Trivia and Amazing Facts
- The first man-made element was Plutonium - first weighed on August 20th, 1942, by University of Chicago scientists Glenn Seaborg and his colleagues
- “Toboggan” is derived from the Algonquin language and loosely meant “instrument with which to drag a cord”
- In heraldry, a two-legged dragon with wings and a barbed tail is a "wyvern"
- Twitchers are birdwatchers in England. In the U.S., they are called birders
- Breathe underwater! If you're dying to retrieve that quarter from the bottom of the pool, take several short breaths first-essentially, hyperventilate. When you're underwater, it's not a lack of oxygen that makes you desperate for a breath; it's the buildup of carbon dioxide, which makes your blood acidic, which signals your brain that somethin' ain't right. "When you hyperventilate, the influx of oxygen lowers blood acidity," says Jonathan Armbruster, Ph.D., an associate professor of biology at Auburn University. "This tricks your brain into thinking it has more oxygen." It'll buy you up to 10 seconds
