Facts About Don Juan Pond - strangefacts

• Don Juan Pond, the hypersaline lake in western Antarctica which has even greater salinity than the Dead Sea

• With a salinity of over 40%, Don Juan Pond is the saltiest body of water in the world

• It is named after the two pilots who first investigated the pond in 1961, Lt Don Roe and Lt John Hickey

• It is a small lake, only 100m by 300m, and on average 0.1m deep, but it is so salty that even in the Antarctic, where the temperature at the pond regularly drops to as low as -30 degrees Celsius, it never freezes

• It is 18 times saltier than sea water, compared to the Dead Sea which is only 8 times saltier than sea water

• At its saltiest, Don Juan Pond contains 671 parts per thousand salt, compared to 35 and 300 for the ocean and the Dead Sea respectively

• A beautiful salty pool in Antarctica's Dry Valleys is teaching scientists about the potential for life in brine pools on ancient Mars

• The study also reveals a previously unreported mechanism for producing an important greenhouse gas - nitrous oxide - in Antarctic habitats

• Research at Antarctica's 'Mars on Earth' reveals non-organic mechanism for production of important greenhouse gas

• Possibly even more important, the discovery could help space scientists understand the meaning of similar brine pools in a place whose ecosystem most closely resembles that of Don Juan Pond
• "The pond’s soils and brines and the surrounding rock types are similar to those found on Mars,” said Samantha Joye, a faculty member in the department of marine sciences in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and lead author on the paper

• “So it provides an ideal location to assess microbial activity in extreme environments. While we did not detect any ‘bio-gases’ such as hydrogen sulfide and methane, we did, surprisingly, measure high concentrations of nitrous oxide, which is normally an indicator of microbial activity. We needed to find out whether a non-organic process could account for this nitrous oxide production.”

• Scientists have been fascinated with Don Juan Pond since its discovery in 1961. From the time of its discovery, researchers realized they had found a place like nowhere else on Earth

• Researchers more than 30 years ago reported finding abundant and varied microflora of fungi, bacteria, blue-green algae and yeasts, since then and during the Joye team’s work, such life has been non-existent 

• Since the depth level and area covered by the pond (which is fed by hypersaline groundwater) have demonstrably varied over the years, this wasn’t unexpected

• The pond was named after Lieutenants Donald Roe and John Hickey, both of whom were members of the first field party to study the pond

• The Lake Vanda station (New Zealand) is one of the oldest long term camps in the Dry Valleys

• Over the last four decades a lot of research in many disciplines has based out of this little hut

• During the height of summer the edges of Lake Vanda melt enough to warrant the use of a small boat

Facts About John James Audubon - strangefacts

• John James Audubon from 1785 to1851 was an American Woodsman

• John James Audubon was not the first person to attempt to paint and describe all the birds of America (Alexander Wilson has that distinction), but for half a century he was the young country’s dominant wildlife artist

• His seminal Birds of America, a collection of 435 life-size prints, quickly eclipsed Wilson’s work and is still a standard against which 20th and 21st century bird artists, such as Roger Tory Peterson and David Sibley, are measured

• Although Audubon had no role in the organization that bears his name, there is a connection: George Bird Grinnell, one of the founders of the early Audubon Society in the late 1800s, was tutored by Lucy Audubon, John James’s widow

• Knowing Audubon’s reputation, Grinnell chose his name as the inspiration for the organization’s earliest work to protect birds and their habitats

• Today, the name Audubon remains synonymous with birds and bird conservation the world over

• John James Audubon was enrolled in the French Naval Academy at he age of 14

• He was also a limner (traveling portrait artist), dance instructor, clerk and taxidermist

• In 1819 he was briefly jailed for failing to pay his debts

• Audubon was born in Saint Domingue (now Haiti), the illegitimate son of a French sea captain and plantation owner and his French mistress. Early on, he was raised by his stepmother, Mrs. Audubon, in Nantes, France, and took a lively interest in birds, nature, drawing, and music

• In 1803, at the age of 18, he was sent to America, in part to escape conscription into the Emperor Napoleon’s army. He lived on the family-owned estate at Mill Grove, near Philadelphia, where he hunted, studied and drew birds, and met his wife, Lucy Bakewell
• While there, he conducted the first known bird-banding experiment in North America, tying strings around the legs of Eastern Phoebes; he learned that the birds returned to the very same nesting sites each year

• With no other prospects, Audubon set off on his epic quest to depict America’s avifauna, with nothing but his gun, artist’s materials, and a young assistant. Floating down the Mississippi, he lived a rugged hand-to-mouth existence in the South while Lucy earned money as a tutor to wealthy plantation families

• In 1826 he sailed with his partly finished collection to England. "The American Woodsman" was literally an overnight success

• Audubon found a printer for the Birds of America, first in Edinburgh, then London, and later collaborated with the Scottish ornithologist William MacGillivray on the Ornithological Biographies – life histories of each of the species in the work

• The last print was issued in 1838, by which time Audubon had achieved fame and a modest degree of comfort, traveled this country several more times in search of birds, and settled in New York City 

• He made one more trip out West in 1843, the basis for his final work of mammals, the Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, which was largely completed by his sons and the text of which was written by his long-time friend, the Lutheran pastor John Bachman (whose daughters married Audubon’s sons)

