Japan’s Buddhist establishment has been under attack over the practice of charging bereaved, vulnerable relatives huge fees for afterlife names given to the dead at their funerals. The tradition is centuries-old, and began with names being conferred only on Buddhist priests. When temples began granting afterlife names to common people, the names became something akin to a ranking system, reflecting the deceased’s noble actions during life. The highest rank, called ingo, costs more than $8,300. Of the average $5,300 paid to temples for Tokyo funeral fees, about $3,300 goes for the posthumous name. Talk about making a killing!
This is funny to me since I do have a friend named Ingo.
A game of golf can be very electrifying, more people are struck by lightning on golf courses than anyplace else, although there’s no research on what club most people were using.
Venus is the only planet in the entire solar system that is named after a female figure.
The band "Green Day" supposedly named themselves after a term referring to a day spent hanging out, sitting around, and smoking pot.
I like that, it makes them more special.
Consumption of TNT turns urine amber or deep red, which people often mistake for blood.
On average, a child uses 730 crayons by their 10th birthday.
People who have been blind from birth have dreams that are formed from their other senses (e.g., touch, smell, sound).
In archaeology and anthropology the term excarnation refers to the burial practice adopted by some societies of removing the flesh of the dead, leaving only the bones. This may be done through natural means, involving leaving a body exposed for animals to scavenge, or it may be purposefully undertaken by butchering the corpse by hand. In the middle ages, excarnation was practiced by European cultures as a way of preserving the bones when the deceased was of high status, or had died some distance from home. One notable example of a person who underwent excarnation following death was Christopher Columbus.
Alcohol is absorbed directly through the stomach, and in the process irritates the cells that line the organ. Alcohol also promotes secretion of additional hydrochloric acid in the stomach, eventually causing the nerves to send a message to the brain that the stomach's contents are hurting the body. The brain responds by telling the stomach to expel its contents by vomiting.
Despite their location, the valves of the human heart receive no blood supply of their own. Because of this, they also have no defense against bacterial infection, as white blood cells can't enter the tissue.
Hehe, baculum.
Women's hearts beat faster than men's.
The name Vanilla comes from the Spanish word "vainilla", diminutive form of "vaina" (meaning "sheath"), which is in turn derived from Latin "vagina".
Makes it even more intriguing!
It takes 17 muscles to smile --- 43 to frown.
A left-handed individual is colloquially referred to as a "leftie." In more technical contexts, 'sinistral' may be used in place of 'left-handed' and 'sinistrality' in place of 'left-handedness.' Both of these technical terms derive from sinister, a Latin word meaning 'left'.
That is actually completely new news to me, despite my fascination and random knowledge of left-handedness.
A zebra is white with black stripes.
A fear of long words is, ironically, called "Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia"
The English language commonly uses "blue" to refer to any color from cyan to navy blue. However, many languages, including many east Asian and African languages, do not have separate terms for blue and green, instead using a single word for both. At the same time, some languages, like Russian, Italian, and Hebrew, have different words for what English calls light blue and dark blue. This is the same as the English distinction between red and light red (pink).
The modern day word "meloncholy" derives from "meloncholia", which comes from the latin word for black bile. Ancient and medieval medicine recognized four main fluids in the body: Yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood (the four humors). An excessive amount of black bile was said to cause depression and other mental illnesses.
A chameleon's tongue is twice the length of its body.
The modern bikini was invented by a French designer in 1946. It was named after Bikini Atoll, the site of US nuclear weapon tests a few days earlier in the Marshall Islands, on the reasoning that the burst of excitement it would cause would be like the nuclear device. Between 1946 and 1958, twenty three nuclear devices were detonated at Bikini Atoll. One detonation on March 1, 1954, codenamed Castle Bravo, was the first test of a practical hydrogen bomb. The largest nuclear explosion ever set off by the United States, it was much more powerful than predicted and created widespread radioactive contamination.
A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but monkeys can't.
Karaoke is a Japanese word that derives from the words "kara", meaning empty, and "okesutora, meaning orchestra. Karaoke literally means "empty orchestra".
I had to post this one for two reasons. First, this is referred to in the show How I Met Your Mother. "How hauntingly beautiful." Second, in regards to one of my previous posts, I stated that I never talked about karaoke despite the search term bringing traffic to the blog.
Women burn fat more slowly than men, by a rate of about 50 calories a day.
The number forty is the only number that, in the English language, has all of its letters in alphabetical order.
Wow...the only.
A newborn kangaroo is about 1 inch in length.
Scientists estimate that between three to five new stars are born every year within our own the Milky Way galaxy.
