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| March 29, 2005
| Science
FactID: 289
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Rated
3.90 stars from 10 votes
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Well, you and the Kama Sutra know that there are more than a few ways to get crazy while conceiving, but did you know that there are more than 18 ways to biologically create an embryo? Including the clearly next-to-nature "Intra-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection" and "Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis" But you can not beat the old-fashioned way... having a Stork deliver your baby.
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Email Fact | IM Fact
| Source: PBS Special via Madeleine Deblois
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| March 27, 2005
| Business
FactID: 274
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Rated
4.53 stars from 17 votes
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McDonald's is...
- the largest toy distributor in the world
- the largest owner of playgrounds in the world
- the #1 owner of property in the world
I'm lovin' it.
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| Source: Super size Me via Shruti Nagaraj
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| March 26, 2005
| Random
FactID: 294
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Rated
4.17 stars from 12 votes
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Easter is tomorrow. But before you dig out the chocolate bunnies from your Easter basket on Sunday morning, think about this:
76 percent of people who get chocolate bunnies eat the ears first. Do you?
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| Source: FactMonster via Priscilla Tsai
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| March 25, 2005
| Sports
FactID: 293
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Rated
4.46 stars from 24 votes
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Carolina Basketball 1993 vs. 2005
Both teams lost two games in the conference. The '93 team lost their two games at Wake Forest and at Duke. This year's team lost...at Wake Forest and at Duke. Both teams suffered an early nonconference loss, with the '93 squad falling to Michigan and this year's team dropping the opener to Santa Clara. Both teams won the ACC regular season title with a 14-2 record and exited the ACC Tournament at the hands of Georgia Tech--77-75 in 1993 and 78-75 this year. The 1993 team was perfect at home, lost two games on the road, and lost two games on neutral courts. This year's team is perfect at home, lost two games on the road, and lost two games on neutral courts.
A player with the last name of Williams wore jersey number 21 on both teams (Donald in 1993, Jawad in 2005) and backup point guards on both teams wore number 11 (Scott Cherry in 1993, Quentin Thomas in 2005). The lowest scorer among the regular 1993 starters? Henrik Rodl, number 5 (he started 26 games, Donald Williams started only 14). The lowest scorer among the 2005 starters? Jackie Manuel, number 5. We won it all in 1993 --looks like we're going to win it all again this year.
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| Source: Udayan Seksaria
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| March 23, 2005
| Society
FactID: 279
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Rated
4.54 stars from 13 votes
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"That's not my forte"
If you pronounce this word "for-tay" then perhaps the English language is less of your forte than you would like to admit.
The word forte, coming from French fort, should properly be pronounced with one syllable, like the English word fort. But you're certainly not alone in your error; common usage prefers the two-syllable pronunciation, (fôr' te). In a recent survey a strong majority of the Usage Panel, 74 percent, preferred the two-syllable pronunciation. The result is a delicate situation; speakers who are aware of the origin of the word may wish to continue to pronounce it as one syllable but risk sounding incorrect to the less articulate.
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| Source: The American Heritage Dictionary via Madeleine Deblois
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| March 22, 2005
| Random
FactID: 290
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Rated
4.33 stars from 15 votes
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Nineteen-year-old Louisa Almedovar and her 22-year-old boyfriend Rich Langley, both of Vineland, New Jersey, USA, kissed non-stop for a record 30 hours, 59 minutes and 27 seconds on December 5, 2001.
When all was said and done, Louisa and Rich were still willing to give each other a congratulatory kiss on a job well done.
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| Source: Guiness World Records via Jason Langberg
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| March 21, 2005
| Food
FactID: 282
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Rated
4.59 stars from 17 votes
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People around the world drink 1.3 billion Coca-Cola beverages every day!
That is 15,000 drinks every second! Just take a look at all the brands the Coca-Cola Company owns.
On a sadder note, the owner of Coca-Cola sold two men the exclusive rights to bottle Coca-Cola across the US for only one dollar ($1) in 1899.
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| Source: Coca-Cola Annual Report
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| March 20, 2005
| Random
FactID: 286
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Rated
4.53 stars from 17 votes
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Tyler Hinman, 20, became the youngest champion in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament's 28-year-history Sunday after beating 450 competitors.
A couple of weeks ago, he finished the New York Times' Sunday puzzle in 5 minutes. Of course, that was online, he said; it would have taken more time by hand. The puzzles in the New York Times increase in difficulty from Monday to Sunday.
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| Source: American Crossword Puzzle Tourney & CNN via Jason Langberg
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| March 17, 2005
| History
FactID: 278
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Rated
3.50 stars from 8 votes
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People have been reading newspapers for 400 years!
According to the World Association of Newspapers, documentation has arisen that shows a newspaper entitled "Relation" began printing in 1605 in Strasbourg, France.
Today more than a billion people read a daily newspaper in print.
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| Source: WAN via Scott Boze
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| March 16, 2005
| Animals
FactID: 275
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Rated
4.10 stars from 10 votes
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Koko the Gorilla can communicate with humans!
Using a modified version of sign language, Koko has a vocabulary of over 1,000 words, in addition to understanding spoken English!
Dr. Penny Patterson has been teaching her for 23 years and there are some great videos of her signing, painting, etc.
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| Source: "A Conversation with Koko" on PBS
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| March 15, 2005
| Food
FactID: 277
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Rated
4.00 stars from 9 votes
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The first lollipop was invented just prior to the Civil War when someone thought it would be a good idea to stick some candy on then end of pencils for children to nibble on.
