Hope Diamond: 45.52 carats

The famed Hope Diamond is 45.52 carats.

What? That's it?! Hahaa!!




Photo: si(dot)edu

Happy National Chocolate Cake Day!

#OMGDidYaKnow today is National Chocolate Cake Day!?
Now, you do!!
Happy National Chocolate Cake Day!
There's your excuse to eat lots of it!



Photo credit: myrecipes(dot)com

What's next?

National Ice-Cream Day?! Hahaa!!

1.3 million Earths Can Fit Inside the Sun

You could fit 1.3 million Earths inside of the Sun.



Photo credit: ipadfreaks(dot)com

It would take around three years of nonstop pedaling to bike to the moon.

Neptune: Discovered 1 Year Ago Today

The planet Neptune was discovered exactly one year ago today ... in Neptunian years. 


Astronomers first observed it on July 22, 1846. Its full orbit from that point is at 22:27 UT.


The existence of Neptune was actually already predicted years earlier because of some gravitational effect on Uranus. 


Only on September 23, 1846 was the planet's existence confirmed. Johann Galle, a German astronomer, had predicted the location of appearance in the sky, looked through his telescope at that exact point and saw a blue-green speck (which was why it was named after the Roman god of the sea). 


Galileo actually spotted the planet more than 200 years earlier, but assumed it was only a star because he couldn't see very clearly, as it was cloudy.


According to Erich Karkoschka, an astronomer at the University of Arizona, Neptune 'only gets 0.1 percent as much sunlight as Earth, but Neptune has storms and its appearance changes over time.' People wonder why it has such an active atmosphere. In the 1970s and 1980s, it had appeared darker than it is now.



Neptune seen from Triton, its largest moon.


[Source and image: National Geographic]

Common S.A.T. Words

Designed to test a student's language skills, the words on the verbal section of the S.A.T. are notoriously tough, so you have to be smart, uhh - make that sagacious, if you want to ace it. There's a mix of vocab, that is to say its eclectic, including many words you won't hear in everyday mundane conversation. For instance, top S.A.T. words also include querulous (which means complaining - which is also how a lot of teens feel about a test that can have such deleterious effects, if they don't do well.) The test is old, okay, venerable and debuted in 1926. Its supposed to test how well seniors will do in college, but some people feel its kind of bogus, that is to say, spurious. The 3 hour 45 minute test can be draining, or in S.A.T. speak, enervating. The best way students can prepare is to read a lot which can help them pick up old fashion words that might show up on the test but aren't used much anymore, that are, in other words, anachronistic But at least in 2005 one of the least popular verbal sections was dropped. Yes that's right, analogies are to the S.A.T. what Charlie Sheen is to Two and a Half Men, evanescent, vanished. In fact, the S.A.T. has gone through a lot of changes since it began. Even what the letters in its name stand for has changed. From SCHOLASTIC APTITUDE TEST to SCHOLASTIC ASSESSMENT TEST to nothing. Now it's officially just the S.A.T. REASONING TEST. S.A.T. doesn't stand for anything at all. And yet, they're the ones testing kids on language skills!



Take note: Picture above was taken by Tash at Special Education (tashat[dot]com) on an article about "Preparing Themselves Passing the Real SAT Test Successfully". Anyway, we here at OMG DidYaKnow want to everyone to do well on the SATs and so we'll give you a little tip: study, like really study, the picture above and remember the top 12 answers. That way, you can successfully pass the top 12 questions! WooHoo!! And you're welcome. ;)


(Credits: Yahoo! Who Knew?
Image: tashat[dot]com)

Jeans

It takes 2,900 gallons of water to produce one pair of jeans.



[Source: National Geographic; Image: duggal.com]

Funny Anagrams

We all know what an anagram is. Mix up the letters of a word for it to say something else. (For example: ANAGRAM becomes NAG A RAM.)

