Facts About Alligators - strangefacts

• Lorne Green had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while host of Lorne Green's Wild Kingdom

• There are only two countries on earth that have alligators: the United States and China

• Although alligators have heavy bodies and slow metabolisms, they are capable of short bursts of speed that can exceed 30 miles per hour, though this could more properly be classified as a short fast lunge rather than a dash

• Alligators are opportunistic feeders, eating almost anything they can catch

• While alligators are often confused with crocodiles, they belong to two quite separate taxonomic families, and are as distinct from one another as humans are from gorillas

• One generally reliable rule to distinguish between alligators and crocodiles is that alligators have U-shaped heads, while crocodiles are V-shaped

• The East Alligator River in Australia's Northern Territory contains crocodiles, not alligators

• In Arkansas, alligators may not be kept in bathtubs

• Alligators in the wild are believed to live 35 - 50 years. In captivity their lifespan may be significantly longer, perhaps 60-80 years. Currently, there are no scientific methods of analyzing an alligators age while it is alive

• The longest recorded length for an alligator is 19' 2'. This animal was trapped in the early 1900's in the State of Louisiana. Most wild alligators do not get above 13 feet in length, and may weigh 600 pounds or more
  

Facts About Crocodiles - strangefacts

• One generally reliable rule to distinguish between alligators and crocodiles is that alligators have U-shaped heads, while crocodiles are V-shaped

• Steve Irwin's body was fed to crocodiles at his request

• The first-known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 BC

• To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs. It will let you go instantly

• Research has shown that crocodiles really do shed tears during a meal

• Crocodile and kangaroo tail, as well as the webbed toes of a hippopotamus are all on the menu at the Beijing zoo's restaurant

• While alligators are often confused with crocodiles, they belong to two quite separate taxonomic families, and are as distinct from one another as humans are from gorillas

• The East Alligator River in Australia's Northern Territory contains crocodiles, not alligators

• An adult crocodile can go two years without eating

• The crocodiles have a four-chambered heart like in birds (their closest relatives) and mammals, for an active life. Still, when diving, the heart behaves like a three-chambered reptilian heart, enabling them to stay more underwater

Facts About Tobacco - strangefacts

• 5% of the $40,700,000,000 received by states from the lawsuit against the tobacco companies has actually been spent on fighting smoking

• One out of every 11 workers in North Carolina depends on tobacco for their livelihood

• The first American advertisement for tobacco was published in 1789. It showed a picture of an Indian smoking a long clay pipe

• A study of 450 individuals found that people who smoke marijuana frequently but do not smoke tobacco have more health problems and miss more days of work than nonsmokers. Many of the extra sick days among the marijuana smokers in the study were for respiratory illnesses

• Mother Bernardina Matthews established a Carmelite convent near Port Tobacco, Maryland, the first community of Roman Catholic nuns in the Thirteen Colonies

• Tobacco kills one person every ten seconds

• Approximately 10 million cigarettes are purchased a minute

• About 15 billion cigarettes are sold each day

• About 5 trillion cigarettes are produced and used on an annual basis

Facts About Pollution - strangefacts

• Indoor pollution is 10 times more toxic than outdoor pollution

• Corn is used to produce fuel alcohol. Fuel alcohol makes gasoline burn cleaner, reducing air pollution, and it doesn't pollute the water

• 80 percent of all pollution in seas and oceans comes from land-based activities

• Each average-sized tree provides an estimated $7 savings in annual environmental benefits, including energy conservation and reduced pollution

• For every mile driven a motorcycle produces 10 to 20 times more pollution than a new car

• During winter months, 49 percent of soot and other particle pollution in Sacramento is caused by burning wood in fireplaces and wood stoves

• The World Bank reported in 2002 that pollution causes 2.42 billion dollars worth of damage to the Egyptian environment annually - equaling about 5 percent of the country’s annual gross domestic product

• The risk of cancer from breathing diesel exhaust is about ten times more than ingesting all other toxic air pollutants combined, with diesel emissions contributing to over 70% of the cancer risk from air pollution in the USA

• During the 1990s, carbon dioxide emissions increased approximately 1.3% each year. But since 2000, the rate has increased to 3.3% per year, with an estimated annual global CO2 emissions increase of 35% from 1990 to 2006

• A recent study from Toronto Public Health estimates over 440 deaths a year in the Canadian city can be directly attributed to traffic emissions

• According to the US-EPA, emissions from power plants contribute to over 2,800 lung cancer deaths and 38,200 heart attacks annually in the US

Facts About Dragon's Triangle - strangefacts

• The "Devil's Sea" and the Dragon's Triangle ( Devil's Triangle ) located in the Philippine Sea off China's eastern coast near Japan.

