Fact-telling-machine | Quiz | Greycaps
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NASA’s Curiosity Rover on Mars ‘sings’ Happy Birthday to itself on the 5th of every August.
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Hugging someone releases the hormone ‘oxytocin’, making us trust them more.
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Before 2011, beer was considered as a soft drink in Russia.
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Otters sleep holding hands so they don’t drift away from each other.
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The name ‘Jessica’ was created by William Shakespeare for his play ‘The Merchant of Venice’.
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Ostriches have the largest eyes among land animals.
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In China, it is considered rude to eat everything on your plate, because your hosts will think that they did not feed you enough.
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Mark Twain’s birth and death occurred in the same years when Halley’s Comet crossed the earth.
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The Olympic torch relay was introduced by the Nazis, not the Greek.
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Sweden recycles so well that it has run out of native garbage to recycle.
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There is a ‘Crater Varma’ on planet Mercury, named after the famous Indian artist Raja Ravi Varma.
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Flamingos eat upside-down.
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Steve Jobs had a tendency to eat only a few food items, like carrots and apples, for weeks at a time.
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‘Rock Paper Scissors’ is played as a professional sport and has international championships.
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Beavers constantly gnaw on objects to ‘chisel’ their ever growing teeth.
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Play-Doh was originally invented as wallpaper cleaner.
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Dominos Pizza delivers to a few remote islands by aeroplane.
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Due to the effect of gravity, our nose and ears never stop growing.
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A ‘semordnilap’ is a word or a sentence that has meaning when read forward and backward. For example, the word ‘diaper’.
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As of 2016, Okinawa Island in Japan has the most number of inhabitants aged above 100 years.Â
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Crocodiles swallow stones to help them keep their bodies under water and only eyes and nose above water, as they hunt.
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Some hydrangea flowers turn pink in alkaline soil and blue in acidic soil.
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Since 1945, all British tanks come with kettles to make tea.
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‘Gamomania’ is the obsession with issuing odd marriage proposals.
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There are libraries around the world where people can ‘borrow’ other people as ‘living books’ to listen to their inspirational stories.
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The initial 74-minute capacity of music CDs was standardised in order to fit Beethoven’s 72-minute-long ninth symphony.
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NASA’s Curiosity Rover on Mars ‘sings’ Happy Birthday to itself on the 5th of every August.
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Contrary to popular belief, you don't sense different tastes in different areas of the tongue.
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The National Anthems of Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and San Marino have no official lyrics.
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Mawlynnong village in Meghalaya, India, is reputed to be Asia’s cleanest village.
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Earth is the only planet not named after a God.Â
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One can tell a turtle’s gender by the noise it makes. Males grunt and females hiss.
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The Guinness Book of World Records holds the record for being the most frequently stolen book from public libraries in the US.
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Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
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Elvis Presley got a 'C’ in his 8th grade music class.
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According to the FDA, the stickers on fruits are edible.
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Actress Halle Berry is named after a department store.
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‘Arachibutyrophobia’ is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one’s mouth.
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The longest word in English, as recognized by dictionaries, is a lung disease called ‘pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis’. It contains 45 letters.
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In Hawaii, a flower worn on the left ear by a woman indicates that she is no longer single.
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Gorillas can catch human cold, and vice versa.
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If you Google ‘askew’, the page shifts slightly to the left and the search results appear blurred.Â
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‘Grammar Pedantry Syndrome’ is an obsessive compulsive urge to correct every grammatical error.
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The Japanese National Anthem ‘Kimigayo’ is one of the shortest in the world, consisting of less than 25 words!
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 ‘Googol’ is the name for the digit ‘1’ followed by 100 zeroes. A ‘Googolplex’ is ‘1’ followed by a googol zeros!
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Before the 21st Century, some stamps distributed in various parts of the world had advertisements of products printed behind them.
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Contrary to popular belief, magpies don’t ‘steal’ things, nor are they attracted to shiny things in particular.
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The word ‘data’ is plural. Its singular form is ‘datum’.
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Charlie Chaplin received the longest standing ovation in Oscar history, lasting 12 minutes.
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‘Fugu’ is a Japanese delicacy made with the poisonous puffer fish, which is considered to be deadlier than cyanide.
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Potato chips were invented after a chef lost his temper with a customer who kept demanding for his potatoes to be thinner and more fried.
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A ‘Baobab’ tree can store up to 32,000 gallon of water in its trunk.
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Kodinhi village in Kerala, India, is famous for its high rate of twin births, with around 500 pairs of twins in a population of just about 2000 families!
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YouTube’s San Bruno Office offers a giant, three-person slide travelling two stories, to move around the building!
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The ‘M’ on M&M candies stands for Forrest Mars Sr. of the Mars Company and Bruce Murrie, the son of then-President of Hershey’s.