DORMITORY

When you mix up the letters:

DIRTY ROOM

THE EYES

When you mix up the letters:

THEY SEE

GEORGE BUSH

When you mix up the letters:

HE BUGS GORE

THE MORSE CODE

When you mix up the letters:

HERE COME DOTS

MOTHER IN LAW
When you mix up the letters:
WOMAN HITLER

Vampire Stars in the Milky Way's bulge

These vampire stars drain life away from other stars and were found for the first time in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy.

Called blue stragglers, they appear to lag in age next to other stars with which they formed, appearing younger by looking bluer and hotter. Some astronomers think that the blue stragglers look so youthful because they steal hydrogen fuel from other stars, for all one knows, after colliding into their victims, which happens in other parts of the universe.

A team of astronomers looked at 180,000 stars in and near the bulge, using the Hubble, and found 42 unusual blue stars, who were much, much, much younger than the surrounding stars. The researchers estimated that onlu 18 to 37 of these stars are actual blue stragglers that are likely to be about 10 billion to 11 billion years old.

(artist's concept. Source: NASA)

[Source: NatGeo News]

TRON: Filming

Shooting for Disney's 2010 film, TRON: Legacy, only took 64 days, but because of the heavy special effects, post-production took 68 weeks!

The ENCOM building that we see in the movie, is actually a Shangri-La located in Vancouver, Canada. TRON was also shot in Brunaby and Los Angeles.

Coca-Cola drinking

If you drink one bottle of Coca-Cola a day, you'll gain 26 pounds in one year. Ouch!

According to their website, Coca-Cola is the 'most popular and biggest selling soft drink in history, as well as the best-known product in the world.'

Coca-Cola was created by Dr. John S. Pemberton in Atlanta, and was first offered as a fountain beverage by mixing the Coca-Cola syrup with Carbonated water.

Diet Coke, on the other hand became the Number 1 sugar-free drink in diet-conscious America. It is also known as Coca-Cola light.

Other interesting varieties of Coke include:

• Cherry Coke (available only in the U.S. and the U.K.)
• Vanilla Coke (available in Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Bosnia and Herzegovina)
• Coke Black Cherry Vanilla (available in the U.S. and Bosnia Herzegovina, but discontinued in 2007)
• Raspberry Coke (available in New Zealand, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but discontinued in 2006)

Black Cherry Vanilla:

 

[Sources: Black Cherry Vanilla, Coke USA]

13+ chopped off hands in Star Wars

In the Star Wars films, 13 hands (sometimes arms, though those include hands) get severed.

Removed hands in:
Phantom Menace – 0
Attack of the Clones – 2
Revenge of the Sith – 6
A New Hope – 2
Empire Strikes Back – 3
Return of the Jedi – 1

More facts – not in order:

Whoever chops off another's hand ends up having their hand(s) chopped off as well, with the exception of Obi Wan Kenobi (and a few minor others).

Obi Wan chopped off three arms and two legs: the first hands two were of men in bars, the third of Anakin Skywalker, along with his two legs.

Luke Skywalker gets a robotic hand, exactly like his father, after losing one because of his father. He also severs Anakin's hand in a later film. Also, he loses this hand again (after a duel with Lumiya in the comics), which he replaces with another prosthetic one.

In Revenge of the Sith, Anakin Skywalker chops off three hands.

Anakin Skywalker gets one hand removed in Attack of the Clones. In Revenge of the Sith, he gets another one chopped off, and is left with one robotic hand. But again, in Return of the Jedi, he loses another hand – his third one! Moreover, in the comic books and other books, he loses at least 5 hands!


[Image: Death Star PR]

Click on the image to read Death Star PR's '8 Totally Awesome Things About Having a Cyborg Hand'.

Green Eggs and Ham in Court

Funny thing, in a court, Judge James Muirhead used Green Eggs and Ham in a court ruling after he was given an egg in his mail from a prisoner named Charles Jay Wolff who wanted to protested about prison food. The judge stated:

I do not like eggs in the file.

I do not like them in any style.

I will not take them fried or boiled.

I will not take them poached or broiled.

I will not take them soft or scrambled,

Despite an argument well-rambled.

