January 14, 2016
We saw a little fact about pencils this week that surprised us: How long do you think the average pencil lead is? Well, the average lead pencil will draw a line about 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words.
(if you want more pencil facts visit Discover magazine, which gives you a whopping 20)
This nugget got us curious for more length facts, so here are our top 10:
1. How long – If all your DNA was stretched out, it would reach to the moon 6,000 times.
2. The longest ears on a dog measured 31.1 cm (12.25 in) and 34.3 cm (13.5 in) for the left and right ears, respectively, on 8th June 2010. They belong to Harbor, a Black and Tan Coonhound, who is owned by Jennifer Wert of Colorado, USA.
3. A Boeing 747’s wingspan is longer than the Wright brothers’ first flight.
4. If all the blood vessels in your body were laid end to end, they would reach about 60,000 miles – long enough to go around the world more than twice.
5. A flea can jump 100 times its own height. That would be the equivalent of a human jumping nearly 400m in distance whilst jumping over a 250m high building!! Find out how and see them in action.
6. (Warning – a very weird one). On 1st September 2004, in Istanbul Turkey, Ilker Yilmaz squirted milk from his eye a distance of 9 feet and 2 inches – a world record.
7. The largest violin is 4.27 m (14 ft) long, has a maximum width of 1.4 m (4.5 ft) and a bow with a length of 5.2 m (17 ft). It was made by the Vogtland masters of violin and bow making in Germany, and completed on 14th June 2010. Get that under your chin!
8. The longest fur on a cat is 25.68 cm (10.11 in) and belongs to Sophie Smith, owned by Jami Smith (USA), as measured in Oceanside, California, USA, on 9th November 2013.
9. The largest recorded snowflake was 15 inches wide and 8 inches thick.
10. The barnacle has the longest penis relative to body size: they can be eight times longer than their body. You can read more about this, including how to measure one (if you really want to) at the Natural Geographic (well, we were itching to get a fact like this in once we settled on ‘length’ as a topic – at least we spared you the video).
