did you know…?

• Rio de Janeiro is the second major city of Brazil, behind São Paulo. The name “Rio de Janeiro” means “River of January”. • The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters is: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses—it’s plural. It’s an infection of the lungs. • Men who regularly carry their mobiles near the groin, on a belt or in a pocket could potentially have their sperm count reduced by as much as 30 percent. • The shortest ultraviolet rays in sunshine are dangerous, but longer ones give you a sunlit small dose. In large doses even long UV may cause cancer. Visible light varies in wavelength from violets (shortest) through all the colors of light to red (longest). Infrared light is the radiation given out by objects. This is why infrared-sensitive imaging cameras can see hot objects like people in the dark. • Radio waves are believed to cause interference with heart pacemakers and other medical devices. In Japan, it is now recommended that using a cell phone on a train should be avoided. People are asked to turn off their mobile phones when around seats reserved for the elderly and handicapped or when on a crowded train. • In the case of children and young people under the age of 18 (Teenagers talk on cell phones an average of 2600 minutes per month), the experts Chief Medical Officers strongly advise to use mobile phones for essential purposes only and to keep all Calls short. (Sir William Stewart UK). • Talking 500 minutes per month on a cell phone increases the probability of brain cancer by 140%. Some studies show up to 300 percent increase when using the cell phone between 500 and 1,000 minutes per month. There are 30,000 to 50,000 new cases of brain and eye cancer each year worldwide attributed to Cell Phone usage. Please, beware how you use phones. They cause terrible diseases. • New Samurai swords were tested on prisoners – living human beings! Goodness me! • The point of a Samurai sword is called the kissaki. It is the hardest part to forge and often determines the overall quality. Samurai gave their swords names as they believed the sword contained their warrior spirit. • A ‘jiffy’ is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning “containing arsenic.” • The electric chair was invented by a dentist. • In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 used to be jailed for cheating during their finals. Quote:The future you see is the future you get.—Robert G Allen.