A Few Interesting Health Care Facts And Figures

Almost two trillion dollars wasted on health care every year...

The United States spends, on average, 1.7 trillion dollars annually on its health care system. Apparently, that staggering amount of money can’t buy our nation a ranking within the top twenty listing of western countries providing basic health care services to their citizens.

50 million Americans don’t have access to a Primary Care Provider...

Forty-two million adults and eight million children couldn’t get in to see a Medical Doctor for basic health care services today if they stood at the front door of a medical practice, bleeding or crippled, and banged on the door! This is America I’m talking about.

Doctors are turning more and more patients away daily...

In a recent survey, thirty percent of AMA Doctors indicated that they are seriously considering dropping all Medicare patients or not accepting any further Medicare beneficiaries. The same sentiments are being echoed concerning Medicaid patients.

You could be next to be dropped from your Doctor’s patient load...

If you do have a Primary Care Doctor, there’s nothing to stop your Physician from dropping you as a patient at any time. With the rising cost of patient care, many traditional Providers are beginning to restrict their practices to just private and commercial insurance carriers and to a small percentage of Medicare, Medicaid and cash-paying patients who’ve been with a given Provider for some time. Are you really so sure that you won’t be the next patient to be dropped from your traditional Primary Care Doctor’s practice?

Many of our Traditional and Alternative Medicine Practitioners are not being honest with us...

Many traditional Medical Doctors take nutritional supplements but don’t recommend them to their patients. Believe it or not, quite a few Alternative Medicine Practitioners, who openly denounce traditional medicine to their patients, will occasionally pay a visit to a traditional Doctor’s office about their health issues. This kind of dishonesty needs to stop. Both modalities of health care services delivery – traditional and alternative medicine – have a place in our nation’s health care system. The sooner both camps realize that and start respecting one another, the quicker America can go about the business of cleaning up it’s health care mess.

My purpose here is to give you a brief sampling of the utter nonsense going on daily in the field of health care services availability and delivery.

Are you Angry, Disturbed or Flabbergasted? I certainly hope so. Because until every one of us gets disgusted enough to fix this health care mess, we’ll all be hearing sad and embarrassing stories like these for a long time to come.

10 Interesting Health and Safety Facts

1. About 3.9 million employees are disabled at work in any given year.
2. One work related injury occurs every 8 seconds.
3. Accidental overdose of iron pills is the leading cause of poisoning deaths among children.
4. Fire kills more Americans each year than ALL other natural disasters combined.
5. Nature requires over 5 years to get rid of a cigarette butt.
6. The energy needed to make 1 new aluminum can makes 20 recycled ones.
7. About 8 out of every 10 adults will have a back injury in their lives.
8. On average about 400 people die from excess heat (heat stroke) each year.
9. Occupational skin diseases costs $1 billion annually in worker comp costs claims.
10. Of the 42,000 traffic fatalities in recent years, 41% were alcohol related.

FACTS ABOUT RAMADAN

In Islam, fasting is a religious ritual that involves abstaining from all food, drink, sexual activity, and certain other specified activities from dawn until sunset.

Fasting during the Month of Ramadan

This communal religious obligation is one of the five pillars of Islam. It

derives its importance from the saying of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) that Islam stands on five (pillars) : To witness that there is no god but God (Allah) and that Muhammad (pbuh) is His Prophet, to perform the required prayers, to pay the zakat (poor-due), to fast the month of Ramadan, and to perform the pilgrimage (Hajj) to Makkah.

Who Must Fast Fasting is obligatory upon every adult Muslim who is sane, is able to perform it and is not travelling. If he cannot meet any one of these conditions, he is excused from the fast without any penalty.

Those who embrace Islam are not required to make up the fasts that they missed while they were non-Muslims.

Those who are insane, retarded, or somehow mentally impaired so that they do not (or cannot) function like normal people do not have to fast. They are not penalized in any way. The same is true for those who are very elderly and feel that they are unable to fast.

Invalids, such as very elderly people or people suffering from incurable

Illnesses, are not required to fast. However, they must compensate for this by

feeding one needy person for every day of fasting that they miss.

Those who fall ill unexpectedly and feel that their condition would worsen if they observed the fast are excused. After they recover, they must make up the fast by fasting the number of days that they missed.

Pregnant and nursing mothers do not have to fast if they feel that it would cause them undue and unnecessary hardship or that it might harm the unborn child or the nursing infant. After this period of danger has passed, they must fast the number of days that they missed.

Women who are having their menstrual period or experiencing bleeding due to recent child birth are not required to fast. They must make up the days that they have missed when their period or bleeding has stopped.

