Factoids or Crap-oids?

Factual Questions
1

This is another e-mail thingie that I’ve not seened addressed on snopes or anyplace else yet. Some of these I’ve heard before, but there’s a least one I take issue with (the one about dolphins and humans having sex for pleasure; what about the pygmie chimpanzees?) How many of these are true and how many are just to make suckers out of those who don’t have access to the Straight Dope or the SDMB? (“Humorous” responses supplied.)

Subject: FW: science factoids

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
(Hardly seems worth it!)

If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.

A pig’s orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
(In my next life I want to be a pig!)

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
(Still not over that pig thing!)

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.

On average people fear spiders more than they do death.

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
(Hmmmmm…)

You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath.

Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

Every time you lick a stamp, you’re consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.

In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked every hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
(From drinking little bottles of…?)
(Did the govt pay for this research??)

Polar bears are left-handed.

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. That makes the catfish rank #1 for animal having the most taste buds.

The flea can jump 350 times its body length, It’s like a human jumping the length of a football field.

A cockroach will live nine days without it’s head, before it starves to death.
(Creepy!)

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male’s head off.
(“Honey, I’m home. What the…”)
(Kind of a waste here, this eliminates the strongest muscle…)

Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
(In my next life I still want to be a pig… quality over quantity!)

Butterflies taste with their feet.
(Oh, Shit)

Elephants are the only animals that can’t jump.

A cat’s urine glows under a blacklight.

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

Starfish don’t have brains.

After reading all these, all I can say is “Damn Pigs”

“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy

2

I remember in 8th grade biology class we were told that “there are enough capillaries in the human body to stretch two-and-a-half times around the earth.” That is a mental image that has haunted me ever since. I mean, does that include over buildings, or would you go through the lobbies?

3

Ok, I’ll nitpick the easy one:

Lessee, a football field is 300 feet long, 360 if you count both end zones. So for 350 times body length to equal 360’, that human would have to be just over one foot tall. Hmmmm…

The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs. – E. Grebenik

4

I’ll take the “dolphins and humans are the only animals that have sex for pleasure…” one: primatologists have observed female orangutans and chimps masturbating (using guavas, IIRC). Just cause it’s not sex with another of the same species doesn’t mean it’s not sex for fun.

5

“A cockroach will live nine days without it’s head, before it starves to death.”
I saw a reference to this in a Dave Barry article, hardly the bastion of scientific validity though.

“The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.”
This is probably evidenced by someone measuring an “arterial spurt” due to an injury.

“You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath.”
Duh, you’d pass out and your body would begin breathing again

“A cat’s urine glows under a blacklight.”
Many fluids glow under a black light, including human urine (or any urine for that matter), semen, and mucous.

To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion.

6

a) People who were born more than 60 years ago are considerably more likely to have reached the age of 60 than people who were born more recently.

b) If we restict ourselves to people who are already dead, those who were born more than 60 years ago probably have a longer life span on average than those born more recently.

c) People who were born more than 60 years ago were subject to pressure to “be” right-handed regardless of innate inclination.

and

I think that should be “mammals”, not “animals”. Think of slugs.

Designated Optional Signature at Bottom of Post

7

Jumping slugs? :slight_smile:

8

somebody from the Northwest tell azathoth about them hanging slugs. And they’re amazed I can live in tornado alley. gotta go look at them factoids BRB

9

I can probably say that I am more afraid of spiders than death. I don’t know why. I mean, I have skydove, bungee jumped, cliff dove, and bodyboarded, but dammit I hate spiders.

10

Scorpions glow in black light too.