Dolphins are one of the few animals other than humans known to mate for reasons other than reproduction and especially male Bottlenose Dolphins are known to engage in sexual acts with other dolphin species, which is not always consensual, though the Bottlenose may also be submissive in such encounters. Occasionally, dolphins will also show sexual behaviour towards humans.
Tasmanian devils give birth to 20-30 young, each weighing approximately 0.18-0.24 grams. When the young are born, they move from the vagina to the pouch. Once inside the pouch, they each remain attached to a nipple for the next 100 days. Despite the large litter at birth, the female has only four nipples, so that no more than four young can survive birth. Those who do not procure a nipple are typically eaten by the mother.
A typical bed usually houses over 6 billion dust mites.
'Soldiers disease' is a term for morphine addiction. The Civil War produced over 400,000 morphine addicts.
A dentist invented the Electric Chair.
I find this really funny...
Unlike Rays and other 'flat' fish that are flat in the sense that they lay on their 'stomach', with their 'back' to the surface, flounder are flat in that they lay on one side with the other side up. In other fish this would mean that one eye faces up, while the other eye is in the mud. Flounder are born like this, with an eye on each side of their head. One eye later migrates to the other side of the body so that both eyes are facing up.
I love them!!!
By 1800 B.C., the ass(Donkey) had reached the Middle East where the trading city of Damascus was referred to as the “City of Asses” in cuneiform texts.
Beside Humans and most Primates, the only other female mammals that are born with hymens are Llamas, Guinea pigs, Manatees, Moles, Toothed whales, Elephants, Rats, Seals, and Horses.
Multiple trials indicate that taking vinegar with food increases satiety (the feeling of fullness) and so reduces the amount of food consumed. Even a single application of vinegar can lead to reduced food intake for a whole day. Apple cider vinegar is a much more useful astringent than ice and will reduce inflammation, bruising and swelling in approximately a third of the time that ice will take. Application is directly onto the skin with a flannel, and left on for an hour or so.
During the filming of the movie "Scream", director Wes Craven kept telling Drew Barrymore real life stories about animal cruelty in order to keep her looking scared and crying. She is a keen animal lover in real life.
All clams start out as males; some decide to become females at some point in their lives.
In the first two Star Wars movies (Episodes IV and V), there were only two lightsaber colors. The Jedi used blue lightsabers, while Darth Vader used a red lightsaber. The last movie in the original trilogy, "Return of the Jedi", introduced the green lightsaber. The green lightsaber was used in this movie because a blue lightsaber didn't contrast enough against the blue sky in the fighting scenes on Tattoine.
In the prequel trilogy, both blue and green lightsabers were used by the Jedi equally. The exception is the purple lightsaber used by Mace Windu. This uniquely colored lightsaber was a request from Samuel L. Jackson, in order for him to accept the part as Mace Windu.
The brain is soft and gelatinous - its consistency is something between jelly and cooked pasta.
I knew I had good reason to wanting to eat it.
The praying mantis has no ears on its head. It has one single ear in the middle of the thorax on the underside. This single ear, which is a deep slit inside the thorax, allows it to hear ultrasonic sounds. Since praying mantises feed during the day, they do a considerable amount of flying by night. The night, however, is when bats feed, using ultrasonic sound waves to pinpoint their prey. The frequency of these sound waves indicates the location and distance of the bat’s prey. Praying mantises are able to hear these ultrasonic sounds and when the frequency begins to increase rapidly, indicating an approaching bat, mantises will stop flying horizontally and begin a direct, high speed nose dive towards the safety of the ground.
Although I need to do a hell of a lot more studying, praying mantis are one of my favorite insects.
Holy hell!!
There is a common rumor about the US military dog tags issued between 1941 and the early 70s. The rumor states that the notch on the dogtag is meant to be placed between the front teeth of a deceased soldier, and forcefully jammed between the teeth, for later identification of the body. The real, and only, purpose of this notch was to hold the blank tag in the machine that punched the letters onto the tag. Current machines do not need the notch to hold blank tags, therefor current tags do not have the notch.
A recent medical development will include a small amount of nitroglycerin in the tip of a new Durex condom to stimulate erection during intercourse. "The CSD500 condom contains a chemical in its teat, called glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), which is absorbed by the skin and causes blood vessels to dilate."
The antibacterial components of antibacterial soaps (usually triclosan or, less commonly, triclocarbon) needs to be left on a surface for about two minutes in order to work. Most people are not this patient, and end up washing off the soap before the antibacterial ingredients can do their job.
Swans are the only birds with penises.