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The ‘Ketchup and Fries Plant’, or the ‘TomTato Plant’, can simultaneously produce potatoes and tomatoes.Â
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Marie Curie’s research papers are highly radioactive even to this day. One must sign a waiver and wear protective clothing to access them.
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French fries apparently originated in Belgium, not in France.
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The word ‘personality’ comes from the Latin word ‘persona’, meaning ‘mask’.
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A restaurant named ‘Heart Attack Grill’ in Las Vegas produces only high calorie and high cholesterol meals.
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Japanese law has a ‘waistline limit’ to prevent obesity.
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Contrary to popular belief, cows do not have 4 stomachs, but 4 chambers in their stomach.
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The time on Apple products is set as 9:41am in all their advertisements to denote the time when Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone in 2007.
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US dollar bills are not made of paper, but of a combination of cotton and linen.
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A prairie dog is not a dog, but a rabbit-sized rodent.
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The world’s biggest family as of 2016, has 181 members and lives together in Mizoram, India.
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The arrow connecting ‘a’ and ‘z’ in the Amazon.com logo indicates that everything from ‘a’ to ‘z’ is available on their website.
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Russian chess legend Garry Kasparov had ranked World No.1 for around 20 years- almost as long as his professional chess career!
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A group of crows is called a ‘murder’.
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The Falaknuma Palace in Hyderabad, India is home to the world’s longest permanent dining table, seating 101 people.
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The chemical reaction which makes browned food taste good is called ‘Maillard Reaction’.
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Microsoft employees traditionally celebrate their joining dates by taking one pound of M&Ms to work, for every year they have worked there.Â
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Larry Page, the co-founder of Google, apparently got the entire algorithm which became the basis for the search engine, in a dream.
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‘Oneirology’ is the scientific study of dreams and their interpretation.
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The word ‘tamarind’ is derived from the Arabic word ‘tamr hind’, meaning ‘Indian Date’.
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‘Devil’s Kettle’ is a mysterious waterfall in Minnesota, USA. Half of its water disappears after flowing into a nearby hole.
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The Jeep got its name from the abbreviation ‘G.P.’, which was used in the army to refer to the vehicle.
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There’s a place called ‘Y’ in France.
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The Hawaiian alphabet has 13 letters.
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Most birds have such few taste buds that they cannot feel spice!
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Steve Jobs once said that the ‘i’ in Apple products stands for internet, individual, instruct, inform and inspire.
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BMW had to recall their original GPS system because male German drivers refused to receive directions from a female voice.
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The creators of Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo and Dexter’s Laboratory were roommates in college.
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In a German village named ‘Fuggerei’, the rent has not been increased since 1520.Â
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The longest record of someone having the hiccups is 68 years, as of 2016.
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The United States does not have an official language.
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China owns all the pandas in the world. Any pandas outside China are leased.
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The cigarette lighter was invented before the modern matchstick.
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Facebook is designed in the colour blue because Mark Zuckerberg has red-green colour blindness and sees blue the best.Â
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Jellyfish are almost 98% water and will ‘evaporate’ if left in the sun.
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Additional sounds like ‘na na na’ and ‘la la la’ in song lyrics which don’t have any meaning are called ‘vocables’.
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The lights and patterns you see when you close your eyes and press your hands to them are called ‘phosphenes’
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The non-gender-specific term for a nephew or niece is ‘nibling’.Â
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A person with poor memory is said to have ‘goldfish memory’. Ironically, goldfish have good memory.
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The average mouthwash contains twice the alcohol content of wine.
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Scientists claim to have finally found out that the chicken came before the egg, as the protein which builds egg shells can only be produced by hens!
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Driving barefoot or with flip flops is illegal in Spain.
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During Nepal’s Tihar Festival, a day is devoted to celebrating and thanking dogs for their friendship and service.
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An Indian village named ‘Piplantri’ plants 111 trees to celebrate every girl child’s birth in the community.Â
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Bhutan is the only country in the world to have zero carbon emissions.
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Gierthoon, a village in Netherlands, has no roads and forbids cars. People there mostly travel by boat.
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A building in which silence is enforced, like a library or school room, is referred to as a ‘silentium’.
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Mosquito repellents do not repel, they hide your presence. It blocks the mosquitoes’ sensors so they don't know you're there.
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‘Lachanophobia’ is the fear of vegetables.
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There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.
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Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as a medicine.
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315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
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‘Anatidaephobia’ is a fear that somewhere a duck is watching you.
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Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backwards.
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The area of the Pacific Ocean is greater than all of the land surfaces on Earth combined.
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In 2000, Baskin Robbins created a Guinness World Record for the ‘World's Largest Ice Cream Scoop Pyramid’ by using 3,100 scoops.
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The act of yawning and stretching is called ‘pandiculation’.
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The Banyan tree is part of the coat of arms of Indonesia. It symbolises the unity of Indonesia - one country with many far-flung roots.
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Marie Curie won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics & the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. She is the only woman to receive the award twice.
