Did You Know?

Did You Know?

Q-WHY DO WOMEN LIVE LONGER THAN MEN?
answer: Women generally live about six years longer than men. Evident suggests that boys are the weaker sex at birth, which means that more die in infancy. Also women do not as much heart disease as men. In term of lifestyle, men smoke more than women and thus more die of smoking-related disease. They drink more and are more aggressive in behaviour, particularly when driving cars, so they are more likely to die in accidents. Also, they generally have more dangerous occupations, such as building work.

Historically, women died in childbirth and men in wars. Hence nuns and philosophers often live to great ages. Now, childbearing is less risky and there are fewer wars. The country with the highest life expectancy is Japan, where the average age for men is 76 and for women 82.

Q- WHAT MAN-MADE THNGS FROM EARTH CAN BE SEEN FROM SPACE?
answer: “When men first flew in space, they were amazed to discover that the only man-made object visible from orbit was the Great Wall of China.” This is a nice idea, but it’s not true. The Great Wall is mostly grey stone in a grey landscape and, in fact, is very difficult to see even from an aeroplane flying at a mere 15 kilometres above. What can be seen when orbiting the earth from about 200 kilometres up are the fires of African dessert people, and the light of fishing boats of Japan; also , a very long wire fence in western Australia which marks farmland on one side and desert on the other.

Q- WHY IS WALKING UNDER LADDERS BELIEVE TO BE UNLUCKY?
answer: There are a few explanations for this. The most common is that someone on the ladder might be holding a pot of paint or a bucket of water which could drop on you if you walk underneath. Another explanation relates to the Tyburn gallows at which is now Marble Arch in gallows with a rope round there neck and this was then kicked from under them. The belief grew that walking under a ladder invited death.

Q- HOW MANY NEW WORDS ENTER THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE EVERY YEAR?
answer: Unfortunately no list is kept. In France there is the Academie Francaise which approves new words but in England there are only dictionaries. The most authoritative of these is the Oxford English Dictionary OED which has 20 volumes, but this does not make rules about the language. It simply records the development of English world wide as best it can. It accepts about 4000 new words or new meanings every year. The OED has readers in all English-speaking parts of the world, who record repeated uses of new words, including numerous technical terms. Some words take a surprisingly long time to enter the OED. For example ‘acid rain’ was first used in 1859, but its usage was rare for over 100 years and it did not appear in the dictionary until the 1980s.

Q- WHAT IS THE WORLD BIGGEST OFFICE?
answer: The pangaton is the largest office in the world. This famous five sided building, which is the US Department of Defence, was built in just 16 months during World War II, in Arlington, Virginia. It is designed to hold up to 40,000 people. It has 28 kilometres of corridors, 7,754 windows, 284 bathrooms, and parking space for 8, 770 cars. 17,000 meals a day are served in its restaurants.

Q- WHY ARE HORSESHOES BELIEVED TO BE LUCKY?
answer: In 1700, Henrri Mission, a Frenchman visiting Britain, asked villagers why they had horseshoes nailed above their doors. They said that it was to keep witches away. Horseshoes are made off iron and the strength of the iron was thought to protect from evil. Still today they are thought to bring good luck and many brides carry silver ones at their wedding. The position of the horseshoes is very important. It must point upward like a cup so that the luck cannot fall out.
Q- WHY DO THEY DRIVE ON THE LEFT IN BRITAIN AND ON THE RIGHT IN OTHER COUNTRIES?
answer: The reason for this goes back to the days when people traveled by horse. Most people are right-handed, and thus the left is the natural side to ride on if you are on horseback and need your hand to hold a sword in case of trouble. So why didn’t the rest of the world do the same? Because of Napoleon Bonaparte. He insisted that his armies marched on the right, and as he marched through Europe, he imposed this rule wherever they went. In the twenties century Adolf Hilter did the same. Signs reading ‘Rechts fahren’ were put up whenever he took over a country.
The question suggests that only the British drive on the left, but in fact, out of 178 countries in the world, there are about 50 that drive on the left, including Japan. However, most of them are former British colonies.

Q- WHY DO WE DREAM?
answer: Two different schools of thought exist as to why we dream: the physiological school, and the psychological school. Both, however, agree that we dream during the REM, or rapid eye movement, phase of sleep, our closed eyes dart rapidly about and our brain activity peaks.

The physiological theory centers upon how our brains function during the REM phase. Those who believe this theory say that we dream to exercise the brain cells. When awake, our brains constantly transmit and receive messages and keep our bodies in perpetual motion. Dreams replace this function.

Physiological theorists of dreams focus upon our thoughts and emotions, and say that dreams deal with immediate concerns in our lives, such as unfinished business from the day. Connections between dreams and the human psyche have been made for thousands of years. The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote in his Parva Naturalia, over 2,200 years ago, of a connection between dreams and emotional needs. Sweet dreams!

Q- WHAT ARE FALLING STARS?
answer: Contrary to popular belief, ‘falling stars’ are not stars at all, but meteors, solid bodies that travel through space. Meteors moving at over a thousand miles per hour at the equator to huge objects weighing many tons, which are visible to the naked eye at night. Most meteors, except the really huge ones, burn up when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere. If they do land successfully, they are renamed meteorites.
Usually meteors travel together in swarms like bees. Nature’s spectacular fireworks show, ‘a meteors show,’ comes into view when these swarms hit the Earth’s atmosphere and then fall towards the Earth in a brilliant display of light. One must be quite patient to witness the most spectacular meteors storms, as these cross the Earth’s path only once every 33 years.

Q- WHY DO AEROPLANES TAKE LONGER TO FLY WEST THAN EAST?
answer: It can take five hours to go west—east from New York to London but seven hours to travel east—west from London to New York. The reason for the difference is an atmospheric phenomenon known as the jet stream. The jet stream is a very high altitude wind which always blows from the west to the east across the Atlantic. The planes moving at a constant air speed thus go faster in the west—east direction when they are moving with the wind than in the opposite direction.