The Funny Section

• A horse expends more energy lying down than it does standing up
• Female spiders spin better webs than males do
• Eagles can’t hunt when it’s raining
• The right whale’s eyeball is about as big as an orange
• Both bees and foxes pollinate plants
• Earthworms have 5 hearts
• There are 1,000 barbs in a single porcupine quill

Originally, cookbooks didn’t give precise measurements for recipes - they just told readers to use a “pinch” of this, a “heaping spoonful” of that, and a “handful” of something else.  Fannie Merrit Farmer, a domestic servant in the late 1850’s, had no trouble following such recipes herself - but she found it almost impossible to give instructions to the young girl who helped her in the home where she worked.  So she began rewriting the family’s recipes using more precise measurements.

Forty years later, she had become the assistant principal of the prestigious Boston Cooking School.  In 1896 she decided to publish her first book of “scientific” recipes, The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.  Her publisher was so worried it wouldn’t sell that he forced Farmer to pay for printing costs herself.  She did.  It sold four million copies and permanently changed the way cookbooks are written.

• Women have a keener sense of smell than men.
• By simply smelling a piece of clothing, most people can tell if it was worn by a woman or man.
• Each of us has an odor that is, like our fingerprints, unique.  One result, researchers say: Much of the thrill of kissing comes from smelling the unique odors of another’s face.
• Smells stimulate learning.  Students given olfactory stimulation along with a word list retain much more information and remember longer.
• Many smells are heavier than air and can be smelled only at ground level.
• We smell best if we take several short sniffs rather than a long one.

• Your teeth are 6 months older than you are - they start growing 6 months before you’re born
• The enamel in your teeth is the hardest substance in your body
• Your fingernails are made from the same substance as a bird’s beak
• More babies are conceived in December than in any other month
• At takes the average person 7 minutes to fall asleep on an average night
• There are over 250,000 sweat glands in a pair of human feet

• The blood vessels of a blue whale are wide enough for an adult trout to swim through
• Hawaii’s state fish is the humuhumunukunukuapua’a
• The top speed of an abalone on the move is 5 yards per minute
• Sheep snore
• A group of jellyfish is know as a “smack”
• One-humped camles run faster than two-humped camels

From Can Elephants Swim? by Robert M. Jones

“One large kangaroo, at a single desperate bound, is reported to have cleared a pile of timber 10 1/2 feet high and 27 feet long.”

We often act as if they do, but the truth is, most don’t.  

From The Book of Answers, by Barbar Berliner

“Apes and some monkeys perceive the full spectrum of color, as may some fish and birds.  But most mammals view color only as shades of gray. … Bulls don’t charge because a cape is red.  They charge because of the movement of the cape.”

• Along with the chiltepin, the jalapeno pepper is the official pepper of Texas 
• A typical jalapeno pepper is approximately 4,500 Scoville units. This means that it takes 4,500 parts of sugar water to dilute one part jalapeno extract until its heat can no longer be felt
• Are usually green when mature but sometimes they can be red
• Are sold sliced, canned, and pickled
• Are added to many products during processing including cheeses, sausages, and jellies

• Scrabble is a registered trademark owned by Hasbro in America and Canada, and everywhere else in the world by J.W. Spear & Sons PLC, a subsidiary of Mattel.
• The Scrabble game board is 15 squares wide by 15 squares tall.
• Architect Alfred Mosher Butts invented the game in 1938, which he originally called “Criss-Crosswords”.
• Butts determined the letter value by meticulously counting letter usage in various publications.
• Lawyer James Brunot bought the game from Butts in 1948, made some minor gameplay changes, and renamed it ‘’Scrabble'’.

10,000 Maniacs: One of the band members misunderstood the name to the cult movie 2,000 Maniacs.

Pearl Jam: The name was coined by lead singer Eddie Vedder in honor of his Aunt Pearl’s homemade jam.  It’s also slang for semen.

DEVO: Short for de-evolution, something the band believed was happening to the human race.

ZZ Top: Inspired from a poster of Texas bluesman Z. Z. Hill and rolling-paper brandnames Zig Zag and Top.

Blind Melon: Bassist Brad Smith said the name was slang for unemployed hippies in a Mississipi town.