Tidbit Thursday- 25 Fun Facts About the Universe

It's been awhile since I've shared my love of trivia so here is another dose of Tidbit Thursday, thanks in part to MSN:

• If you eat a polar bears' liver, you will die of a vitamin A overdose.
•  Scallops have dozens of eyes and they are usually blue.
• Cleopatra lived closer in time to the building of the Empire State Building than the construction of the Great Pyramid.
• And speaking of pyramids, there were still mammoths on the Earth when the pyramids were being built.
• A banana is technically a berry (say what?!), but a raspberry is not.
• And a peanut is not a nut- it's a legume.
• All of the American flags left on the moon have been bleached white by radiation from the sun.
• The deepest point in the ocean is measured to be about 3,6200 ft, or roughly the length of 37 Eiffel towers.
• Though mercury is a metal, it just happens to be a liquid at room temperature.
• One head of human hair could support the weight of two elephants. I'm not sure how they are measuring this exactly...
• Oxford University is older than the modern English language.
• The entire current population on Earth could fit inside Texas and still be less crowded than New York City. Go Texas : )
• If all the shrimp in the ocean snapped their claws at the same time, it would reach 246 decibels, potentially making shrimp the loudest animal in the ocean. But I mean, really? Who figured that out? And why?
• The surface area of Russia is slightly larger than the dwarf-planet, Pluto. Wow, an the similarities continue between arctic Russia and the frozen Pluto.
• Every human is born with the ability to wiggle their ears. But it the talent is not discovered early, the muscle atrophies. Darn it. I missed by chance.
• Breathing in the city of Mumbai for one day is equivalent to smoking two and a half packs of cigarettes.
• Alexander the Great conquered half the known world by age 22. Makes me feel like a slacker.
• There are more possible games of chess than there are known atoms in the universe-- I did some more research on this bizarre fact to discover than the number of known atoms is 10^79 while the number of unique chess games is 10^120.
• And while we are talking chess, the word "checkmate" comes from an Arabic term "Shah mat", which means "the king is dead".
• Also, the first folding chess board was invented in the 1100's by a priest. Designed to fold in half and look like two books, it helped them conceal the game since it was forbidden to the priests.
• Neptune has barely completed one complete orbit since it was discovered in 1846.
• And Pluto has yet to complete one orbit since it's discovery and won't until March 23, 2178.
• The heart of a blue whale is roughly the size of Volkswagen Beetle and it's aorta is large enough for a human to crawl through!!
• Lego makes more tires than any company in the world. Including real tire companies.

"The more connected we feel to our righteous forefathers, the more likely we are to make wise and righteous choices."- Elder William R Walker