FUN FACTS ABOUT LOVE

-Love is one of a human being's strongest needs, surpassed only by food and groin-kicking filthy hippies.

-Love is like an unquenchable thirst, though it can be temporarily sated with fluids other than water.

-The easiest way to tell if someone loves you is to tell them they have a nice ass. If they file a sexual harrassment suit, it's love.

-No, I'm NOT a lawyer. Why do you ask?

-The best way to show someone you love them is by buying them expensive gifts. The poor are simply unworthy of love.

-Michael Moore is, technically, poor.

-Love is full of strange, confusing contradictions, and at times makes no sense whatsoever, yet it should not be confused with the UN, since love rarely involves oil-related scandals.

-Despite what you may have been taught in school, love is more than just a few cigars and a stained blue dress

-Love means never having to say you're sorry, mostly because when you screw up, you will need to make a MUCH longer speech than that.

-For best results, include bended-knee grovelling and a lot of diamonds.

-I *told* you love wasn't for the poor.

-The French are reputed to be experts in love, mostly because it's something they can surrender to.

-You never know when love will strike, which makes it similar to terrorists. If you see love, shoot it, just to be safe.

-Some people will need Viagra for this.

-Some types of love are actually unhealthy. For example, if your love involves handcuffs, ostrich feathers, or spankings, it's fine.

-Love is a many-splendored thing, much like the diamond necklace you'll be buying when you screw up.

-Again - not for the poor.

-Money can't buy happiness, but it CAN buy love. Although I've found that the healthy kind usually costs a little extra.

-Love was originally invented by Microsoft, thus explaining its chronic instability.

-In a fight between love and Aquaman, love would conquer all, and Aquaman would confess his secret longing for King Neptune.

-Long-lasting love can be achieved by filling out the on-line registration form and only using fully licensed

versions. In the long run, pirated love will only bring misery, despite requiring fewer diamonds initially.

-For more information on the ins and outs of love (which only SOUNDS dirty) see the Love Notes category at Bad Example. Those with delicate sensibilities are urged to think twice before choosing to view the comments.

FACTS ABOUT ROMANCE IN OFFICE

When it comes to dating, office romances are a hot subject. Some work out great, some create bigger office problems, and some are banned by company regulations. Here are some fun and interesting facts about office romance:

» The author of the book "The Office Romance" estimates that approximately 8 million people enter into a relationship with a coworker every year.

» A seven year study by a Swedish researcher, Yvonne Aberg, found that coed work environments are dangerous to marriages. Studying 37,000 employees worldwide, the research showed that the divorce rate of couples who work in a coed environment is 70% higher than the divorce rate of couples who work in a same-sex environment. The study also found a "contagious" effect when it comes to divorce. There was a 43% increase of the chance of a married person getting a divorce if 1/3rd of his or her coworkers had recently gotten a divorce.

» More future spouses will meet at work than neighborhood settings, social settings, or school according to a study from the Bureu of National Affairs in the late 1980s.

» Working close to those of the opposite gender affects the potential of an office romance because those you work close with are the ones you share life's information (and confidences with). Over 90% of reported office romances start in the same building versus adjoining offices.

FUN FACTS ABOUT KISSING (DATING)

Kissing is a common and sometimes intimate activity for couples. Yet kissing has also been studiedin-depth, creating some fun and interesting facts. For example, did you know:

» Twice as many people turn their heads to the right when kissing than to the left, according to a visual study by German psychologist Onur Güntürkün of Ruhr-Universität-Bochum. He casually (and discreetly) studied kissing couples in the public and counted them as part of his research as long as they had lip contact, were positioned face to face, and weren't holding any objects. 124 couples qualified in his visual study. As babies (in and out the womb), the majority of humans favor turning their head to the right and most are right handed. This was one of the influencial observations that lead to the study.

» Philematology is the scientific name for "kissing".

» Research indicates that there is a much better chance of you catching a cold from shaking hands with someone who has a cold than kissing them.

» There is a huge debate on how many calories are burned, if any, from kissing. Estimates range from an average of one calorie per kiss to 90 calories for a passionate 30-minute kiss. When Snapple put out its Snapple Facts, under the bottle cover, one fact claimed that a one-minute kiss burns 26 calories.

FACTS ABOUT LAS VEGAS WEDDINGS

LAS VEGAS WEDDINGS

Known as the "Wedding Capitol of the World," Las Vegas is full of some fun and interesting facts. For example, did you know:

» On one day out of the year the Clark County (Las Vegas) Marriage License Bureau is open for a full 24 hours. That day is... February 14.

