Facts are all around us. Sometimes these facts, though readily available are not known, because quite frankly, no one has taken the time to examine them. Here are a few of those facts.

Just about everyone knows that the U.S. is using robot planes. We have seen photos of them everywhere, but I bet you didn't know this? Over 80% of the flights made over Iraq are by planes without pilots. Yep, the robots have taken over the skies in Iraq.

Colonel Stapp Riding The Rocket Sled
Photo Source: U.S. Air Force

If you look up the land speed record, you will most likely find that it was made in 1997 and stands at 763.468 mph. Sounds incredibly fast doesn't it? Too bad that this is not the true land speed record. That record is held by the rocket sled. The sled had gone over 6,453 mph twenty years ago. That was 8.6 times the speed of sound. It is said that it that it now has achieved speeds over 6,800 mph. No human could live after riding the sled at this speed, because of the tremendous forces upon them. An Air Force doctor, Col. John Paul Stapp, rode the sled in 1954 and went at 632 mph before humans were banned from riding it. He had gone about 250 mph faster than the land speed record of the day.

I saw a stat that I can't believe, it seems far too low to me, but I will give it to you anyway. Supposedly there are 2,700 photographs taken every second in the world. About 2 billion medical films taken every year, that include all X-rays, CT scans etc. There is an estimate that states that 150 billion photographs are stored throughout the U.S. and that 750 billion photographs exist world wide. If we add up all the feature films in the world we get 110,586 movies. there is an amazing 59,680 silent films still surviving. By the way, the one film that is hardly ever copied is X-rays, since most doctors require originals.

The highest limo ever made, is the Duval that is in the Guinness Book of World Records. It is 10 feet 11 inches high. It has two engines and sits on monster truck tires. It has an 8 wheel independent suspension system. The largest motorcycle might be a nice companion for this vehicle. It is 11 feet 3 inches long and weighs 6,500 pounds and you need a ladder to get on to it. The fastest production car in the world, at the writing of this article is the Bugatti EB16 4. It can hit speeds of 252.95 mph. It packs an engine of 1001 horse power, but wait, the car has been upgraded, the engine is now supercharged, like this was needed. It now puts out 1250 hp and the top speed has been increased to 274 mph. I can't find an exact price on this vehicle, but I found that it is somewhere between 750,000 and 1,300,000 dollars, and I am not sure if this is for the supercharged model. If you want great gas mileage, this is not the car for you, but if you want to be able to beat any car on the road, this is THEE car. So save your pennies.

When people take a Maglev train, that is a train that rides on a cushion of air created by opposing magnetic forces, they are subject to the effects of powerful magnets. There are magnetic shields on the bottom of all these trains to protect the passengers. Some maglev trains use super conducting magnets. Exposure to powerful magnetic fields has always worried scientists. We are continuously exposed to them on Earth, since the Earth has its own magnetic fields. The effect of the fields on humans are relatively weak, but it is the strong fields that worry scientists. When MRIs came out, that was the first time most people were exposed to intense magnetic fields. Since MRIs have been getting more powerful, with no harmful results to humans, it seems that the maglev trains will not present any problems. It is said that the magnetic effect on a passenger is equivalent to 1/10 that of using a hair dryer.

The U.S. has a lot of universities and some of them are very large. Take Ohio University, it has somewhere around 29,000 students. These numbers are in dispute and some claim that total enrollment is actually more like 20,000+. Think this is a lot of students? Lets look at the biggest universities in the world. Indira Gandhi National Open University in New Delhi, India has 1.4 million students The Islamic Azad University in Tehran, Iran has 1.2 million students. The next three largest are in Turkey, Bangladesh and Pakistan . Anadolu University in Eskisehir, Turkey has 884,000 students, Bangladesh Open University in Gazipur, Bangladesh has over 600,000 students. Allama Iqbal Open University in Islamabad, Pakistan has over 450,000 students. The U.S. does have some mega universities of its own. The State University of New York, in the U.S. has 418,000 students currently enrolled and the California State University in California had 417,000 students in 2006.

Do you think that cars today are far more advanced that those of yesteryear? There is no doubt that they are in electronics, but what about innovative ideas? In 1948 a car named the Tucker tried to break into the automobile market, but was forced out by the big three. It had some very advanced features. It had a headlight that would turn when the wheels turned, giving better light into the turn the car was making. The front passenger seat had a space that a person could duck into in case of a collision. It could achieve 120 mph and had 166 horse power. Quite an accomplishment for that year. The engine was a modified helicopter engine. The car was streamlined for better gas mileage Sound familiar?

Corn Crop
Photo Source: EPS

The U.S. has a very large corn crop, but only 20% of it is eaten by people. The rest goes to animals and other uses. Do you like oats? We only eat about 5% of that crop. In this world, a child dies from starvation every 2 seconds. You can grow 20,000 pounds of potatoes in one acre of land, but only 165 pounds of beef, yet we use over 56% of our agricultural land to produce beef. It takes 16 pounds of grain and soybeans to produce 1 pound of beef, 5 pounds is required to produce 1 pound of chicken and 7.5 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of pork. 60,000,000 people will die of starvation in a year. If we Americans reduced our intake of meat just 10% the savings by increased grain available would feed another 60,000,000 people per year. Notice the number is the save as the people that starve to death each year.

Do you ever sit in the doctor's office and think, wow he has too many patients. You might have to wait an hour past your appointment time just to see him or her. If you think that this is bad, it could be worse, MUCH WORSE! In Malawi there are over 49,000 people per doctor. Can you imagine the wait there? Liberia is a little better with 43,400. Niger has 28,500 people per doctor and Mozambique has over 36,000. Makes you feel bad about complaining doesn't it?

Tacoma, Washington was rated as the most stressful city to live in, in the U.S. Nine different factors were considered. They were unemployment rate, divorce rate, travel to work time, crime, suicide rate, alcohol consumption, mental health and cloudy days. Only the 100 largest metro areas were considered. Galveston, Texas was the most stressful mid sized city to live in and Yuba City, California is the most stressful small city. The least stressful is Albany, New York. In middle sized cites, Provo, Utah is the least stressful and among small cities, Bismarck, North Dakota wins the prize. The study was conducted by Sperling and is called the Sperling Stress Index.