Technically, echolocation can be defined as a method of locating objects by determining the time it takes for an echo to return and the direction from which it returns, as by sonar or radar.

What is the difference between a fruit and a nut?

Botanically speaking, the fruit is the matured ovary of a seed-producing plant, including the seeds, their coating and anything immediately associated with them. Technically, a nut is a hard, one-celled, one seeded fruit whose seed is enclosed in a woody or leathery coating, and it does not open when ripe.

But then the walnut, almonds, and cashew are technically not nuts but fruits. Try telling that to your green grocer.

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Which state has the most national temperature extremes?

California has been called the land of extremes and that includes temperatures. In 1992 it recorded the hottest temperature in the U.S on 148 days and the coldest temperature (outside Alaska) on 38 days. On a few days it had both.

What do the initials A.M and P.M mean?

A.M means ante meridiem, Latin for "before noon"

P.M means post meridiem, Latin for "after noon"

What tree has a caffeine content twice that of coffee?

The cola tree (Cola acuminata)

produces caffeine-rich nuts that wil an extraact from coca will produce the main ingredients of Coca Cola. The cola tree is native to West Africa, but it also grows in Jamica, Brazil, and India

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Father of Modern Medicine?

Thomas Sydenham, 1624-1689, English physician reintroduced the Hippocratic method of accurate observation (see? an inquiry skill!), at the bedside, and recording of observations to build up a general clinical description of individual diseases. He is also considered one of the founders of epidemiology.

Why does Swiss cheese have holes in it?

Because of flatulence of bacteria. Look at a typical piece of Swiss cheese, and you'll note that the majority of holes, by USDA regulation, measure between 11/16 and 13/16 of an inch in diameter. It's the work of billions of microbes, specifically Propionibacteria shermanii. The P. shermanii (when they are not marching to the sea....a little Civil War note on General Sherman) consume the lactic acid excreted by other bacteria (the ones that cause the milk to turn into cheese in the first place) do body functions that will exude copious amounts of carbon dioxide gas. This produces what the Swiss-cheese industry, euphemistically, calls "eyes." It's a natural process, with the advantage that it enables cheese makers to charge good money for a product that by law is partly air….which is, after all, a gas.

What is the most polluted city on Earth?

Lots of candidates vying for the honor but the winner(?) is Mexico City. 20 million people living in a high valley surrounded by mountains create a lot of pollution.

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The driest continent? You only had seven chances so this one was easy……..

Antarctica. Even though it's largely snow covered, the cold air hold so little moisture that the annual precipitation totals only a few inches in most places. However, since there is so little melting going on it just keeps piling up so that the polar ice sheets are up to thousands of feet thick.

How Much Rain Makes a Rainforest?

There is a regular rainfall, almost daily, totaling a minimum of 80 inches per year and sometimes exceeding 150 " per year. They are also very warm, although not very hot. The temperature is normally around 80 degrees F.

But as we all know...................... It's not the heat, it's the humidity

The chimpanzee is probably the smartest animal. They use sticks as weapons and as tools to extract termites from their burrows. In captivity they learn tricks readily, and they can reason well enough to pile up boxes in order to reach a high object, or to fit together sticks for the same purpose. They have even been taught to communicate in sign language.

Who was the first person to declare that the Earth was round?

Aristarchus of Samos circa 400 B.C.

He also suggested that it orbited the Sun. Aristarchus measured the angles between the sun and the surface of the Earth in two different cities and found that the angles differed dramatically. From this measurement and other calculations, Aristarchus became the first person to prove that the Earth was (and is) round.

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Bonus Trivia Questions

Who took the world's first color photograph?

What is the world’s most popular instrument?

Which woods are used for telephone poles?

What is pharmacognosy?

What color will be most difficult to see as a person ages?

We know the Star of Africa is a diamond.

What is the Star of Asia?

What is the tallest volcano in the world?

What makes a fluid flow?

What makes a building a skyscraper?

Who Invented Listerine?

Which Planets Have Rings ?

