10 RANDOM FACTS YOU PROBABLY NEVER KNEW - The World's Oldest Known Boat...

Here are some 10 random facts we came across while perusing the internet...



1.) The world's oldest known boat is the Pesse canoe, found in the Netherlands and constructed between 8040 and 7510 B.C making it over 10,000 years old.

2.) According to the most recent United Nations estimates, the human population of the world is expected to reach 8 billion people in the spring of 2024.

3.) Facial hair can produce drinkable beer. A brewmaster in Oregon has actually discovered a way to make beer from yeast collected from his own beard.

Michael Jackson - beer expert

4.) Michael Jackson is not only the name given to the famous King of Pop but also to a man who single-handedly was responsible for rescuing beer from doom and gloom back in the late 70's.  Michael Jackson (27 March 1942 – 30 August 2007) was an English writer and journalist. He was the author of several influential books about beer and whisky which sold over three million copies worldwide and have been translated into eighteen different languages. He is not only credited with helping to start a renaissance of interest in beer and breweries worldwide in the 1970s, particularly in the United States but for also popularizing the idea of beer styles such as colour, flavour, strength, ingredients, etc .

5.) PENTHERAPHOBIA - is the fear of mother-in-laws.

Mr. Methane
The King of Farts

6.) A flatulist is a fartist, or professional farter, yes, there is such an occupation, (sometimes considered a comedian) who is paid to entertain solely or primarily by farting in a creative, musical, or amusing manner. Le Pétomane was the stage name of the French flatulist and entertainer Joseph Pujol (June 1, 1857 – 1945). He was famous for his remarkable control of the abdominal muscles, which enabled him to seemingly fart at will.

A more current and well-known King of Farts is professional Brisith farter Paul Oldfield aka Mr. Methane - the world's only performing flatulist.

In the 1990s Mr Methane produced a parody of the Phil Collins Song "In The Air Tonight" entitled "Curry In The Air Tonight" Tony Smith the personal & business manager to Phil Collins refused to let Mr Methane release his parody version stating that, "This is a very serious song and we cannot see any reason for it to be taken so lightly".

7.) The most expensive dessert is an ice cream sundae! The Frrrozen Haute Chocolate ice cream sundae costing $25,000 (£12,000), which was added to the menu of the Serendipity 3 restaurant, New York, USA on 7 November 2007.

The dessert uses a fine blend of 28 cocoas, including 14 of the world's most expensive. The sundae was made in partnership with luxury jeweller Euphoria New York.

The dessert is decorated with 5 g (0.17 oz) of edible 23-karat gold and is served in a goblet lined with edible gold. The base of the goblet is an 18-karat gold bracelet with 1 carat of white diamonds. The dessert is eaten with a gold spoon, itself decorated with white and chocolate-colored diamonds, which can also be taken home.

8.) You'd be forgiven for thinking a giant has left some luggage behind - but despite appearances, that's not an enormous suitcase in St. Petersburg, Russia, but the record-breaking new look of the Karelia Business Hotel.

The largest three dimensional painting measures 15,682 m² (168,800 ft²) and was achieved by Karelia Business Hotel (Russia) in St Petersburg, Russia, on 4 December 2012.

"At the Dead Sea" by Flickr user Scott Ableman

9.)  According to experts, the Dead Sea will be gone within 50 years.  The Dead Sea, also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and Palestine to the west. Its surface and shores are 423 metres (1,388 ft) below sea level, Earth's lowest elevation on land. It is 9.6 times as salty as the ocean. This salinity makes for a harsh environment in which animals cannot flourish, hence its name.

The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years. Biblically, it was a place of refuge for King David. It was one of the world's first health resorts (for Herod the Great), and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from balms for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilizers.

In the past four decades - the lake has shrunk by 30 percent and sunk 80 feet. The culprits? Surrounding countries tapping the River Jordan, which is the Dead Sea's sole water source.




10.)  One of 7 Animals Recently Driven to Extinction by Humans, the Javan-Tiger were once a subspecies of tiger known for their unusually long cheek whiskers, and the could only be found on the Indonesian island of Java. Before human intervention, the big cats were so common on the island that they were considered a common pest. In the early 20-century, massive farm expansion led the to killing, and worse, poisoning of many tigers. Periods of war and civil unrest further caused mass killings of these tigers. By the mid 1960s, the surviving tiger population was spread out between three protected areas. But that did not stop the poaching. Even after the park was upgraded to wildlife reserve in 1972 and scientific surveys were conducted to find the last remaining Javan Tigers, another tigers continued to be killed. The species was declared extinct in 1999 after a camera trap survey of 19 sites saw no remaining tigers.



Resource(s): ehow.co.uk/,  worldometers.info/, smithsonianmag.com/,  inhabitat.com/, en.wikipedia.org/,