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Original poster

Useless facts. Share yours. No googling allowed.

453 replies

SeasickSteveIsMyBoyfriend · 05/06/2011 12:57

Mona Lisa has no eyebrows.

Its illegal for a woman to eat chocolate on a bus.

111,111 x 111,111 = 12345654321

OP posts:
Naetha · 06/06/2011 21:01

The western entrance to the Panama Canal is in the Atlantic Ocean, and the eastern entrance is in the Pacific Ocean.

Pandemoniaa · 06/06/2011 20:46

Tachographs have to be re-calibrated every six years.

cheapskatemum · 06/06/2011 20:45

There are 12 pages of useless facts on Mumsnet (so far) and I haven't read them all. Hope no-one else has thought to mention that the world's largest ever peanut measured 4.5 inches long. I learnt that at Epcot, DSs were not impressed.

cantpooinpeace · 06/06/2011 20:32

C is the third letter of the alphabet - fact Wink

Capiche · 06/06/2011 20:13

you can die of lack of sleep yes
lovely experiments done on cats with moats of water round them and every time they fell asleep they dipped into the water - eventually they died of no sleep not drowning

cecinestpasunepipe · 06/06/2011 20:10

The difference between elephants's poo and hippopotamus' poo is that elephants just let it drop, and hippos wag their tales whle they are doing it, so it sort of sprays around.

Capiche · 06/06/2011 20:09

Bucharest is that really so?? I told dp that the reason i think my pelvic floor survived six children is that I clench and grind my teeth a lot- dp looked at me like Hmm but there you go Wink

Bearcrumble · 06/06/2011 20:03

Crabs piss through their eyes.

edam · 06/06/2011 19:55

Oh, and Cbear6's point about human babies being born neonate (i.e. helpless) because our heads are so big is true. It is known as the missing fourth trimester (as in, we should be pregnant for a whole year but have to give birth three months early or baby would get stuck). But the first time I mentioned it on here I got loads of hassle from otherwise intelligent posters telling me I was talking crap! (Admittedly I think I posted on a fairly argumentative thread but still...)

CaveMum · 06/06/2011 19:44

A fun fact my boss always likes to trot out (pardon the pun)

Of the 60 Racecourses in Great Britain only 4 do not contain the letters R.A.C.E:

Goodwood
Huntingdon
Plumpton
Ludlow

AnyFuleKno · 06/06/2011 19:42

Thanks reeling Grin

Badgerwife · 06/06/2011 19:42

OMG I've only just finished page one and I am in awe of the amount of stuff I have learnt...

MurielTheActor · 06/06/2011 19:27

St Johns Wood is the only station on the London Underground that doesn't have any letters from the word 'mackerel' in it.
I LOVE that fact Smile

AnyFuleKno · 06/06/2011 19:25

More evolution related fun. Whales have evolved from a creature which was land dwelling, so they have effectively returned to the sea. The most closely related mammal to a hippo is a whale.

Finally for anyone eating their tea, the prawn is a very close relation to the woodlouse

reelingintheyears · 06/06/2011 19:25

AnyFuleKno..

That's a bit blooming clever.

AnyFuleKno · 06/06/2011 19:21

The vagus nerve in a giraffe loops down the neck, underneath the heart and back up to the larynx. This has happened over the hundreds of millions of years since they evolved from aquatic creatures (as in fact we all have)

We didn't evolve from apes as many people mistakenly think, but we share a common ancestor with them

garlicbutter · 06/06/2011 19:12

I forgot, you have to twist the paper don't you?

garlicbutter · 06/06/2011 19:10

If you stick the two ends of a strip of paper together to make a circle, it has two sides - front and back. Slice it in two along the length, and it becomes a long squiggly circle that HAS ONLY ONE SIDE. I still don't understand it, even after doing with paper that's a different colour on each side!

Confused by geometry

mrsdonkeybucket · 06/06/2011 18:37

Seen that before, Alfie. Very clever. Grin

AlfieandAnnieRose · 06/06/2011 18:32

Isnt the human brain clever Grin

AlfieandAnnieRose · 06/06/2011 18:31

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are witren, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.
This is because the brain does not read every letter by itself but the word as a whole.

jbcbj · 06/06/2011 18:30

jaffa cakes caused a legal battle to decide whether they are cakes or biscuits (biscuits are subject to VAT, cakes are not). they are cakes because, like cakes they go hard as they get staler - biscuits go soft....

i can eat a whole box of jaffa cakes on the 15 minute drive home from work. fact.

Trinaluce · 06/06/2011 18:29

How could you have more people in your family tree than have ever existed?! That's not possible!

Doctor Who first broadcast was supposed to be on 22nd November 1963, but was postponed due to the assassination that day of JFK

amicissima · 06/06/2011 18:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

jbcbj · 06/06/2011 18:06

i haven't (yet) read the whole thread so this may have been mentioned...

wallabies are the australian emblem because they cannot jump backwards.

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