No fan I am of the egg at hand.

Destroy that egg! 

Today! 

Today!

Today I say!

Without delay!

Picture from:

<www.rottweiler.on(dot)ca>

Green Eggs and Ham's 50 words

Green Eggs and Ham only has 50 different words and here they are:

1. I
2. am
3. sam
4. that
5. do
6. not
7. like
8. green
9. eggs
10. and
11. ham
12. would
13. you
14. them
15. here
16. or 
17. there
18. anywhere
19. in
20. a
21. house
22. with
23. mouse
24. box
25. fox
26. could
27. car
28. eat
29. they
30. are
31. may
32. will
33. see
34. tree
35. let
36. me
37. be
38. train
39. on
40. say
41. the
42. dark
43. rain
44. goat
45. boat
46. so
47. try
48. if
49. good
50. thank

Picture from:

<www.infochachkie(dot)com>

Helium

The element helium was named so because there was a whole lot of it found on the Sun, which was once represented as the Greek god Helios.

The Sun, along with all the other stars, turn hydrogen to helium in their cores. Bigger stars burn out faster than smaller ones because they use up more energy when they turn the hydrogen to helium (because they're bigger, obviously).

A helium discharge tube, shaped like its atomic symbol:

[Image: Wikipedia]

Speed of Light

The speed of light is getting faster!

In 1862, Michel Foucault had used a rotating mirror and measured the speed of light to have been 298,000 km/sec. 111 years later, in 1951, Captain Carl Aslakson used a radar to determine the speed of light was 299,792 km/sec. A few years later, Keith Davy Froome used microwave technology to determine the speed of light was 299,792. In 1977 a team of researchers used lasers and measured the speed at 199,796 km/sec.

Today, we report the speed of light as being 300,000 km/sec.


Light can travel in a vaccuum and when it does, it always travels at 299,792,458 meters per second. It can even travel through empty space and matter! Light also travels in straight lines in all directions. The speed of light also doesn't change even if the light source is moving.

[Sources: Wikipedia, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), National High Magnetic Field Laboratory]

Lunar Larry (Buzz Lightyear)

Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear was actually supposed to be called Lunar Larry.


As a matter of fact, the main character for Toy Story was meant to be Tinny, from "Tin Toy." The initial script was to have Tinny to become lost while during a family trip, then he would meet a dummy and find their way home. Tinny was replaced by Larry, who later became Buzz, and the dummy eventually became Woody.


Woody and Buzzz vinylmation, aren't they adorable?


[Source: eventservices.disney.go.com]

35 Hours of video uploaded a minute

35 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute.

Alternate Uses for Vodka

 
To remove a bandage painlessly, saturate the bandage with vodka. The solvent dissolves the adhesive.


 To clean your eyeglasses, simply wipe the lenses with a soft, clean cloth dampened with vodka. The alcohol in the vodka cleans the glass and kills germs

 Prolong the life of razors by filling a cup with vodka and letting your safety razor blade soak in the alcohol after shaving. The vodka disinfects the blade and prevents rusting.

 Pour vodka over an area affected with poison ivy to remove the poison oil from your skin.

Using vodka on your face cleanses the skin and tightens the pores

To treat dandruff, mix one cup vodka with two teaspoons crushed rosemary, let sit for two days, strain through a coffee filter and massage into your scalp and let dry.


Make your own mouthwash by mixing nine tablespoons powered cinnamon with one cup vodka. Seal in an airtight container for two weeks. Strain through a coffee filter then mix with warm water and rinse your mouth. Don’t swallow.


Swish a shot of vodka over an aching tooth. Allow your gums to absorb some of the alcohol to numb the pain.

Vodka will disinfect and alleviate a jellyfish sting.

 To cure foot odor, wash your feet with vodka.


If all else fails... bottoms up and drink it! Cheers!!




(Credits: lifehackery (d o t) com)

Diamond is 4x harder than corundum

A diamond is four times harder then the next hardest material - corundum.