Trivia
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House mice can live in cold storage rooms where the
temperature is less than -10 degrees Celcius (-17 degrees Fahrenheit)
and there is no light at all. They are able to eat frozen meat and
build their nests out of packaging or carcasses.
The bombardier beetle has a very unusual system to
defend itself from predators. It can release two chemicals from
its anus, which react to release heat of up to 100 degrees Celcius
(212 degrees Fahrenheit).
The highest G-force achieved by an insect (without
using its legs) is about 400 G, or 400 times the force of gravity.
It is achieved by the click beetle Athous haemorrhoidalis, which
bends its body and then straightens up to shoot 15 cm (6 in) into
the air, although one specimen managed 30 cm (12 in).
The heavist pig ever known weighed an astounding 1
157 kg (2 552 lb), as much as a mid-size car. He stood 152 cm high,
which is around five feet tall. Named Big Bill, he died in 1933.
The country with the most prisoners is the USA, with
more than two million prisoners, or a quarter of all prisoners in
the world. Yet the USA has just five percent of the world's population.
This corresponds to 565 prisoners per 100 000 people.
The country with the least number of prisoners is
Slovenia, with just under 500 prisoners (out of a population of
two million). Only 25 out of 100 000 people are jailed: instead
they are sentenced to community service.
The slowest mammal on earth is the South American
sloth, which has an average ground speed of just 1.8-2.4 metres
(6-8 feet) per minute, or .1 to .16 km/h (.07-.1 mph). A sloth's
digestive system is equally sluggish and it might take a month or
more for food to pass from a sloth's stomach to its intestine.
In law, if a wounded person does not die within a
year and a day, the offender is not guilty of murder if the wounded
person dies later.
The tongue is the strongest muscle in the body, relative
to its size.
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