Science

Most men’s bodies are composed of about 40 percent muscle. Women’s bodies are 30 percent muscle.

Point Barrow, a city in Alaska with a 1980 population of 2,207, mostly Eskimo. It was the site of the 1935 air crash that killed Will Rogers.

According to 1980 census findings, citizens in the 55 64 age group had a turnout of 71.3 percent. Close behind were those in the 65-to-74 age group, with 69.3 percent. Those 18 and 19 brought up the rear with a 34.2 percent showing.

A poll of 3,000 Americans yielded the following top five fears: 1. Speaking before a group. 41 percent 2. Heights. 32 percent 3. Insects and bugs. 22 percent 4. Financial problems. 22 percent 5. Deep water. 22 percent

First used in 1940 by nine-year-old Milton Sirotta, the number googol is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. It was brought to public attention by Sirotta’s uncle, mathematician Edward Kasner, in his book Mathematics and the Imagination.

As of 1990, 53 percent of Americans drink fluoridated water. Of these, 121 million drink artificially fluoridated water; 9 million drink water from naturally fluoridated sources.

Started in 1891 by President Theodore Roosevelt, the national system of forest reserves now consists of 154 forests administered by the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service. The total area of the reserves is over 343,000 square miles.

The average body has 14 to 18 square feet of skin.

An average bolt of lightning raises the air temperature along its way to about 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The prefrontal lobotomy was invented by Portuguese surgeon Antonio Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz (1874-1955) for patients with incurable mental disturbances. Moniz, who also served as the foreign minister of Portugal from 1918 to 1919, was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1949.

Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. Bronze is a more durable mixture of copper and tin.

As of 1988, 764,247 members of the U.S. military were on active duty.

The small intestine, which is contained in the central and lower abdominal cavity, is 20 to 23 feet long. The large intestine is 5 feet long.

Kurt Russell, with songs dubbed by Ronnie McDowell, played Elvis Presley in the TV movie “Elvis” (1979). The film was directed by John Carpenter.

In our galaxy alone, there are about 100 billion stars. In the universe that we can see, the number of stars is estimated at 10^22.

It is not New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. It is Juneau, Alaska, which covers 3,108 square miles. Los Angeles, in contrast, covers only 458.2 square miles.

A gamete is a mature, functional sex cell (i.e., an egg or sperm) that can unite with a gamete of the opposite sex. A zygote is what results when the two gametes fuse.

Hailstones begin as frozen raindrops or pellets of snow in a thunderstorm cloud. These “hail embryos” are carried by updrafts to a part of the storm where droplets of water exist in a supercooled state (that is, in liquid form at temperatures below freezing). These supercooled droplets freeze into ice when they strike the surface … Read more

Balding occurs when hair follicles shrink and become less productive. Instead of the new hairs being cultivated to replace the ones that fall out naturally each day, they are allowed to remain embryonic, at the most, in a light, peach-fuzz stage. Probably some hormonal action triggers the follicles to behave this way, but it is … Read more

Quicksand doesn’t work by pulling you down. Quicksand is nearly always found above a spring, which creates a supersaturated condition that makes the sand frictionless and unable to support weight. In addition, quicksand is airless, which creates suction as you struggle to get free. The most effective way to escape quicksand is to position yourself … Read more

The moon’s diameter is 2,160 miles. The earth’s diameter at the equator is 7,926.68 miles.

The longest hiccuping attack lasted 65 years. The longest sneezing fit lasted 978 days. The longest yawning ordeal took five weeks.

Most of the world’s non-Muslim countries use the Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 as a reform of the Julian calendar. The latter, instituted by Julius Caesar, had been in use since 46 B.C. Americans have used the Gregorian calendar since 1752. What’s the difference between the the Julian or the Gregorian … Read more

Avoirdupois weight is the system we use whenever we measure a grain, dram (27.3 grains), ounce (16 drams), or pound (16 ounces).

In 1900, a hurricane in Galveston, Texas, with 15- to 20-foot waves swept over Galveston Island and drowned 6,000 people.

The length of the Canadian border is 3,987 miles. The length of the Mexican border is 1,933 miles.

The three states or territories with the highest voter turnout in the 1988 presidential election, in descending order, were: 1. Minnesota. 66.3 percent 2. Montana. 62.41 percent 3. Maine. 62.15 percent The three states or territories with the lowest turnout, in ascending order, were: 1. Georgia. 38.79 percent 2. South Carolina. 38.91 percent 3. District … Read more

Sometimes likened to the shell that covers an egg, the layer of rock or crust that covers the surface of the earth is, on average, 22 miles thick.

Glass is generally made of three components: silica, in the form of sand; an alkali flux, such as soda or potash, which promotes fusion; and lime, which stabilizes the mixture. In the process of being heated and then cooled, glass loses its crystalline nature and becomes an amorphous but rigid substance. Like a solid, it … Read more

To galvanize steel means that a zinc coating is applied, either by “hot-dipping” the steel in molten zinc or by electroplating it in an electrolytic process. Thus protected against exposure, galvanized iron or steel is less liable to rust.

Yes. There are three gluteus muscles, the large, fleshy muscles of the buttocks that connect the hipbone (the pelvic girdle) and the thighbone (the femur). The gluteus maximus is the muscle at the surface of the buttocks, below which is the gluteus medius. The gluteus minimus is below that.

The center of the 48 contiguous states is in Smith County, Kansas, near the town of Lebanon. The center of the 50 states is in Butte County, South Dakota, west of the town of Castle Rock.

The earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago.

In 1980, the Internal Revenue Service audited 1,528,927 returns, 1.9 percent of all returns submitted. The IRS claimed in 1980 it spends $4.40 for every $1,000 it collects from taxpayers.

At least two people have been hit by a meteorite. In September 1954, Mrs. Hewlett Hodges of Sylacauga, Alabama, was hit by a meteorite as she napped in her living room. The rock from space weighed about 10 pounds. In the late 1930s, a Japanese girl was also hit by a small meteorite.

A quasar is another name for a quasi-stellar object. It looks like a star but emits as much radiation as an entire galaxy, with a volume far smaller than that of our Milky Way galaxy. No one knows what a quasar is; recent evidence suggests it might be a galaxy with a big black hole … Read more

The plates (solid segments of the earth’s crust and upper mantle) that consist mostly of continents move at an average speed of about 2 centimeters per year. Europe and North America are moving apart at about this speed. The plates that are mostly under the oceans move faster, at an average speed of about 10 … Read more

At its surface, the sun is about 7,640 degrees Fahrenheit. In other words, very hot. In the sun’s interior, temperatures can range above 18 million degrees Fahrenheit.

The orbit of the moon around the earth is tilted at an angle of about 6 degrees from the plane of the earth’s orbit around the sun. As a result, the moon is usually above or below the line between the earth and the sun, except on certain predictable occasions.

The three tallest buildings in the United States in the 1980s were: Sears Tower. 1,454 feet, 110 stories (Chicago) World Trade Center. 1,350 feet, 110 stories (New York) Empire State Building. 1,250 feet, 102 stories (New York)