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Author Topic: Useless Fact's Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-31-2005 09:35 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - What is the fastest production motorcycle? The fastest production motorcycle is still the Suzuki GSX 1300 R, also known as the Hayabusa, which has a top speed of 194mph. Kawasaki also make a ZX-12R sports bike with a little more grunt than the Hayabusa, but the Suzuki still tops out faster thanks to slick aerodynamics. There are many 1 litre class Superbikes however, such as the Suzuki GSX 1000 R, Yamaha R1, Kawasaki ZX 10 R, MV Agusta F4 1000, Honda CBR 1000 RR etc and even 600cc Supersports models that would beat the Hayabusa around a race track or twisty road circuit, due to their smaller size and lighter weight. Also, the Japanese motorcycle makers, who every year come up with even lighter bikes with ever more horsepower, have now signed a gentleman's agreement to not exceed 189mph. So, though the new 1000cc bikes are rapidly approaching the HP and torque figures of the Hayabusa, due to speed limiting the 'Busa will still be king for quite some time.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-31-2005 09:37 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - What does the hypothalamus do? This is a small area at the base of the brain. The hypothalamus makes up less than 17 percent of the brain's total volume, but it plays a key role in regulating the body's general level of activity. The hypothalamus helps control the autonomic nervous system, part of the nervous system that regulates such automatic body processes as breathing, blood pressure, and heart rate. The hypothalamus also controls the pituitary gland, the so-called "master gland" of the endocrine (hormone-producing) system. Certain parts of the hypothalamus regulate body temperature, breathing, sleep, hunger, thirst, urination, sexual drives, and emotions. Other parts produce hormones called releasing hormones or releasing factors. The releasing hormones travel in the bloodstream to the anterior lobe (front part) of the pituitary gland and control secretion of individual pituitary hormones. The pituitary hormones, in turn, affect many of the endocrine glands. These glands secrete hormones that influence growth, sexual development, and the rate the body changes food into energy and living tissue. In addition to the releasing hormones, the hypothalamus produces the hormones vasopressin, oxytocin, and somatostatin. These hormones are stored in, and released by, the posterior lobe (rear part) of the pituitary gland. Vasopressin, which is also known as antidiuretic hormone, reduces the amount of water lost from the body in urine. Oxytocin helps regulate the birth process and milk production in females. Somatostatin slows the secretion of growth hormone.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-03-2006 07:04 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Could an earthquake really split California from the rest of the United States? A single earthquake will not split California from the rest of the continent. A whole series of quakes will eventually split the westernmost sliver off. That portion of California that includes the coastal portions from the Gulf of California almost to San Francisco Bay and Baja California is actually on the Pacific Plate. This plate is sliding northward past the North American Plate along the San Andreas Fault at a rate of a few centimeters per year. Eventually this movement will separate this part of California and turn it into an island off the coast of Northern California. As this island continues northward, eventually it will crash into and become part of Alaska. However, all of this will take millions of years to accomplish. So, it is not something that we really need to worry about, not that there is anything that we can do about it anyway.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-04-2006 06:49 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Can you drink too much coffee? Oh yes, you definitely can drink too much coffee. And is more dangerous than most people think. Heavy coffee drinkers usually do it because of its stimulant effects, among them keep them awake and more aware, which is "very good" when you will work or study overnight. The bad thing is that because of these stimulating effects, a work or study overload can trigger a nervous breakdown. Why? Because caffeine will accelerate your heart beat and hyper-activate yourself....so in short any overload of the system during high levels of consumption can start a series of unfortunate things such as insomnia, over-stress, arrhythmia, etc which can ultimately lead to a heart attack.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-04-2006 04:33 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Where was the Garden of Eden supposedly located? As we learned from the links in the Lukol Christian Archaeology category this is a very popular topic among Christian online resources. An article by researcher Dora Jane Hamblin notes that the Book of Genesis is actually quite specific regarding the location of the garden of Eden: "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison...And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel [Tigris]: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. -- (Genesis 2:10-14)" Thus, Eden holds the headwaters of four major rivers and should be fairly easy to identify. The Tigris and Euphrates are well known, but identifying the rivers of Pison and Gihon has puzzled researchers for years. There is no consensus on the geographical basis for the Garden of Eden, but several sites have been suggested. Archaeologist David Rohl claims to have located the site in a "lush valley beneath an extinct volcano in Iran." Others have suggested it lies somewhere in the Tigris and Euphrates Valley, under the waters of the Persian Gulf, or even in Missouri. The jury is still out.