Fun facts for kids or how to keep their brains busy

This post is dedcated to all the mums who are planning looooooong trips across the country or the continent. Following is a list of fun facts that should get your conversation going during your travels.

Kids are a lot better company during a car ride if you keep them engaged in conversation I find. This list provided us with endless laughs and conversation during our car trip last summer from Lugano to Madrid and then on to Paris.

So here goes:
- It is impossible for most people to lick their own elbow. (Try it!)
- A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
- A shrimp's heart is in its head.
- In a study of 200,000 ostriches over a period of 80 years, no one reported a single case where an ostrich buried its head in the sand, or attempted to do so.
- It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
- The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is believed to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.
- If you sneeze too hard, you could fracture a rib.
- Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.
- Wearing headphones for just an hour could increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
- In every episode of Seinfeld there was a Superman somewhere in the picture.
- In the course of an average lifetime, while sleeping you might eat around 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders, or more.
- Some lipsticks contain fish scales.
- Cat urine glows under a black-light.
- Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
- Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
- There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
- The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing (when using the proper position of the hands on the keyboard; Hunting and pecking doesn't count!).
- A shark is the only known fish that can blink with both eyes.
- The longest one-syllable words in the English language are "scraunched" and "strengthed." Some suggest that "squirreled" could be included, but squirrel is intended to be pronounced as two syllables (squir-rel) according to most dictionaries. "Screeched" and "strengths" are two other long one-syllable words, but they only have 9 letters.
- "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".
- Almonds are a member of the peach family.
- Maine is the only state that has a one-syllable name.
- There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
- Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula"
- A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
- An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
- Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
- In many advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
- The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life."
- A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
- The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
- The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
- Most people fall asleep in seven minutes.
- "Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.

Source: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences