Mr. Write's Page

More useless facts for inquiring minds.

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— According to NASA, 100 tons of material from space strikes the Earth every day. About once a month, an asteroid the size of a golf cart lands somewhere on the planet.

— In 1886, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s wrote his first short story about master sleuth Sherlock Holmes. In that original story, the main characters were “Sherringford Holmes” and his sidekick “Dr. Ormond Sacker.”

— When photographers set up cameras in the wild to capture images of tigers, cheetahs, snow leopards, etc., they often mark the location with the fragrance Obsession for Men by Calvin Klein. A study at the Bronx Zoo found that big cats are more attracted to Obsession than to any other scent tested.

— The only insect that can turn its head is the praying mantis.

— Clarence Thomas became a Supreme Court Justice in 1991, and he quickly established a reputation for reticence; he rarely speaks or asks questions during oral arguments. In February 2016, Thomas asked a question during a court session for the first time since February 2006.

— The tongue is the only muscle in the body that is attached at only one end.

— In 1953, the National Hurricane Center began using female names to identify Atlantic tropical storms. Previously, storms were named using the phonetic alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie). In 1979, the naming system was modified again to include male names in the mix. The first “male” storm was Hurricane Bob, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico in July 1979.

— Displayed in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California is a portrait of Reagan made out of 10,000 jelly beans.

— The first American movie to show a toilet and feature the sound of a toilet flushing was Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in 1960.

— As Christopher Columbus approached Haiti on his first voyage in 1493, he claimed that he saw three mermaids surface near the Niña. The ship’s journal reported, “The Admiral said he quite distinctly saw three mermaids, which rose well out of the sea, but they were not so beautiful as they are said to be, for their faces had some masculine traits.” Historians say he probably saw manatees.

— James Madison, the fourth U.S. President (served 1809-1817) was 5′ 4” tall and weighed 98 pounds.

— Dogs are able to perform the familiar full body shake because their skin hangs loose. In a four-second shake, a wet dog can eliminate up to 70 percent of the water in its fur.