• Audubon spent his last years in senility and died at age 65 and buried in the Trinity Cemetery at 155th Street and Broadway in New York City

John James Audubon Quotes

• I am as dull as a beetle. -- John James Audubon Quote

• Up the river the view was indeed enchanting.; the undulating meadows sloped gently to the water's edge on either side, and the larks that sprang up before me, welcoming the sun's rise, animated my thoughts so much that I felt tears trickling down my cheeks as I gave thanks to the God who gave life to all these in a day. -- John James Audubon Quote

• A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers but borrowed from his children. -- John James Audubon Quote

• Look at that mallard as he floats on the lake; see his elevated head glittering with emerald green, his amber eyes glancing in the light! Even at this distance, he has marked you, and suspects that you bear no goodwill towards him, for he sees that you have a gun, and he has many a time been frightened by its report, or that of some other. The wary bird draws his feet under his body, springs upon then, opens his wings, and with loud quacks bids you farewell.-- John James Audubon Quote

• The sun at length sank beneath the waterline that here formed the horizon; and we saw the birds making their first appearance. They were in small parties of two, three, or five, and by no menas shy. --- John James Audubon Quote

Facts About Rotorua - strangefacts

• A city founded in the early 1870s and named after Lake Rotorua whose Maori name means ‘Second Lake’ from roto ‘lake’ and rua ‘two’ or ‘second’

• It is said that it was so named by a traveller as he went along the Kaituna River; the first was Lake Rotoiti ‘Small Lake’. However, this may be a convenient invention to justify claims to the area by the local tribe

• The city of Rotorua, about 30 miles (48 km) inland on the Volcanic Plateau, is noted for the geysers, fumaroles, boiling mud, and warm mineral bathing pools in its vicinity

• Rotorua sits squarely on the Pacific Ring of Fire, so volcanic activity is part of the city’s past and present

• The city is also the tribal home of the Te Arawa people, who settled in lakeside geothermal areas more than 600 years ago

• Entertaining in any weather, and at any time of the year, Rotorua promises to keep you captivated with geothermal phenomena and special cultural experiences

• Geysers, boiling mud pools, marae stays, hangi feasts, an authentic pre-European Maori village and indulgent spa therapies will provide plenty of content for your emails home

• Rotorua also has a well-developed adventure culture – everything from sky diving to zorbing

• Functional facts: Approx. population 76,000, i-SITE Visitor Centre, domestic airport

• Rotorua is a city on the southern shores of the lake of the same name, in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand

• The city is known for its geothermal activity, with a number of geysers, notably the Pohutu Geyser at Whakarewarewa, and boiling mud pools (pictured above) located in the city
• This thermal activity owes itself to the Rotorua caldera on which the city lies

• Rotorua is also a top adventure destination and is New Zealand’s Maori cultural heartland Rotorua city is renowned for its unique “rotten eggs” aroma, which is caused by the geothermal activity releasing sulphur compounds into the atmosphere

• If you are ever visiting New Zealand – this is a city you must see. It was once home to the famed Pink and White Terraces and you can visit thermal wonderlands with sights that are truly astounding

• Rotorua is also a top adventure destination and is New Zealand’s Maori cultural heartland

• Rotorua city is renowned for its unique “rotten eggs” aroma, which is caused by the geothermal activity releasing sulphur compounds into the atmosphere

• The region has been a stronghold of Maori culture for centuries. The local Maori, predominantly, Te Arawa, were the first inhabitants of the region and there are still 35 Marae around the district today

• The region is also located around 11 major lakes, the largest being Lake Rotorua. This makes it a centre for fishing and other water based activities

• The main areas of employment in Rotorua are tourism, forestry, manufacturing and retailing

Facts About Socotra - strangefacts

• Measuring 1,200 square miles, Socotra (also Suqutra) Island is located in the Arabian Sea, about 500 miles from Aden and less than 200 miles from Somalia

• The sparsely populated island has a mountainous interior and most of its population engages in farming or fishing; the most striking feature of this isolated place is its biodiversity and the great number of unique flora and fauna

• The ruler of the Mahra Sultanate of Qishn and Socotra resided there under British rule during much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

• The island became a part of South Yemen in 1967 and, with Yemeni unification in 1990, it became a part of the Republic of Yemen (ROY)

• Given its location near the sea lanes, Socotra was long thought to be of strategic value by Western imperial powers

• During the latter half of the Cold War, South Yemen allowed the Soviet Union to maintain a submarine base and other military facilities there; Russia continues to maintain a modest naval presence

• During the late 1990s there were rumors about a deal between the United States and the ROY over military facilities on the island, but the complicated, if not strained, relations between the two countries, beginning with the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Aden in 2000, squelched this talk

• The considerable activities regarding Socotra now focus on its development as a tourist destination featuring and protecting its unique biodiversity

• Socotra has been described as one of the most alien-looking place on Earth, and it’s not hard to see why

• It is very isolated with a harsh, dry climate and as a result a third of its plant-life is found nowhere else, including the famous Dragon’s Blood Tree, a very-unnatural looking umbrella-shaped tree which produces red sap
• There are also a large number of birds, spiders and other animals native to the island, and coral reefs around it which similarly have a large number of endemic (i.e. only found there) species

• Socotra is considered the most biodiverse place in the Arabian sea, and is a World Heritage Site

