One Hundred Thousand Years

Not taking into account the first 10,000 years, the following events make up a very brief overview of the next 100,000 years:

• [+13,000] Earth’s Axial Tilt Reversed: The Earth will tilt away from the Sun in June – the Northern hemisphere will experience more extreme weather due to the higher percentage of land.
• [+18,860] Calendars Concur: the Islamic and Georgian calendars will share the same year: 20,860.
• [+20,000] Chernobyl: the damaging radioactivity at Chernobyl, Ukraine will be gone.
• [+25,000] Arecibo Message: Sent on 16 November 1974, radio data from the Earth will be received by globular cluster Messier 13 at the far side of the galaxy.
• [+50,000] Greenland Ice Melted: The ice at Greenland will be completely melted with moderate global warming (+2C).
• [+50,000] KEO Time Capsule: Launched in 2014, the time capsule will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. It has enough capacity to carry a four-page message from everyone on Earth.
• [+50,000] Niagra Falls Disappears: The remaining 32 kilometres to Lake Erie will erode away and the waterfall will cease to exist.
• [+100,000] Nearby Supernova: the red giant VY Canis Majoris will likely explode into a Hypernova.
• [+100,000] Laptop Disappearing: The titanium in laptops will start to corrode.
• [+100,000] Constellations: The stars in the heavens will look completely different due to Earth’s movement through the galaxy.
• [+100,000] Global disaster: Either a supervolcano or a large climate-altering asteroid will probably have affected the Earth by then.

See other: Events of the Far Future

9/iv mmxv

There are more living organisms in a teaspoonful of soil than there are people on the Earth.

One fourth of all the milk produced in Ireland is used for producing Baileys.

During the entire Second World War, as far as we know, there were only two casualties on Greenland – a Danish and German soldier.

During conversations most laughter happens after banal comments, not funny ones. Only about 10-20% of comments before laughs are even remotely funny.

The ancient Romans sold pee collected from public urinals; those who traded in urine had to pay a tax.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

12/iii mmxv

Babelavante [Noun.] One who makes feeble jokes.

Cows have about 25,000 taste buds – two and a half times as many as people – but all they eat is grass.

If anything, Greenland is white.

Passengers in Tokyo train stations generate energy every time they take a step. Special flooring tiles capture the vibrations generated by footfalls, which can be stored as energy. Enough energy is captured during the day to light up electronic signboards.

According to Gallup, the religiosity of the US state of Alabama is as high as that of Iran. Ironically, the religiosity of the US state of Georgia, is as high as that of the sovereign nation of Georgia located in the Caucasus.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

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A community in Thule, in north-western Greenland, was so remote that until the start of the 19th century they believed themselves to be the only people in the world.

The potato originated in Peru about 3 million years ago; the Peruvians consider the spud a point of national pride.

During the late 1800s, sewage from the Chicago River repeatedly polluted Lake Michigan, Chicago’s main water source, causing devastating disease outbreaks. In the 1900, engineers built the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which reversed the river’s natural east-to-west flow and directed water toward the Mississippi River.

Backpfeifengesicht is German for ‘a face that makes you want to hit it’.

Aristotle believed that the Sun went round the Earth, that intelligence was located in the heart, and that the brain was a device for cooling the blood. He also taught that flies had four legs.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

5/vi mmxiii

No birds have teeth, but baby birds have an ‘egg-tooth’ – a small hard growth which they use to break out of their shells and which falls off soon after hatching.

Phoenix Dactylifera

The smallest trees in the world are the dwarf willows that grow on the tundra of Greenland. They are only two inches tall.

Most of the dozen or so species of date palms in the genus Phoenix (family Palmae) are grown as ornamental plants. Only the common date palm, Phoenix dactylifera is grown for its fruit.

Johann Gregor Mendel (1822-84) is known as the ‘Father of Genetics’. For eight years (1856-63) he studied peas, growing over 10,000 pea plants and carefully noting the results.

Red kangaroos give birth to only one baby at a time, but have a spare fertilised egg in their bodies. If the first baby dies, the second egg develops into a fully- grown kangaroo.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

Inuksuk

An inuksuk is a stone landmark or cairn built by humans, used by the Inuit, Inupiat, Kalaallit, Yupik, and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America.

An Inuksuk called Inunnguaq, which means “like a human being” located at Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Canada

These structures are found from Alaska to Greenland. This region, above the Arctic Circle, is dominated by the tundra biome and has areas with few natural landmarks.

The word inuksuk means “something which acts for or performs the function of a person”.

The inuksuk may have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for travel routes, fishing places, camps, hunting grounds, places of veneration, drift fences used in hunting or as a food cache.