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| August 31, 2008
| Astronomy
FactID: 423
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Rated
3.35 stars from 23 votes
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After landing on the moon on July 20, 1969 with the Apollo 11 mission, NASA proposed four major projects:
- A space station
- A space shuttle
- A permanent base on the moon
- A manned mission to Mars
All of these projects were cancelled except for the space shuttle which passed Congress by only 1 vote! As of August 9th, 2005, the space shuttle ("Shuttle Transport System" or "STS") has now completed over 100 missions in 25 years of service.
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| Source: History Channel Special
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| August 30, 2008
| Astronomy
FactID: 422
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Rated
3.95 stars from 21 votes
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The inside of the Earth is spinning faster than the rest of it.
According to a new study, the inner core of Earth spins nine-thousandths of a second faster than outer layers of the Earth, which may be responsible for the Earth's magnetic field.
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| Source: Discovery Channel via Jason Langberg
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| August 25, 2008
| Society
FactID: 421
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Rated
3.50 stars from 16 votes
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The median price of existing homes in America is $218,000 -- a 14.1% increase from the past year.
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| Source: America's National Association of Realtors via The Economist.
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| August 24, 2008
| Health
FactID: 420
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Rated
4.28 stars from 32 votes
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The average adult has 100 billion brain cells. We lose 85,000 of these every day!
If all our brain cells were laid end-to-end, it would be 200 million miles long (from here to the Sun and back!)
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| Source: Popular Science
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| August 23, 2008
| Society
FactID: 419
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Rated
4.13 stars from 15 votes
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22.7% of American adults are obese.
This is an average from 2002-2004 -- a number that has been steadily increasing. The report, based on CDC data, also finds that MS, AL, WV, LA, and TN have the highest percentage of obese adults.
"Obesity" is defined by having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or more. Find out your BMI now!
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| Source: WashingtonPost.com via Jason Langberg
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| August 21, 2008
| Business
FactID: 417
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Rated
4.16 stars from 19 votes
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Nine of the world's fifty richest people are women.
Alice (56) and Helen (85) Walton share the title of richest woman in America. As daughter and wife of Sam Walton, respectively, they have an estimated net worth of $18 billion each.
Another tidbit about Wal-Mart -- Their sales in one day was larger than the GDP of 36 countries!
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| Source: Ask Yahoo via Jason Langberg
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| August 20, 2008
| Food
FactID: 416
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Rated
4.38 stars from 24 votes
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There's a lot of hubbub around the "buy local" mantra these days, but there may be more in it for you that you realize, especially when it comes to honey.
By buying locally-produced honey, your body gets small doses of the same pollen that can trigger your allergies. In the same fashion that a vaccine works, by giving your body the honey, allergies may be dramatically reduced! So the closer you live to the beekeeper, the better off you are!
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| Source: Beeguys.com via Madeleine Deblois
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| August 18, 2008
| Society
FactID: 415
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Rated
3.27 stars from 11 votes
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Daylight Saving Time begins for most of the United States at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of April. Time reverts to standard time at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday of October. In the U.S., each time zone switches at a different time.
The official spelling is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight SavingS Time.
On August 8, 2005, President Geroge W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This Act changed the time change dates in the U.S. Beginning in 2007, DST will begin on the second Sunday of March, and end the first Sunday of November.
Daylight Saving Time, for the U.S. and its territories, is NOT observed in Hawaii or in most of the Eastern Time Zone portion of the State of Indiana, and the state of Arizona (not the Navajo Indian Reservation, which does observe). Navajo Nation participates in the Daylight Saving Time policy, due to its large size and location in three states.
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| Source: Webexhibits.org
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| August 16, 2008
| Entertainment
FactID: 414
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Rated
3.21 stars from 19 votes
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In 2001, Jennifer Lopez became the first actress to have a movie (The Wedding Planner) and an album (J.Lo) top the charts in the same week!