• There was initially an Oldoway (or Oldowan) culture in Socotra. Oldoway stone tools were found in the area around Hadibo by V.A. Zhukov, a member of the Russian Complex Expedition in 2008

• Socotra is part of the Republic of Yemen. It has long been a part of the 'Adan Governorate, but in 2004 it became attached to the Hadhramaut Governorate, which is much closer to the island than 'Adan (although the closest governorate would be Al Mahrah)

• A local tradition holds that the inhabitants were converted to Christianity by Thomas in AD 52. In the 10th century, the Arab geographer Abu Mohammed Al-Hassan Al-Hamdani stated that in his time most of the inhabitants were Christians

• In 1507, a fleet commanded by Tristão da Cunha with Afonso de Albuquerque landed an occupying force at the then capital of Suq, their objective was a Portuguese base to stop Arab commerce from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, and to liberate the presumed friendly Christians from Islamic rule

• Here they started to build a fortress

• However, they were not welcomed as enthusiastically as they had expected and abandoned the island four years later. The island was also come across by Somali sailors

• Socotra is one of the most isolated landforms on Earth of continental origin (i.e. not of volcanic origin)

• The archipelago was once part of the supercontinent of Gondwana and detached during the Miocene, in the same set of rifting events that opened the Gulf of Aden to its northwest

• The main island has three geographical terrains: the narrow coastal plains, a limestone plateau permeated with karstic caves and the Haghier Mountains

• The mountains of Socotra rise to 5000 feet (1,524 m). The island is a little over 80 miles (128.7 km) long east to west and typically 18–22 mi (29–35.4 ) north to south

Facts About The Great Dune of Pyla - strangefacts

• Largest sand dune in Europe is the great dune of Pyla

• Size of sand dune of Pyla is about 60,000,000 cubic meters

• It measures 1,640 feet (500 m) wide and 1.86 miles (3 km long), with the height ranging from 328 to 383.8 feet (100 to 117 m) above sea level

• The Dune of Pilat is also known as the Great Dune of Pyla

• It is located in the La Teste-de-Buch of the Arcachon Bay area

• At 60Km from Bordeaux, in the South of the Arcachon Bay, it is possible to visit the highest dune in Europe, the Great Dune of Pyla (or Pilat)

• This hight of dune of Pyla reaches upto a height of 107m

• At this summit, the view is spectacular with the ocean coast, the inlet of the Bay, the large pine forest and, when the sky is very clear, the Pyrenees Range

• This Great Dune is constituted of fine sand which the siliceous grains have about the same size

• Since about ten years, this area is also became a point of start to the lover of delta planes

• The Great Dune of Pyla is located on the “La Teste de Buch” district (Gironde) and it is a national listed landscape

• Since Europe has no deserts, you’d think the title of “Europe’s largest sand dune” would go to something that wasn’t particularly impressive. But you’d be wrong
• The Great Dune of Pyla is 3km long, 500m wide and 100m high, and for reasons I will probably never understand, it seems to have formed in a forest

• The dune is very steep on the side facing the forest and is famous for being a paragliding site

• At the top it also provides spectacular views out to sea and over the forest (since the dune is far higher than any of the trees surrounding it)

• This unique place is great traveling opportunity for those who would like to experience how it is like to be in desert and this little version of desert is less than a hour of ride away from Bordeaux

• A number of such smaller sand dunes can be found at the soul of sandy moor of Gascony

• This dune is huge enough to be visible from the space. From above, it looks like huge white rectangle

Facts About Earth Day - strangefacts

• Annually, April 22 is a day set aside to honor the Earth. But every day is Earth Day, and some of the things that will happen 365 times in a year are listed below

• In 1969, Nelson, considered one of the leaders of the modern environmental movement, developed the idea for Earth Day after being inspired by the anti-Vietnam War "teach-ins" that were taking place on college campuses around the United States

• According to Nelson, he envisioned a large-scale, grassroots environmental demonstration "to shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda."

• Nelson announced the Earth Day concept at a conference in Seattle in the fall of 1969 and invited the entire nation to get involved

• A highlight of the United Nations' Earth Day celebration in New York City is the ringing of the Peace Bell, a gift from Japan, at the exact moment of the vernal equinox

• Earth Day Networks estimates that 500 million people from 4,500 organizations in 180 countries will participate in Earth Day events during the month of April

• Earth Day is big with schools. On many school calendars, it is the third most activity-inspiring holiday, after Christmas and Halloween

• Companies have even gotten into Earth Day. Last year, office supply store Staples introduced office paper made entirely without new trees

• As part of the celebration, some communities make Earth Day a "Car-Free Day"

• Earth will travel 1.6 million miles in its annual journey around the Sun, the 4.6-billionth such round-trip. It will rotate about its axis exactly once
• The Sun will travel 13.5 million miles around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy

• The Sun will fuse 51.8 billion tons of hydrogen into 51.5 billion tons of helium. (Lest you worry, it will have the capacity to do this for another 5 billion years or so.) The other 0.3 billion tons will be released as energy (Einstein's E = mc2). The energy poured forth in all directions each day is 10 trillion trillion kilowatt-hours. The fraction of this energy that bathes the Earth powers nearly everything that lives there