• This place is known for vanishing ships and seamen similar to the legendary Bermuda Triangle.

• You can notic in the above picture that has been taken from satellite and 4 objects clearly seen in dragons triangle. You may also notice that they looks like UFO's spaceships that mostly people claims that they have seen some flying ships.

• The Dragon's Triangle on the opposite spot of the earth as the Bermuda Traingle. Considering the unique history of both regions it can't be coincedence. The only other places on earth that are in exact opposite locations are the Poles. 

Dragons Triangle Map View

• While sensational theories for the mysterious disappearances speak of extraterrestrials and lost kingdoms under the sea wreaking havoc, others believe that the region displays the same magnetic anomalies as the Bermuda Triangle

• The area, which can be marked off on a map by connecting Japan, Taiwan, and Yap Island, has become known as the Dragon's Triangle after a centuries-old Chinese myth

• According to the myth, dragons live deep beneath the surface and their movement can suddenly churn up waves, whirlpools, thick fog, and sudden storms

•  In 1950, Japanese officials declared the triangle a danger zone for shipping. In 1952, a research vessel, the Kaio Maru No. 5, sent by the Japanese government to investigate the troubled waters, vanished without a trace, and 22 crewmen and nine scientists were lost

• Like the Bermuda Triangle, the Devil's Triangle area may be volatile, subject to sudden weather changes and ocean swells not yet understood

• Undersea volcanoes are believed to influence the area's sudden environmental changes. Others cite mikakunin hiko-buttai, Japanese for UFOs

Facts About Bermuda Triangle - strangefacts

• The Bermuda Triangle, also called the Devil's Triangle, is an imaginary area that can be roughly outlined on a map by connecting Miami, Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and the Bahamas, an island chain off the coast of the United States. 

• Within that triangular area of the Atlantic Ocean have occurred a number of unexplained disappearances of boats and planes when ever any thing try to flew over this place it disappears.

• Unusual events in that area date back in recorded history to 1493 and the first voyage of Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) to the New World.

• As early as 1952, George X. Sands had noted in a report in Fate magazine that an unusually large number of strange accidents had occurred in the region associated with the Bermuda Triangle. That many of the accidents in the area are intriguing, and that the area does have some natural conditions that sailors and pilots need to be aware of, has not been challenged.

• In March 1918, during World War I, the USS Cyclops vanished in the Bermuda Triangle. That ship may have been a casualty of war, but the December 1945 disappearance of Flight 19, a training squadron of five U.S.

• Navy torpedo bombers, became the most notorious of disappearances associated with the Bermuda Triangle. The squadron left Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with 14 crewmen and disappeared after radioing in several distress messages. A seaplane sent in search of the squadron also vanished. Those two airplane disappearances were frequently cited as the Bermuda Triangle legend grew during the 1960s and 1970s.

• Other aircraft that have disappeared in the area include a DC-3 carrying 27 passengers in 1948 and a C-124 Globemaster with 53 passengers in 1951.

•  Among the ships often listed among the mysteriously disappeared are the Mary Celeste (1872), the Marine tankership Sulphur Queen with 39 men aboard (1963), and the nuclear-powered submarine Scorpion with a crew of 99 (1968).

• 

  Bermuda Triangle in Map View

  The Mary Celeste entered the list of supposed Bermuda Triangle mysteries many decades after its odd tragedy. The ship set sail from New York to Genoa, Italy, but was found sailing unmanned some 400 miles off course, off the coast of Africa. 

• There is no evidence, however, that the Mary Celeste ever entered the area of the Bermuda Triangle. Still, the eerie, unanswered questions concerning its fate are often cited by those who attribute a malevolent force as being responsible for odd and tragic events of the triangle.

• Nevertheless, there are many documented disappearances that occurred within the triangle. They include a four-engine Tudor IV air-plane lost in 1948, with 31 aboard; an American freighter, the SS Sandra (1952), which sunk without a trace; a British York transport plane, disappeared in 1952, with 33 aboard; a U.S. Navy Lockheed Constellation airplane, vanished in 1954 with 42 aboard; a U.S. Navy seaplane, 1956, with a crew of 10; a French freighter in 1970; and a German freighter, Anita, lost in 1972 with a crew of 32.