» There are approximately 120,000 marriages that take place in Las Vegas every year. That averages out to about 328 weddings a day.

» Next to Valentine's Day the busiest day for weddings in Las Vegas is New Year's Eve.

» Las Vegas is home to several drive-thru wedding chapels where you can get married without ever leaving your car! In the entire country of Canada, there is one drive-thru wedding chapel.

The Top 10 Interesting Facts About Dating

"The Top 10 Interesting Facts About Dating," by Susan Dunn, Coach and David M. Buss author of The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating is a professor of psychology at the Univ. of Michigan. He and his colleagues interviewed over 10,000 people of all ages from 37 cultures worldwide, and his book is full of interesting facts. Here are a few.

1. The divorce rate among couples where the woman makes more than the man is 50% higher than among couples in which the husband earns more.

2. There are 25,000 to 35,000 polygynous marriages in the U.S.,mostly in western states.

The more polygynous the mating system the greater the differences between the sexes in terms of mortality.

Polygynous mating selects for males who take risks. Risk-taking traits lead to successful mating at the expense of a long life, i.e., the biggest buck wins the mating-fight, but will have more trouble feeding himself in a lean winter.

3. The #1 cause of divorce worldwide is infidelity.

4. The #2 cause of divorce worldwide is infertility.

5. The #3 cause of divorce worldwide is unkindness.

This can take the form of emotional and/or physical abuse,and may be the result of infidelity and infertility, or it can be a personality characteristic that is stable over time, involving lack of consideration for others, cruelty,selfishness, and irresponsibility.

6. Worldwide, wives who are less than 20 years old are morethan twice as likely as women who are more than 20 to be killed by a husband in a jealous age, regardless of the age of the husband.

7. 33% of women who have extramarital affairs consider their marriages to be happy, while 56% of men do.

8. Worldwide, women prefer to marry men who are older than they are and vice versa.

In Finland, Sweden and Norway the man is 1-2 years older. In Nigeria, 6.5 years older. In Zambia, 7.5 years older. In the US, men in their 30s prefer a woman 5 years younger; in their 50s, a woman 10-20 years younger. In the US, on average in the first marriage, the man is 3 years older; in the second marriage 5 years older; in the third marriage, 8 years older.

9. For the lifetime, men on average would like to have 18 sex partners, and women, 4 or 5.

10. Remarriage after death or divorce? In the US, 76% of women aged 14-19 remarry; 56% of women aged 30-39; 32% of women aged 40-49; and 12% of women aged 50-75.

(c)Susan trains and certifies EQ coaches. Individualized instruction arranged to accommodate your schedule. NO residency. Training worldwide. Susan offers individual coaching, business programs, Internet courses and ebooks.She is the author of Midlife Dating Survival Manual for Women and It's a Jungle Out There internet course with how-tos for dealing with difficult people.

Thanks for your interest in...

Christmas Trivia and Fun Facts

There's no other holiday like Christmas. Many of us celebrate the holidays without knowing how our traditions got started or what they signify. Christmas is much more fun when you know some facts behind the holiday

Most of these facts are very interesting and reminds us that there is quite a bit of history behind our family customs. Try using the trivia to make your own Christmas quiz for holiday parties and add a unique touch with personal favorites.

Christmas Holiday Trivia

The word Christmas is Old English, a contraction of Christ's Mass.

The first president to decorate the white house Christmas tree in the United States was Franklin Pierce.

Electric lights for trees were first used in 1895.

The first Christmas cards were vintage and invented in 1843, the Victorian Era.

"It's a Wonderful Life" appears on TV more often than any other holiday movie.

"Rudolph" was actually created by Montgomery Ward in the late 1930's for a holiday promotion. The rest is History.

"The Nutcracker" is the most famous Christmas ballet.

"Jingle Bells" was first written for Thanksgiving and then became one of the most popular Christmas songs.

If you received all of the gifts in the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas", you would receive 364 presents.

The poinsettia plant was brought into the United States from Mexico by Joel Poinsett in the early 1800's.

Holly berries are poisonous.

Contrary to common belief, poinsettia plants are non-toxic.

In 1843, "A Christmas Carol" was written by Charles Dickens in just six weeks.

The first state to recognize the Christmas holiday officially was Alabama

Christmas became a national holiday in America on June, 26, 1870.

coca Cola was the first beverage company to use Santa for a winter promotion.

An angel told Mary she was going to have a baby.

Clearing up a common misconception, in Greek, X means Christ. That is where the word "X-Mas" comes from. Not because someone took the "Christ" out of Christmas.

Traditionally, Christmas trees are taken down after Epiphany.

More diamonds are sold around Christmas than any other time of the year.

In Mexico, wearing red underwear on New Year's Eve is said to bring new love in the upcoming year.

FACTS ABOUT CHRISTMAS

In the Ukraine, if you find a spider web in the house on Christmas morning, it is believed to be a harbinger of good luck! There once lived a woman so poor, says a Ukrainian folk tale, that she could not afford Christmas decorations for her family. One Christmas morning, she awoke to find that spiders had trimmed her children’s tree with their webs. When the morning sun shone on them, the webs turned to silver and gold. An artificial spider and web are often included in the decorations on Ukrainian Christmas trees.


At Christmas, it is traditional to exchange kisses beneath the mistletoe tree. In ancient Scandinavia, mistletoe was associated with peace and friendship. That may account for the custom of "kissing beneath the mistletoe".


'Klaxon' is a name that does not belong to one of Santa’s reindeer. A klaxon is actually a powerful electric horn. Its name comes from a German word meaning "shriek".


In many households, part of the fun of eating Christmas pudding is finding a trinket that predicts your fortune for the coming year. For instance, finding a coin means you will become wealthy. A ring means you will get married; while a button predicts bachelorhood. The idea of hiding something in the pudding comes from the tradition in the Middle Ages of hiding a bean in a cake that was served on Twelfth Night. Whoever found the bean became "king" for the rest of the night.


Frumenty was a spiced porridge, enjoyed by both rich and poor. It was a forerunner of modern Christmas puddings. It is linked in legend to the Celtic god Dagda, who stirred a porridge made up of all the good things of the earth.


In Greek legend, malicious creatures called Kallikantzaroi sometimes play troublesome pranks at Christmas time. In order to get rid of them, salt or an old shoe is burnt. The pungent burning stench drives off, or at least helps discourage, the Kallikantzaroi. Other techniques include hanging a pig’s jawbone by the door and keeping a large fire so they can’t sneak down the chimney.


The poinsettia is a traditional Christmas flower. In Mexico (its original birthplace), the poinsettia is known as the "Flower of the Holy Night".


Louis Prang, a Bavarian-born lithographer who came to the USA from Germany in the 19th century, popularized the sending of printed Christmas cards. He invented a way of reproducing color oil paintings, the "chromolithograph technique", and created a card with the message "Merry Christmas" as a way of showing it off.


The "Urn of Fate" is part of the Christmas celebrations in many Italian households. The Urn of Fate is brought out on Christmas Eve. It holds a wrapped present for everyone. The mother tries her luck first, then the others in turn. If you get a present with your name on it, you keep it; otherwise, you put it back and try
again.

In Sweden, a common Christmas decoration is the Julbukk, a small figurine of a goat. It is usually made of straw. Scandinavian Christmas festivities feature a variety of straw decorations in the form of stars, angels, hearts and other shapes, as well as the Julbukk.

INFORMATIVE FACTS

Why Is a Book of Maps Called an Atlas?


Atlas was a Greek god who supposedly held up the earth on his shoulders.The Greeks usually represented him supporting two huge pillars that held up the earth, and these pillars rested in the sea we call the Atlantic Ocean, named after Atlas.In later centuries, the figure of Atlas holding up the earth was often used at the front of a book of maps. So, a book of maps became known as an atlas!

Where Is There a Country Without Women?


Athos is a 40-mile-long piece of land jutting out from Greece into the Aegean Sea. But Athos is really not part of Greece.It's ruled by a group of monks who represent the 20 monasteries in Athos. Since 1045, the monks have orbidden women to set foot on their land!It isn't only human women who are not permitted in thos, but females of all animal species. Only recently have exceptions been made — in the case of hens
and female cats!

What Is the Most Valuable Book Ever Printed?


In 1455, a German named Johann Gutenberg became the first person to print a book on a printing press with movable letters.He printed 200 copies of the Bible. Of these, only 21 complete copies exist today.And one of them was sold at auction in 1978 for $2,400,000, making it the most expensive book ever printed

Where Are Two Different Alphabets Used in the Same Country?


The most common language in the nation of Yugoslavia is called Serbo-Croatian. But people in Yugoslavia use two different alphabets to write the same language. One alphabet is the Roman, the one we use; the other is called the Cyrillic, and is the same alphabet as the one used in Russia.During the 9th century, a missionary named Cyril taught Christianity to Slavic people in Eastern Europe. But these people had no written language. So, in order to teach them to read the Bible, Cyril invented an alphabet based on the Greek alphabet.

Who Invented Potato Chips?

According to a story that may or may not be true, the first potato chips were 'invented around 1865 by a chef in Saratoga, New York.The chef made a batch of thin-sliced potatoes for the diners at a guest house, but one of the guests kept sending the potatoes back and asking for thinner slices. So the chef cut a potato into the thinnest slices he could, dropped them into oil, and produced America's first potato chips!The first factory in America built solely to produce potato chips opened in Albany, New York, in 1925.

Why Do We Put Chlorine in Swimming Pools?

Chlorine is a deadly poison in its pure form, yet we eat it all the time! How can that be?Chlorine is an element, just like iron or oxygen, but it never occurs in nature by itself. It's most commonly found mixed with the element sodium in a compound called sodium chloride — which is the chemical name for ordinary
table salt! So when we eat chlorine, we eat it mixed with sodium, and in that form chlorine is harmless.


Can a Boat Sail Across the United States?


By following the rivers of the United States that empty into the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico, a boat can travel as far west as the Rocky Mountains, but no farther.An imaginary line — called the Continental Divide — runs through the Rockies. All rivers on the east side of the Divide flow toward the Atlantic, toward
the Gulf, or toward the Great Lakes. But all the rivers on the west side of the Divide flow toward the Pacific Ocean. So there's no way for a boat to travel across America.

Could a Penny Dropped off a Skyscraper Really Kill Someone?


In physics, the momentum, or force, that a moving object can deliver to something it strikes depends on the size of the moving object, its mass, and the speed at which it is moving (its velocity)When we drop a penny from a very high building, its velocity keeps increasing until the penny hits the ground. And even an object
as light as a penny, if dropped from a high enough place, can strike the ground with greater force than a heavy object falling a short distance.So this falling penny, if it hits a person in the right place, can be deadly indeed!

When Was Croquet Popular?


Croquet is a game played outdoors on a lawn.Players use mallets to drive small wooden or rubber balls through hoops, called wickets, that are set in the ground. The winning player or team is the first to drive their balls through the wickets in a certain order.Croquet was first played in France, where it was called paille-maille. In the 17th century, it reached England, where it became known as pall mall. The Pall Mall, a famous street in London, is named after a croquet court that once occupied the site.

Interesting Facts about Vegetable | What Is the Most Common Vegetable in the World?

The vegetables that are grown in the largest quantities around the world are the tomato and the potato. But the most widely used vegetable is the onion!The onion appears in more dishes and in more countries than any other vegetable. In some places, the onion is used to flavor dishes, while in other countries it's eaten by itself as a vegetable.The ancient Egyptians ate onions both ways, for the onion was the most common vegetable in Egypt 5,000 years ago. During the Middle Ages, the onion and a relative of the onion, the leek, were the only common vegetables in Europe.

TRUE FACTS

Why you can't hear phone conversations in a noisy room


Talking on your mobile phone in a noisy place can be difficult. Your mobile makes the brain's task harder by feeding sounds from the room you're in through its circuitry and mixing them with the sound it gets from the other phone. This makes it a harder problem for your brain to solve because your friend's transmitted voice and the room noise are tinny and mixed together in one source. Cover the mouthpiece when you're trying to hear you caller and you'll stop the mixing.

Shoot-'em-up video games can help you to multitask

Sustained multitasking increases your ability to pay attention to many things at the same time. A significant source of practice is playing action video games where the aim is to shoot as many enemies as possible before they shoot you. These games make you distribute attention across the screen, and quickly detect and react to events. Playing Tetris (an early puzzle-based video game) doesn't have the same effect,
perhaps because you have to concentrate on only one object at a time, rather than multitask. Does this mean that you should encourage your kids to play shoot-'em-up action games? We wouldn't go out of our way to expose kids to violent images, but at least you can take heart that video game-playing has positive effects.

The brain has a joke centre

Humour is hard to define, but we know it when we see it. One theory suggests that humour consists of a surprise - we don't end up where we thought we were going - followed by a reinterpretation of what came earlier to make it fit the new perspective. To make it a joke instead of a logic puzzle, the result needs to be a coherent story that isn't strictly sensible in everyday terms. Some patients with damage to the frontal lobe of their brain, particularly on the right side, don't get jokes at all. Typically, this is because they have trouble with the reinterpretation stage of the process. For instance, given a joke with a choice of punchlines, they can't tell which one is funny.

There's a reason you remember those annoying songs

Having a song or, more often, part of a song stuck in your head is incredibly frustrating. But sequence recall has a special and useful place in our memories. We constantly have to remember sequences, from the movements involved in signing our name or making coffee in the morning, to the names of the exits that come before the motorway turn-off we take to drive home every day. he ability to recall these sequences makes many aspects of everyday life possible. As you think about a snippet of song or speech, your brain may repeat a sequence that strengthens the connections associated with that phrase. In turn, this increases the likelihood that you will recall it, which leads to more reinforcement. You could break this unending cycle of repeated recall and reinforcement - which may be necessary for the normal strengthening and cementing of memories - by introducing other sequences. Thinking of another song may allow a competing memory to crowd out the first one: find another infectious song and hope that the cure doesn't become more annoying than the original problem.


Sunlight makes you sneeze

Many people sneeze when they look into bright light. Why would we have such a reflex and how does it work? The basic function of a sneeze is fairly obvious: it expels substances or objects that are irritating your airways. The sneezing centre is located in the brainstem, in a region called the lateral medulla; damage to this site means that we lose the ability to sneeze. Sneezing usually is triggered by news of an irritant that is sent through brain pathways and into the lateral medulla. This information gets to the brain from the nose through several nerves, including the trigeminal nerve, which carries a wide variety of signals from the face into the brainstem. It's a really crowded nerve, which might explain why bright light could induce a sneeze. A bright light, which would normally be expected to trigger pupil contraction, might also spill over to neighbouring sites, such as nerve fibres or
neurons that carry nose-tickling sensations. Bright light isn't the only unexpected sensation that is known to trigger sneezes; orgasm can also trigger
sneezes in men. Fundamentally, a crossed-wire phenomenon, like the photic sneeze reflex, is possible because the circuitry of the brainstem is a jumbled, crowded mess.

You can't tickle yourself

When doctors examine a ticklish patient, they place his or her hand over theirs to prevent the tickling sensation. Why does this work? Because no matter how ticklish you may be, you can't tickle yourself. This is because your brain keeps your senses focused on what's happening in the world; important signals aren't drowned out in the endless buzz of sensations caused by your actions. For instance, we are unaware of the feel of a chair and the texture of our socks, yet we immediately notice a tap on our shoulder. To accomplish this goal, some brain region must be able to generate a signal that distinguishes our touch from someone else's. The cerebellum, or “little brain”, may be the answer. It is about 1/8 of our total brain size - a little smaller than our fist - and weighs about 4oz (113g). It is also the best candidate that scientists have for the part of the brain that predicts the sensory consequences of our own actions. The cerebellum is in an ideal location for distinguishing expected from unexpected sensations. If a prediction matches the actual sensory information, then the brain knows that it's safe to ignore the
sensation because it's not important. If reality does not match the prediction, then something surprising has happened - and you might need to pay attention.

Yawns wake up the brain

Although we associate yawning with sleepiness and boredom, its function appears to be to wake us up. awning expands our pharynx and larynx, allowing large amounts of air to pass into our lungs; oxygen then enters our blood, making us more alert. Many vertebrates do it, including all mammals and perhaps birds. also has been observed in human foetuses after just 12 weeks of gestation. In non human primates, it is
associated with tense situations and potential threats. Think of yawns as your body's attempt to reach full alertness in situations that require it. They are
contagious, as anyone who has attempted to teach a roomful of bored students knows. No one is sure why, though it might be advantageous to allow individuals quickly to transmit to one another a need for increased arousal. They are not contagious in non primate mammals, but the ability to recognise a yawn may be fairly general: dogs yawn in response to stressful situations and are thought to use yawning to calm
others. You can even sometimes calm your dog by yawning.

Altitude makes the brain see strange visions

Many religions involve special visions that occurred at great heights. For example, Moses encountered a voice emanating from a burning bush on Mount Sinai and Muhammad was visited by an angel on Mount Hira. Commonly reported spiritual experiences include feeling and hearing a presence, seeing a figure, seeing lights (sometimes emanating from a person) and being afraid. Similar phenomena are reported by mountain climbers, a group generally not thought to be very mystical.
Could it be something about the mountains? Acute mountain sickness occurs above altitudes of 8,000ft (2,400m). Many of the effects are attributable to the reduced supply of oxygen to the brain. At 8,000ft or higher, some mountaineers report perceiving unseen companions, seeing light emanating from
themselves or others, seeing a second body like their own, and suddenly feeling emotions such as fear. Oxygen deprivation is likely to interfere with brain regions active in visual and face processing, and in
emotional events.

