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Fast Facts

November 30, 2007

According to legend, Dolly Parton’s parents were so poor that they paid the doctor who delivered her in cornmeal instead of cash.

Oreo wasn’t the first cream-filled chocolate cookie; the very similar Hydrox brand beat the Oreo to the punch by two years.

While people blind in one eye suffer from a complete lack of depth perception, they only lose about one-fifth of their total range of vision.

While you can’t get lead poisoning from pencils because they’re made of graphite, graphite dust can lead to diseases of the lungs.

Reykjavik, Iceland, is located farther north than any other national capital on Earth.

Alexandre Dumas named his palatial home in Paris “”Monte Cristo,”” after his famous novel “”The Count of Monte Cristo.””

When you hit a tennis ball, it spends just four-thousandths of a second in contact with the racquet.

Catgut, used in stringing tennis racquets, comes from the intestines of sheep, horses, and several other animals – but definitely not the cat. The word was probably shortened from the original “”cattlegut.””

Fingernails grow nearly four times faster than toenails.

Rita Hayworth’s real name was Margarita Cansino.

When a roadrunner is content, it purrs.

A 3-foot jump on Earth would carry you 18 feet, 9 inches on the moon.

The potato chips Americans eat each year in total weigh six times as much as the Titanic.

Australia’s mallee bird can tell temperature with its tongue, accurate to within two degrees.

Thomas Jefferson never said “”That government is best which governs least.”” That was actually said by Thomas Paine.

Facts courtesy of “”The Big Book of Useless Information”” and “”The Pocket Idiot’s Guide: Not So Useless Information””

The Daily Wildcat

Fast Facts

The Daily Wildcat