Biology

1. Biology • The twenty-third tallest tree in the world is a Giant sequoia called 'Adam'. • An alligator can be rendered helpless by placing a rubber band over its jaws • The longest animal is a Lion's Mane Jellyfish, as described in the Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Lion's Mane. • Blue whales have small throats and can swallow nothing larger than a grapefruit. Their diet consists of krill. • An octopus can be taught to unscrew the lids of jars and bottles. • A centipede has between 30 and 382 legs. None have ever been found with 100 legs. • British bees died out after World War I – new bees were introduced from Mexico. • The Goliath frog of Cameroon is mute. (Forfeit: "Ribbit") The only frog to go "ribbit" is the Pacific Tree Frog, the species native to Hollywood and thus sampled for use on hundreds of movie soundtracks. • Arthropods - the male European earwig has a spare penis • Bug - an insect with piercing and sucking mouth parts. • More people have been killed by ducks than by atomic bombs, as they were responsible for the 1918 outbreak of the Spanish flu • Bamboo has a tensile strength greater than steel and can grow up to 4 foot a day. It is also a grass.

2. Enviroment • The driest place on Earth is the Dry Valleys Region of Antarctica. • Over fifty percent of the world's oxygen is provided by algae. • The ozone layer is fifteen miles above the Earth's surface. Ozone smells faintly of geraniums.

3. General Interest • The average graphite pencil can write for thirty five miles. • Arthur Conan Doyle played in goal for Portsmouth, Niels Bohr played for the University of Copenhagen 1sts soccer team, Albert Camus was goalkeeper for the University of Algiers team, but Shostakovich was a qualified soccer referee.

4. Statistics • The number of people killed by sharks since records began is equal to just five per cent of the number of toilet-related injuries in the USA in 1996.

5. Space • 3753 Cruithne is an asteroid sometimes described as Earth's second moon. • Ninety per cent of the Universe is unaccounted for; it is believed to be made of dark matter. • The colour of the Universe is beige. See Cosmic latte.

6. The Earth • The length of a day is not exactly 24 hours. The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service is responsible for adding on occasional leap seconds.

7. Materials • All diamonds are created beneath the Earth's surface, and brought to the surface in volcanoes. Diamonds and graphite are both made of pure carbon, but appear at opposite ends of the Mohs scale of mineral hardness.

8. Funny • The Toyota MR2 provoked muck amusement in France, as "MR2" sounds like merde. The Ford Pinto is equally amusing to Brazilians, as "pinto" is Brazilian slang for a small penis.

9. The tongue of a woodpecker can extend to 2/3rds of its body-length, and has an ear at the end of it. • Since they have only 20-30 taste-buds, birds can't distinguish the taste of chocolate, which is toxic to them anyway. • Tangent: The lethal dose of chocolate for a human is about 22lbs • Thomas Edison believed that 15 tiny people lived within the human mind. He did not invent the light bulb, although one of his letters contains the first written reference of the word hello. • How many vaginas does a kangaroo have? • 3, but only 2 wombs

10. Butterflies are an evolution from moths – they came out during the daytime to avoid being eaten by bats (see also difference between a butterfly and a moth) • Bats use sonar, shown in an experiment using bells: a pitch black room with bells hung from the ceiling and bats flying around created no noise, but owls did run into the bells. • Batology is the study of brambles and blackberries, chiroptology is the study of bats • Batophobia is the fear of being close to tall buildings • Battology means pointlessly repeating the same thing over again • In Sweden on 1 January1994 there was the same number of 8 year old girls (112,521) as there were 9 year old girls on 1 January1995, with no migration or death

11. Helium alters the timbre not the pitch of the voice – sound travels faster through helium • The link between Santa Claus and Emperor Penguins is that they "come once a year" • People who smoke shorten their life expectancy by 5 years, while cutting off the testicles adds 13 years • Barbers did castrations as the practice was illegal – they explained it as an accident; castratos are people that sing in a high pitch because they have been castrated • The coldest place in the universe is in Louisiana – scientists took the temperature down to a fraction above absolute zero • In the southern hemisphere water drains in whichever direction you choose • Custard can support a person walking on top of it because it is a non-Newtonian fluid • Deep-fried Mars bars do exist and are not an urban myth. The deep-fried pork sausage kebab, found in Glasgow, contains 1000 calories and 46g of fat.

12. The fingerprints of a koala are indistinguishable from those of a human. • The commonest metal in the human body is calcium • Mr Chicken was the last private resident of 10 Downing Street.

13. Challenger, Tornado, Typhoon, Mustang, Hurricane, Starquest, Buccaneer, Jetstream, Superstorm, and Cobra are all makes of caravan. (Forfeit: tanks, jet-fighters, helicopters). Patriot, Gladiator, Dagger, Javelin, Archer, Arrow, White King, Excalibur and Merlin are all variants of parsnip. (Forfeit: missiles).

14. The first creature to be sent into space was a fruitfly. (Forfeit: monkey, dog). • Tangent: 65% of diseases found in humans are paralleled in the fruitfly. • The fruitfly has the largest sperm of any organism, with an uncoiled size of around 20 times its own length (5.8cm). • Tangent: The sperm is the smallest cell in the human body, and the ovum is the largest.

15. there are more molecules in a glass of water than there are grains of sand in the entire world. • The memory of the goldfish has been shown to be far longer than the oft-believed three seconds. • Giant Sequoias have bark 4 foot thick and need forest fires to clear the ground for them to breed • Kudzu is the only plant measured in mph in its growth

16. Painting the entire body in gold, as per the James Bond film Goldfinger, is not fatal • Humans have more than five senses • Silly, Billy, Chilly, Pussy, Pissy, Corny, Punchy, Misery, Messy and Prat - French place names