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-05-2006 06:54 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Does it take longer to give birth to a boy than a girl? After careful research it has been found infant boys are a lot more trouble than infant girls when it comes to having a baby. If you want complications, then boys win the battle of the sexes hands down, according to research published today. A team at The National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street, looked at more than 8,000 births, searching for an answer to something long understood by midwives - that boys cause more problems than girls. The results are published in the British Medical Journal. Now it's official - males really do cause more problems during labor, according to Dr Eogan's results. "We found that women who carried male infants had longer labors, more foetal distress and were more likely to require assistance during delivery" explained Dr Maeve Eogan, specialist registrar at Holles Street. "Some of these things can be explained because males are larger and have larger head circumferences" but this factor didn't fully explain the differences, she said. It may be that there was some "inherent vulnerability" in male babies. "They are more vulnerable to the effects of labor." The team looked at first-time mothers who went into natural labor between 1997 and 2000. Male births were much more likely to require the use of oxytocin, a hormone which stimulates contractions. "Of the women carrying male infants, 70 per cent of them had completely normal deliveries, compared to 76 per cent of females." Baby-boy labor averaged more than six hours, while average baby- girl labor lasted less than six hours. Forceps were needed in 23 per cent of boy births, but only 19 per cent of girl births. And while 6 per cent of boys were delivered by Caesarean section, only 4 per cent of girls were born this way.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-05-2006 12:44 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - If a strange dog is running toward you, should you run or stand your ground? Do not run. A person CANNOT outrun a dog, even a big, heavy slow dog like a rottweiler. If the dog is a trained personal protection or police dog, your best chance of surviving is to stand absolutely still. If you are unarmed and you try to fight you will lose. If the dog is not a trained attack dog, your best bet is to stay still and call for help, or back away slowly until you can get an object that will help separate you from the dog. I would recommend standing still - with your arms lowered - but ready to move up fast. A dog will by default go for the throat - (if you are running away - it has to go for a limb), so you want to make sure your arm can quickly move so that the dog bites it rather than your arm. According to British World War 2 army manuals - the best thing to do is to let it bite your arm, use that arm to grab one front leg and then use the other arm to grab the other front leg and pull the legs apart - (dogs have little strength to prevent that type of movement). Don't think I could ever do that though (it would kill the dog). Try moving away slowly - avoid eye contact and try to get something to protect yourself. Whether a dog will always win the fight - it must depend on the type of dog. Some dogs can lock their jaws and will not release easily and can take a severe beating, but most are not vicious like that. A small dog cant match a humans strength - but you probably are not talking about a small dog. When approaching a dog - always have you hand below its head - and this will not be seen as an act of aggression. I think the Reader's Digest once said to turn to the side so as not to look them in the eye, dangle your keys at arm's length to keep distracting its attention from one place to another. My colleague said that if all else fails with a big one and you have to choose between three days in the hospital and three days in the funeral parlor, shove your fist down its throat and keep it there till it chokes the dog to death. A lot of people get hurt because they don't remember the saying "Small dogs bite. Large dogs kill." Most dogs are nice and friendly, but until you know better, treat any strange dog with the caution you would show around an armed man.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-06-2006 07:54 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Are cigars less harmful than cigarettes? It's a trade off... Because cigar smokers don't typically inhale, they have a lower incidence of lung cancer and emphysema than cigarette smokers. But statistically, cigar smokers are more likely to develop cancer of the mouth, tongue, larynx than cigarette smokers. Carcinogens are a natural by-product of the tobacco leaf's curing process.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-07-2006 07:33 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Can you get too much sleep? Yes. When you sleep normally, you go through 4 stages. Stage 4 is the restorative stage, and it takes a while of sleeping before you actually get to Stage 4. The other stages actually cause you to become more exhausted! For instance: If you get a good night's sleep, with about 2-3 hours of Stage 4 sleep, and wake up the next morning, you will be rested. If you are lazy, though, and stay in bed, you are likely to drift in and out of sleep, never reaching Stage 4. When you finally get up, you will be more exhausted than if you had just gotten up earlier in the first place.