

8. Amongst other things, armadillos even eat fire ants, so it comes as no surprise that they are closely related to ant eaters and sloths.

9. Prior to around 1850 the nine-banded armadillo was not found north of the Rio Grande  river.

10. They vary in size and color. The giant armadillo can get over one meter long!

11. Not all armadillos are able to close themselves in their shells. Only three banded armadillos can protect themselves by rolling up like hedgehogs.

12. The female armadillo is the only mammal that can give birth to four identical babies with one egg.

13. Armadillos are the only animals that can get leprosy like humans.

14. Armadillos can walk underwater! They don’t need to breath very often as have a very low need for oxygen. However, by gulping air into their digestive tract armadillos are able to stay afloat as they paddle. Armadillos can also go underwater and walk along a stream bottom for up to six minutes.

15. The Nine-banded Armadillo is about the size of a cat. It is usually 24 to 31 inches in length.

16. The Nine-banded Armadillo is the only North American mammal armored with heavy, bony plates. The scaly-looking plates cover the animal’s head, body, and tail. 

17. Four young are born in a burrow in March. The four young, which are always of the same sex, are identical quadruplets that develop from a single egg and share a single placenta while in the womb. Armadillos are the only mammals in which multiple young develop from a single egg with regularity.

18. The Nine-banded Armadillo is a distant cousin of the sloth and the anteater and is also the state small mammal of Texas.

19. The Nine-banded Armadillo primarily eats animal matter. This consists of ants, small reptiles, amphibians, birds and dead animals. It will also eat fruits and berries. 

20. Like most insect eating mammals, armadillos have a very long, sticky tongue to slurp up bugs as quickly as possible. They also are equipped with strong claws to tear open ant nests. Their cousins, the anteaters, have very similar tongues and claws.

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Interesting Facts About Typewriters

Interesting Facts About Typewriters

One of the first typewriters to allow typists to see work in progress was invented in 1855 by Giuseppe Ravizza.  In 1861 a Brazilian priest made a typewriter from wood and knives and was awarded a gold medal for his invention by the Brazilian emperor.  Controversially, many people consider Father de Azevedo to be the real inventor of the typewriter.  Peter Mitterhofer's creation, in 1864, was the first of five designs by the Austrian, the last in 1868.  The first typewriter to be sold commercially was in 1870 by the Reverend Malling Hansen of Denmark whose design, the Hansen Writing Ball was a success throughout Europe for several decades and being used in London as late as 1909.  Until the late 1860s most typewriters were slower than handwriting.  The first of these faster typewriters, by Scholes, Soule and Glidden, in 1867, was sold for $12,000 to Densmore and Yost who later licensed the typewriter design to emington, whose typewriter was produced in New York in 1873.  Underwood also famous for creating typewriters and famous too for early steroviews.

"A typewriter is a mechanical, electromechanical, or electronic device with a set of 'keys' that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a document, usually paper."  Wikipedia.org 'Typewriter' was also the name by which early users of typewriters were known until confusion led to the alternative term, typist.  A typewriter has a keyboard with keys that form character impressions on paper, but actual methods by which typewriter keyboards create these impressions has varied dramatically since the typewriter was invented in the early 1800s. Some typewriters had circular keyboards; other had two keyboards, one for lower case characters, the other for capital characters or upper case.  Most early typewriters operated with ink ribbons forcing characters on paper behind the ribbon, sometimes carbon paper was placed between multiple sheets of paper, creating multiple copies behind the first blank page on which colour-free impressions were formed.

1. Typists using early typewriters often had to retype documents from scratch to correct mistakes and poor copies caused from damaged or dry typewriter ribbons.

2. It wasn't until the middle 1900s that substances like Tippex and Snowpake arrived to ease the burden on early typists and meant that mistakes could be obliterated by white paint and the original document returned to the typewriter for corrections to be made over the paint.

