The Children Framing Childhood Project investigates how children perceive and experience their environments by examining the photographs they take and their personal narratives of these photographs. An important goal of the project is to improve communication between teachers and their students. The project has its origins in the cross-disciplinary, case-based HGSE course Thinking Like an Educator, which was launched in the spring of 2004. HGSE associate professor Wendy Luttrell, who played a role in creating this core course, transformed her work for the course into an on-going longitudinal study on children's changing conceptions of social difference and how they understand school culture, values, and success. In this interview, Luttrell explains the innovative concepts that inform the design and conduct of her research. Q: Can you describe your research project – its origins and purpose – and the innovative methodology known as PhotoVoice? Origins of Children Framing Childhood My role in the Thinking Like an Educator course was to introduce questions about how cultural factors shape diverse students' experiences of schooling and views about achievement and success. I wanted to stress the value of inquiry into children's own perspectives about this, especially as the gap grows between the predominately white, female, middle-class teaching force and an ever-increasing multicultural and low-income student body in urban schools. My unit made a case for fieldwork and the use of observational methods (also called ethnography) as a way to understand the lives of children living in urban poverty, and especially children in immigrant, wage-poor families trying to make ends meet. Like generations of fieldworkers who have gone before me, I advocated approaching "insiders" – in this case, the children themselves – to explore their life worlds, conditions, and multiple viewpoints. And, like the early sociologists studying immigration who used photography as a means to gather descriptive data, I decided to invite children to document their surroundings and then use the photographs to elicit further discussion – both between me and the children, and among the participating children – about what they noticed about each others' lives, most notably in the realm of family and "home" (including their home countries). The project and its methodology I first visited Columbus Park School, a K-6 public elementary school in Worcester, Massachusetts as part of the team of faculty members developing the core course. Out of discussions with the principal, Dr. Dolores Gribouski, about pressing concerns in her school, came several initiatives, including one that would evolve into my on-going research project. Dr. Gribouski explained that there were increasing numbers of immigrant children from Asia and Latin America coming to the school, and that she was looking to develop strategies for better integrating them (and their parents) into the school culture. I saw this as an opportunity to join interests, and designed a project that would bring the children's experiences and perspectives more fully into view, as "experts" about their own family, school and community worlds. The school is located in a neighborhood that allows for a rich examination of racial, ethnic, and some economic diversity. Of the 370 students enrolled, 92% are eligible for free school lunch, 37% are White; 10% are Black; 18% are Asian; 35% are Hispanic. The principal's support of the project afforded unusual access to the school, the children and their parents. Her ability to broker relationships across social and racial divides smoothed the way and secured permissions that might otherwise not have been forthcoming. Developmentally speaking, 5 - 6th graders seemed best suited for the exploration I had in mind. They are on the threshold between childhood and their teenage years – old enough to be treated as "experts" about their own upbringings and childhood experiences, yet still largely identified with and attached to their parents. Researchers have also identified this age group as keenly aware of social differences (specifically race, ethnicity, culture and gender), but also competent border crossers, able to sustain cross-racial and cross-gender friendships. Initially, twelve racially, ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse fifth-grade students – six girls and six boys – were selected to participate. We drew on PhotoVoice, a research and educational tool that uses photography as a means to tap people's knowledge and expertise about their own lives. This tool was first devised by Caroline Wang, who asked rural Chinese women to take photographs of community and family life to document health conditions and then make recommendations for improvements. Taking photos served as a catalyst for the women to discuss and make their own assessments of the health needs of their communities. In this same participatory spirit, we asked the Columbus Park School children to photograph their everyday school, family and community lives, and to assess what matters most to them and what they most wanted to "show" public audiences (especially teachers) about their lives. The process The children were given disposable cameras and a series of prompts to guide their picture taking, including, "You have a cousin who is your same age and is moving to Worcester and the Columbus Park School. Take pictures of what you want her/him to know about your school, family and community." Each child had four days and 27 exposures. After the photos were developed, my research assistant or I met with each child and asked her/him to tell us about the photos. Individual interviews were conducted in the school and lasted between half an hour and an hour. The following open-ended questions guided the conversation: "Tell me about this photo. What's going on here? Why did you take it? What