Friday, July 6, 2007

Out for a cap

Indian Test Cricketer Ashok Mankad was declared out when his cap fell onto the wicket - removing the bails - while facing Chris Old against England at Edgbaston in 1974. Another Indian cricketer Dalip Vengsarkar was out in a similar way when he was facing Jeff Thompson against Australia at Brisbane in 1978.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Missing kings

Swedish history lists six kings who never existed. They were Charles l, ll, lll, lV, V and Vl. The first real Charles was King Charles Vll, who ruled from 1155 A.D. to 1167 A.D.

Nice to know this!

1. Until babies are six months old, they can breathe and swallow at the same time. Indeed convenient!

2. Offered a new pen to write with, 97% of all people will write their own name.

3. Male mosquitoes are vegetarians. Only females bite.

4. The average person's field of vision encompasses a 200-degree wide angle.

5. To find out if a watermelon is ripe, knock it, and if it sounds hollow then it is ripe.

6. Canadians can send letters with personalised postage stamps showing their own photos on each stamp.

7. Babies' eyes do not produce tears until the baby is approximately six to eight weeks old.

8. It snowed in the Sahara Desert in February of 1979.

9. Plants watered with warm water grow larger and more quickly than plants watered with cold water.

10. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.

11. Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave.

12. Those stars and colours you see when you rub your eyes are called phosphenes.

13. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

14. Everyone's tongue print is different, like fingerprints.

15. Contrary to popular belief, a swallowed chewing gum doesn't stay in the gut. It will pass through the system and be excreted.

16. At 40 degrees centigrade a person loses about 14.4 calories per hour by just breathing.

17. There is a hotel in Sweden built entirely out of ice; it is rebuilt every year.

18. Cats, camels and giraffes are the only animals in the world that walk right foot, right foot, left foot, left foot, rather than right foot, left foot...

19. Onions help reduce cholesterol if eaten after a fatty meal.

20. The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.

21. In most watch advertisements the time displayed on the watch is 10:10 because then the arms frame the brand of the watch and make it look like its smiling.

22. The color blue can have a calming affect on people.

23. Depending upon the need, the brain may send up to 11 tranquilizing chemicals to calm the body.

24. Leonardo DA Vinci could write with the one hand and draw with the other simultaneously. Now we know why his pictures were so exquisite!

25. Names of the three wise monkeys are: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru(Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil).

26. The only 2 animals that can see behind themselves without turning their heads are the rabbit and parrot.

27. The only 15 letter word that can be spelt without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

28. Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.

29. The names of the continents all end with the same letter with which they start.

30. Electricity doesn't move through a wire but through a field around the wire.

31. All U.S. Presidents have worn glasses; some of them just didn't like to be seen wearing them in public.

32. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver and purple.

33. Raw cashews are poisonous and must be roasted before eating.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Reverse effect

Count Istvan Szechenyi, the famous Hungarian scientist who lived from 1791 to 1860, went insane and chess was prescribed as a cure. A young student was hired to play chess with the old Count. At the end of six years, the Count recovered his reason - and the student became incurably insane!

Unlucky in love...

# A young Taiwanese man wrote some 700 love letters to his girlfriend in the years 1974-76, trying to persuade her to marry him. His persistence finally brought results. The girl finally married - the postman who faithfully delivered all the letters!

# Learning that her husband had betrayed her, Vera Czermak jumped out of her third-storey window in Prague. The newspaper "Vicerni Praha" has reported that Mrs. Czermak is recovering in hospital, after landing on her husband - who was killed.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

A book written in blood

The Japanese Emperor Sutoku (1124 A.D. - 1164 A.D.) wrote a book in his own blood. While he was in exile in Sanuki for three years, he spent the entire time copying the Lankavara Sutra (a famous religious essay) using his own blood as ink. This unique work consists of 135 pages, 1215 lines and 10,500 words - and was written in the pious hope that the Lord Buddha would reward him by a restoration to the throne of Japan. Sutoku was reinstated as ruler of Japan in 1144 A.D. and ruled for another twenty years.

The pot of love

The town of Bunzlau in the province of Silesia in Germany, which specialises in pottery, is still proud of a gigantic piece of crockery fashioned by a lovelorn potter's assistant named Joppe to gain the hand of his master's daughter. The pot, a true labour of love, was created in 1753. When he exhibited his masterpiece and the city fathers realised its capacity for 30 bushels of peas, they interceded with the obdurate father till he gave his consent. The city of Bunzlau was so enchanted with this success that they have been treasuring the Pot of Love (Liebestopf in German) ever since and even adopted it as the city emblem.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Horse sense

'Clever Hans' was a horse who lived in Germany, early in the twentieth century. He could read, solve mathematical problems, and answer questions on world political affairs - or so it seemed.

Hans would answer all mathematical questions by tapping his leg. If you asked him '3 plus 4', he would tap seven times. Non-mathematical questions (such as 'is London the capital of Britain?') would be answered by shaking or nodding the head. Hans could even answer questions written on blackboards.

Finally Hans' secret was discovered. He was highly sensitive to the reactions of people around him, especially his master Osten. When a mathematical question was asked, people would look at Hans' foot. So he would start tapping. When he reached the right number of taps, people would react in some way, without being aware of it. They would nod slightly, or relax, or smile. Hans would then stop tapping. Hans was able to pick up similar cues for non-mathematical questions. No one knows how he learnt this trick.

The most amazing thing is that even after people became aware of the horse's method, they could still not stop sending out these little clues, no matter how hard they tried!