Where are a cricket's ears?

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Essential (sort of) Bonus Trivia Answers

The first color photograph was taken in 1861. One of the world's greatest physicists, James Clerk Maxwell of Scotland took the picture of a bunch of grapes. It is still on display in Cambridge University.

The harmonica is the most popular instrument in the world.

Which woods are used for telephone poles? Woodn't you know?

The principal woods are southern pine, Douglas fir, red cedar, and lodgepole pine

What is pharmacognosy?

It is the science of natural drugs and their physical, botanical, and chemical properties.

The color blue becomes the most difficult to see as one ages.

Star of Asia?

A sapphire

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Tallest Volcano?

The highest volcano is Ojos del Salado in Chile. It is 22,589 feet (6,887 m) tall.

But

From base to summit, the tallest would be Mauna Kea, which, when measured from its base on the ocean floor, is more than 30,000 feet high.

In physics, objects move as a result of forces. A fluid flows because there is an unbalanced force acting on the liquid. That means there is a difference in pressure between 2 points. Fluid will flow in the direction of decreasing pressure. Remember that the next time you let your sink or bathtub overflow.

In order to be considered a skyscraper, a building must be supported by an internal iron or steel skeleton instead of being held up by only load bearing outer walls.

Who Invented Listerine?

It was developed by a Missouri physician, Joseph Lawrence. He named it in honor of Sir Joseph Lister, the nineteenth century British surgeon who pioneered sanitary operating room procedures.

Which planets have rings?

Only married planets or those who are engaged.

Oh Professor Sy Yentz, you’re such a card

Actually, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune all have rings.

It won’t matter if Pluto has rings because it isn’t a planet anymore.

Where are a cricket's ears?

A cricket's ears are on its knees? And a fly has taste buds on its feet.

SOURCE: Nature Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences

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Impress Your Friends –

Annoy Your Enemies Obscure Questions

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Which takes in more air?

The right lung or the left lung?

Answer

The right lung

Is this called lunguistics?

Do any males ever give birth to young?

Yes, the seahorse of which there are 24 different types, and the pipefish. Both live in shallow water and for both, the males give birth to the young.

Which animals see in color?

Birds have a well-developed sense of color. Mammals are color blind although apes and monkeys have the ability to tell colors apart.

What are auxins?

No that's not where you bid to buy things. Nor is there an Atlantic Auxin and a Pacific Auxin. Auxins are the growth hormones of plants. They are why a plant grows towards the light.

Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and Laser printers all have in common?

A. All invented by women.

Do batteries where out faster if you turn up the volume?

Yes! Of course they do you ninny!

Batteries supply the power to drive the speakers. The louder you play it, the more power to the speakers, the faster the battery wears out.

How many ways can you arrange a deck of cards?

There are 52 cards in a deck (although Professor Sy Yentz knows lot’s of people who don’t play with a full deck.

The cards can be arranged in

80,660,000,000,000,000,000,000

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000, 000 ways

That's 80,660 sextillion ways

Try them.

Where did Henry Hudson first set foot when he arrived at what is now New York in 1609?

He disembarked at what is now Coney Island - one of the world's largest and most famous amusement parks.

Bonus obscure question: What is a coney?

It's a rabbit.

How much does the Earth weigh?

It is estimated that the Earth weighs 6 sextillion, 588 quintillion tons. And we thought it looked to be 6 sextillion, 530 quintillion tons. But it promises to eat healthy foods and begin an exercise program tomorrow.

What was the name of the nephew of Montezuma ruler of the Aztecs?

Hint-It wasn’t revenge. According to the book 2001 Fascinating Facts by David Louis, Montezuma’s nephew’s name was Cuitlahac. Translated Cuitlahac means "plenty of excrement"..

What are camel hair brushes made of?

Squirrel hair.