does it tell about your life and what is important to you?" At the end of each interview, we also asked if there were any photographs the child wished s/he could have taken but didn't or couldn't. These interviews were audio- and video-taped and transcribed. During individual interviews we asked each child to select five photos for public viewing – photos that they would discuss with the other children participating in the project, show to their teachers and to a larger public audience. We explained that at the end of the year they would select two of these photographs for a public exhibition. We then conducted focus-group interviews (six children at a time) where the children looked at each other's photographs and discussed what they noticed, what grabbed their attention and why. These sessions were also audio and video-taped and transcribed. After participating in the 5th grade, the children were invited to continue in 6th grade. In 6th grade, the participants were told to take whatever pictures they wished about their school, family and community lives. The same process was followed, conducting individual and focus-group interviews. I call this a "visual voice" approach, combining photo-elicitation interviews with "photovoice" strategies. Whereas some researchers have taken photographs of home settings and then assembled a "photo-interview kit" to discuss with children, I have turned this process around, asking the children to take their own photographs from which they can speak about themselves, their views, values, and upbringings. Researchers using photographs with children have noted that photos can introduce content and topics that might otherwise be overlooked or poorly understood from an adult viewpoint. At the end of this academic year (2007), three cohorts of twelve children, followed from 5th through 6th grade, will have participated, for a total of 36 children. As participants in the project, the children have taken over 1,600 photographs, and each year have "curated" an exhibition of their work. By putting the children in charge of representing themselves and their surroundings through photography, they have been given an opportunity to regard themselves and each other in new ways. Similarly, as viewers, we are afforded glimpses into the children's worlds that only an "insider" could provide. The children's photographs The children's photographs provide clues to their everyday lives, concerns and identities. The photos are a starting point in learning what is important to them. The pictures they take are evocative of memories, valued possessions, and things and events they take pride in. What the children have to say about their photos provides a layer of insight into their shared values, beliefs and knowledge about the world and their place in it—including what it means to be an educated person. There are some fascinating patterns across the children's photographs in terms of how they compose their family, school and community worlds, especially in terms of gender and immigrant status. Q: If we think of the children's photographs as data, how can this type of data be used to inform and potentially improve instruction? Challenges facing public school educators I want to start by saying that public school educators face increasingly complicated demands on their time that restrain them from explorations that could deepen and complement their understanding of children's learning needs. A central goal of my research is to provide educators with insight and reflections – visions – of what children bring with them to school, to support teachers' efforts to reach diverse student bodies. Educators see their students in new ways The children's photographs bring to light aspects of their lives that are not always visible to teachers or part of school life, telling us something about a child's surrounds, her/his particular way of seeing the world, his/her valued aspects of identity, and his/ her part in cultural processes, such as immigration and acculturation. Clues about these things are conveyed through the content of the photographs and what the children have to say about them. For example, seeing and learning about a treasured doll – brought from Puerto Rico when Valerie was three years old – offers her teacher an entry point for communication and connection that might not otherwise be forthcoming. "Seeing" students outside the confines of the classroom, doing household chores or going to church, for example, stretches teachers' own imagination of who their students are. Educators see themselves in new ways At the same time, what teachers learn about themselves when they view and make meaning of the children's photographs, is also data that can inform their instructional practice. Do they make unwarranted assumptions or judgments about what's going on at home? Are they surprised to learn that a family member figures so prominently or is absent from a child's set of photographs? What is the scope and breadth of the knowledge upon which a teacher draws to make sense of these pictures? Instructional opportunities provided by children's photographs On yet another level, when children examine each others' photographs and talk about what they notice, more instructional opportunities arise. As one boy recently put it, "I see different cultures, no offense, there are Chinese people ..." and other children joined in naming the varieties of racially and ethnically diverse people represented in the photographs. What did he mean, no offense, I asked? This jump-started a conversation about whether it was "rude" or "mean" to talk about racial and cultural differences. Mapping the development of children's civic minds, including their changing capacities to talk across social differences from the 5th-6th grade, is yet another form of data that emerges from this project and can be used to enhance instruction.

