Nearly Useless Factoids

by Suzanne Kubota 

The smallest mammal in the world is the bumblebee bat, so named because it's about the size of a bumblebee. 

You know that cardboard sleeve that comes wrapped around your molten latte? There's a word for that. According to MentalFloss, it's called a "zarf."

A penguin keeper in Germany has had to change his usual footwear, black and white boots, to blue ones after they became the object of the affections of a perky little Gentoo in his care.

According to DiscoveryNews, "Cats hold some control over when they are fed and handled, functioning very similar to human children in some households." If you're owned by a cat and this is news to you, please raise your paw.

ImprobableResearch reports "despite the Ig Nobel Prize-winning research - done by groups on two continents - demonstrating that Coca-Cola is NOT an effective contraceptive, people still rely on it to prevent pregnancy."

From NewScientist.com, "in 2004, the Guinness Book of World Records proclaimed the anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the quietest place on Earth. It was measured at -9.4 decibels." A negative decibel reading, explains NewScientist means the measured sound is below the threshold of human hearing. That makes it a sound that can't be heard.

"The employed and self-employed enjoy much better sleep than those out of work," reports ScienceDaily.

According to LifesLittleMysteries.com, "ten percent of the weight of a two-year-old pillow can be composed of dead mites and their droppings." Let the spring cleaning begin!

So if you get stepped on by an elephant in the dark, you might be able to tell which kind it was just by the toenail marks left behind. According to the Elephant Information Repository on the web: "it is generally accepted that the African elephant has four toenails on the front feet and three on the back as opposed to the Asian elephants which have five on on the front and four on the back." But you should note, "there has been some disagreement among particular experts and there appears to be a possible range within each species for the number of toenails." Plus there's the issue of both having four toenails

A dim brown dwarf (star) found 75 light-years away has a surface no hotter than a freshly brewed cup of coffee, astronomers say.

From AskMen.com's 5 Things You Didn't Know: Abraham Lincoln we learn that on the way to his first inauguration, the future president's security codename was "nuts."

You've wondered and now you know: According to LifesLittleMysteries.com, drive-thru ATMs are required to have instructions in Braille as part of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

What do you call a sandwich with two hamburgers, a chicken breast, two slices of cheese, three pieces of bacon, and lettuce, tomatoes, and onion? If you're Burger King, you call it "The Meat Monster." According to Toronto Star, it has 1,160 calories, 69 grams of fat, 24 grams of it saturated fat, 2,300 milligrams of sodium and 1.5 grams of trans fat - and is available, so far, only in Japan. Oh, and my cardiologist would call that "job security."

Thanks to my sister Anne Hullinger for sending this to me.