I love learning new things. It is our nature since birth to want to touch and taste and see everything we can. There is no cut off point for this basic need.  We would be doing ourselves a gross injustice to say “I’m all grown up now, I know everything I need to know”.  We are forever learning.  And what a huge playground we have to explore! 

There is so much information at the tip of my fingers.  Here are a few items I ran across while surfing the great wide web that  facinated me. 

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• How many times have you called someone a dork?  Do you know where the term came from?

The term for a whales reproduction organ is called a dork.  What a lovely term of endearment!

 The next time you call your buddy a dork, he might say thank you.  Or he may feel compelled to give you a slap. It’s best to chose your words more carefully and to know exactly what you are saying.

• Did you know that an ostriches eyes are bigger than their brain?

 That’s alright, their eyes measure almost two inches across. I hope they close them when they bury their head in the sand. Actually they don’t really bury their head in the sand.  They will lay very low when frightened to appear less noticable to predators.  From a distance it looks like they have buried their head in the sand. The ostich is also the worlds largest land animal. 

• Squids are pretty scary looking creatures.  Did you know that their eyes can grow up to twenty inches wide?

Shiver me timbers!!  They need these huge eyes to be able to see in the deep dark sea where they like to hang out. Their prey most likely don’t know the squid is approaching until it is too late.  The female giant squid has been recorded as being 43 feet long.  A tastey snack for their predator, the sperm whale.

• Lobsters have blue blood

Actually the lobsters blood is clear or white with a blue tinge. The blue comes from copper, which is what carries the oxygen through its’ system.  In humans,  protein is what makes the blood look red.

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Here are a couple more interesting facts

• Do you know there are 293 ways to make change for a dollar?

I can’t list them all here. The trick is that you need to use (100 pennies), (5 pennies 3 quarters 2 dimes),(10 pennies 3 quarters 1 dime 1 nickle) and so on and so on…….Cool huh?  The next time someone asks if you have change for a dollar, you may want to ask them exactly how they would like it!

• Your tongue can regenerate itself

The tongue has a regenerative feature involving its many muscles that will actually allow it to grow back to its original shape if for some reason it suffers severe damage!  So if you happen to bite your tongue off, or it gets ripped pulling it off a frozen stop sign, don’t fret too much.  It will grow back! It has been said that the tongue is the bodies strongest muscle.  This may be attributed to the power of the spoken word.  If you need to use physical strength, you will make better progress by using your biceps.

And last but not least

• DNA

Each cell in your body has approximately 6 to 8 feet of DNA. Your body shed thousands of dead cells every day. We leave our mark where ever we go.   This gives me a better perspective of the size of DNA.  Awesome!

I hope you have found these little tidbits as fascinating as I did!