Sixty Amazing-but-True Facts!

In the weightlessness of space a frozen pea will explode if it comes in contact with Pepsi.

The increased electricity used by modern appliances is causing a shift in the Earth's magnetic field. By the year 2327, the North Pole will be located in mid-Kansas, while the South Pole will be just off the coast of East Africa.

The idea for "tribbles" in "Star Trek" came from gerbils, since some gerbils are actually born pregnant.

Male rhesus monkeys often hang from tree branches by their amazing prehensile penises.

Johnny Plessey batted .331 for the Cleveland Spiders in 1891, even though he spent the entire season batting with a rolled-up, lacquered copy of the Toledo Post-Dispatch.

Smearing a small amount of dog feces on an insect bite will relieve the itching and swelling.

The Boeing 747 is capable of flying upside-down if it weren't for the fact that the wings would shear off when trying to roll it over.

The trucking company Elvis Presley worked at as a young man was owned by Frank Sinatra.

The only golf course on the island of Tonga has 15 holes, and there's no penalty if a monkey steals your golf ball.

Legislation passed during WWI making it illegal to say "gesundheit" to a sneezer was never repealed.

Manatees possess vocal chords which give them the ability to speak like humans, but don't do so because they have no ears with which to hear the sound.

SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below.

Catfish are the only animals that naturally have an ODD number of whiskers.

Replying more than 100 times to the same piece of spam e-mail will overwhelm the sender's system and interfere with their ability to send any more spam.

Polar bears can eat as many as 86 penguins in a single sitting.

The first McDonald's restaurant opened for business in 1952 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and featured the McHaggis sandwich.

The Air Force's F-117 fighter uses aerodynamics discovered during research into how bumblebees fly.

You *can* get blood from a stone, but only if contains at least 17 percent bauxite.

Silly Putty was "discovered" as the residue left behind after the first latex condoms were produced. It's not widely publicized for obvious reasons.

Approximately one-sixth of your life is spent on Wednesdays.

The skin needed for elbow transplants must be taken from the scrotum of a cadaver.

The sport of jai alai originated from a game played by Incan priests who held cats by their tails and swung at leather balls. The cats would instinctively grab at the ball with their claws, thus enabling players to catch them.

A cat's purr has the same romance-enhancing frequency as the voice of singer Barry White.

The typewriter was invented by Hungarian immigrant Qwert Yuiop, who left his "signature" on the keyboard.

The volume of water that the Giant Sequoia tree consumes in a 24-hour period contains enough suspended minerals to pave 17.3 feet of a 4-lane concrete freeway.

King Henry VIII slept with a gigantic axe.

Because printed materials are being replaced by CD-ROM, microfiche and the Internet, libraries that previously sank into their foundations under the weight of their books are now in danger of collapsing in extremely high winds.

In 1843, a Parisian street mime got stuck in his imaginary box and consequently died of starvation.

Touch-tone telephone keypads were originally planned to have buttons for Police and Fire Departments, but they were replaced with * and # when the project was cancelled in favor of developing the 911 system.

Human saliva has a boiling point three times that of regular water.

Calvin, of the "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip, was patterned after President Calvin Coolidge, who had a pet tiger as a boy.

Watching an hour-long soap opera burns more calories than watching a three-hour baseball game.

Until 1978, Camel cigarettes contained minute particles of real camels.

You can actually sharpen the blades on a pencil sharpener by wrapping your pencils in aluminum foil before inserting them.

To human taste buds, Zima is virtually indistinguishable from zebra urine.

Seven out of every ten hockey-playing Canadians will lose a tooth during a game. For Canadians who don't play hockey, that figure drops to five out of ten.

A dog's naked behind leaves absolutely no bacteria when pressed against carpet.

A team of University of Virginia researchers released a study promoting the practice of picking one's nose, claiming that the health benefits of keeping nasal passages free from infectious blockages far outweigh the negative social connotations.

Among items left behind at Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan were 27 issues of Mad Magazine. Al Qaeda members have admitted that bin Laden is reportedly an avid reader.

Urine from male cape water buffaloes is so flammable that some tribes use it for lantern fuel.

At the first World Cup championship in Uruguay, 1930, the soccer balls were actually monkey skulls wrapped in paper and leather.

Every Labrador retriever dreams about bananas.

If you put a bee in a film canister for two hours, it will go blind and leave behind its weight in honey.

Due to the angle at which the optic nerve enters the brain, staring at a blue surface during sex greatly increases the intensity of orgasms.

