The First Book of Factoids | Page 5

world.
According to the Concordance - a compilation of the words and names
in the Bible - cats are not mentioned at all. Christians appear only 3
times (Acts 11:26; 26:28; 1 Peter 4:16). The words "grandmother" and
"eternity" only once each. The Bible records seven suicides and seven
different Jeremiahs - but not a single "trinity".
The books of Esther and the Song of Solomon do not contain the word
"God". The Jewish codifiers of the Bible almost left them out (i.e.,
almost declared them apocryphal).
Amen is the word that seals the Bible.
http://www.gospelcom.net/bible
http://bible.crosswalk.com/
http://unbound.biola.edu/
http://www.concordance.com/
Bioluminiscence
The bobtail squid lives in the shallow waters of the coast of Hawaii.
During the day, it is buried deep in the sand. It emerges to hunt at
nightfall. Moonlight is its mortal enemy: conveniently for its predators,
the squid casts a black and moving shadow. To fend off these risks, the
squid emits a blue glow from a "light organ". The luminosity perfectly
matches the amount of moonlight filtering through the water, rendering
the squid indistinguishable from its light-flooded environs.
To generate the fine tuned radiance, the squid hosts a community of
luminescent bacteria called Vibrio fischeri. From the first moments of
its life, the squid circulates bacteria-infested seawater through a hollow

chamber in its body. Only the Vibrio fischeri cells are caught by the
squid's tiny cilia. Henceforth, the squid provides his microscopic
"prisoners" with oxygen and amino acids - and they reciprocate with
emitted light.
The squid constantly monitors to what extent the night sky is
illuminated, using dedicated sensors on the surface of its body. It then
adjusts an iris-like "shutter" to release the correct amount of light from
his bacterial colony. The squid replaces the hosted vibrios daily.
Still, bacteria multiply ceaselessly. How is a constant level of
luminescence maintained as time passes?
Woody Hastings, a microbiologist at the University of Illinois, noticed
in the early 1960s that though the bacterial population doubles every 20
minutes - the quantity of luciferase (the light producing enzyme)
remains constant for up to five hours. luciferase production resumes
only when a certain "critical mass" (quantitative threshold) is attained.
This is called "quorum sensing".
http://www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/~biolum/
http://www.biolum.org/
Black Death
AIDS has infected hitherto 42 million people, of which perhaps 22
million have died.
The "Black Death" - an epidemic of bubonic plague which ravaged
both Europe and the Mediterranean in 1347-1351- killed one quarter to
one third of the population - c. 25 million people. This is the equivalent
of 250 million today. It took 150 years for the population to recover its
pre-epidemic levels.
Scholars believe that the plague emanated from the Middle East
through southern Russia, between the Black and the Caspian seas.
Contemporaries did not use the term "Black Death". They called it the
"Pestilence" or the "Great Mortality". They regarded it as divine
punishment of humanity's sins.
http://www.ento.vt.edu/IHS/plague.html

Black Holes
Black holes are extremely dense bodies. Their density and gravitation
are so enormous that it was thought nothing - not even electromagnetic
radiation such as light - can escape them once caught by their

gravitational pull. Hence the "black" in "black holes". This is what
laymen and the media know about them.
Yet, the truth is different.
The English physicist Stephen William Hawking proved that in the
vicinity of tiny black holes, it is possible for one member of an
electron-positron or proton-antiproton pair of particles to escape while
the other is hurled towards the singularity (i.e., the center of the black
hole). The escaping particle draws energy from the black hole itself and
thus "evaporates" it. It is as if the black hole gives off heat, thermal
radiation.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/rjn_bht.html
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/BlackHoles.html
http://cfpa.berkeley.edu/BHfaq.html
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/bh_home.html
Bolivar, Simon
Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) is a Latin American folk hero, revered for
having been a revolutionary freedom fighter, a compassionate
egalitarian and a successful politician. He is credited with the liberation
from Spanish colonial yoke of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru,
and Bolivia, a country named after him. Venezuela's new strongman,
Hugo Chavez, renamed his country The Bolivarian republic of
Venezuela to reflect the role of his "Bolivarian revolution".
Yet, while alive, Bolivar was a much hated dictator and - at the
beginning of his career - a military failure.
His aide and friend, Gen. Daniel O'Leary, an Irish soldier described
him so:
"His chest was narrow, his figure slender, his legs particularly thin. His
skin was swarthy and rather coarse. His hands and feet were small ...a
woman might have envied them. His expression, when he was in good
humor, was pleasant, but it became terrible when he was aroused. The
change was unbelievable."
Bolivar explained his motives:
"I confess this (the coronation of Napoleon in 1804) made me think of
my unhappy country and the glory which he would win who