Aokigahara Jukai (The Sea of Trees) located at the base of Mount Fuji is the top suicide area in Japan; the spirits of those who kill themselves there are said to be cursed to forever haunt the area. Over 78 bodies have been discovered, prompting officials to put up signs prohibiting suicide in the forest.
Pablo Picasso's full name was "Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruiz y Picasso."
During the filming of Fight Club Brad Pitt chipped his tooth , but waited to have it capped until after filming because he felt it added to his character.
Sir Francis Bacon died in 1626 of pneumonia. He was experimenting with freezing a chicken by stuffing it with snow.
Sigmund Freud died in 1939 of cancer of the jaw, palate, throat and tongue.
A diamond will not dissolve in acid. The only thing that can destroy it is intense heat.
Ants don't sleep.
Natural gas has no odor. The smell is added artificially so that leaks can be detected.
Ancient Chinese artists would never paint pictures of women’s feet.
Animal gestation periods: the shortest is the American opossum, which bears its young 12 to 13 days after conception; the longest is the Asiatic elephant, taking 608 days, or just over 20 months.
Pablo Picasso's career lasted seventy-eight years, from 1895 until his death in 1973.
Of all known forms of animals life ever to inhabit the Earth, only about 10 percent still exist today.
The blood of mammals is red, the blood of insects is yellow, and the blood of lobsters is blue.
There are 132 rooms in the US White House.
Hummingbirds are the smallest birds - so tiny that one of their enemies is an insect, the praying mantis.
A fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of three months.
Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a lightning strike.
There are more than 900,000 known species of insects in the world.
A person will die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. Death will occur about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks.
German Shepherds bite humans more than any other breed of dog.
Cocaine was the first local anesthetic; being used as such from about 1884 onwards.
According to German researchers, the risk of heart attack is higher on Monday than any other day of the week.
Beards are the fastest growing hairs on the human body. If the average man never trimmed his beard, it would grow to nearly 30 feet long in his lifetime.
During the 2,475,576,000 seconds of the average length life, we speak 123,205,750 words, have sex 4,239 times, shed 121 pints of tears.
Only female mosquitoes bite. Females need the protein from blood to produce their eggs.
If you go blind in one eye, you'll only lose about one-fifth of your vision (but all your depth perception.)
Only one in two billion people will live to be 116 or older.
Elephants can communicate using sounds that are below the human hearing range: between 14 and 35 hertz.
Most men have erections every hour to hour and a half during sleep.
Over 2500 left handed people are killed each year from using products made for right handed people.
The average human produces 25,000 quarts of spit in a lifetime, enough to fill two swimming pools.
There are four main Blood types: A, B, AB and O and each Blood type is either Rh positive or negative. Blood types in the US - Type O positive 38.4%, O negative 7.7%, A positive 32.3%, A negative 6.5%, B positive 9.4%, B negative 1.7%, AB positive 3.2%, AB negative 0.7%
Dragonflies are one of the fastest insects, flying 50 to 60 mph.
'Crack' is the street name given to cocaine that has been processed from cocaine hydrochloride to a free base for smoking. Rather than requiring the more volatile method of processing cocaine using ether, crack cocaine is processed with ammonia or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and water and heated to remove the hydrochloride, thus producing a form of cocaine that can be smoked. The term 'crack' refers to the crackling sound heard when the mixture is smoked (heated), presumably from the sodium bicarbonate. 'Crack Cocaine' is still cocaine. It is simply a different chemical process applied to cocaine powder that allows cocaine to be smokeable. This means that the 'high' from Crack Cocaine is much stronger and more immediate (taking about 8 seconds to reach the brain); and also shorter lived then from the powder.
This is pretty cool. I'm referred to as a chameleon by a couple of my friends.
The leading cause of deaths for children between the ages of 1 and 4 are motor vehicle crashes.
Our Lifetime in Numbers
Life expectancy – 78.5 years or 2,475,576,000 seconds
Words Spoken in Lifetime - 123,205,750
Friendships – 1,700
Baths – 7,163
Dreams – 104,390
Beef and Veal consumed – 4.5 cows per person
Chickens consumed – 1,201 per person
Potatoes consumed – 5130 pounds
Chocolate – 10,354 bars
Baked Beans – 845 cans
Farts – 35,815 liters of wind
Soap – 656 bars
Toothpaste – 276 tubes
Deodorant – 272 cans
Shampoo – 198 bottles
Beer – 10,351 pints
Wine – 1,694 bottles
Vomit produced – 149 liters
Sex – 4,239 times
Holidays - 59 trips
Various sources: Random Facts & Useless Trivia, Wikipedia, Unusual Celebrity Deaths Trivial Trivia Collections, and Trivial Trivia Collections of Unusual Facts.
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