Strange Facts!

[Uncle Fester]

Although there are many charges and credits to the phrase, such as yours, there is not a definite answer from whence the phrases origins came. Some say it's how many yards to make a suit, others a wedding veil.

Don

I agree it's lost in antiquity.

http://www3.telus.net/jennybr/origins.html#yards

[Spexvet]

Are you sure it's not a second down play option after getting only one yard on first down?

[rinselberg]

The Clover commercial coffee brewer costs $11,000 to own and install.

In Chicago, at Intelligentsia's Millenium Park retail coffee outlet, you can pay anywhere from a "few bucks" up to $22 for a 12-ounce cup of Clover-brewed coffee, depending on the beans you select.

Something to do after you fill up with $4.00 per gallon gasoline..

[rinselberg]

In 1924, two friends, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, decided to commit the perfect murder. Bobby Franks, an aquaintence of the two boys, was selected. They enticed him to their vehicle, then killed him with a chisel, dumping his body in a culvert in a marsh. The body was discovered, but no arrests were made. However, a pair of horned-rimmed glasses were discovered near Franks' body. The eyewear - with a distinctive Rx and unusual hinge - was traced to a Chicago optometrist. The eyewear was identified by the optometrist and confirmed as Leopold's: they fell out of his pocket during the murder. In spite of having famous lawyer Clarence Darrow to defend them, the boys were sentenced to life in prison. Loeb died in 1934 after being attacked in prison. Leopold was released in 1958 and lived until 1971.

It was the hinge that proved to be Leopold's undoing.

Leopold's prescription [was] a very common one and the frames were ordinary too, except for a patented hinge connecting the earpiece to the nosepiece. The hinge was manufactured by a New York company that had only one outlet in Chicago: Almer Coe & Co. Especially unfortunate for Leopold was the fact that Almer Coe had sold only three pairs of glasses with the patented hinge. One belonged to a lady, a second pair belonged to an attorney (Jerome Frank, who, nearly thirty years later as a federal appellate judge, would deny the final plea of Juilius and Ethel Rosenberg for a stay of their executions) traveling in Europe, and the third belonged to Leopold. It was a matter of a few days before detective work on the glasses led police ... to Nathan Leopold.

For more, including a photograph of the telltale reading glasses:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...b/LEO_GLAS.HTM

[rinselberg]

For sale: Stereo loudspeakers from Pioneer. The wood loudspeaker cabinets are made from oak barrels that were used to age whiskey. Just as aging in wood improves the taste of whiskey, Pioneer's speaker specialists claim that whiskey improves the sound of wood. Don't believe it? Here it is..

http://www.pioneerusa.com/PUSA/Shop/...into+a+Speaker.

[rinselberg]

What would you do if you saw a bird headed your way--with a gi-normous head and beak and a staggering 60-foot wingspan? Drop dead from heart failure? It might have happened if only there had been a human alive some 70 million years ago. Pterosaurs.. flying reptiles. Dinosaurs with wings, although technically they are not classified as dinosaurs (I think) by contemporary paleontologists.

Science owes as much to pterosaurs as pterosaur history does to science.

It was a pterosaur fossil, subjected to the sharp eye of naturalist Georges Cuvier, just about the year 1800, that led to the first commonly accepted realization by modern scientists that there were animals that had lived and disappeared from the face of the earth long before there were humans or recorded history.

For more on these legendary creatures:

Sky Monsters
Flying dinosaurs now thought to be as big as an F-14 Tomcat!

[chip anderson]

Don't let them kid you it was all due to global warming and the vehicles of the time.

[bob_f_aboc]

Don't let them kid you it was all due to global warming and the vehicles of the time.

Brontosaurus farts!!!:idea:

[rinselberg]

American ornithologist James Bond wrote "The Field Guide to Birds of the West Indies", which found its way to the shelf of novelist Ian Fleming, who was living in Jamaica. Fleming took that name "James Bond" for the hero of his famous series of "007" spy novels.


[youtube]I3fzxX9Iatw[/youtube]

Hot summer? Chill out with one of the coolest jazz tracks of all time--Oliver Nelson's arrangement of "Stolen Moments". It's the epitome of 1960's "cool"..

[rinselberg]

Some paleontologists speculate that in the not very distant future, genetic engineering could be used to create a living, dinosaur-like creature, similar to the Velociraptor in the movie Jurassic Park, starting with the DNA of that familiar flightless bird we know as an "emu".

Lab experiments have already shown the way to modifying the DNA of a chicken to grow a chicken embryo with an elongated tail, teeth and scales instead of feathers.

The scientists who are interested in this idea theorize that birds are the living descendants of a family of dinosaur species known as Therapod dinosaurs.

