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Trivia (9-7-2004)

If you split Alaska into two equal parts, north-south, east-wide, whatever, they would instantly become the two largest states in the U.S.

A can of Sprite has 140 calories. That's more than a bottle of Guinness, which has just 125 calories. A can of Tomato juice is even better, at 60 calories. Mix them all together in a single glass and they might have a negative caloric value, unless you can keep it down.

Your thumbnail, if typical, grows 1.6 inches a year.

Panama hats did not originate in Panama. They are Ecuadorian.

The mother elephant is pregnant for 20 to 22 months with each baby.

Once you know that Norway extends north into the Arctic Circle, you will no longer be surprised to learn that Europe's largest glacier is the Jostedalsbreen Glacier in Norway.

The nation of India knows no mother tongue. There are 1,652 different languages and dialects spoken there.

Mongol grooms wore wedding dresses. Well, robes actually. But they looked like dresses.

The Seminole Hard Rock Casino features a game of Tic Tac Toe where you play against a live chicken. Win once and you get $100. Do it twice in a row and you will get $10,000, or so they claim. So far, none of the 30,000 challengers have put together a two game winning streak.

Watch out for the man who is willing to bet you $100 that the Colorado River flows through Texas. He will win. Austin sits on the banks of the Colorado River. No, not THAT Colorado River, but a Colorado River nonetheless.

Off The Beaten Lesson Plan

If I was a teacher, I would hate to be assigned any particular subject. I would just want to study interesting things and pass the knowledge along. If I was a teacher, this would be tonight's lesson.

The opposite of a placebo is a nocebo. A nocebo is a harmless substance that might make you sick because you think it will; powdered brown sugar in a greeting card, e.g.

The holy city of Mecca has a namesake in the California desert. It is a short drive from Palm Springs.

If you are searching for anecdotal evidence of divine retribution, you might consider this true tale: J. Thomas Midgley, Jr. invented the lead gasoline additive, ethyl. After poisoning the entire world with this engine knocking inhibitor, he decided to ruin the environment further by inventing chlorofluorocarbons. Aside from a touch of lead poisoning from which he recovered, these inventions never harmed him, but in 1944, suffering from polio, he invented a motorized rope-and-pulley bed adjuster with which he accidentally strangled himself to death.

Some people who know that Alaska is not considered part of the continental United States do not know that Alaska is part of the North American continent.

If you google the word "the", you will get over 5.6 billion hits. The first one: The Onion. Nice positioning, no? If only the link was current.

[Update] Someone must have google-bombed the White House. It's now the top link for "the" google searches.

Notwithstanding over 4,000 google hits, there is no such thing as a baby butterfly.

A ton of heart, as in, "these guys have a ton of heart," is just an expression. The heart of the largest animal on the planet, the blue whale, generally weighs only about three quarters of a ton, though some think the largest may grow to be a ton.

Less than 66 years elapsed between Orville Wright's flight and the Apollo 11 moon landing.

The largest lake in the world is the salt-water Caspian Sea, at 143,244 square miles. Some -- mostly Iranians -- think it should be classified as an ocean, but it is not.

The eagle was the national symbol of Rome, the Austrian Empire and Nazi Germany. And the United States.

Few people have heard of Sharpsburg, but on a single day there in September 1862, the North and South found the battle of Antietam, and lost a combined 23,000 soldiers.

If Australia was not considered a continent, it would be the world's largest island, at 2.97 million square miles. As it stands, Greenland, at 810,810 square miles, is the world's largest island. It also has the oldest rocks, at 3.7 billion years.

Florida developer Henry Flagler is the man credited with this true observation: "A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship."

If Al Capone had handed you a business card, it probably would have said that he was a used furniture dealer.

There are at least as many bridges in your backyard as there are spanning the Amazon River.

The typical bikini top only provides sun protection of about SPF 5. A topless woman with a decent sunscreen is less likely to burn her breasts than a woman wearing a light bikini top.

How big does the mountain grow? The highest elevation on the planet is the top of Mount Everest, which is 29,035 feet above sea level. However, the tallest single mountain, base to tip, is Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which rises 32,000 feet from the ocean floor. And the farthest spot from the center of the Earth is the tip of Chimborazo in the Ecuadorian Andes.

An "alumna" is a female. More than one of them could be called "alumnae." An "alumnus" is a male. More than one of them would be called "alumni." The same rule would apply even if the group included a few alumnae.

A "Judas steer" is one trained to lead the others to slaughter.

The part of the animal that gives us catgut is the intestine. The animal that gives us catgut is the sheep.

The duck-billed platypus and two species of spiny anteaters are the only living examples of monotremes. Don't go searching for the navel on a monotreme. You won't find one. That's what makes them unique among mammals.

Humans are classified as follows:

Domain: Bane Eucarya
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertibrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: Sapiens

There are many other primates, and a couple more hominidae, but we are the only homos. That, and blushing, among other things, makes us unique.