3. No matter how skilled the typist, however, typewritten documents were often flawed, due to typist error, or problems from typewriter or typewriter ribbon.

4. Most early typewriters had a bell which would sound to warn typists that they were nearing the edge of the paper and would have to begin a new line or manually hyphenate any part-typed words.  Long levers at the side of the typewriter were used to perform a carriage return which moved the paper into position for a new line of typing to commence.

5. Early typewriter ribbons came in different colours, all black, all blue, for example, or red and black horizontally across the ribbon so typists could change between black and red type to highlight various parts of their work.

6. The QWERTY system was designed in 1874 for Sholes and Glidden typewriters.  The layout was the result of copious testing and provided the best possible layout for busy fingers moving quickly across a keyboard.  This universal feature of the typewriter keyboard was also the basis on which all typists and students of the art of typewriting were trained.

7. Some older typewriters do not possess separate keys for the numerals 1 and zero so typists became adept at using uppercase O for zero and the lowercase letter l for the number one.

8. Older typewriters lacked choice of fonts types and sizes such as computer users know today and Courier was the prevailing option.

9. In the Eastern Bloc typewriters were controlled by the secret police and their owners' names kept on files.  In Russia the KGB was particularly guarded against anyone using a typewriter, those who did were often investigated as dissidents and political authors.

10. Like fingerprints, every typewriter had its own individual pattern of type and required a specialist forensic branch of police charged with locating actual typewriters used in blackmail and other criminal acts.

11. As of 2005 Barbara Blackburn was the world's fastest typist (Guinness Book of Records) and using the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard she can type 150 words a minute for 50 minutes and 170 words a minute over shorter periods.  She has a recorded speed of  212 words per minute, despite the fact she actually failed her typewriting exams at school.

Image Source   :http://www.antiquetypewriters.com/

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67 Interesting Facts

67 Interesting Facts 

1. Your body is creating and killing 15 million red blood cells per second!

2. The Earth weighs around 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons (5,940 billion billion metric tons)!

3. A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night!

4. A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.!

5. A lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than those found at the sun's surface!

6. There are more than 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building!

7. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds

8. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

9. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.

10. A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes

11. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour

12. Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.

13. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.

14. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.

15. The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

16. Polar bears are left handed.

17. The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.

18. The flea can jump 350 times its body length.

19. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.

20. A cockroach will live nine days without it's head, before it starves to death.

21. The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.

22. Some lions mate over 50 times a day.

23. Butterflies taste with their feet.

24. An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.

25. Starfish don't have brains.

26. Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.

27. Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.

28. The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.

29. No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.

30. Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.

31. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.

32. Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.

33. The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.

34. The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.

35. A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.

36. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class.

37. Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

38. Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.

39. The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.

40. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.

41. The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.

42. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.

43. Marilyn Monroe had six toes. (rumor)

44. All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen wearing them in public.

45. Walt Disney was afraid of mice.

46. Pearls melt in vinegar.

47. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.

48. The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.

49. It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.

50. A duck's quack doesn't echo and no one knows why. (Or does it?)

51. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.

52. Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word 'criminal.' The second was William Jefferson Clinton.

53. Turtles can breathe through their butts.

54. Butterflies taste with their feet.

55. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world's nuclear weapons combined.

56. On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.

57. On average people fear spiders more than they do death.

58. Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.

59. Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.

60. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

61. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

62. It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow. (or can you? )

63. The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.

64. A snail can sleep for three years.

65. No word in the English language rhymes with 'MONTH.'

66. Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.

67. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. SCARY!!!

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Interesting Manatee Facts (Sea Cow)

Interesting Manatee Facts (Sea Cow)

1. Manatees belong to the Order Sirenia, which includes manatees and dugongs (a marine mammal similar to the manatee that lives in the South Pacific).

2. There are four manatee species alive today. One species that did not survive, the Stellar’s Sea Cow, was hunted to extinction in the 18th century.

