by Curt Kovener
A national study revealed recently that after most of us reach the age of 12, we cut back on the amount of readying we do. Too many of us try to absorb knowledge from TV and social media.
I would argue that we don’t absorb but rather are numbed by the passive viewing. That is too bad because the important fact is we need to read more. It exercises the eyes and the mind. We should read and form our own conclusions; not simply listen to others thoughts and accept them as fact…because they probably are not. Just because you read it on the internet or social media doesn’t mean it is factual.
For those who want to engage in life long learning, consider these.
•A bird sees everything at once in total focus. The human eye is globular and we can adjust for varying distances whereas the bird’s eyes are flat ad can take in everything at once in a single glance.
•There is approximately one chicken for every human bring in the world.
•In 1956 a white leghorn chicken in New Jersey laid an egg that weighed more than a pound.
•Ninety percent of all species that have become extinct have been birds.
•If all the blood vessels in the human body were stretched end to end, they would reach around the world.
•The adult human hair can stretch 25% of its length without breaking.
•According to the Federal Trade Commission there are 20,000 television commercials made each year aimed at children. Of these, 7,000 are for sugared breakfast cereals. I wonder how many pharmaceutical commercials are aimed at senior citizens promoting cures or remedies for conditions we didn’t know we had?
•Of all of the ore dug in diamond mines, only one caret in every 23 tons proves to be a diamond.
•Approximately 70% of the earth is covered with water. But only one percent of this water is drinkable. (So maybe we should be more concerned about the environment?)
•The story of the little Dutch boy who placed his finger in a dike to save the town from a flood is an American invention. It was never heard of in Holland before the 20th Century.
•A pound of potato chips costs 200 times more than a pound of potatoes.
•A flea is capable of jumping 13 inches. In human terms, this would be equivalent to a person leaping 700 feet in a single bound.
•The hardiest of all the world’s insects is the mosquito. It is found in the coldest regions of northern Canada and it is equally at home in equatorial jungles.
•And mosquitoes do not bite. They stab. A mosquito has no jaws; when attacking a victim it pierces the flesh with a long proboscis and draws the blood up through a nasal tube. At one “sitting” a mosquito can absorb one and a half times its own weight in blood. And the males do not cause us to itch. It is the female requiring a blood meal for her eggs that causes the scratching.
•Moths are not responsible for damaging woolen clothing. Our wearing apparel is damaged by the moth’s larval stage. And only one family of moths is responsible, Not the Smiths or the Joneses but the Tineidae family of moths.
Now maybe you could get through life without any of these interesting facts, but by reading this column you learned a few more tidbits that can make life enjoyable.
Next time you are flipping through the TV or scrolling on your phone, try reading a book. And if you walk to the library, you’ll get some physical exercise in the bargain.