Chapter 52 - Random Facts 5

Pandas do not have access to eucalyptus because it's not native to china. A panda eats bamboo... I don't know where people got the idea they eat eucalyptus, because that's a plant native to Australia. Koala bears eat eucalyptus, and pandas eat bamboo.

So far it's taken approximately 1,009,491 days to build Rome. This is based on the traditional founding of the city (21 April 753 BCE), but we should also consider that the city has been sacked and rebuilt several times.

Weighing in at around 3 pounds, the liver is the body's second largest organ; only the skin is larger and heavier. The liver performs many essential functions related to digestion, metabolism, immunity, and the storage of nutrients within the body.

A chin is a protrusion at the front of the mandible bone, which humans and elephants have while gorillas-and apparently every other animal-do not have. Skulls of animals in question. It's like if Sarah Jessica Parker and John Kerry had a baby.

Biting on aluminum foil can be painful and is usually noticed if you have metal in your mouth from dental work (e.g. fillings, crowns). Basically, when you bite on foil, you set up a battery in your mouth and the electrical current stimulates nerve endings in your tooth.

Frogs can hear both in the air and below water. They do not have external ears; the eardrums (tympanic membranes) are directly exposed or may be covered by a layer of skin and are visible as a circular area just behind the eye.

Thutmose III, who was technically co-ruler with Hatshepsut, succeeded the female pharaoh after her death. Although Hatshepsut was given a burial in the Valley of the Kings, her memory was not honored.

The killer whale (Orcinus orca), also referred to as the orca whale or orca, and less commonly as the blackfish, is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family. Killer whales are found in all oceans, from the frigid Arctic and Antarctic regions to tropical seas.

The chocolate chip cookie was invented by Ruth Graves Wakefield. She owned the Toll House Inn, in Whitman, Massachusetts, a very popular restaurant that featured home cooking in the 1930s. Her cookbook, Toll House Tried and True Recipes, was first published in 1936 by M. Barrows & Company, New York.

The legs of the ant are very strong so they can run very quickly. If a man could run as fast for his size as an ant can, he could run as fast as a racehorse. Ants can lift 20 times their own body weight. An ant brain has about 250 000 brain cells.

The great fire of Rome breaks out and destroys much of the city on this day in the year 64. Despite the well-known stories, there is no evidence that the Roman emperor, Nero, either started the fire or played the fiddle while it burned.

The U.S. National Anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, was written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key. Key was sent to the British fleet in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812 to secure the release of Dr. William Beanes on September 13, 1814.