Did you know?

A rainbow can only occur when the sun is 40 degrees or less above the horizon.

All the gold produced in the past 500 years, if melted, could be compressed into a 50-foot cube.

All totaled, the sunlight that strikes Earth at any given moment weighs as much as an ocean liner.

A downburst is a downward blowing wind that sometimes comes blasting out of a thunderstorm. The damage looks like tornado damage, since the wind can be as strong as an f2 tornado, but debris is blown straight away from a point on the ground. It's not lifted into the air and transported downwind.

There are 611 sidewalk squares from Copper Beech to University Manor.

A fierce gust of wind blew 45-year-old Vittorio Luise's car into a river near Naples, Italy, in 1980. He managed to break a window, climb out and swim to shore -- where a tree blew over and killed him.

At any given time, there are 1,800 thunderstorms in progress over the Earth's atmosphere.

At room temperature, the average air molecule travels at the speed of a rifle bullet.

Back in the mid to late '80s, an IBM compatible computer wasn't considered 100 percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft's flight simulator.

Bacteria, the tiniest free-living cells, are so small that a single drop of liquid contains as many as 50 million of them.

Bamboo (the world's tallest grass) can grow up to 90 cm in a day.

Because of the rotation of the Earth, an object can be thrown farther if it is thrown west.

Carolyn Shoemaker has discovered 32 comets and approximately 800 asteroids.

Clouds fly higher during the day than the night.

Construction workers' hard hats were first invented and used in the building of the Hoover Dam in 1933.

Did you know you share a birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world?

During the time that the atomic bomb was being hatched by the United States at Alamogordo, New Mexico, applicants for routine jobs like janitors were disqualified if they could read. Illiteracy was a job requirement. The reason: the authorities did not want their trash or other papers read.

Each year, there is one ton of cement poured for each man, woman and child in the world.

Experts at Intel say that microprocessor speed will double every 18 months for at least 10 years.

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history to not have a full moon.

Methane gas can often be seen bubbling up from the bottom of ponds. It is produced by the decomposition of dead plants and animals in the mud.

7'1" basketball star Wilt Chamberlain's parents were 5'8".

Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952.

Alexander Graham Bell never telephoned his wife or mother. They both were deaf.