3. The West Indian manatee’s scientific name is Trichechus manatus.

4. Adult manatees are 8 to 15 feet long and can weigh 450 to 2,500 pounds. They can live longer than 50 years.

5. The skin of a manatee is very thick and wrinkled and medium gray or brown. It is often covered by algae or encrusted with barnacles. The skin on calves is usually darker than adult skin.

6. Their bodies are cigar-shaped with a paddle-like tail and two flippers, which are used for locomotion and holding food.

7. Manatees breath air and have hair like all other mammals. They look like a relative of dolphins and whales but manatees are closer related to elephants.

8. When the Spanish Explorers reached Florida they thought the Manatees were mermaids. 

9. Manatees like warm, shallow water with lots of plants to eat.

10. Manatees are slow swimmers. 

11. Calves spend two years with their mothers learning the migration routes. 

12. It takes 13 months for a manatee to be born.

13. A manatee cannot turn its head sideways, it must turn its whole body.

14. Manatee lungs are 2/3 the length of its body.  

15. Manatee can hold their breath for up to 24 minutes. 

16. Manatees only breath through their nostrils. 

17. The intestine of an adult manatee can measure 130 feet long. 

18. Manatee teeth are constantly being replaced as they wear down and fall out. 

19. Manatees chew two times per second. 

20. Manatees only have molars to grind their food.

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Interesting Soccer Facts

Interesting Soccer Facts 

You can find many interesting soccer facts if you take a look at the game over the years.  Here are a few things you may not know about soccer:

1. Soccer players run an average of six miles during every game.

2. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world.

3. Over one billion fans watch World Cup Soccer on television.

4. Every year except for two (1930  and 1950) European Teams have reached every World Cup final.

5. India withdrew from the World  Cup in 1950 because they weren’t allowed to play barefoot.

6. Soccer facts reveal that only the United States and Canada actually call soccer “soccer.”

7. Over 40 million watched on television as the U.S. Women’s Team won the World Cup in 1999.

8. Also in 1999, Over 35,000 fans competed in the largest soccer tournament ever in Bangkok.

9. There are 1000 activity changes in every soccer match.

10. The first soccer games may have originated in China.

11. The first black soccer player was Arthur Wharton in the 1800s.

12. Historical Soccer facts indicate The World's First Football Club was the English Sheffield Football Club,   founded in 1857 by Colonel Nathaniel Cresswick and Major William Priest, two British Army officers.

13. Pele was the first to call soccer “the beautiful game.”

14. The Soccer World Cup is played every four years.

15. The fewest number of fans to watch a World Cup soccer game was the 300 in Uruguay in 1930.

16. The most soccer fans to watch  a World Cup soccer games were 119,850 in Brazil in 1950.

17. The very first game of basketball was played with a soccer ball.

18. The most World Cups have been won by Brazil--5.

19. U.S. teams participated in the 1904 olympics in St. Louis.

20. The U.S. Women’s team was inaugurated in 1985.

21. A player shall be penalized for deliberately handling, carrying, striking or propelling the ball with a hand or arm.
Exception: Goalkeeper within his/her penalty area 

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Interesting Echidna Facts

Interesting Echidna Facts

What mammal has spines like a hedgehog, a snout like an anteater, and lays leathery eggs like a reptile? The echidna or spiny anteater. Even though it looks like a cross between an anteater and a hedgehog, the echidna isn’t closely related to to either of these animals. Actually, its closest relative is the duck-billed platypus.
The echidna and platypus are the only remaining members of a primitive group of mammals called monotremes. You were probably taught that mammals do not lay eggs because their babies are born alive.  While this is true for most mammals, monotremes are a little different.  Monotremes are the only mammals that lay eggs.