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Hippopotamus means ‘river horse’ in ancient Greek.
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The company Mattel gets its name from its two founders. They took ‘Matt’ from Harold Matson and ‘El’ from Elliot Handler and formed Mattel.
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The blink of an eye equals about two-fifths of a second.
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The forward slash character on your keyboard is also known as a ‘slant’, ‘virgule’ or ‘solidu’.Â
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Hamburgers are named after Hamburg, Germany, where serving of Hamburgers became popular.
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A goat’s eyes have rectangular pupils.
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Every person is colour blind at birth.
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The flag of Nepal is the only national flag in the world which is Neither rectangular nor square.
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A ‘Funambulist’ is a tight-rope walker.
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Coca-Cola was so named back in 1885 for its two ‘medical’ ingredients – extract of coca leaves and kola nuts.
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Bulls are colour blind. It is the movement of the cape or the cloth that angers them.
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Amazon ants steal the larvae of other ants to keep as slaves. The slave ants build homes and feed the Amazon ants.
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 A ‘Spremologer’ is a person who collects facts.
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A mark twain is a nautical measurement of depth which equals 12 feet.
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Like retina and finger print, every individual also has a unique tongue print.
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‘Glabella’ is the name used to refer to the space between your eyebrows.
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The coconut is the largest seed in the world.
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A peanut is not a nut; it belongs to the legume or bean family.
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The word ‘diastema’ is the word for having a gap between your teeth.
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There is a small village in Norway called ‘Hell’.
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The loop on a belt that holds the loose-end is called a ‘keeper’.
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Lady Bugs are not really bugs. They are actually beetles and their correct name is The Ladybird Beetle.
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A newly hatched fish is called a ‘fry’.
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Charlie Chaplin once lost a contest for a Charlie Chaplin look-alike.
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 A group of people that are hired to clap at a performance are called a ‘claque’.
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 The unique characteristics of Barbie dolls in Japan are that they have their lips closed with no teeth showing.
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The word checkmate comes from the Persian word ‘shah-mat’ which means ‘the king is dead’.
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The palms of your hands and the soles of your feet cannot tan, or grow hair.
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‘Lethologica’ is the inability to remember a word or put your finger on the right word.
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The right lung of a human is larger than the left one. This is because of the space and placement of the heart.
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Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
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The raised reflective dots in the middle of highways are called ‘botts dots’.
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The Anglo Zanzibar war is the shortest in history, lasting 38 minutes.
It was fought between United Kingdom and the Zanzibar sultanate.
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The word ‘comet’ comes from the Greek word ‘kometes’ meaning ‘long hair’ and refers to the comet’s tail.
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The Koala Bear is not really a bear. It is only called a bear because its appearance resembles one.
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The little bits of paper left over when holes are punched in paper are called ‘chad’.
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Scallops (a type of shellfish) have up to 100 eyes.
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In 1873, Colgate made toothpaste that was available in a jar.
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Baby squirrels are called kittens.
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Istanbul, Turkey is the only city in the world to be located in two continents – Asia and Europe.
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Cats have 32 muscles in each ear.
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‘Petrichor’ is the name for the scent of rain on dry earth.
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 You can’t hum while holding your nose closed.
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Emus cannot walk backwards.
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 97% of the world’s water is salt water.
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The word ‘tattoo’ comes from the Tahitian word ‘tattau’, which means ‘to mark’.Â
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Penguins live in large groups called colonies or rookery.
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The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel was the first building in Bombay to be lit by electricity.
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In Windows XP operating system, XP is short for ‘Experience’.
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Jataka Tales are the previous birth stories of Gautam Buddha.
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The word ‘listen’ contains the same letters as the word ‘silent’.
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The first newspaper crossword puzzle was published in a Sunday supplement to the New York World in 1913.
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The Balalaika is a stringed instrument from Russia.
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The same steel used to build the Eiffel Tower was imported by J. N. Tata to build the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai.
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The spots on dice are called ‘pips’.Â
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The Statue of Liberty was shipped from France to America in hundreds of pieces. It was then re-assembled in New York.
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Eating Strawberries and Cream is a tradition at the Wimbledon.
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In German, Tintin is called Tim; in Turkish, he is called Tenten and In Latin, he is known as Titinus.
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The Bhut Jolokia chilli grown in north-eastern India was accepted by the Guinness World Records in 2007 as the World’s Spiciest Chilli.
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Komodo dragons get their name from the Komodo Island in Indonesia where they were first discovered.
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The psychological term for fear of garlic is ‘Alliumphobia’.
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The metal striker that hangs inside a bell and makes a sound by hitting the side is called a ‘clapper’.
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Time Magazine named the computer its "Man of the year" in 1982
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Mickey Mouse has four fingers on each hand
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Tennis Balls were once refrigerated before the Wimbledon tournament to keep them in perfect condition