Mother-of-pearl is not always white. It can be pink, blue, purple, gray, or even green. Nor is it produced only by the pearl oyster. The abalone and the pearl mussel both have shells that are lined with fine-quality mother-of-pearl.

The maximum flight speed of a Boeing 747-300 jetliner is 583 miles per hour.

There are an estimated 285,000 species of flowering plants on Earth compared to 148,000 for all other plants. Flowering plants are very important because they provide food for herbivores - plant-eating animals - and for humans.

The huddle formation used by football teams originated at Gallaudet University, a liberal arts college for deaf people in Washington, D.C., to prevent other schools from reading their sign language.

In 1972, the "Libersign" -- an arrow angling upward through the abbreviation "TANSTAAFL" (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) -- was selected as the party's emblem. Some time after, this was replaced with the Lady Liberty, which has, ever since, served as the party's symbol or mascot. For many years, there has been a small movement to ...Read more

London's Millennium Dome, the largest of its kind in the world, is over one kilometer in circumference and covers over 80,000 square meters.

Death Valley in southern California is the lowest point in the United States at 282 feet below sea level. The highest point in the contiguous 48 states is also in California: Mount Whitney, which is 14,491 feet above sea level.

There is a tempera on cardboard version (measuring 83.5 x 66 cm) formerly in the Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway, and an oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard (measuring 91 x 73.5 cm) in the National Gallery, also in Oslo. A third version is also owned by the Munch Museum, and a fourth is owned by Petter Olsen. Munch later also translated the picture...Read more

More than one million stray dogs and over 500,000 stray cats live in the New York City metropolitan area.

The eggplant has many names worldwide. In addition to "eggplant," it is called aubergine, brinjal, melanzana, garden egg, and patlican.

The smallest visible sunspots have an area of 500 million square miles, about fifty times the size of Africa. The largest sunspots have an area of about 7,000 million square miles.

The first "braces" were constructed by Pierre Fauchard in 1728. Fauchard's "braces" consisted of a flat strip of metal, which was connected to teeth by pieces of thread.

Dungeons & Dragons (abbreviated as D&D or DnD) is a fantasy tabletop roleplaying game (RPG) currently published by Wizards of the Coast. The original Dungeons & Dragons, designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, was first published in 1974 by Gygax's company, Tactical Studies Rules (TSR). Originally derived from tabletop games played with paper, ...Read more

Considering the company the Mustang has kept, forty-two years is quite a feat. Consider: The original Model-T only lasted 20 years. The Galaxie, the Falcon and Fairlane (which shared floor space with the Mustang) are lost to the winds of history. The competition have taken hits too, with the Camaro, Firebird, Challenger, and Barracuda all ...Read more

ROT13 ("rotate by 13 places", sometimes hyphenated ROT-13) is a simple substitution cipher used in online forums. ROT13 has been described as the "Usenet equivalent of a magazine printing the answer to a quiz upside down". ROT13 is its own inverse; that is, to undo ROT13, the same algorithm is applied, so the same action can be used for encoding...Read more

The Romans had three words for kissing: basium was the kiss exchanged by acquaintances; osculum, the kiss between close friends; and suavium, the kiss between lovers.

In ancient times, the traditional color of bridal gowns was red. The wife of Napoleon III broke the tradition and wore a white gown. Then, brides began wearing white gowns (that were worn only once) as a symbol of their wealth.

A normal cow's stomach has four compartments: the rumen, the recticulum (storage area), the omasum (where water is absorbed), and the abomasum ( the only compartment with digestive juices).

Henry Waterman invented the modern elevator in 1850. He intended it to transport barrels of flour.

The term "hush money," meaning a bribe to keep someone form revealing scandalous or damaging information, was first used in the early 1700s.