The "Odd Facts About Everything Under The Sun...And Sea" Story

It was an ordinary day.  "Surfing the Web," since that's about the only thing I can surf anymore, and found all types of odd and unusual facts; some interesting, some amazing and some just ridiculous.  Some sports facts, some medical facts, some animal facts and even a few facts about shrimp.  Follow along and I'll share a few with you that you can pass along to friends and co-workers to show just how well-educated you have become in the last few days.  So, here goes:

• There are over 2,000 different shrimp species from the tropics to the Antarctic Ocean.  Some of the most common found in the waters off the United States are the Gulf Brown Shrimp, Gulf Pink Shrimp and the Gulf White Shrimp.
• Shrimp come in all sizes from small size which are about 1/2" (from head to tail) to a larger variety that can grow to 12" or larger.  The Tiger shrimp, that is an invasive shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico, can grow to the size of an adult's forearm and has more tail meat that the average lobster.
• Shrimp can really motor in the ocean.  They can propel themselves backwards by flexing the muscles in their abdomen and tail as well as swim forward by using the appendages on the underside of their tail.
• Shrimp consume microscopic plant and animal matter by filtering the water around them.  Other varieties can eat small fish.
• Shrimp provide a source of food for not only humans, but crabs, fish, sea urchins, whales, dolphins and seabirds.  Other types of shrimp can clean parasites, bacteria and fungi off their host.
• Certain shrimp can make a noise louder that any other marine noise by hitting their large and small pincers together.  They make this noise to communicate and to stun their prey.
• Do you know that by making shrimp part of your diet, it may reduce your risk of developing cancer!  Seems shrimp contain selenium which is an antioxidant mineral that activates enzymes that fight the growth of cancer-causing free radicals.
• And, when you eat them, you might want to know that they are low in calories as well as high in protein.  
• In quite a few areas of the world shrimp are eaten with the head still on the body.  Supposedly the head has a rich flavor and a crunchy texture that some people love.  I'm not one of those people.

And, a few neat animal facts that you might not have known before are:

• An iguana can stay under water for almost a half-hour if it needs to do so.
• Penguins can jump over six feet into the air.
• ALL Polar bears are left-handed.
• The leg bones of a bat are so thin they can't walk.
• A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
• When an opossum is thought to be "playing dead", they aren't playing.  They actually pass out from sheer fear.
• You can lead a cow upstairs, but not downstairs.  
• Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
• A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
• A pig cannot physically look up into the sky.
• A snail can sleep for three years.
• A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a four foot tall child inside.
• Some dogs can predict when a child will have an epileptic seizure and even protect the child from injury.  They're not trained to do this, they simply learn to respond after observing at least one attack.
• Only female mosquitoes bite.

Next are a few unusual sports facts:

• Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under his baseball cap to keep his head cool.  He changed the leaf every two innings.
• The average lifespan of a major league baseball is 7 pitches.
• Retired professional basketball player Michael Jordan makes more money from endorsements a year from Nike that all the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined. 
• Every year 56,000,000 people attend major league baseball games.
• There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
• Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
• The Olympic flag rings are red, black, blue, green and yellow since at least of of these colors appears on the flag of every nation on the planet.
• In 1963 major league baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry said, "They'll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run."  On July 20, 1969, an hour after Neil Armstrong set foot on the surface of the moon, Gaylord hit his first, and only, home run while playing for the San Francisco Giants.

And, finally some odd facts about the human body are:

• It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.
• A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
• Women blink twice as often as men.
• The longest bout of hiccups lasted nearly 69 years.
• Babies are born without kneecaps.  They appear between the ages of 2 and 6.
• Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stops growing.
• The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
• If you sneeze too hard you can fracture a rib.  If you try to suppress a sneeze you can rupture a blood vessel in you head or neck and die.  If you keep your eyes open by force they can pop out.
• Almost everyone who reads this will try to lick their elbow!  

So, did you learn a thing or two or three?  And, did you really try to lick your elbow?  I can't do it!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.