1. The scientific name for an echidna is Tachyglossus aculeatus (which means spiny fast-tongue or spiny anteater).

2. There are two main types of echidna: the short-beaked and the long-beaked.

3. Echidnas are warm-blooded mammals.

4. Echidnas have been known to live for up to fifty years.

5. Each of the echidna’s spines is formed from a single hair.

6. An echidna can lift objects twice its weight.

7. Echidnas drink water and can swim.

8. Echidnas like to bask in the sun like reptiles. They also lay eggs like reptiles. The eggs incubate for 10 days inside the mother’s pouch before hatching.

9. A baby echidna is called a puggle. Puggles are born blind and hairless.

10. Puggles drink milk. Echidna milk is pink because of the high iron content.

11. Ancestors of echidnas roamed the planet with dinosaurs. Dinosaurs died out but monotremes are still alive.

12. Echidnas are active day and night and are mainly solitary animals.

13. Echidnas are strong diggers and they have long, sharp claws. Short-beaked echidnas eat ants and termites. Long-beaked echidnas eat worms and insect larvae.

14. Echidnas have a small mouth and toothless jaw. They have a long, sticky tongue which sticks out from its snout.

15. An anteater may eat up to 30,000 ants in one day

16. Long sticky tongue can be 24 inches in length

17. The tongue can be flicked in and out of the mouth 150-160 times a minute.

18. They don’t have any teeth!

19. They are almost blind, but have an excellent sense of smell - as much as 40 times better than a human.

20. They have the lowest body temperature of any terrestrial mammal, reaching as low as 89.6 degrees (F).  Humans are 98.6.

21. Anteaters sleep for as much as 16 hours a day out in the open with their tail wrapped around them like a blanket

22. Sometimes called an “ant bear” (oso hormiguero in Spanish)

23. They never completely destroy an anthill or termite mound. They leave part of the mound intact so that the ants can rebuild and they can feed there again in the future.

24. Anteaters are well adapted for eating their favorite meal - ANTS.

25. The echidna has hair, but no spines, on its belly, legs and face. However, when it rolls up the spines on its back and sides cover the animal completely.

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Interesting Cat Facts

Interesting  Cat Facts

1. FELIS CATUS - that’s the scientific name for a cat that lives in our houses.

2. Most pet cats weigh between 2.5 - 7 kilograms (if your cat is too heavy it might need to go on a diet) .

3. A cat uses its whiskers to measure how wide an opening is - that way they can work out if they can fit into spaces .

4. Chocolate can make your cat very sick .

5. Cats use their tail to keep their balance .

6. A cat’s body temperature is normally around 37.9º Celsius when they are healthy .

7. Cats use body language to tell you how they are feeling ..

8. Cats have 32 muscles in each ear so they can listen in all directions .

9. Cats have protractible claws - this means their claws can come in and out of their toe pads .

10. SNIFF SNIFF - Cats have a very strong sense of smell (about 14 times stronger than a human) .

11. YAWN! Cats sleep for around 14 hours each day .

12. A cat’s tongue has special hooks on it (that’s why they feel very rough if you ever touch your cat’s tongue). The hooks help them to clean their fur.

13. Black cats don’t really bring bad luck and they are kind of cool.

14. Cats sweat through their nose and their paws.

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Interesting Facts About Boys And Girls

Interesting Facts About Boys And Girls

Here i have posted facts for educational purposes only.

Interesting Facts about Girls
1. The vagina is only as deep as your middle finger.

2. The vagina keeps itself clean and healthy by constantly producing mucus which turns white when it’s exposed to the air.Discharge also prevents the vagina from drying out.

3. Discharge will begin to appear some time before your first period begins.

4. Females can ovulate before they have their period.

5. Cramps and painful periods may be caused by low calcium and magnesium levels.

6. The usual amount of blood lost during a period isbetween one and six tablespoons. (120 ml blood and tissue)

7. Menstrual fluid is mostly made up of water.

8. A lot of girls’ hymen are broken through using a tampon or during active sportssuch as horse back riding or cycling. Masturbation, too, can break the hymen. There is an opening in the hymen that lets menstrual fluid flow out.