• The Bermuda Triangle claimed more than 1,000 lives during the twentieth century. That averages to about 10 per year, a figure similar to other areas of high water traffic or volatile natural conditions. Scientific evaluations of the Bermuda Triangle have concluded that the number of disappearances in the region is not abnormal and that most of the disappearances have logical explanations. Paranormal associations with the Bermuda Triangle persist, however, in the popular imagination.

Facts About UFO - strangefacts

• Jimmy Carter once reported a UFO in Georgia 

• The odds are 1 out of 7 (14%) that you think you saw a UFO

•  The first men to walk on the Moon reported seeing a UFO. NASA officials told Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to keep quiet about it

• Someone on Earth reports seeing a UFO every three minutes

•  There are UFO reports in newspapers and literature dating back to 1865 

•  The United States Air Force coined the term 'UFO' in 1952

• In the US, UFO sightings are most likely to occur in July, at 9pm or 3am

•  The Famous UFO sighting is in Hangzhou China in July, 8 2010 due to which whole airport had to be shutdown at 9 pm

Facts About Smoking - strangefacts

• It is possible to go blind from smoking too heavily

• The odds are 3 out of 4 (75%) that you forbid smoking in your home

• The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep a night

• The music hall entertainer Nosmo King derived his stage name from a 'No Smoking' sign

• Marijuana increases heart rate by 20–100 percent shortly after smoking; this effect can last up to 3 hours

• The first American advertisement for tobacco was published in 1789. It showed a picture of an Indian smoking a long clay pipe

• One million Americans, about 3,000 each day, take up smoking each year. Most of them are children

• The British Medical Journal has estimated that smoking one cigarette takes 11 minutes off the average person's life

• 5% of the $40,700,000,000 received by states from the lawsuit against the tobacco companies has actually been spent on fighting smoking

• Three years after a person quits smoking, there chance of having a heart attack is the same as someone who has never smoked before

• The town of Timnath, Colorado, has banned smoking in bars and restaurants. Timnath, Colorado (population 223) has no bars or restaurants

Facts About Global Warming - strangefacts

• The warmest year on record was 2005. If things keep going like this, your children and grandchildren will inherit a world with a far less hospitable climate.

• In the past 100 years, sea level has already risen between 5 and 9 inches and it is still going up. You may think that’s not a lot, but it is. Even a few feet of rise would put many US coastal cities and a large portion of Florida underwater.

• There were 27 named storms in 2005, a higher number of severe storms and hurricanes than ever before in a single year. The high storm volume may be connected to warmer temperatures in the Atlantic.

• Within the last decade, there were outbreaks of both malaria and dengue fever in the US. Other tropical diseases will undoubtedly spread north as the temperature rises.

• Heat waves are gaining in intensity and frequency. Europe’s 2003 heat wave caused an estimated 35,000 deaths. If you have older relatives, especially if they live alone, increases in heat waves could pose a deadly risk.

• Global warming causes crop failures, especially in the tropics, where temperatures are already on the edge of what is tolerable for many food crops. These failures could lead to famines if warming continues.

• That’s really scary when you consider that automobiles are one of the major sources of global carbon emissions.

• There is a broad scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming by burning fossil fuels when we drive, fly, and use electricity.

• Your use of fossil fuels is actually changing the composition of the atmosphere. The US and China are the two biggest emitters of carbon dioxide worldwide.

Facts About Lightning - strangefacts

• The odds of being struck by lightning are about 600,000 to one

• Lightning travels at speed of up to 100 fps or 72 million mph

• The United States city with the highest rate of lightning strikes per capita is Clearwater

• A person that is struck by lightning has a greater chance of developing motor neurone disease

• In November 1999, two women were killed by a lightning bolt. The underwire located in their bras acted as a electrical conductors

• Green Bay Packers backup quarterback, Matt Hasselbeck, has been struck by lightning twice in his life
• Men are four times more likely to be struck by lightning than women

• Contrary to popular belief, lightning travels from the ground upwards not from the sky downwards

• A person standing under an oak tree is 16 more times liable to be hit by lightning than if he had taken refuge beneath a beech tree. The oak tree has vertical roots which provide a more direct route to ground water.