Footle and Grok

Welcome to Day 23 of my July Trivia posts.*

Trivia: Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

I had never heard this and didn’t know if it was true or not. It turns out it’s false.

Our eyes grow a lot during our first two years, and then there is a second growth around puberty. A newborn’s eye is about 0.6 inches in length while an adult eye is 0.95 inches.

I know dolls like Precious Moments are known for having big eyes, but I’m glad babies don’t look at us with oversized eyes. That would be creepy.

The other half of this trivia is also false. Your nose and ears do stop growing, but because they are made of cartilage, gravity causes them to droop later in life, and it looks like they are still growing.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 22 of my July Trivia posts.*

Trivia: Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

This may or may not be accurate. If you never use the rubber band, it doesn’t matter if you refrigerate it or not. The truth is that a cold rubber band stretches more than a hot rubber band, so it might last longer because it doesn’t break as easily.

Were you surprised to learn that cold rubber bands stretch more than hot ones? I certainly was. We think of hot things stretching more, like tar, glass, or honey. However, the structure of the rubber is different. It is made of long polymer chains. The hotter they get, the shorter the chains get, causing the rubber to contract. Thus a hot rubberband doesn’t stretch as much as a cold one.

Scientific American has an experiment that you can do with your kids to see this in action. It’s always good to prove trivia yourself.

I give this trivia a 10 out of 10. I learned something new, which I love.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 21 of my July Trivia posts.*

Trivia: Butterflies taste with their feet.

This is true, and the details are even cooler.

Butterflies don’t bite or chew. They suck up liquids such as nectar, sap, fruit juices, and sometimes even animal carcass juices (yuck.) They have a long tongue built like a straw called a proboscis, which enables them to drink their dinner. So they have no need to smell solid items. Why then do they have smell sensors on their feet?

They smell leaves to decide if the leaves will taste good to their caterpillars. If they determine the leaf is tasty, the butterfly will lay their eggs there. The future caterpillars should thank their mothers for laying them in such a bountiful area.

I give this trivia a 10 out of 10. This trivia is true, and butterflies are awesome.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 20 of my July Trivia posts.*

Trivia: There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

This is true if you include half dollars. There are 243 ways if you only use pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. It might seem like this would take a while to figure out, but there is a list online of every variation, so you don’t have to stack coins yourself.

I give this trivia a 9 out of 10. It is true, and I’m glad I don’t have to figure it out myself

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 19 of my July trivia posts.*

Trivia: If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of 6 months waiting at red lights.

First of all, this sentence is horribly written. I would say, “An average American will spend an average of 6 months of their life waiting at red lights.” And this is true.

A lot of people study the science of waiting. The average length of a red light is 75 seconds, so with simple math and a lot of averaging (average number of times you are stopped by a red light a day and the average life span), the answer is six months.

For four years, I lived in a county with no stoplights, so my actual time is probably less. However, I grew up in the suburbs with a lot of lights, so that might cancel out my time in Wahkiakum County.

I give this trivia a 10 out of 10. The trivia is true, and the math is intriguing.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 18 of my July trivia posts.*

Trivia: Almonds are a member of the peach family.

Wrong. The almond is in the rose family. The peach is also in the rose family, so this trivia is doubly wrong. This took me no time to research. Sigh.

I give this trivia a 0 out of 10. If I could give it negative points, I would.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 17 of my July trivia posts.*

Trivia: A crocodile cannot stick out its tongue.

This is true. A crocodile has a membrane that stops its tongue from moving by holding it on the roof of its mouth.

I can’t tell the difference between a crocodile and an alligator. I watched an entire Wild Kratts episode where they showed me the difference, and I still couldn’t remember which was which. Now, I can look for their tongue because crocodiles can’t stick out their tongue, but alligators can.

I give this trivia a 10 out of 10. The trivia is true, and it might help me with my crocodile/alligator problem.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 16 of my July trivia posts.*

Trivia: Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

This one is tricky. I found a PubMed.gov article that said that women blink almost twice as much as men and older women blink more often than younger women. However, almost every other website said there was no difference. Wikipedia noted that different research projects had mixed results. So is it true or not?

I think there is no easy answer. I doubt any experiment has studied enough people to overcome random blinking. Interestingly, several studies have shown that women on birth control medication blink 32% more than other women. The reason is unknown.

I would rephrase this trivia to say, “Some studies state that women blink twice as much as men.” Not as impressive, is it? Well, the truth often isn’t.

I give this trivia a 7 out of 10. The trivia is sometimes true, but not conclusive.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 15 of my July trivia posts.*

Trivia: Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.

This is true, but not as impressive as it sounds. Peanut oil can be turned into glycerol, which is used to make nitro-glycerine, which is used to make dynamite.

However, glycerol can be made from a lot of different ingredients, so peanuts aren’t always used and aren’t that special. It would be more accurate to say that peanuts might occasionally be one of the ingredients of dynamite.

I give this trivia a 7 out of 10. The trivia is sometimes true, but not unique.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 14 of my July trivia posts.*

Trivia: Babies are born without kneecaps. They don’t appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.

This is true. Amazing.

I rarely think about my kneecaps. I also rarely think about babies, but the more I learn, the more I realize that babies don’t come out complete. They grow some parts outside of the womb.

Knees and kneecaps are not the same. Kneecaps protect your knee, but do not aid in the knee’s motion.

When babies are born, their kneecaps are not bone. They are made up of soft cartilage. They ossify between two and six years of age. Obviously, this does not affect the baby’s movement. Crazy!!!

Kneecaps also do not affect an adult’s movement. If a grown-up had to have their kneecap removed, they could still walk. Crazy!!!

I give this trivia a 10 out of 10. The trivia is true, and now I know a little more about babies and knees.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.