APPROXIMATELY 70 per cent of the earth is covered with water. Only 1 per cent of the water is drinkable.
* The sun is at least 6,000 million years old, has a diameter of 1.38 million km (865,000 million miles), and is 1.48 million km (92.86 million miles) from the earth.
* The moon has a diameter of 3,453 km (2,158 miles).
* Up to the age of six or seven months, a child can breathe and swallow at the same time. An adult cannot do this.
* More than a million different kinds of animals inhabit the earth.
* Male monkeys lose the hair on their heads in the same manner as men do.
* The largest living animal in the world is the Blue or Sulphur Bottom Whale which grows to a maximum of 30.5 metres (100 feet) long.
* A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time. It is 1/100 of a second.
* A mature, well-established termite colony with as many as 60,000 members will eat only about one-fifth of an ounce of wood a day.
* Asia, the largest continent in the world, is about 9,600 km (6,000 miles) from east to west, and more than 8,480 km (5,300 miles) from north to south.
* By the year 2010, China is expected to have a population of 1.38 billion people, and India a population of 1.22 billion people.
* The hottest place in the world is Dallol in Ethiopia, where the annual average temperature is 34.4 degrees Centigrade (94 degrees Fahrenheit).
