| 2061/
Big Ben, the 320 foot high Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament,
is named after the largest bell which was cast in 1858 at
the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in East London.
2062/ Trinity College,
Dublin is the oldest university in Ireland and was founded
in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I.
2063/ When you wash on
a Saturday morning, you are twenty times more likely to die
in the bath than you are to win the jackpot on the Lottery
that evening.
2064/ The seven sets
of lotto balls are all inspected regularly by the National
Weights and Measures Laboratory in Teddington, which weighs
them to within one-thousandth of an ounce and measures their
size to within 50 thousandths of an inch. The paint depicting
the numbers is spread more thinly on balls bearing double
digits than on balls with a single digit, so the total weight
is the same.
2065/ More people die
in their seats of airplanes from illness than die in crashes.
In 1998, the Aviation Health Institute estimated that 730
people died in crashes yet about 1000 died of illness.
2066/ There are 2,267
species of snakes living in the world today (the ones we know
about). Only one of the 14 families, the Colubridae, is represented
in Nova Scotia. more
2067/ Twenty-eight species
of anemone fishes are known, along with 10 species of anemones
that act as hosts.
2068/ The UK Clean Air
Act of 1956 and energy policy changes resulting in the use
of cleaner fuels to achieve limits set by the European Union,
have dramatically reduced national emissions of sulphur dioxide
by 80% since 1962.
2069/ The most popular
marine aquarium saltwater fish is the clown fish. Other popular
saltwater aquarium fish include angelfish, royal gamma, hamlets,
spotfin, yellowtail damsels, and blue tangs.
2070/ According to the
Ornamental Aquatic Trade Association, approximately 3,000
tons of coral enters international trade each year for use
in aquariums. In 1996, the U.S. imported more than 80% of
all the live coral in trade, representing at least 350,000
pieces.
2071/ Coral reefs are
massive limestone structures that provide shelter for over
25 percent of all marine life.
2072/ In the Florida
Keys, coral reefs support fishing, scuba diving, boating,
and other recreational activities worth $440 million per year.
They are the foundation for a $1.3 billion tourism economy
that provides over 13,600 jobs.
2073/ The specimen upon
which the original description of a species is based is called
a holotype (or type specimen).
2074/ The Natural History
Museum in London has about 1200 holotypes of Dragonflies (Classification
- Odonata) in its collections, more than any other museum
in the world.
2075/ Very few butterfly
fossils are known. The oldest specimen that we can be reasonably
confident about appears to be a skipper from an Upper Palaeocene
deposit at Fur, Denmark from around 50 million years ago.
2076/ The difference
in weight between a 'newborn' caterpillar and the fully grown
larva is typically 1000-fold or even more.
2077/ Some butterflies
are poisonous. When a predator, like a bird, eats one of these
butterflies it becomes sick, vomits violently, and quickly
learns not to eat this type of butterfly. Some poisonous butterflies
include the Monarch (which eats the milkweed plant to become
poisonous), the Small Postman butterfly, and the Pipevine
swallowtail.
2078/ In 1985, the leather
industry used 1,449,475m of snake skin. That is almost 1450
km (885 miles).
2079/ Agriculture consumes
around 70% of all water withdrawn from the world's rivers,
lakes and groundwater.
2080/ The total volume
of water on Earth has been estimated at around 1,500,000,000
km3. Salt water in the world's oceans and seas accounts for
almost all, perhaps 97%, of the total volume. Freshwaters
make up most of the remaining 3%; this component consists
largely of water in the form of polar ice (mostly Antarctica)
and groundwater.
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facts...
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