9. The fallopian tubes are about 10 cm long. The egg travels from the ovary to the uterus along these tubes.

10. Girls are born with about 300,000 eggs.

11. Ovary is about the size of a walnut/olive. The uterus is about the size of a pear/ clenched fist.

12. The average woman has about 500 periods in her lifetime.

13. If a tampon has absorbed as much as it can and has to be changed within 4 hours, try a tampon with a higher absorbency. If a tampon still has lots of whitepatches showing when you take it out after about four hours, try a tampon with lower absorbency. Change your tampon every 4-8 hours.

14. PMS symptoms: breast tenderness, feeling swollen or bloated, change in appetite, headaches, acne or skin rash, constipation or diarrhea, abdominal cramps, feeling sad/tired/irritable or clumsy.

15. You get cramps when your uterus contracts (squeezes) slightly to helpget rid of most of its lining.

16. If you are taking the birth control pill these fivedrugs may interfere with its effectiveness: antihistamines, alcohol, analgesics, antacids, antibiotics.

17. A pregnancy test only works 2 weeks after a suspected conception.

Interesting Facts about Boys

1. 17 weeks into a pregnancy, baby boys can have erections.

2. When boys are 8 or 9 years old, their testicles begin tomake sperm for practice.

3. Males have several erections while they are asleep.

4. The epididymis is a coiled tube that is6 metres long (tube that stores sperm)

5. Ejaculate is only one spoonful of fluid.

6. Between the ages of twelve and fourteen the scrotum grows bigger and turns a darkish red and the testicles start to produce testosterone, the male sex hormone, which makes the penis grow.

7. Once puberty starts, testicles produce onemillion sperm per minute, 24 hours/day.

8. Testicles are kept 4-5 degrees cooler than body temperature.

9. The scrotum is made of special skin that is stretchable and shrinkable.

10. Average size penis is about two inches long whenit’s limp and six inches long when erect.

11. Many boys develop breasts during puberty. They need to know that this is normal and that, when their rib cage grows to adult size, those little breasts will spread out and not be so noticeable.

12. It takes boys about three years after the onset of puberty to grow their testicles to adult size.

13. It takes eight to ten years after the onset ofpuberty to grow their penises to adult size.

14. When an erection occurs, a valve at the mouth ofthe bladder closes off so no urine can escape.

15. Adam’s apple- growth of the larynx.

Other Interesting Facts

1. Fraternal twins come from two separate ova and two separate sperm.

2. Identical twins or multiples happen when one sperm fertilizes an ovum and for some unknown reason, it splits into two or more babies.

3. Pregnancy can occur without actual sexual intercourse, and even before ejaculation.

4. Sperm may be present at the tip of the penis, and if the vagina is very aroused and lubricated, sperm may rub off against the vagina.

5. The ovum must be fertilized within 12-24 hours. It takes 10 hours for a sperm to fertilize an egg.

6. Sperm can survive 4-5 days inside a woman’s body.

7. Lack of sleep – try calcium rich bedtime snacks = grilled cheese sandwiches, hot milk, warm baths, hot water bottle, back or foot rub, story.

8. In a recent survey of Grade 9 and 11 students, the main reason for not using condoms was that sex was not planned.

9. 38% of boys and 21% of girls in Grade 11 reported using alcohol or drugs before sex. 2/3 of all STI’s occur in people 25 and younger.

10. Hepatitis B is 100 times more infectious than HIV.

11. 1 out of 4 girls and 1 out of every 8 boys are sexually abused.

12. There are over 40 brands of condoms on the market.

13. There are two different kinds of sweat glands: eccrine (no odour) and apocrine (odour when it comes into contact with bacteria). Apocrine glands only become active after puberty starts. Females have a lot more apocrine glands than males.

14. Sweat glands are everywhere on your body, exceptyour lips and ears. Each person has about 2.5 million sweat glands.

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