• The fraction of the sun's energy intercepted by the Earth at the top of its atmosphere is 6000 trillion kilowatt-hours, about 600,000 times the quantity Americans consume in a day

• The population of the world will grow by 211,000 people.3 A new Akron, Ohio will be added every day

• 40,000 acres of land, an area about the size of Boise, Idaho will be converted to desert

• 200 million tons of topsoil will be lost through erosion from croplands

• 50,000 acres of forest will be eliminated

• Between 20 and 500 species will disappear from the planet forever.We know so little about the family of life to which we belong that we cannot quantify the damage we are inflicting upon it. We do know that extinctions are occurring 100 to 1,000 times faster than the normal background rate

• People will consume more than 3 billion gallons of oil

• Burning the oil and other fossil fuels will release 70 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, slowly but surely nudging the planet's temperature upward

• 3 million tons of iron ore, 575 thousand tons of tin, 330 thousand tons of bauxite (for aluminum), and 34 thousand tons of copper will be ripped from the Earth

• 800 million people will go to bed hungry and awake too weak to lead productive lives

• 18,000 children will die from chronic hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases

• The world will spend $3 billion on military expenditures, half by one country

• $2 billion will be invested in research and development.15 This will result in the publication of 1,900 science and engineering articles16 and granting of 150 patents

• 1.3 billion children will be educated in pre-primary, primary, and secondary schools

• 97 billion e-mail messages will be sent, more than 40 billion of which will be spam

Facts About Meteor Crater - strangefacts

• Meteor Crater is a meteorite impact crater located approximately 43 miles (69 km) east of Flagstaff, near Winslow in the northern Arizona desert of the United States

• Because the US Department of the Interior Division of Names commonly recognizes names of natural features derived from the nearest post office, the feature acquired the name of “Meteor Crater” from the nearby post office named Meteor

• Middlesboro is the only city in the United States built within a meteor crater

• The crater was created about 50,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch when the local climate on the Colorado Plateau was much cooler and damper

• At the time, the area was an open grassland dotted with woodlands inhabited by woolly mammoths, giant ground sloths, and camels

• It was probably not inhabited by humans; the earliest confirmed record of human habitation in the Americas dates from long after this impact

• The object that excavated the crater was a nickel-iron meteorite about 50 meters (54 yards) across, which impacted the plain at a speed of several kilometers per second

• Meteor Crater was originally thought to be a volcanic crater, since there were other volcanic craters, including the still-active Sunset Crater, in the region

• However, in the 1890s, mineralogists discovered iron fragments in the crater. This led geologists to suggest that the crater was caused by a meteor crash

• Daniel Barringer (1860-1929), a Philadelphia mining engineer who explored the site in 1903, was convinced the meteorite was buried beneath the crater. He purchased the land and, in 1906, began drilling

• Barringer and his team discovered enough iron and nickel-iron fragments to persuade the scientific world that the crater was probably formed by a meteor

• During the 1930s, around $400,000 was spent on drilling bores into the floor of the crater. Fragments of nickel-iron believed to have come from the meteorite were found at depths of 260m (700ft)

• Below this, the rock was undisturbed

• All attempts at finding the core intact below the crater have been abandoned. Scientists now believe the meteor exploded on impact, and that much of its material vaporized into the air

• The millions of nickel-iron grains discovered at the site are thought to have condensed from a hot metallic cloud that resulted from the blast

• In addition, individual nickel-iron fragments as heavy as 640kg (1,400lbs) have been found scattered over an area of 260sq.km (100 sq.mi)

• In 1960, scientists discovered coesite and stishovite at the site. These two rare forms of silica can only be created when the temperature and pressure is very high

• These conditions would have been created when a meteor crashed into sandstone desert. This was proof that the crater was formed by a meteor

• Meteora, on the western edge of the plain of Thessaly, in the heart of northern Greece, is the home a group of monasteries and chapels that are perched on 24 enormous rocks

• The rocks are made of a mixture of sandstone and a type of hard, sedimentary gravel known as conglomerate

Facts About Mount Roraima - strangefacts

• Mount Roraima (mountain, South America) giant flat-topped mountain, or mesa, in the Pakaraima Mountains of the Guiana Highlands , at the point where the boundaries of Brazil, Venezuela, and Guyana meet

• About 9 miles (14 km) long and 9,094 feet (2,772 metres) high, it is the source of many rivers of Guyana, and of the Amazon and Orinoco

• Mount Roraima is a pretty remarkable place. It is a tabletop mountain with sheer 400-metre high cliffs on all sides

• There is only one ‘easy’ way up, on a natural staircase-like ramp on the Venezuelan side – to get up any other way takes and experienced rock climber

• On the top of the mountain it rains almost every day, washing away most of the nutrients for plants to grow and creating a unique landscape on the bare sandstone surface

• This also creates some of the highest waterfalls in the world over the sides (Angel falls is located on a similar tabletop mountain some 130 miles away)

• Though there are only a few marshes on the mountain where vegetation can grow properly, these contain many species unique to the mountain, including a species of carnivorous pitcher plant

• The mountain marks the border between Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana, although more than three quarters of the mountain is in Venezuelan territory 

• It is the highest mountain in Guyana, but Venezuela and Brazil have higher mountains. The triple border point on the summit is at 5°12'08N, 60°44'07W