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-08-2006 06:24 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - How can I get my spouse to snore less? It can help to know that snoring may be caused by the position of the head during sleep. The position of the head in relation to the body, can cause the respiratory ways to get obstructed, causing the air going through them to cause the snore. So, it may be as simple as gently move your spouse's head during his/her sleep, or recommend him/her to sleep with only one pillow, or just to try and change his/her usual sleeping position. Also, some people snore because nose problems, some of them are birth defects (like a deviated nose bone) and some are non-natural (like the ones caused by a punch or crashing into something in the darkness). Some people bumped his/her nose against something when kids and don't even remember it. These nasal deviations or obstructions can be corrected with simple surgery. Some people even take advantage of the situation, because you are paying for it anyway, to get a nose job at the same time. Check out the links in our Snoring category for more.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-09-2006 07:26 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - How are phobias named? After the Latin or Greek root for the object of fear. For example: bibliophobia, which I may or may not have just made up, is a fear of books. There are always exceptions and weird ones, like any word--some of them are arbitrarily created, and some of them came about so long ago it's difficult to determine the actual etymology. The above is the most common formation, though. The term phobia, which comes from the Ancient Greek word for fear (fobos). Phobias are the most common form of anxiety disorder. An American study by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) found that between 5.1 and 21.5 percent of Americans suffer from phobias.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-10-2006 06:46 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - If you get a speeding ticket while in another state, does it show up on your driving record? The simple answer, yes. The majority of the states in the U.S AND parts of Canada are members of what is called the Non-Resident Violators Compact (NRVC). This allows them to share information regarding driving records, criminal records, etc. For instance, if you apply for a driver's license in Texas, but you have a suspended license in Arizona, you will not be allowed to obtain one in Texas, in fact, you could be arrested in Texas for driving on a suspended out-of-state license. Execution of state-to-state warrants are handled in much the same way. Here's a personal claim we came across while looking for the answer: "I used to work in insurance underwriting and one of my jobs was reviewing motor vehicle records (MVR). I often saw violations from multiple states on one MVR. As a matter of fact, both moving violations (speeding) and administrative type (expired tags) violations showed up. If the ticket didn't show up... you got lucky (it does happen) or the time in which your resident state still considers a ticket "active" is up. Laws vary from state to state regarding MVRs too."  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-11-2006 08:37 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - What is the longest recorded marriage in the world? The longest recorded marriage was between Liu Yung-yang, and his wife Yang Wan, from Taoyuan, northern Taiwan, married in April 1917. Death of 103-year-old wife in 2003 ended their 86-year marriage, which was the longest registered marriage with the Guinness Book of World Records, beating former record holders - an American couple - by three years. The Taiwanese couple had more than 100 children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The couple got married in their late teens, but have been part of each other's lives for even longer. Following an old custom among poor Taiwanese families, Liu Yang- wan was sent to live with her future husband's family at the age of five, to take care of him and do household chores, relatives said. On a different note, according to Bible, I'm pretty sure you will find some marriages lasted more than a century.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-12-2006 07:00 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - How often should a dog's collar and leash be changed? Provided that the collar and leash are cleaned (When I say cleaned, I mean heated to a temperature of 150 degrees Farenheit) once a week, and the collar and leash are used only when the dog is walked, they should never need to be changed unless they are in danger of breaking. Heating the leash and collar ( Which can be done easily in a domestic dish washer) to 150 degrees Farenheit kills any flea and/or tick eggs that may be deposited on the fabric of the leash and collar. If you want to heat it to 180 degrees Farenheit (Again, the domestic dishwasher will do the trick) it will also kill all bacteria on the leash and collar.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-13-2006 08:06 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Under what circumstances could someone change their Social Security number? Here's what Social Security Administration says: "People in all walks of life can be victims of family violence or harassment, abuse or life-endangering situations in their daily lives. If you are a victim of family violence, Social Security may be able to help you. Public awareness campaigns stress how important it is for victims to develop safety plans that include gathering personal papers and choosing a safe place to go. Sometimes the best way to evade an abuser and reduce the risk of further violence may be to relocate and establish a new identity. Following these changes, it also may be helpful to get a new Social Security number. Although Social Security does not routinely assign new numbers, we will do so when evidence shows you are being harassed or abused or your life is endangered."  |  IP: Logged

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