Did You Know (8-17-07)

• In the 1983 film “JAWS 3D” the shark blows up. Some of the shark guts were stuffed animals (ET dolls) being sold at the time.

• The “huddle” in football was formed due a deaf football player who used sign language to communicate and his team didn’t want the opposition to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.

• 111,111,111 multiplied by 111,111,111 equals 12,345,678,987,654,321.

• Iguanas and Komodo dragons don’t have two penises. In fact, they have a single penis, but it is split in two (pretty much ‘Y’-shaped.) This organ is known as a hemipenes. Snakes also share this interesting feature. Apparently, the dual penis is for ease of left-handed or right-handed mating.

• No animal, once frozen solid (i.e., water solidifies and turns to ice) survives when thawed, because the ice crystals formed inside cells would break open the cell membranes. However there are certain frogs that can survive the experience of being frozen. These frogs make special proteins which prevent the formation of ice (or at least keep the crystals from becoming very large), so that they actually never freeze even though their body temperature is below zero Celsius. The water in them remains liquid: a phenomenon known as ‘supercooling.’ If you disturb one of these frogs (just touching them even), the water in them quickly freezes solid and they die.