Never hold your nose and cover your mouth when sneezing, as it can blow out your eyeballs.

Centuries ago, purchasing real estate often required having one or more limbs amputated in order to prevent the purchaser from running away to avoid repayment of the loan. Hence an expensive purchase was said to cost "an arm and a leg."

When Mahatma Gandhi died, an autopsy revealed five gold Krugerrands in his small intestine.

Aardvarks are allergic to radishes, but only during summer months.

Coca-Cola was the favored drink of Pharaoh Ramses. An inscription found in his tomb, when translated, was found to be almost identical to the recipe used today.

If you part your hair on the right side, you were born to be carnivorous. If you part it on the left, your physical and psychological make-up is that of a vegetarian.

When immersed in liquid, a dead sparrow will make a sound like a crying baby.

In WWII the US military planned to airdrop over France propaganda in the form of Playboy magazine, with coded messages hidden in the models' turn-ons and turn-offs. The plan was scrapped because of a staple shortage due to rationing of metal.

Although difficult, it's possible to start a fire by rapidly rubbing together two Cool Ranch Doritos.

Napoleon's favorite type of wood was knotty chestnut.

The world's smartest pig, owned by a mathematics teacher in Madison, WI, memorized the multiplication tables up to 12.

Due to the natural "momentum" of the ocean, saltwater fish cannot swim backwards.

In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families were dipped in olive oil at birth to keep them hairless throughout their lives.

It is nearly three miles farther to fly from Amarillo, Texas to Louisville, Kentucky than it is to return from Louisville to Amarillo.

The "nine lives" attributed to cats is probably due to their having nine primary whiskers.

The original inspiration for Barbie dolls comes from dolls developed by German propagandists in the late 1930s to impress young girls with the ideal notions of Aryan features. The proportions for Barbie were actually based on those of Eva Braun.

The Venezuelan brown bat can detect and dodge individual raindrops in mid-flight, arriving safely back at his cave completely dry.

Mercedes Interesting facts

The three pointed Mercedes star represents Land, Sea and Air.

Alfred Neubauer is the name of the Mercedes racing team’s manager, who led the team in 1954-1955.

J.M.Fangio was the only driver to compete in all races for Mercedes in the 50s.

Mercedes made its F1 debut at the 1954 French Grand Prix.

Mercedes made its comeback in the 1990s with Sauber.

Norbert Haug is Mercedes motorsport boss today.

Ilmor is building the Mercedes engines nowadays.

Mercedes have won 35 Grand Prix titles as constructor.

Frentzen was the last German to drive for Mercedes in F1.

The first Mercedes car had 35 BHP.

Mercedes and Benz merged in 1926.

About 20 million Mercedes cars have been sold in the past century.

The Mercedes car is named after the daughter of its first buyer, Emil Jellinek.

DaimlerChrysler is the name of the company today, which owns the Mercedes marque.

Apple iPhone Facts | Interesting facts about Apple iphone

The iPhone is a Smart Cell Phone, IPod, Internet communications device, and Digital Camera in one device.

The iPhone has sensors that enable it to change automatically the direction of its screen from portrait to landscape based on the vertical or horizontal alignment of the phone.

The IPhone controls are based on touching the screen by your finger. No more buttons. Software replaces hardware.

The iPhone has proximity sensors that would prevent you from activating certain features on its screen by your ear while talking and also turns off the screen display when close to your ear to save power

iPhone even has sensors to adjust the light of the screen based on the light of the surroudings

iPhone becomes an iPod with few touches. The 3.5 inch widescreen is amazing in browsing through your iPod content from videos, to music albums, to TV shows, to movies, to photo albums, to audio books...

The iPhone has a 2-megapixel camera and a photo software that enable you to sync, browse, email, and control pictures better than any other smartphones.

The phone is 4.5 (115 mm) inches high, 2.4 inches wide (61mm), and 0.46 thick (11.6mm).

You can make calls by just touching the screen and selecting numbers or names from your address book or call list.

You can check your voicemail by browsing your voicemails by sender, or time, or other features. Just like email. Gone are the days where you have to go listen to all your voicemails in order to listen to the voicemails that matter to you.

Apple had Cingular to change its wireless infrastructure in a way that would enable the use of the IPhone features like the ability to browse the voicemail on the screen.

In the day that the IPhone was announced, other cell phone and smartphones makers companies' shares tumbled. Apple stock (AAPL) went up 8% while Research in Motion stock (makers of Blackberry) went down 7%. Other companies like Motorolla, Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung, Panasonic, Phillips, Siemens were also affected