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Fascinating Factorinos* – Can be used for Retirement Bonus Trivia

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The Kiwi, national bird of New Zealand, can’t fly, lives in a hole in the ground, is almost blind and lays only one egg each year. Yet is has survived for 70 million year
A cow can give nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime. We don't know how many cookies that translates into.
A woolly bear is not a bear - it is a brown, fuzzy North American caterpillar
Bananas first grew in tropical Asia
To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the same bag with the potatoes.

An armadillo can be housebroken.

Elephants and camels each have 4 knees.

The oldest fossil of a flower is over 120 million years old. The ever cost conscious Prof. Sy Yentz gave it to his date at his prom.
Cat urine glows under a black light
Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards.
Balneology is the science of the therapeutic use of bathing

Cellophane is not made of plastic, it is made from a plant fiber.

There are more telephones than people in Washington, D.C

The oldest known books in the world were made of clay.

The hair of an adult man or woman can stretch 25% of its length without breaking.

If you stretched all the nerves in the body from end to end, they would be 47 miles long…..so in this way it would be easy to get on someone’s nerves.

There are no penguins at the North Pole.

A ten-gallon hat holds less than a gallon of liquid

For every human being on Earth, there are 200 million insects.

All polar bears are lefties.

Cinderella is known as Tuna in Finland.

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
A rat can last longer without water than a camel can.
A zebra is white with black stripes
The inside of a cucumber is 20 degrees (F) cooler than the

air temperature on a warm summer day.

The dot over the letter i is called a tittle
. After years of study, the Goodyear Rubber Co. concluded that shoes wear out faster on the right foot than on the left foot.
. When the first telephone rang in the White House in the 1880s,
President Grover Cleveland answered it himself.
Two peanut farmers have been elected President of the United States: Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter.
One acre of peanuts will make 30,000 peanut butter sandwiches.

Porcupines float -----heave one in your pool and see what happens
Ants don't sleep
Macaroni, Gentoo, and Chinstrap are types of penguins.
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
An animal epidemic is called an epizootic
Comedian Albert Brooks' real name is Albert Einstein
Martin Van Buren was the first U.S born citizen to become president.
A duck's quack doesn't echo...an no one knows why.
The least liked vegetable is the turnip.

And, in honor of March being National Peanut Month:

Peanuts are not actually nuts at all! They are legumes, like beans, peas and lentils.
Americans eat 3 pounds of peanut butter per person every year. That's about 700 million pounds, or enough to coat the floor of the Grand Canyon!

Mt. Everest is actually exactly 29,000 ft. high. Scientists thought no one would believe it so they announced the height as 29,002 ft. high.
A day on the planet Mercury is twice as long as its year.
It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 muscles to frown.
Hens do no have to be impregnated to lay eggs. The rooster is necessary only to fertilize the egg.
Hot water weighs more than cold water.
Thomas Edison was deaf from the time he was twelve years old.
Twenty-Four Karat gold actually has some copper in it.
A female condor lays a single egg every two years.
Greyhounds have the best eyesight of any breed of dog.
Panama hats come from Equador, not Panama.
A camel hair brush is made of squirrel hair..A zebra is white with black stripes.
In 1996, Ringo Starr appeared in a Japanese advertisement for applesauce, which coincidentally is what his name means in Japanese
The dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
The Crocodile cannot stick out its tongue.
A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
Snails can sleep for three years. (But only after it has watched C-SPAN for an hour)
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
The cruise liner, Queen Mary II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

The turkey is widely regarded as the dumbest domesticated animal.
The sound you hear in a seashell when you hold it up to your ear is not from the shell. It’s the echo of the blood pulsing in your ear.
Ben Franklin coined the word “battery”.
Until Thomas Edison suggested using “hello”, most people answered their telephones by saying “ahoy”. Nowadays many people say "oy vey".
Reindeer milk has more fat in it than cow milk.
Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a lightning strike.
Coca-Cola was originally green.
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.
The Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.
Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.
City with the most Rolls Royce's per capita: Hong Kong

All 50 states are listed across the top
of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
Almonds are a member of the peach family.
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10.
"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon
In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.....Try it.
Macaroni, Gentoo, and Chinstrap are types of penguins.
Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature.