Wednesday, February 16, 2011

About one billion Valentine's Day cards are exchanged in the U.S. each year.

Women purchase 85% of all valentines.

In order of popularity, Valentine's Day cards are given to teachers, children, mothers, wives, sweethearts, and pets.

Parents receive one out of every five valentines.

About 3% of pet owners will give Valentine's Day gifts to their pets.

Valentine's Day and and Mother's Day are the biggest holidays for giving flowers

Worldwide, over fifty million roses are given for Valentine's Day each year.

California produces 60% of American roses, but the vast number sold on Valentine's Day in the U.S. are imported, mostly from South America.

73% of people who buy flowers for Valentine's Day are men.

In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.

Verona, Italy, where Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet lives, receives about one thousand letters addressed to Juliet every Valentine's Day.

Richard Cadbury invented the first Valentine's Day candy box in the late 1800s.

Alexander Graham Bell applied for his patent on the telephone, an "Improvement in Telegraphy," on Valentine's Day, 1876.

The oldest surviving love poem, to date, is written in a clay tablet from the time of the Sumerians, inventors of writing, around 3500 BCE.

Monday, February 7, 2011

When water freezes inside clouds, ice crystals form. Ice crystals are crystals that have formed around tiny bits of dirt that have been carried up into the atmosphere by the wind. The ice crystals join together creating snowflakes.

All snowflakes have six sides.

Scientists believe that there are five different shapes of snow crystals. A long needle shape, hollow column that is shaped like a six-sided prism, thin and flat six-sided plates, six-pointed stars, and intricate dendrites.

The shape that a snow crystal will take depends on the temperature at which it was formed. When the temperature is around 32F to 25F, thin six-sided plates are formed. At 25F to 21F, long needle shapes are formed. At 21F to 14F, hollow columns are formed. At 14F to 10F, six-point stars are formed. At 10F to 3F, dendrites are formed.

The colder it is outside, the smaller the snowflakes fall.

The fluffiest snow falls at temperatures around 15F.

Snow is actually transparent. Snow appears white because the crystals act as prisms, breaking oup the light of the sun into the entire spectrum of color.

The largest snowflake recorded was fifteen inches in diameter.

Most snowflakes are less than one half inch across.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Maine is the closest U.S. state to Africa.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Sugar does not cause children to be hyper.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Hair and nails do not continue to grow after a person dies, it is the skin drying and shrinking away that makes it appear as if growing.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Shaving for the first does not cause hair to grow back thicker, darker, or coarser.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

It is not harmful to pick up baby birds and return them to their nests, their mothers will not reject them.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Sushi does not mean "raw fish."