The world's largest lollipop was made by Jolly Rancher in 2002 and weighed in at over two tons and a billion calories. Meaning that it would take a 150 lb person a straight year of running a 9 minute mile to burn off all the fat-free calories.
But no one's allowed to lick it. Suckers.
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| Source: Food Network via Madeleine DeBlois
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| March 14, 2005
| Technology
FactID: 266
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Rated
3.88 stars from 8 votes
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If you want to sell your book on Amazon.com, you can set the price, but then they will take a 55% cut and leave you with only 45%.
Good old CEO Jeff Bezos ('99 Time Man of the Year) doesn't get to a net worth of $4.85 billion by being fair...
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| Source: Cool Tools via Quinn McCleery
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| March 13, 2005
| Society
FactID: 258
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Rated
3.90 stars from 10 votes
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At any given moment, there are 61,000 people airborne over the U.S.
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| Source: "So Now You Know" by Bright & Briscoe
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| March 12, 2005
| Computers
FactID: 254
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Rated
3.25 stars from 16 votes
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"FactMe.com" is worth $695 according to Exclusivedomains.com.
This site registers every domain name imaginable and then sells them at a set rate ($995 for 3-letter domains, $695 for 6-letter domains).
Just think - you can get www.3t8.com or www.q4d.com for only $995!
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| Source: Annoyed sarcasm directed at ExclusiveDomains.com
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| March 11, 2005
| Computers
FactID: 267
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Rated
3.86 stars from 14 votes
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Use A9.com (from Amazon) for your web search and you can get a 1.57% (Pi/2) discount off everything you buy at Amazon.
And just as discovered with last April's fact, they still keep track of everything!
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Email Fact | IM Fact
| Source: KC Lemson and Amazon.com
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| March 9, 2005
| Health
FactID: 268
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Rated
4.43 stars from 14 votes
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The CDC estimates that almost 1,000,000 people in America are living with HIV infection - and 25% of them are unaware of their infection.
As if things weren't bad enough, doctors in New York City report that a new strain of HIV has been found that appears to resist all current drug cocktails.
But the estimated annual number of AIDS-related deaths in the US fell 14% from 1998-2002 to 16,371 in 2002.
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| Source: IHT via Madeleine Deblois & NIH Factsheet
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| March 8, 2005
| Science
FactID: 269
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Rated
4.27 stars from 11 votes
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A coal-fired power plant actually releases more radioactivity into the atmosphere than a properly functioning nuclear power plant.
Check out the E=mc2 fact from a few weeks ago.
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| Source: HowStuffWorks
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| March 7, 2005
| Business
FactID: 265
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Rated
3.56 stars from 9 votes
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Viacom Inc. owns CBS, UPN, MTV Networks (MTV, Spike, CMT, TV Land), VH1, Nickelodeon, Showtime, The Movie Channel, and Flix.
They also own Paramount Television which produces the CSI shows on CBS, Entertainment Tonight, and Judge Judy.
Then, within CBS Enterprises, Viacom owns King World Media which distributes Oprah, Dr.Phil, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy, among others...
On top of that, Viacom Outdoor is the largest outdoor advertising company in North America, with all those billboards along streets and highways. Not to mention Paramount Pictures, which has 2,500 titles including Titanic, Forrest Gump, Napoleon Dynamite, etc.
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| Source: NYTimes & Viacom website
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| March 6, 2005
| Sports
FactID: 273
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Rated
3.83 stars from 12 votes
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On March 1, Bain Capital made an offer to buy the entire 30-team National Hockey League (NHL) for $3.3 billion.
The NHL sesason was cancelled this year, but normally the league produces $2 billion in annual revenue, of which 75% goes to players' salaries.
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| Source: The Boston Globe
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| March 5, 2005
| Computers
FactID: 264
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Rated
3.13 stars from 15 votes
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Better not send unsolicited IM messages.
Anthony Greco, 18, became the first person arrested for spim (unsolicited instant messages) on February 21, 2005.
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| Source: ZDNet
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| March 4, 2005
| Society
FactID: 263
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Rated
4.20 stars from 10 votes
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Yikes. In 2000, barely 25% of high school seniors found school work to be meaningful and only just over 30% of seniors thought that things they learned in school would be important later in life.
How's that for motivation?
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more Society
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| Source: Report (Indicator 9) from the National Center for Education Statistics via Madeleine Deblois
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| March 3, 2005
| Business
FactID: 272
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Rated
4.25 stars from 8 votes
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The global beauty business brings in $140 billion/year.
Of that, the male grooming side makes up only $16 billion. Maybe this means that women spend almost 8 times as much on their looks as men.
This is all according to Procter & Gamble's CEO A.G. Lafley, who also mentions that P&G has 16 "billion-dollar" brands, that each bring in more than $1 billion in revenue, including Tide, Olay, Crest, Charmin, Pampers, etc.
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| Source: Fortune P&G article
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| March 2, 2005
| Sports
FactID: 261
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Rated
3.09 stars from 11 votes
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Arizona businessman Reggie Fowler agreed to buy the Minnesota Vikings in a deal that would make him the NFL's first black owner.
Fowler declined to say how much he would pay for the team. Published reports and a rival bidder, Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor, put the price at about $625 million.
Is this a good use of money, or could it be better used?
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Email Fact | IM Fact
| Source: ESPN via Jason Langberg
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| March 1, 2005
| Math
FactID: 256
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Rated
4.20 stars from 35 votes
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111,111,111
x 111,111,111
--------------------------
12,345,678,987,654,321
It's a palindrome, just like "Damn, I, Agassi, miss again! Mad!" is.
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| Source: Palindromelist.com
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