2 facts and facts about 2s, from the Random Facts shelf.
25 facts on this shelf
Since the first power plant (thomas edison's power plant) lit up 800 light bulbs in 1882, the electric utility industry has grown to generate over 2.5 million gigawatt-hours annually, the equivalent of lighting 4.8 billion 60-watt light bulbs for a year
In 1990 in California alone, wind power offset the emission of more than 2.5 billion pounds of carbon dioxide and 15 million pounds of other pollutants - the same amount of air quality provided by more than 150 million trees.
Geothermal energy currently provides more than 2,700 megawatts of electricity nationwide - the equivalent of three nuclear power plants, or enough to power more than 3.5 million homes.
A geothermal power plant emits no nitrogen oxides, very few sulfur dioxides and 1,000 to 2,000 times less carbon dioxide than a fossil fuel plant.
Siamese fighting fish must be kept isolated because they will fight, immediately, often to the death. In an experiment, 2
fish were dropped in a lake. Would this be enough space? Were these tiny fish interested in exploring?
No, they immediately started fighting.
The tongue of the Giant Anteater is over 2 feet long... kissy kissy.
A Cornish game hen is really just a young Cornish chicken, usually 5 to 6 weeks of age, that weighs no more than 2 pounds.
Howler monkeys are the noisiest land animals. Their calls can be heard over 2 miles away.
100 is the sum of the first nine prime numbers, as well as the sum of two prime numbers (47 + 53), and the sum of the cubes of the first four integers (100 = 1^3 + 2^3 + 3^3 + 4^3). Also, 2^6 + 6^2 = 100
In 1865 the first speed limit was introduced in Britain - 2 mph in town and 4 mph in the country.
A new study finds those who won Nobel Prizes between 1901 and 1950 lived about 2 years longer than nominees who didn't win.
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776 John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, 1776 but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
In the 1940s, the FCC assigned television's Channel 1 to Mobile Services (two-way radios in taxicabs, for instance) but did not re-number the other channel assignments. That's why your TV set has channels 2 and up, but no channel 1.
An average person visits the toilet 2,500 times per year. (6-8 times per day)
People spend at least 3 years of their lives on the toilet.
Seven million cell phones are dropped in the toilet per year.
Americans use a lot more toilet paper than any other country. (7 sheets on average)
People have flushed down the toilet: goldfish, false teeth, socks, underwear, bras, shirts, shoes, mice, hamsters, toy cars, action figures, Barbies, toothbrushes, and whole rolls of toliet paper.
Most toilets flush on an E-flat note.
10,000 times you have to change a baby's diaper until it learns how to go to the bathroom itself.
Men spend 140 days of his life shaving.
Brushing your teeth with the water on wastes 5 gallons of water. Shaving with the water on wastes 15 to 20 gallons.
Females takes 3 times longer than males in the bathroom.
In the 1940s, the FCC assigned television's Channel 1 to Mobile Services (two-way radios in
taxicabs, for instance) but did not re-number the other channel assignments. That's why your TV
set has channels 2 and up, but no channel 1.
A new study (2/08) suggests that sadness leads to shopping.
According to the study that will be published in the June 2008 number of Psychological Science, sadness leads to ego-centrist thinking. In other words, a sad person tends to transform into a shopaholic, willing to spend extra money on the same item than neutral-emotion people would buy for a lot less.
“It is the combination of sadness and self-focus that drives the effect, and it turns out that sadness leads to an increase in self-focus,” said Cynthia Cryder, co-author to the study, AFP quotes. “What we think is going on is that sad and self-focused people are feeling pretty bad about themselves and have a decreased valuation, and one way to do this is by acquiring material goods.”
Oh yeah, it also says this therapy does not work. If you’re sad and feel like shopping, don’t!
A blackjack card counter performs a simple calculation...over and over and over again. The goal is to bet more money when a deck is loaded with big cards 10,Jack, Queen,King, & Ace because the chances of a dealer busting increases. To figure out when the deck favors the player they do the following:
The card counter begins with zero. For every card that appears either they add 1, minus 1, or keep it the same.
If the card is a 2,3,4,5,6 you add 1. If the card is 10,j,q,k,ace you subtract 1. If it's a 7,8,9 the score remains the same.
So, a card counter will bet small while they keep count and if their tally reaches +5 or greater they increase their bet. This system relies on the law of large numbers which says while the bettor will lose or win money on a given day over time the bettor will have the advantage and thus be profitable long-term.
p.s. This is much easier said than done. This formula was introduced in Beat The Dealer in 1966 and the casinos are doing just fine. Good luck!
The term, "taxicab", was formed from combining the word, taximeter and cabriolet. Taximeter is a tool for measuring time and distance and a cabriolet is a 2 wheeled 1 horse carriage.
Identical twins develop when one egg separates then is fertilized, fraternal twins are 2 separate eggs, and siamese twins is one egg that began to separate but was fertilized before the completion of the egg division.
At World Cup 2010 2.72 million tickets will be sold.
According to about.com and their top 25 funny jokes "I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers, and rubble, and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message that no matter what happens to America she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo-ops in the world." --Comedian Stephen Colbert, roasting Bush at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.
Our favorite: “To the vice president's credit, he did own up to it (shooting hunting partner in the face). On FOX News he said the fault was his, he can't blame anybody else. Boy, it's amazing, the only time you get accountability out of this administration is when they are actually holding a smoking gun." --Bill Maher
There are currently three types of batteries commonly used to run people's laptops:
1) Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cd) batteries were the standard technology for years, but are now out of date.
2) Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH) batteries are a cadmium-free replacement for Nickel Cadmium.
3) Lithium Ion (Li-ion) is the battery you want for your laptop and is the current standard for portable power.
Male black widow spiders are half the size of the female or smaller. Female black widows can get as long as 55mm or 2.165 inches.
In poker parlance if you have 2 pair aces & eights you have the Dead Man's Hand, so named after Wild Bill Hickok who was said to be holding aces and eights when he was shot in the back by Jack McCall in the Mann-Lewis Saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota, August 2, 1876.
On July 20, 1969 the first manned spacecraft landed on the moon. The Moon was first visited by Soviet spacecraft Luna 2 in 1959. It is the only extraterrestrial body to have been visited by humans. The last time the moon was visited by man was in December of 1972.
Ancient romans used it for tanning hides, pee breaks down gristle.
1) Mix urine & rosemary in your washing machine to make a dark die.
2) Urine is in cosmetics, an ingredient called urea which is an excellent moisturizer.
3) Urine can also be used to make gunpowder!
4) 10 million chinese and many other peoples of the world drink it for it's supposed health benefits.