Chapter 57 - Random Facts 10

Randy Gardner is the holder of the scientifically doc.u.mented record for the longest period a human has intentionally gone without sleep not using stimulants of any kind. In 1964, Gardner, a 17-year-old high school student in San Diego, California, stayed awake for 264.4 hours (11 days 24 minutes).

The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca, 1,475 feet (450 m) above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, Minnesota.

Even though the bottle says "refrigerate after opening," according to the Kikkoman website soy sauce will not spoil after opening as long as no other ingredients have been added to it. The high salt level is the reason for this. But you may begin to lose quality over time.

The first official game was played in the YMCA gymnasium in Albany, New York on January 20, 1892 with nine players. The game ended at 1–0; the shot was made from 25 feet (7.6 m), on a court just half the size of a present-day Streetball or National Basketball Association (NBA) court.

Knocking on wood used to be a way of warding off suspected impending bad luck, and now it's used as a tongue-in-cheek sort of phrase for when someone has had a lot of good luck, meaning that the person should be careful to avoid the bad luck which may follow.

We pass out when the pressure drops below 57 percent of atmospheric pressure — equivalent to that at an altitude of 15,000 feet (4,572 meters). Climbers can push higher because they gradually acclimate their bodies to the drop in oxygen, but no one survives long without an oxygen tank above 26,000 feet (7925 m).

Thunder is the sound caused by lightning. Depending on the distance and nature of the lightning, thunder can range from a sharp, loud crack to a long, low rumble (brontide). The sudden increase in pressure and temperature from lightning produces rapid expansion of the air surrounding and within a bolt of lightning.

A 100-count string of incandescent mini lights runs at 40 watts, while a 70 count of 5mm Wide Angle LEDs is approximately 4.8 watts total. In fact, because incandescent wattage is 80-90% more than LED wattage, the cost to power an incandescent can be up to 90x greater than powering an LED.

In fact, there are approximately 19 billion chickens in the world. That's almost three per person.

Usually it's because tiny edges and bristles on the grass make small cuts on your skin, causing slight itching. You probably can't see the cuts,but they are called "blades" of grass for that reason.

The Alps are growing just as quickly in height as they are shrinking. This paradoxical result comes from a new study by a group of German and Swiss geoscientists. Due to glaciers and rivers, about exactly the same amount of material is eroded from the slopes of the Alps as is regenerated from the deep Earth's crust.

The Spanish Magellan-Elcano expedition of August 1519 to 8 September 1522, started by Portuguese navigator Fernão de Magalhães (Ferdinand Magellan) and completed by Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano after Magellan's death, was the first global circ.u.mnavigation.

The reason why ice forms on the top of lakes and ponds is that once water cools below 39 degrees Fahrenheit, it becomes lighter and less dense the more it cools. This means that water expands as it freezes into ice. As a result, ice takes up more room than the water it was made from.

Prescription bottles come in several different colors, the most common of which being orange or light brown due to its ability to prevent ultraviolet light from degrading the potentially photosensitive contents through photochemical reactions, while still letting enough visible light through for the contents to be ...

Even after centuries of effort, some 86 percent of Earth's species have yet to be fully described, according to new study that predicts our planet is home to 8.7 million species.

The most common dry ingredients are flour (1 cup = 150g), sugar (1 cup = 200g), brown sugar (1 cup packed = 200g), rice (1 cup = 200g), raisins (1 cup = 140g). For butter 1 tablespoon is 15g, 1 stick is 110g and 1 cup is 225g. Confectioner's sugar is icing sugar (1 cup = 100g).

A calorie is just a measurement of energy- the amount of energy needed to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius at standard atmospheric pressure. This makes sense when talking about calories in food. Food provides energy and our bodies need this energy to function throughout the day.