1. Refrigerators in the U.S. consume about the same energy as 25 large power plants produce each year.

2. More than 20 million people in the United States suffer from depression in a given year.

3. People with red hair have twice the risk of developing Parkinson’s Disease.

4. Medications made from Egyptian Mummies were once used to help with colds, fevers and epilepsy.

5. In 1907, Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman wore a one-piece suit in Boston that revealed her arms and legs. She was arrested for indecent exposure.

6. Captain James Cook initially called Hawaii the “Sandwich Islands” after the Earl of Sandwich. In 1819, King Kamehameha renamed the islands the Kingdom of Hawaii.

7. Ancient Greeks were known to spit on themselves to ward off the Evil Eye, and the ritual extended to babies as well. Medieval nurses licked the faces of their charges, while peasants all over the world would spit in the faces of babies.

8. Under certain conditions, wolves can hear as far as six miles away in the forest and ten miles on the open tundra.

9. The first 144 digits of pi add up to 666

10. Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day (3/14/1879) in Ulm Wurttemberg, Germany.

11. In the Star Trek episode “Wolf in the Fold,” Spock foils the evil computer by commanding it to “compute to last digit the value of pi.”

12. The life expectancy for ancient Greek women was 36, and the average for males was 45. Of the children born, only half survived infancy.

13. A white New Orleans man in the late nineteenth century transfused himself with blood from a black woman he loved so he could overcome anti-discrimination laws by claiming he was black and marry her.

14. By the end of the twentieth century, over 300 motion pictures were made about vampires, and over 100 of them featured Dracula. Over 1,000 vampire novels were published, most within the past 25 years.

15. At the end of “Strawberry Fields Forever,” John Lennon appears to mumble something that sounds like “I buried Paul,” which fueled a “Paul is Dead” rumor. He is actually saying “cranberry sauce.”

16. Although women attempt suicide about three times more often than men, men complete suicide about three times more often than women.

17. Chili peppers are hot because they contain a substance called alkaloid capsaicin and four other related chemicals.

18. Falling dreams typically occur at the beginning of the night, in Stage I sleep. These dreams are often accompanied by muscle spasms, called myoclonic jerks, and are common in many mammals.

16bmathias@usd489.com