• Roraima lies on the Guiana Shield in the southeastern corner of Venezuela's 30,000 km² Canaima National Park, which is roughly located in the Gran Sabana region 
• The tabletop mountains of the park are considered some of the oldest geological formations on Earth, dating back to the Precambrian Era, some two billion years ago

• The average height of the plateau is about 2,500 metres (8,200 feet), making it the highest point for distance of 549.44 kilometres (341.48 miles) in any direction

• The nearest peak that is taller is Cerro Marahuaca, to the west-southwest 

• Despite the fact the steep sides of the plateau make it difficult to access, it was the first major tepui to be climbed: Sir Everard im Thurn walked up a forested ramp in December 1884 to scale the strangely wind-and-water sculpted plateau

• This is the same route hikers take today

• It is thought that the reports from early Victorian expeditions to the mountain inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write his classic adventure yarn, The Lost World, in 1912 - now made into countless films

• Since long before the arrival of European explorers in Venezuela the mountain has held a special significance for the indigenous people of the region and it is central to many of their myths and legends

• The Pemon Indians of the Gran Sabana see Roraima as the stump of a mighty tree that once held all the fruits and tuberous vegetables in the world

• Felled by one of their ancestors, the tree crashed to the ground, unleashing a terrible flood. "Roroi" in the Pemon language means blue-green and "ma" means great

• Mount Roraima has been climbed on a few occasions from the Guyana and Brazil sides, but as the mountain is entirely bordered on both these sides by enormous sheer cliffs that include high overhanging (negative-inclination) stretches, these are extremely difficult and technical rock climbing routes

Facts About Door To Hell - strangefacts

• East of the Caspian Sea in the middle of Karakum desert somewhere in Central Asia hide a secret It is something so surreal and extraordinary in the same time you thing is not real at all

• Here near a small town of Darvaza, Turkmenistan is located “The door to hell” how locals name the strange place

• In fact it is a 50 – 100 meter crater who burn continues for 35 years without any pause

• The Door to Hell, as local residents at the nearby town of Darvaza have dubbed it, is a 70 meter wide crater in Turkmenistan that has been burning continuously for 35 years

• In 1971, geologists drilling for gas deposits uncovered a huge underground cavern, which caused the ground over it to collapse, taking down all their equipment and their camp with it

• During a drilling they found an underground cavern filled with natural gas

• In this moment the ground collapsed, leaving a large gaping hole exposed

• To avoid poisonous gases coming out of the hole, it was decide to fire up and let the gas burn

• Since the cavern was filled poisonous gas, they dared not go down to retrieve their equipment, and to prevent the gas escaping they ignited it, hoping it would burn itself out in a couple of days

• From its burning mouth pours the stench of sulphur, fouling the local air and making anything with nasal cavities flee from the vicinity 
• In addition it glows day and night, the leaping flames nested are so ferocious that they produce a hazy glow which can be seen from several miles away 

• In April 2010 the president of Turkmenistan ordered the fire to be quelled and the hole to be sealed so as to stop it removing gas from nearby gas drilling sites

• While it is an amazing site that many would like to keep around we cannot expect it to last forever, the gas being burnt is much worse than Carbon Dioxide in its contributions to global warming

• Unfortunately, there was a slight miscalculation as to the amount of gas that was trapped, and the crater continues to burn to this day

• Nobody can say how many tons of excellent gas has been burned for all those time but it just seems to be infinite or it is not so ordinary place

• Derweze is a Turkmenistan village located in the middle of the Karakum Desert

• You can see "Door To Hell" on Google Earth at 40°15′8″N 58°26′23″E

• Do you think they are somehow related to the same outfit who first came out about global warming, or the ones who decided Pluto was not a planet, or maybe the brainiacs who have changed everyone’s Zodiac sign?

• Makes you wonder… No one knows how long the gas will burn, but it seems to be unlimitless

• It is a waste of natural resources, but hey, they created quite a phenomenon. The locals call it the “Door To Hell”

Proposing Girl Funny Pics - strangefacts

• Walk up behind girl and point fingers shaped like gun into her back

"You're under arrest!"

For what?

"For stealing my heart."

•  Hi, my name is Chance, Do I have one?

• Are your legs tired?

Girl: Why?

because you have been running through my mind all day!

•  "I lost my phone number, can I borrow yours?"

•  Can you give me directions to your heart? I've seemed to have lost myself in your eyes.

• Take a look at the tag on the girls shirt, jacket, etc. She would say,"What are you doing"

you respond,"Oh, just checking to see if you were made in Heaven."

• Pick up a flower and walk over to girl. "I was just showing this flower how beautiful you are."

• Is it hot in here or is it just you?

•  Hey Girls, walk up to a guy and say: "Are you from Greece?" "No" he answers.

