THE WORLD IS THE WORLD – [Short, Diverse Facts]

I sometimes can’t help but marvel at the weird and wonderful things that make the world the way it is. When I was a kid, my Grandfather used to have this little open-ended saying about anything unique or strange that he’d read or see on the news; “Ah, the world is the world” he’d say, and it always left me wondering what he meant by that exactly and ever since then I’ve had a fascination for diverse, straight-to-the-point, snippets of information about anything relating to our planet and it’s inhabitants

What do you reckon we have a look at some?…

SKY

• The air we breathe is made up of the following; Oxygen – 21%, Nitrogen – 78% and water vapour, dust particles and numerous other gases account for the remaining 1% (including Carbon dioxide which accounts for approximately 0.04%)

• On a clear night you can usually see somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 stars with the naked eye but it’s highly unlikely you’ll see anywhere near that many from the city or surrounding suburbs on even the clearest night

• There are more stars visible to the naked eye in the Southern hemisphere than there is in the Northern hemisphere

• The Sun is made up of three layers: the Photosphere, Chromosphere, and Corona with the outer layer (the Corona) being the hottest at over 1 million degrees Celsius

• The sky appears blue due to the suns rays hitting and being ‘scattered’ throughout molecules and particles in the earths atmosphere

• The fastest recorded airspeed record for a manned, jet engine aircraft was performed by Eldon W. Joersz and George T. Morgan Jr. on 28 July 1976 near California in a ‘Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird’ aircraft, reaching a maximum speed of 3,530 km/h (2,193 mph) or approximately 2.86 Mach

• The highest skydive was performed on the 14th of October 2012 by Austrian daredevil, Felix Baumgartner who jumped from a huge helium filled balloon above southeastern New Mexico at an altitude of nearly 39,000 meters (128,000 feet)

LAND

• It is estimated that the earth weighs somewhere around 5,973,811,512,900,000,000,000 metric tons (I guess you could just round that up to 6 sextillion tons. Who’s gonna argue?)

• The earth does not take 24hrs to rotate on its axis. It actually takes only 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds

• Not all deserts are hot. A desert is not determined by temperature but rather by the ratio of moisture gained to moisture lost. Cold deserts can be found in China, Mongolia and Greenland

• Rainforest habitats can be found on every continent in the world except Antarctica which coincidentally is considered to be the largest (cold) desert in the world

• Less than 2% of sunlight ever reaches the ground in a tropical rainforest

• The ‘Top 5’ polluters of our planet are…. #1 CHINA, #2 the U.S, #3 INDIA, #4 the RUSSIAN FEDERATION and #5 is JAPAN

• Australia is the world’s driest inhabited continent on the planet with 70% of it being arid or semi arid land (Make sure to check out the last fact in “WATER”)

WATER

• 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered in water. Out of that only 2.5% is freshwater and only 0.5% of that is physically ‘water’ as the other 2% is frozen (Glaciers, ice sheets and snow)

• About 25% of the world’s population is without ‘safe’ drinking water

• The human body is made up of between 55% to 78% water, depending on your body size

• Men should drink an average of 3 litres of water (13 cups) a day and women, 2 litres a day (8.5 cups)

• An average human will last only between 3 – 5 days without water

• Cats have the ability to safely drink seawater and stay hydrated as their kidneys are efficient enough to filter out the salt

• The Quidi Vidi Brewing company in Canada makes ‘Iceberg beer’ with water from 20,000 year old icebergs that float down ‘Iceberg Alley” every year

• Did you see the last fact in “LAND”? Now get this… Australia is the largest nett exporter of virtual water in the world!

FOOD

• A healthy person can last 40 – 60 days without food (providing they have water)

• Cucumbers are made up of 96% water

• If you want a Pineapple to ripen faster then turn it upside down for a few days. I obviously don’t recommend you stand there holding it 🙂

• Insects are a great source of protein and provide as much nutritional value as everyday meat and there are an estimated 1,400 species of insects and bugs that we’re able to eat

• The Peanut is a complex little food indeed as they actually come from the pea and bean family and are classified as both a ‘Legume’ and an ‘Oil crop’ due to their high oil content

• A bunch of Bananas is called a ‘hand’ and a single Banana is called a ‘finger’

• Bananas don’t grow on trees, they actually grow on large herbaceous plants and did you also know that they are a member of the Berry family? Yep, all true

• If you want to preserve your Bananas for longer then wrap alfoil around the top black bit

• 1 teaspoon of sugar will cure your hiccups…. Go on, try it next time

• Starbursts roasted over a campfire are absolutely delicious (NB: tongue blisters aren’t fun so don’t go putting them in your mouth straight away)

PEOPLE

• There are around 7,730,616,000 people getting around on the planet today with China having approximately 1,434,950,000 of them

• In 1970 there were roughly half the amount of people on earth as there are now

• The normal human core body temperature is typically 36.5°C – 37.5°C (97.7°F – 99.5°F) and is called Normothermia

• Dried corncobs were used as toilet paper by early settlers in North Americans farming communities. Don’t laugh, some people ‘swear by’ using the cobs to wipe their ‘bits and bobs’ to this very day

• 97% of campers in the U.S take some form of technology on their camping trips

• The top five ‘Happiest languages’ are Spanish, Portuguese, English, Indonesian and French as they use the most positive, bright and happy words in their vocabulary

FLORA

• The world’s tallest growing tree is the ‘Coast Redwood’ (Sequoia sempervirens), more commonly known as the ‘Californian Redwood’. It is native to coastal California and the southwestern corner of Oregon in the U.S. and can reach up to 115.5m (379 ft) high and 8m (26 ft) in diameter

• The world’s shortest tree is called the ‘Dwarf willow’ and can be found in alpine and arctic environments around the North Atlantic Ocean. It is lucky to grow more than 2 inches high

• If you were to make a notch in a tree it will always remain at the same height above the ground as the tree grows

• Some varieties of Bamboo can grow up to 90cm in one day

• The FAO (The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) reckons that there are between 250,000 and 300,000 species of edible plants and only between 150 and 200 have been domesticated and farmed

FAUNA

• The world’s oldest (known) Giant Tortoise whose name is “Jonathon” is 187 years old which also makes him the oldest terrestrial creature known on the planet

• Mosquitoes kill more people than any other animal on the planet due to them being capable of carrying a multitude of deadly diseases

• There are no Penguins on the North Pole

• Horseshoe crabs have 10 eyes and have been on the planet for around 350 million years

• A Prawn’s (Shrimp’s) heart is actually in its head just behind its stomach and heart which is also contained in its noggin

• Antarctica is the only continent without reptiles

• Otters mate for life and are often seen linking arms when they sleep so as not to float away from one another

• Bats are the only mammals that can fly

• More people are killed by cows than sharks

• Fleas can leap a distance of 50 times their body length

Whoa, I better stop there. I could go on all day but I don’t want to risk boring you but If you did enjoy those little ‘info nuggets’ then I’ll provide a link here that will direct you to a ‘smorgasbord’ of interesting facts that I hope will keep you satisfied for a while

Thanks for joining me and until we meet again….

HAPPY ADVENTURES!