Please note that some of the 'facts' below have been proven false myths. An example is the duck's echo which does not echo (but proved that it does).

1. It is impossible to lick your elbow (busted)
2. A crocodile can't stick it's tongue out.
3. A shrimp's heart is in it's head.
4. People say "Bless you" when you sneeze because when you sneeze,your heart stops for a mili-second.
5. 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.
6. It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
7. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit. (busted)
8. More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.
9. Rats and horses can't vomit.
10. If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib.
    
11. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.
12. If you keep your eyes open by force when you sneeze, you might pop an eyeball out.
13. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.
14. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
15. In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
16. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
17. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
18. A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
19. 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their butts.
20. In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders.
    
21. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
22. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
23. Over 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow.
24. A crocodile can't move its tongue and cannot chew. Its digestive juices are so strong that it can digest a steel nail.
25. Money notes are not made from paper, they are made mostly from a special blend of cotton and linen. In 1932, when a shortage of cash occurred in Tenino, Washington, USA, notes were made out of wood for a brief period.
26. The Grammy Awards were introduced to counter the threat of rock music. In the late 1950s, a group of record executives were alarmed by the explosive success of rock ‘n roll, considering it a threat to "quality" music.
27. Tea is said to have been discovered in 2737 BC by a Chinese emperor when some tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water. The tea bag was introduced in 1908 by Thomas Sullivan of New York.
28. Over the last 150 years the average height of people in industrialised nations has increased 10 cm (about 4 inches). In the 19th century, American men were the tallest in the world, averaging 1,71m (5'6"). Today, the average height for American men is 1,75m (5'7"), compared to 1,77 (5'8") for Swedes, and 1,78 (5'8.5") for the Dutch. The tallest nation in the world is the Watusis of Burundi.
29. In 1955 the richest woman in the world was Mrs Hetty Green Wilks, who left an estate of $95 million in a will that was found in a tin box with four pieces of soap. Queen Elizabeth of Britain and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands count under the 10 wealthiest women in the world.
30. Joseph Niepce developed the world's first photographic image in 1827. Thomas Edison and W K L Dickson introduced the film camera in 1894. But the first projection of an image on a screen was made by a German priest. In 1646, Athanasius Kircher used a candle or oil lamp to project hand-painted images onto a white screen.
31. In 1935 a writer named Dudley Nichols refused to accept the Oscar for his movie The Informer because the Writers Guild was on strike against the movie studios. In 1970 George C. Scott refused the Best Actor Oscar for Patton. In 1972 Marlon Brando refused the Oscar for his role in The Godfather.
32. The system of democracy was introduced 2 500 years ago in Athens, Greece. The oldest existing governing body operates in Althing in Iceland. It was established in 930 AD.
33. A person can live without food for about a month, but only about a week without water.
    If the amount of water in your body is reduced by just 1%, you'll feel thirsty.
    If it's reduced by 10%, you'll die.
34. According to a study by the Economic Research Service, 27% of all food production in Western nations ends up in garbage cans. Yet, 1,2 billion people are underfed - the same number of people who are overweight.
35. Camels are called "ships of the desert" because of the way they move, not because of their transport capabilities. A Dromedary camel has one hump and a Bactrian camel two humps. The humps are used as fat storage. Thus, an undernourished camel will not have a hump.
    
36. In the Durango desert, in Mexico, there's a creepy spot called the "Zone of Silence." You can't pick up clear TV or radio signals. And locals say fireballs sometimes appear in the sky.
37. Ethernet is a registered trademark of Xerox, Unix is a registered trademark of AT&T.
38. Bill Gates' first business was Traff-O-Data, a company that created machines which recorded the number of cars passing a given point on a road.
39. Uranus' orbital axis is tilted at 90 degrees.
40. The final resting-place for Dr. Eugene Shoemaker - the Moon. The famed U.S. Geological Survey astronomer, trained the Apollo astronauts about craters, but never made it into space. Mr. Shoemaker had wanted to be an astronaut but was rejected because of a medical problem. His ashes were placed on board the Lunar Prospector spacecraft before it was launched on January 6, 1998. NASA crashed the probe into a crater on the moon in an attempt to learn if there is water on the moon.
41. Outside the USA, Ireland is the largest software producing country in the world.
42. The first fossilized specimen of Australopithecus afarenisis was named Lucy after the paleontologists' favorite song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," by the Beatles.
43. Figlet, an ASCII font converter program, stands for Frank, Ian and Glenn's LETters.
44. Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.
45. Every year about 98% of atoms in your body are replaced.
46. Hot water is heavier than cold.
47. Plutonium - first weighed on August 20th, 1942, by University of Chicago scientists Glenn Seaborg and his colleagues - was the first man-made element.
48. If you went out into space, you would explode before you suffocated because there's no air pressure.
49. The radioactive substance, Americanium - 241 is used in many smoke detectors.
50. The original IBM-PCs, that had hard drives, referred to the hard drives as Winchester drives. This is due to the fact that the original Winchester drive had a model number of 3030. This is, of course, a Winchester firearm.
51. Sound travels 15 times faster through steel than through the air.
52. On average, half of all false teeth have some form of radioactivity.
53. Only one satellite has been ever been destroyed by a meteor: the European Space Agency's Olympus in 1993.
54. Starch is used as a binder in the production of paper. It is the use of a starch coating that controls ink penetration when printing. Cheaper papers do not use as much starch, and this is why your elbows get black when you are leaning over your morning paper.
55. Sterling silver is not pure silver. Because pure silver is too soft to be used in most tableware it is mixed with copper in the proportion of 92.5 percent silver to 7.5 percent copper.
56. A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball of rubber. A ball of solid steel will bounce higher than one made entirely of glass.
57. A chip of silicon a quarter-inch square has the capacity of the original 1949 ENIAC computer, which occupied a city block.
58. An ordinary TNT bomb involves atomic reaction, and could be called an atomic bomb. What we call an A-bomb involves nuclear reactions and should be called a nuclear bomb.
59. At a glance, the Celsius scale makes more sense than the Fahrenheit scale for temperature measuring. But its creator, Anders Celsius, was an oddball scientist. When he first developed his scale, he made freezing 100 degrees and boiling 0 degrees, or upside down. No one dared point this out to him, so fellow scientists waited until Celsius died to change the scale.
60. At a jet plane's speed of 1,000 km (620mi) per hour, the length of the plane becomes one atom shorter than its original length.
61. The first full moon to occur on the winter solstice, Dec. 22, commonly called the first day of winter, happened in 1999. Since a full moon on the winter solstice occurred in conjunction with a lunar perigee (point in the moon's orbit that is closest to Earth), the moon appeared about 14% larger than it does at apogee (the point in it's elliptical orbit that is farthest from the Earth).
    