Then you say, "Oh, I thought all the Gods were from Greece"

•  GEEEEE.. I FEEL LIKE RICHARD GERE STANDING BESIDE YOU ........... PRETTY WOMEN
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Facts About Charlie Chaplin - strangefacts

• He was born four days before Adolf Hitler, in 1889

• Charlie Chaplin was so popular during the 1920s and 1930s, he received over 73,00 letters in just 2 days during a visit to London

• After adopting his trademark Little Tramp costume, consisting of baggy pants, bamboo cane, bowler hat, and over-sized shoes, Chaplin became a Hollywood icon

• Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look alike contest

• He was the first actor to appear on Time magazine. Chaplin appeared on the July 6, 1925 issue of Time magazine, a U.S.-based news magazine. He was the first actor ever to appear on the magazine known for its influential cover photo

Screenshot From Movie "THE GREAT DICTATOR"

• His understudy in England was Stan Laurel; they sailed to America together and shared a boarding house when they arrived

• In 1925, he was the first actor to appear on the cover of Time magazine

• At the height of his popularity, he failed to win a Charlie Chaplin look-a-like contest

• His imprints were removed (and subsequently lost) from the Hollywood walk of fame because of his suspected communist views

• Although Adolf Hitler despised Chaplin, he was aware of his popularity, and grew the Chaplin mustache to endear himself to the people

• He had bright blue eyes and He never became a U.S. citizen

• He composed about 500 melodies, including Smile

• The last film he saw, in 1976, was Rocky

• In 1978, his dead body was stolen for over two months. When it was recovered, it was re-buried in a vault encased in cement

• He won only one non-honorary Oscar, and it was 21 years "late". Chaplin won an honorary Academy Award ("Oscar") in 1929, during the first presentation of awards

• Chaplin was married 4 times. He was 29 and his first wife was 16 when they married. His second marriage was to 16-year-old Lita Grey, when he was 35. His third and possibly fictional marriage to Paulette Goddard, was rumored to have occurred when he was 47 and she was 28. He married his last wife, Oona O'Neill, daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill, shortly after Oona turned 18. Chaplin was 54

• He was ordered to pay child support for a child that was not his own. In the 1940s, Charlie had a brief relationship with actress Joan Barry. Several months after their breakup, she claimed that Chaplin was the father of the child to which she had just given birth. When blood tests proved that Chaplin was not the father of the child, Barry's attorney moved to have the tests ruled inadmissible as evidence. Because there was little historical precedent to admit the test results into the trial, the judge did not allow them to be used as evidence of Chaplin's non-paternity. After a mistrial and a retrial, Chaplin was ordered to pay Barry $75 per week for child support, a respectable amount in those days

• His corpse was stolen. Three months after Chaplin died on Christmas, 1977, his body was stolen in an effort to extort money from his family. Chaplin's body was recovered 11 weeks later after the grave-robbers were captured. He is now buried under 6 feet of concrete to prevent further theft attempts
• He has an asteroid named after him. Four years after his death, Ukrainian astronomer, Lyudmila Karachkina, named an asteroid after him. Ms. Karachkina, discoverer of 131 asteroids, named one of them 3623 Chaplin. It resides in the asteroid "belt" between Mars and Jupiter and appears as a magnitude 12.1 object, making it visible in a moderately strong telescope

• His daughter portrayed his mother in the movie Chaplin. The accomplished actress, Geraldine Chaplin, is Charlie's daughter with his last wife Oona. In the 1992 Hollywood movie adaptation of Charlie Chaplin's life, Chaplin, she portrayed Hannah Chaplin, Charlie's mother

Facts About Yuri Gagarin - strangefacts

• Colonel Yuri A. Gagarin was born on a collective farm in a region west of Moscow, Russia on March 9, 1934

• Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space and the first man to orbit the Earth making a 108-minute orbital flight in his Vostok 1 spacecraft 

• His father was a carpenter. Yuri attended the local school for six years and continued his education at vocational and technical schools

• Yuri Gagarin joined the Russian Air Force in 1955 and graduated with honors from the Soviet Air Force Academy in 1957

• Soon afterward, he became a military fighter pilot. By 1959, he had been selected for cosmonaut training as part of the first group of USSR cosmonauts

• Yuri Gagarin flew only one space mission

• On April 12, 1961 he became the first human to orbit Earth. Gagarin's spacecraft, Vostok 1, circled Earth at a speed of 27,400 kilometers per hour

• The flight lasted 108 minutes. At the highest point, Gagarin was about 327 kilometers above Earth

• Once in orbit, Yuri Gagarin had no control over his spacecraft

• Vostok's reentry was controlled by a computer program sending radio commands to the space capsule Although the controls were locked, a key had been placed in a sealed envelope in case an emergency situation made it necessary for Gagarin to take control. As was planned, Cosmonaut Gagarin ejected after reentry into Earth's atmosphere and landed by parachute

• Colonel Yuri Gagarin died on March 27, 1968 when the MiG-15 he was piloting crashed near Moscow. At the time of his death, Yuri Gagarin was in training for a second space mission

• According to this book, Yuri Gagarin started dreaming about and planning his trip into space while he was still a kid. Before anyone had been in space. Follow your dreams, kids 

• Lots of things are named for him now, like a crater on the moon, and the town near where he grew up. He also has a few statues, like this one coming to London

• Former indie rockers Ozma named not one, but two songs after the cosmonaut: “The Flight of Yuri Gagarin” and the “Landing of Yuri Gagarin.”

• Gagarin was an environmentalist! “Orbiting Earth in spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!” So even if you never make that trip into space yourself, at least you honour Gagarin’s memory by taking care of our planet

• On April 12, 1961, the Russian cosmonaut became the first human launched into space. His 108-minute mission made him a world-wide hero. Gagarin died in 1968 at the age of 34 in a crash during a jet training flight 

• Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space less than a month later

• The USSR also had plans to go to the moon and at one time Gagarin, desperate to make a second spaceflight, was suggested as the back-up for the mission to land a cosmonaut on the moon

• The name of the capsule that carried Yuri into space was Vostok

• Yuri Gagarin died in 1968 and he left behind a wife and two daughters

Facts About Human Brain - strangefacts

• Human brain neurons system is so large that you start from earth and take a round of moon and back to starting position

• Average human brain usage is  upto 2 % out of 100 % while Einstein uses his brain upto 15 %, thats  why he is so genius

• The odds are 1 out of 7,143 (.014%) that you have a brain tumor

• Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour

• The average human brain has about 100 billion nerve cells

• The average human loses 85,000 brain cells each day, while only 50 are regenerated each day

• According to UCLA neuroscientists, only one brain cell is needed to spot a familiar face

• After age 30, the brain begins to lose about 50,000 neurons per day - shrinking the brain .25% each year

• The human central nervous system filters out 99% of what your senses register so the brain doesn't have to bother processing unimportant matters

• More electrical impulses are generated in one day by a single human brain than in all the telephones in the world

• After the death of the genius, Albert Einstein, his brain was removed by a pathologist and put in a jar for future study

• It is not possible to tickle yourself. The cerebellum, a part of the brain, warns the rest of the brain that you are about to tickle yourself

• People who ride on roller coasters have a higher chance of having a blood clot in the brain

• Scientists have actually performed brain surgery on cockroaches

• The first coin operated machine ever designed was a holy-water dispenser that required a five-drachma piece to operate. It was the brainchild of the Greek scientist Hero in the first century AD

• The average person's skin weighs twice as much as their brain

• Brains are more active sleeping than watching TV

• The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the Encyclopedia Britannic

• We actually do not see with our eyes – we see with our brains. The eyes basically are the cameras of the brain

• Ishi had made it very clear before he died that he did not want to be autopsied. However, his wishes were ignored and his body was autopsied and the brain removed and sent to the Smithsonian

Facts About Xenarthrans - strangefacts

• Armadillos, sloths, and anteaters (Xenarthra) are notable for the unique joints in their backbone that provide them with the strength and support they need to dig and burrow

• Armadillos, sloths, and anteaters have few or no teeth and a small brain

• Xenarthra are an ancient group of placental mammals that once roamed across Gondwanaland before the continents of the southern hemisphere separated into their present-day configuration

• When Gondwanaland divided, it split up to form South America, Africa, India, Arabia, New Zealand, and Australia, Xenarthra were initially isolated on the continent of South America but have since spread northward into areas of Central America and southern parts of North America

• Though xenarthran populations were absent from Africa, Asia, and Australia, these regions contain unrelated species that evolved to resemble xenarthrans

• Similar environmental conditions in these distant parts of the world resulted in species that, although unrelated, adapted in a similar manner and as a result resemble each other in some ways. This evolutionary dynamic is known as convergent evolution

• Examples of species that display convergent evolution with the xenarthrans include the aardvark (Africa), the pangolin (Africa and SE Asia), and the spiny anteater (Australia)

• These animals all have genetically different ancestors than the xenarthrans and consequently belong to different orders than the xenartrhans, yet they have evolved similar characteristics

• Xenarthrans were classified in the past together with the pangolin , also scaly anteater or Tenggiling, is a mammal of the order Pholidota

• There is only one extant family and one genus of pangolins, comprising eight species

• Anteaters, armadillos, and sloths are a group of eutherian mammals known as the Xenarthra

• They were once placed in the order Edentata and are still often referred to as edentates, a word that means "toothless"

• Although xenarthrans such as anteaters are indeed toothless, the giant armadillo has as many as 100 teeth, more than almost any other mammal

• Members of the mammalian group Edentata not only include the 31 living species of armadillos, true anteaters, and tree sloths, but also contain eight families of extinct ground sloths and armadillo-like animals

• Xenarthrans are a small group of insectivores and herbivores of small to medium body size (up to around 60 kg)

• In the past however, xenarthrans were much more diverse and numerous

• They radiated into about a dozen families in South America, including not only the groups known today but also animals such as the extinct giant ground sloths and giant armored gylptodonts

• Several groups of xenarthrans, mainly the ground sloths and armadillos, successfully crossed the Central American land bridge to North America when it formed during the Pliocene

• Today, only one of these species, an armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus), still survives there; the majority of living species live in Central and South America

Facts About Butterflies - strangefacts

• Having a wingspan of only ½", the smallest butterfly is in the world is found in South Africa. It is know as the Dwarf Blue Butterfly

• Did you know that butterflies need the warmth of the sun to enable them to fly? Butterflies are cold-blooded and will not fly if the temperature is below 50 degrees

• Fiction, you will not hurt a butterfly if you touch it, although you might rub off some of the color of its wings which are actually miniature scales

• Butterfly wings are actually clear. Their colors and patterns are made by the reflection of the scales that cover them

• In Pacific Grove, California, it is a misdemeanor to kill a butterfly

• Caterpillars do NOT have bones, they have over 1,000 muscles in which they use to move from place to place and they can move at a very quick pace

• If you find a caterpillar and place him in a designated place, before you know it , he will have crawled out of sight