11

YELL FOR 8 YRS be hoarse that’s 4 sure

FART CONSISTENTLY is that one continuos one? be asked to move out at any rate how do you measure the energy of flatulence? ACME makes a fartometer?
HEART POWER probably been seen

PIG ORGASM the boar or the sow?some city person started this.How can you tell with the sow? Two hogs in a swine bar"Hey check the hams on that one’ ’ Yeh, wonder if she is a grunter or a squeeler." So I been there and seen it, it can take over half hour for the boar to get the job done but the ‘orgasm’ aint no longer than you or me.It can take him a while to 'gracefully withdraw ’ too. So i reckon some city boy could get all flustered and confused.
HEAD BANGING guess it depends how hard you bang it. (Reminded of the pigs there)
SEX hey amoebae get all broken up about it.
FEAR OF DEATH I think that should read ’ more people are afraid of spiders than death, not ‘more afraid’. then there is death by spider bite.
TONGUE heart. we talkin bench press or continuous action
BREATH HOLDING yeh pass out breathe again
PIZZA gotta be stats somewhere. acres of pizza? YUP. planted me some a them lil red seeds from the shaker. 'Spect to get 'bout 5 double toppings fur acre.
STAMP ok seems about right
DEATH BY CORK so there i was tryin to seduce the black widow when…
THE LEFT HAND OF DEATH this is a piece of RIGHT WING PROPOGANDA!! On the average most people die.
HAIRY EGYPTIANS ouch
CROCODILE TONGUE lets not go there but that one is true its not long enough, lots a critters can’t. not so unusual.
ANTS I don’t know about ants, but my uncle used to fall straight on his face.
POLAR BEARS HAH! this one I KNOW read about it way back but where? It was published but it turned out the researcher only observed three bears
CATFISH may be that’s why they taste so good

FLEA JUMP it wouuld be around 1800 ft. But still it is LIKE a human jumping a foot ball field
HEADLESS COCKROCH during those nine days he is sneaking over to the Mantis’ house
PREYING MANTIS nope he can too but usually she turns her head and chows down. Energy for the eggs.
LIONS " That Sheba, she is such a tramp." true but that is not EVERY day. see BORN FREE the book not the flick.
BUTTERFLY FEET yep that way they know if they should stick there tongues out. NO NO! see they eat nectar, the tongue is a long tube with a suction ‘pump’ at the top and… oh never mind.
ELEPHANT JUMP ‘The mighty manatee with a powerfull leap…’, guinea pigs? OH! Rock hydrax?
CAT URINE lots a stuff glows. It is a fairly standard forensic medicine test. It can smell rank I’ll grant you that.
OSTRICH BRAIN so is an eagles a hawks etc. ‘bird brain’ ring a bell?
STARFISH BRAINS what would they think about anyway? Slugs got no brain that’s why they never think about jumping.
OK you are thinkingGr8tcat, consider the source, who checked it out? Can the results be duplicated. Sorry about all that but it looked like a fun thing to reply to.

" Pardon mr while I have a strange interlude."-Marx (Melissa Gilbert is in the rest room right now or she would have a snappy comeback)

12

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/melephan.html (Can elephants jump?)

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/melepha2.html (Followup: African elephants CAN jump.)

13

*“primatologists have observed female orangutans and chimps masturbating (using guavas, IIRC). Just cause it’s not sex with another of the same species doesn’t mean it’s not sex for fun.”[i/]

Perhaps it wasn’t sex, but to a) try and instigate estrus, or b) improve the taste of the guava.

“Proverbs for Paranoids, 1: You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures.”

  • T.Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow.
14

Heh. I wonder what it would be like to be the person who’s job it was to find out how much an ant could lift.

“48 times its weight…no change”
“49 times its weight…no change”
“50 times its weight…uh-oh. Better call my supervisor.”

15

Mostly I was looking for an opportunity to use the word “crap-oids.”

“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy

16

The tongue is the most flexible muscle in the body.

The most powerful muscle is the masseter, or jaw.

The muscle with the most endurance is the heart. However, it is kind of unfair to compare the heart with skeletal muscles, since it’s a different form of muscle tissue, factory-equipped to provide a great deal of endurance.

17

It is a good word gr8tkat. i was just wondering if it shouldn’t be crapToid in juxtaposition ( I gotta start using words I can spell) with facToid. Sorta like the way every one uses -oholic makes sense with alcOHOL but what is chocoHOL? WorkOHOL?

Signitorily yours, Mr John
" Pardon me while I have a strange interlude."-Marx (Melissa Gilbert is in the rest room right now or she would have a snappy comeback)