In 2004, Fortune named her the 19th richest person under 40.
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| Source: Time via Ankeet Shah
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| August 14, 2008
| Cars
FactID: 44
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Rated
3.22 stars from 18 votes
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In February 2001, Chrysler Group sued GM over
the design of the Hummer
H2, claiming the front
grille too closely resembled that of its Jeep brand.
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| August 13, 2008
| History
FactID: 105
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Rated
4.47 stars from 17 votes
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The Taj
Mahal is the world's most symmetric structure.
The gardens, number of slabs of marble, engravings of flowers,
even the number of leaves carved and laden with emeralds on
each side are perfectly symmetrical. The Queen's tomb is laid
exactly in the centre.
The ONLY non-symmetrical part of the Taj Mahal is the King's
tomb, as it was not planned to be placed there, but in a replica
of the Taj to be built in black marble across the river. Since
the Prince arrested his father, the plan to build the second
Taj was cancelled, and the King was buried next to the Queen's
tomb, thereby breaking the symmetry of the Taj. Still considered
the most amazing of the seven wonders, the Taj has half
the verses of the Quran inscripted on it; the other half
were to be in the second monument.
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| Source: Udayan Seksaria
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| August 12, 2008
| Random
FactID: 411
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Rated
3.76 stars from 17 votes
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The largest flower in the world is the amorphophallus titanum which grows to 6 feet in height and opens to a diameter of 3-4 feet!
Check out some pictures!
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| August 11, 2008
| Computers
FactID: 410
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Rated
3.80 stars from 25 votes
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Spam accounts for over 60% of all email, according to MessageLabs.
America Online (AOL) says that at any time between 1/3 and 2/3 of its server capacity is taken up by spam.
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| Source: The Economist
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| August 10, 2008
| Entertainment
FactID: 195
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Rated
4.00 stars from 15 votes
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Last year's highest grossing film, Finding Nemo, was G-rated. 7 out of the top 10 performing rentals of all time are G-rated.
G-rated films account for only 3% of the total films made in a typical year. 69% of films are R-rated.
As an aside, box office sales typically account for only 20% of a film's earnings. Other sources are merchandising, DVD sales, video rentals.
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| Source: Motion Picture Association of America via Fortune
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| August 8, 2008
| Astronomy
FactID: 409
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Rated
4.53 stars from 17 votes
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The Sun contains more than 99.8% of the mass in the solar system -- Jupiter contains most of the rest.
Every second, the Sun converts about 700 million tons of hydrogen to 695 million tons of helium and 386 billion billion megawatts of energy (see also e=mc2 fact). It's been doing this for about 4.5 billion years and will keep going for another 5 billion years before growing to a red giant and gobbling up the Earth.
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| Source: Nineplanets.org via Jason Langberg
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| August 5, 2008
| Business
FactID: 407
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Rated
3.91 stars from 11 votes
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Atkins Nutritionals filed for bankruptcy yesterday.
At one point, 9% of Americans were on the Atkins diet.
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| Source: New York Times and The Economist
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| August 2, 2008
| Science
FactID: 406
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Rated
3.67 stars from 12 votes
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Giant Sequoias in California's Sequoia National Park, 2,000 to 2,100 years old and measures 275 feet tall and 30 feet across.
Each tree produces about 40 cubic feet of wood every year.
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| Source: Animal facts and National Park Service
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| August 1, 2008
| World
FactID: 405
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Rated
4.00 stars from 15 votes
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70% of the world's chocolate is produced in West Africa (Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon).
There are over 100,000 children working in dangerous conditions in Ivory Coast alone, the source of 40% of the world's cocoa, according to a US State Department report in 2003. Hazards include harmful pesticides and risk of injury from machetes. In response, there has been talk of a "no child slavery" label requirement for all chocolate manufacturers.
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| Source: Cocoavia.com and GlobalExchange.org -Jason Langberg
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