• Nicole Kidman has a morbid fear of butterflies

• Butterflies taste with their feet

• Butterflies can see color in the ultraviolet range, revealing patterns on flowers to them that humans can’t see

• Butterflies have taste sensors on their feet, allowing them to stand on a leaf and see if their baby caterpillars can eat it

• There are about 165,000 known species of butterflies

• The fastest butterflies can fly up to 37 miles per hour, but most can only fly 5 to 12 miles per hour

• There are some species of butterflies like the Red Admiral that actually prefer feeding on rotting fruit and animal dung

• Some butterflies can fly as much as 10,000 feet and others can migrate up to 3,000 miles

• Milkweed, the host plant for the monarch butterfly also known as "Pleurisy Root" is also used for medicinal purposes

• Butterflies "taste" with their feet! Butterfly feet are actually tiny receptors which allow them to "taste" the food that they are standing on

• Chances are it is an adult cabbage white butterfly depositing eggs on your cabbage or vegetables in the cabbage family

• The caterpillar of the cabbage white is velvety and just the right shade of green to blend in perfectly with the cabbage leaves

• Fiction, once a bird has eaten a monarch it is definately a reminder NOT to eat another one, for the milkweed that the monarch eats as a caterpillar has a toxic effect when the butterfly is ingested

Facts About Ice Cream - strangefacts

• Ben and Jerry's send the waste from making ice cream to local pig farmers to use as feed. Pigs loved every flavor except for Mint Oreo

• Julia Roberts and Christie Brinkley once sold ice cream

• Barack Obama worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and now can't stand ice cream

• In 1984, Ronald Reagan declared the month of July to be "National Ice Cream Month."

• One out of five people that eat ice cream binge on ice cream in the middle of the night. The person is usually between 18 - 24 years old

• The last thing Elvis Presley ate before he died was four scoops of ice cream and 6 chocolate chip cookies
• Donald F. Duncan, the man who made the yo-yo an American tradition, is also credited with popularizing the parking meter and introducing Good Humor "ice cream on a stick

• Dolley Madison is credited with inventing ice cream

• Nancy Johnson, the wife of a naval officer, is credited for inventing the ice cream freezer

• Ice cream cones were first served in 1904 at the world’s fair in St. Louis, MO. US Patent # 3,477,070
  
• The ice cream "sundae" was named in Evanston, Illinois

• In 1924, the average America ate eight pints of ice cream a year. By 1997, the International Dairy Foods Association reported that the figure had jumped to 48 pints a year

• Vanilla is the most popular ice cream flavor in the USA, snagging anywhere from 20 to 29 percent of sales. Chocolate comes in a distant second, with about 9 to 10 percent of the market

• One of the major ingredients in ice cream is air. Without it, the ice cream would be as hard as a rock

• One out of every five ice cream eaters share their treat with their dog or cat

• In 1984, President Ronald Reagan declared July as National Ice Cream Month

• According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the biggest ice cream sundae in the world was made in Alberta, Canada, in 1988. It weighed nearly 55,000 pounds

• The world's largest ice cream sandwich tipped the scales at nearly 2,500 pound

• In New York, a person may not walk around on Sundays with an ice cream cone in their pocket

• During World War II, the US Navy commissioned the world's first floating ice cream parlor for service in the Pacific theatre

Facts About Kissing - strangefacts

• You burn 26 calories in a one-minute kiss

• Longest underwater kiss - 2 minutes and 18 seconds in Tokyo, Japan, on April 2, 1980

• Ancient Egyptians kissed with their noses instead of with their lips

• The average amount of time spent kissing for a person in a lifetime is 20,160 minutes

• The longest kiss on record lasted 30 hours and 45 minutes. Dror Orpaz and Carmit Tsubara recorded it on April 5, 1999 at a kissing contest held in Tel Aviv, Israel

• It takes 20 different muscles to form a kiss

• James Bond is also known as Mr. Kiss-Kiss-Bang-Bang

• The first far eastern country to permit kissing in films was China. The first oriental screen kiss was bestowed on Miss Mamie Lee in the movie "Two Women in the House"

• People are more likely to tilt their heads to the right when kissing instead of the left (65 percent of people go to the right!)

• The record for most kisses in a movie is 127 in Don Juan
  

• 8 percent of Americans kiss with their eyes open

• During a kiss , as many as 278 bacteria colonies are exchanged

• Lips are 100 times more sensitive than the tips of the fingers. Not even genitals have as much sensitivity as lips

• On July 5-6, 2005 a couple in London locked lips for 31 hours, 30 minutes, and 30 seconds, making it the longest kiss ever recorded

• Mothers who passed chewed solid food to their infants during weaning may have created the first kiss

• Alfred Hitchcocks’ creative attempt to circumvent Hollywood’s Hays Code led to one of the sexiest kisses in cinematic history

• "Eskimo" kisses are loosely based on a traditional Inuit greeting called a "kunik"

• The average woman will kiss 22 men, enjoy four long-term relationships and have their heart broken five times before she meets ‘the one’

• The average guy will kiss 23 women, have 10 one-night stands, and have his heart broken six times before he finds The One

• Let's talk science. Kissing generally uses one muscle, called the orbicularis oris, that is responsible for puckering your lips when you kiss. The science of kissing itself is called philematology