Beech Tree News Network

This week, I will wrap up my 50 Fast Facts column.  As always, these originate from https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/did-you-know/50-fast-facts-so-intere...’ll-crush-your-boredom/ss-BBMlXq8?ocid=spartandhp#image=42.

The tension between cats and dogs goes back millennia.  According to researchers, some 20 million years ago, ancient cats and dogs battled for scarce food.  The cats won.  I mean, the phrase “quick as a cat” didn’t just appear.  “When various species of cats first appeared in North America, there was a steep decline in the number of canine species in the same area”, as Danielle Silvestro, a computational biologist at the University of Gothenburg and lead author of a paper on the subject, explained to Quartz.

Created by a quirky American inventor and backed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos(to the tune of $42 million), the 10,000 year-old clock is being built under a mountain in the middle of a Texas desert, which will tick just once every year, with a hand that moves once a century and a cuckoo that emerges every 1,000 years.  Its purpose is to make long-term thinking more common.

Your liver size fluctuates.  A team of Swiss researchers studying mice found that their liver cells swelled and contracted up to 40% along with the daily activities of the mice.  Though evidence is limited as to whether the same happens in humans, once study from 1986 found a variation of about 20 percent between day and night—presumably related to the fact that the liver is not working as hard when a person is sleeping.

In 1923, jockey Frank Hayes was hailed the victor at Belmont Park in New York.  The only problem was that he’d suffered a heart attack and died in the middle of the race.  So, he wasn’t really able to celebrate his victory. 

 The long arms of Mongolian herdsman Bao Xishu, who at 7 feet 8 inches was the tallest man in the world in 2006, saved the day when a pair of dolphins were found to have swallowed plastic shards that other instruments were unable to extract from their stomachs. Bao’s unusually long arm proved a more effective tool and saved the lives of both creatures.

Veterans Stadium, where the Philadelphia Eagles once played, included a stadium courtroom and jail to handle the team’s notoriously rowdy fans. As a former judge for the so-called “Eagles Court” explained, “Eagles Court was a lot of fun and it served a purpose. One of the interesting facts that came out of Eagles Court was that 95 percent of the people arrested were not from Philadelphia. But Philadelphia was getting broad brushed as the city with horrible, horrible fans.”

The longest skid mark was six miles long. According to Guinness, the honor of having the longest continuous tire skid on a road was earned by Norman Craig Breedlove, whose jet-powered Spirit of America went out of control at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in 1964. At almost six miles long, the record remains on the books. 

The tallest empty building is North Korea’s “Hotel of Doom”

 Stretching 105 stories into the sky, construction on the pyramid-shaped Ryugyong Hotel began in 1987 and stopped in the early 1990s due to economic depression. Though attempts to finish and open the building for business have been made in fits and starts, the hotel (which was originally intended to house five revolving restaurants and 3,000 to 7,665 guest rooms) remains unoccupied and earned the nickname, “Hotel of Doom.”

Vikings were some of the toughest dudes in history, but also cared about their appearance enough that makeup was a standard part of their look. According to the National Museum of Denmark, “A Spanish Arab who visited Hedeby around the year 1000 described how both men and women in the town wore make-up to look younger and more attractive.”. 

Finally: It might seem like he was in the wrong line of work but Harrison Schmitt,  from the Apollo 17 mission, found out that he had a severe allergy to moon dust.  For more on Mr. Schmitt, head to   http://mentalfloss.com/article/91628/apollo-astronaut-who-was-allergic-m...  

I hope you’ve enjoyed learning these interesting facts as much as yours truly.