    Since the Earth is also several million miles closer to the sun at that time of the year than in the summer, sunlight striking the moon was about 7% stronger making it brighter. Also, this was the closest perigee of the Moon of the year since the moon's orbit is constantly deforming. In places where the weather was clear and there was a snow cover, even car headlights were superfluous.
62. According to security equipment specialists, security systems that utilize motion detectors won't function properly if walls and floors are too hot. When an infrared beam is used in a motion detector, it will pick up a person's body temperature of 98.6 degrees compared to the cooler walls and floor.
    
    If the room is too hot, the motion detector won't register a change in the radiated heat of that person's body when it enters the room and breaks the infrared beam. Your home's safety might be compromised if you turn your air conditioning off or set the thermostat too high while on summer vacation.
63. Western Electric successfully brought sound to motion pictures and introduced systems of mobile communications which culminated in the cellular telephone.
64. On December 23, 1947, Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., held a secret demonstration of the transistor which marked the foundation of modern electronics.
65. The wick of a trick candle has small amounts of magnesium in them. When you light the candle, you are also lighting the magnesium. When someone tries to blow out the flame, the magnesium inside the wick continues to burn and, in just a split second (or two or three), relights the wick.
66. Ostriches are often not taken seriously. They can run faster than horses, and the males can roar like lions.
67. Seals used for their fur get extremely sick when taken aboard ships.
    
68. Sloths take two weeks to digest their food.
69. Guinea pigs and rabbits can't sweat.
70. The pet food company Ralston Purina recently introduced, from its subsidiary Purina Philippines, power chicken feed designed to help roosters build muscles for cockfighting, which is popular in many areas of the world.
71. According to the Wall Street Journal, the cockfighting market is huge: The Philippines has five million roosters used for exactly that.
72. Sharks and rays are the only animals known to man that don't get cancer. Scientists believe this has something to do with the fact that they don't have bones, but cartilage.
73. The porpoise is second to man as the most intelligent animal on the planet.
74. Young beavers stay with their parents for the first two years of their lives before going out on their own.
75. Skunks can accurately spray their smelly fluid as far as ten feet.
76. Deer can't eat hay.
77. Gopher snakes in Arizona are not poisonous, but when frightened they may hiss and shake their tails like rattlesnakes.
78. On average, dogs have better eyesight than humans, although not as colorful.
79. The duckbill platypus can store as many as six hundred worms in the pouches of its cheeks.
80. The lifespan of a squirrel is about nine years.
81. North American oysters do not make pearls of any value.
82. Human birth control pills work on gorillas.
83. Many sharks lay eggs, but hammerheads give birth to live babies that look like very small duplicates of their parents. Young hammerheads are usually born headfirst, with the tip of their hammer-shaped head folded backward to make them more streamlined for birth.
84. Gorillas sleep as much as fourteen hours per day.
85. A biological reserve has been made for golden toads because they are so rare.
86. There are more than fifty different kinds of kangaroos.
87. Jellyfish like salt water. A rainy season often reduces the jellyfish population by putting more fresh water into normally salty waters where they live.
88. The female lion does ninety percent of the hunting.
    
