Posted 1:10 PM by Robert

Potentially Key Facts

E-mailed today from a friend:

1. The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma. [MWQ Note: In an eerie coincidence, my 5-year old son only last night said that a mosquito sucking blood from his arm was like his sucking the liquid inside young coconuts through a straw!]

2. No piece of paper can be folded in half more than seven (7) times.

3. Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.

4. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.

5. Oak trees* do not produce acorns until they are fifty (50) years of age or older.

6. The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.

7. The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.

8. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one (1) olive from each salad served in first-class.

9. Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

10. Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.

11. The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer. So did the first "Marlboro Man."

12. Walt Disney was afraid of mice.

13. Pearls melt in vinegar.

14. The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order [UPDATE: - or maybe Coca-Cola, Microsoft and IBM, in that order.]

15. It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.

16. A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.

17. Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least six (6) feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush. (I keep my toothbrush in the living room now!)

18. Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first U.S. president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal." The second? William Jefferson Clinton.

And the best for last.....

19. Turtles can breathe through their butts.

______________________________
* Fact (5) may be intended to refer just to the familiar red and white oaks. I am informed by a reader - apparently an oak cognoscente - that burr oaks are acorn prodigious prodigies. More generally, I have not personally verified any of these facts.

UPDATE: Some fact checking links have been added. But I don't vouch for anything!