Tell me something useless but interesting I don't know. No googling allowed. Corrections welcomed.

[YourMaNoBraBackOfMyCar]

I love these threads so please tell me all manner of useless info. [Thanks]

Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a Friday the 13th.

The American fashion for pink lemonade arose after a fairground lemonade trader made up a batch in a tub which had previously been used to wash the dancing girls' red tights.

pigletjohn

that is both fascinating and disgusting.

Zing I think people have been hospitalised from trying the cinnamon bet. There are compounds in cinnamon, I think, that cause irritation to your airways, which contributes to the coughing etc. Feels like it's all the moisture being drawn away but is also the irritation growing.

I love cinnamon flavoured stuff but would never take on that bet. Saw a video on YouTube showing a woman who had tried it and she looked awful, really ill.

A fetus has feet the same length as it's shin at 20 weeks. (Measured mid knee to mid ankle joint)

every embryo starts off as "female" - apparently that's why we all have nipples, even though men don't need them.

if the baby is to be a boy, testosterone kicks in at about 8 weeks and is responsible for the start of the development of male organs.

sorry if these have been done....

Camels ejaculate for 20 mins

Mice ejaculate a last bit of semen that plugs the hole to stop the rest falling out

Female ducks are often raped, so their vagina has blind ending passages that they can direct an unwelcome penis into so that it can't fertilize anything

Praying mantises often practice sexual canabalism with the male being eaten by the female as he cums.

Worker bees are all female. The males just hang around not doing anything waiting to mate the queen. Males that do mate die and any others are dragged out of the hive in the autumn and left outside to die in the cold.

Female hyenas have MASSIVE clitorises that are ripped when they give birth. Quite a few die like this.

Horses can't carry twins to term, they usually die.

Octopuses are the only invertebrate known to feel pain.

Lots or animal/sex facts

The octopus eye and the human eye are nearly identical, even though our nearest common ancestor didn't have eyes. This is one of the arguments used for intelligent design.

Deck that's really interesting.

Unicorn's mention of praying mantises has reminded me of something I learned recently: The bit of the male praying mantis that controls sexual behaviour is in his torso, not his head. So he can continue to inseminate the female while she's eating his brain.

t

whoops! that is true alci

there is some evidence that the male performs better without his head

@ performing better without his head.

ooh punny, a. you are right b. that's reminded me, apparently back in the day there was no difference between left and right shoes. Can't remember how long ago it was that the concept of left and right was invented, but in historical terms it's quite recent.

If anyone wants to check this out, suggest looking up the Museum of Shoemaking in Northampton (that may not be the exact title).

When you see a seagull in land it means there is a storm out at sea

Not true about seagulls as a lot are found at landfill sites all the time

Beaver there was a funny moment on Bondi Rescue where a local 'expert' was convinced that the seagulls 'lifting' from the sea meant that a shark was present, he was trying hard to convince the life guards on the beach of this.

• has meant it as a joke. It's something that was on a comedy sketch when I was younger but can't remember which one.

If cows are lying down it's going to rain

Dogs can't look up. Big Dave down the pub says so.

English sheep have their tails cut off. Welsh sheep don't. Something to do with getting dirty bottoms under their tails and getting disease - Welsh sheep roaming the hillsides (where they "know" their own territory and don't stray from it) don't spread disease as easily as English sheep who are more confined and closer together in fields.

The Killer Whale is in fact a dolphin.

It's name comes from the Spanish and actually means whale killer. This is because they round up and chase whales until they are exhausted, often for hundreds of miles, and then kill them.

Trills - my dog would take issue with Big Dave. She spends many a happy hour looking up in the sky and in trees to make sure the pesky pigeons don't land in her garden :D

Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas was the voice of Charlie Brown's sister in the Snoopy cartoons.

Cornetto Trills? :o

Yes please. Strawberry.

Bookworms (which are moth caterpillars that eat paper) were called "the teeth of time" in the Middle Ages because they destroyed old books.

The colours on butterflies' wings are made of of holographic scales.

Flies are difficult to swat because their multifaceted eyes enable them to see in most directions at once & rect very quickly to perceived movement.

Elephants can't jump.

Polar bears have black skin to absorb heat from the sun & hollow white hairs to trap air for insulation.