89. The odds of seeing three albino deer at once are one in seventy-nine billion, yet one man in Boulder Junction, Wisconsin, took a picture of three albino deer in the woods.
90. A group of twelve or more cows is called a flink.
91. Cats often rub up against people and furniture to lay their scent and mark their territory. They do it this way, as opposed to the way dogs do it, because they have scent glands in their faces.
92. Cats sleep up to eighteen hours a day, but never quite as deep as humans. Instead, they fall asleep quickly and wake up intermittently to check to see if their environment is still safe.
93. Catnip, or Nepeta cataria, is an herb with nepetalactone in it. Many think that when cats inhale nepetalactone, it affects hormones that arouse sexual feelings, or at least alter their brain functioning to make them feel "high." Catnip was originally made, using nepetalactone as a natural bug repellant, but roaming cats would rip up the plants before they could be put to their intended task.
94. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans ages the equivalent of five human years for every day they live, so they usually die after about fourteen days. When stressed, though, the worm goes into a comatose state that can last for two or more months. The human equivalent would be to sleep for about two hundred years.
95. You can tell the sex of a horse by its teeth. Most males have 40, females have 36.
96. Money isn't made out of paper; it's made out of cotton.
97. The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottle represents the varieties of pickle the company once had.
98. Your stomach produces a new layer of mucus every two weeks - otherwise it will digest itself.
99. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
100. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
101. Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.
102. Every person has a unique tongue print as well as fingerprints.
103. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
104. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
105. During the chariot scene in 'Ben Hur' a small red car can be seen in the distance.
106. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.
107. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
108. (removed, duplicated)
109. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear any pants.
110. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.
111. Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower' because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters.
112. Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.
113. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.
114. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.
115. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan, there was never a recorded Wendy before!
116. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!
117. Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors.
118. A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
119. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
120. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
121. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It's the same with apples!
122. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!
123. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
124. Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
125. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages them.
126. The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.
127. Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts, and worms like fried bacon.
128. Of all the words in the English language, the word ’set’ has the most definitions!
129. What is called a "French kiss" in the English speaking world is known as an "English kiss" in France.
130. "Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
131. "Rhythm" is the longest English word without a vowel.
132. In 1386, a pig in France was executed by public hanging for the murder of a child
133. A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off.
134. Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
135. You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath
136. There is a city called Rome on every continent.
137. It’s against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland.
138. Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day.
139. Horatio Nelson, one of England’s most illustrious admirals was throughout his life, never able to find a cure for his sea-sickness.
140. The skeleton of Jeremy Bentham is present at all important meetings of the University of London
141. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people
142. Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, everytime you breathe!
143. The elephant is the only mammal that can’t jump!
144. One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!
145. Like fingerprints, everyone’s tongue print is different!
146. The first known transfusion of blood was performed as early as 1667, when Jean-Baptiste, transfused two pints of blood from a sheep to a young man
147. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!
148. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!
149. The present population of 5 billion plus people of the world is predicted to become 15 billion by 2080.
150. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
151. Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, and had only ONE testicle.
152. Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.
153. Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
154. Coca-Cola would be green if colouring weren’t added to it.
155. On average a hedgehog’s heart beats 300 times a minute.
156. More people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.
157. The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words.
158. More people are allergic to cow’s milk than any other food.
159. Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
160. The placement of a donkey’s eyes in its’ heads enables it to see all four feet at all times!
161. The six official languages of the United Nations are: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish.
162. Earth is the only planet not named after a god.
163. It’s against the law to burp, or sneeze in a church in Nebraska, USA.
164. You’re born with 300 bones, but by the time you become an adult, you only have 206.
165. Some worms will eat themselves if they can’t find any food!
166. Dolphins sleep with one eye open!
167. It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open
168. The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old!
169. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds
170. Queen Elizabeth I regarded herself as a paragon of cleanliness. She declared that she bathed once every three months, whether she needed it or not
171. Slugs have 4 noses.
172. Owls are the only birds who can see the colour blue.
173. A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years!
174. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!
175. The average person laughs 10 times a day!
176. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain
177. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
178. If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
179. The human heart! creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
180. A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
181. A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death!
182. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories a hour
183. The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
184. The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.
185. The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
186. Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
187. Butterflies taste with their feet.
188. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
189. A cat's urine glows under a black light.
190. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
191. Starfish have no brains.
192. Polar bears are left-handed.
193. Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.