The premise of the movie Jurassic Park was that dinosaur DNA could be retrieved from insects trapped within ancient amber that fed on dinosaur blood before they died.

After the movie Jurassic Park was released, at least one scientist tried to retrieve DNA from prehistoric insects trapped within ancient amber, but it couldn't be done: The DNA had already disintegrated.

Just some of the latest stuff on cable TV..

[carlos83eye]

Wherever you get ur facts, don't trust the snapples one.....they're fake.......errrrrrg........:angry:

[carlos83eye]

As long as the first and last laetter of the words are the same, the rest of the letters can be jumbled up and we still can read and understand sentences rather easily........

"Waht teh mnid pecreievs is otefn inmocpelet or jmulbed. Our anecsotrs’s cnotepmroareis, who dleyaed to pndoer the dtaa too mcuh bofere acitng, otefn wunod up as sbaer totoh dnnier. So, we hmauns leraend to flil in the blnkas, so to spaek, and to act qckuily uopn our prcepetaul asumstopins, ucnsoinocus or orhteisw, aobut the wrlod aournd us. Aals, the Unvirese is a dbloued egedd srowd, whit ervey gian cmeos a cerrospndoing lsos, hcene our dpleey ingriaend cpaciaty to see olny what we pferer to see and to dsirgeard raletiy. Glboal wrmrnig aynnoe?"

[rinselberg]

San Francisco's Fossil Fuels Brewing Company brews beer using a prehistoric strain of yeast that was revived after 45 million years. The yeast was cultivated from the fossil of an insect that was trapped inside ancient amber. The yeast is said to give the beer a distinctively "spicy" taste.

The beer is not being bottled (yet) and is only starting to appear on tap at some select bars and pubs in the San Francisco area.

I haven't tasted it.

[Leighlee]

In Pennsylvania, it is illegal for a man to purchase alcohol without written consent from his wife.

[Jacqui]

San Francisco's Fossil Fuels Brewing Company brews beer using a prehistoric strain of yeast that was revived after 45 million years. The yeast was cultivated from the fossil of an insect that was trapped inside ancient amber. The yeast is said to give the beer a distinctively "spicy" taste.

The beer is not being bottled (yet) and is only starting to appear on tap at some select bars and pubs in the San Francisco area.

I haven't tasted it.

Only in San Francisco would something like this happen. What is that town coming to ??

[Jacqui]

In Pennsylvania, it is illegal for a man to purchase alcohol without written consent from his wife.

This is a good law, more states should have it.

:cheers:

[Leighlee]

In 1945 a computer at Harvard malfunctioned and Grace Hopper, who was working on the computer, investigated, found a moth in one of the circuits and removed it. Ever since, when something goes wrong with a computer, it is said to have a bug in it.

[HarryChiling]

In Pennsylvania, it is illegal for a man to purchase alcohol without written consent from his wife.

That's why Fezz is a home brewer. :cheers:

[eyequeue]

for any statue that is on horseback; if all four legs of the horse are on the ground, the rider died of natural causes, if the horse is on only the back legs with the front legs up, the rider died in combat. If the horse has only three legs on the ground, the rider died as a result of battle wounds. Isn't that amazing? This is a universal thing, I guess. :p

[DragonLensmanWV]

Guppies can change their sex. If you have one male and a tank of females and the male dies, at least one of the smallest ones will change to a male.
I have had this happen recently in my tank.

[rinselberg]

Ever been to the White Shark Café..?

Probably not! Tagging studies have revealed that every winter, some sizable white shark populations congregate in a small area of mid-ocean, far from any coast, about half the distance between San Francisco and the Hawaiian Islands and far to the south of the most direct route between those places. The area has been dubbed the "White Shark Café".. and the reason(s) that the sharks go there every winter are not well understood.

For more about the White Shark Café:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0218134617.htm

The bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) is commonly said to have the highest testosterone level of any animal--higher even than lions and elephants, which are known to be "testosterone heavy".

[rinselberg]

In its January 2009 issue, National Geographic magazine wrote: "In all of history, only 161,000 tons of gold have been mined, barely enough to fill two Olympic-size swimming pools."

Another way to describe it: If all the gold possessed by man were collected and melted into one solid cube-shaped bullion, it would measure only about 20.28 meters high by 20.28 meters long by 20.28 meters wide. And 20.28 meters comes to just about 60 and 1/2 feet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold

[hcjilson]

I thought it was about time to start this up again!

http://pjcockrell.wordpress.com/2007...e-black-notes/

[PhotonicGuy]

Strange indeed...

[MarySue]

the doctor? Doctor Who?

The Tardis Flying, Alien sorting, Human loving Dr Who. :)