147 Things [antikvár]

Introduction Since the dawn of time there have been many important questions. Are we alone in the universe? Is there anything after death? What is the meaning of life? Which dinosaur had the biggest penis?* My name's Jim Chapman and at any one time I would say that about 90 per cent of my brain is made up of an entirely random jumble of facts, stats and notions. Want to know whether the chicken or the egg came first? I'm your guy. Interested in how far back in time you could go to kidnap a baby that would be able to deal with twenty-first-century life? Step this way. Whether it be how this planet went from dust, rocks and water swirling in space to a place where your phone knows more than you ever will, how the first ever living organism came into being, or why on earth I have nipples that I don't need, my thirst for knowledge is nigh on unquenchable. My wife, Tanya, bears the brunt of most of this, as I come running into a room brandishing a fact like an excitable child who wants to show you his new toy but won't let you actually touch it. If she's not available, I'll tell the nearest thing with ears (usually my dog, Martha) and for a moment I'll feel very smug, safe in * The slightly underwhelming answer is that we don't know for sure. We need bones for fossils to survive and, despite the slang name, there aren't any in this particular part of the body. Birds and reptiles are the closest living relatives to dinosaurs and their genitalia-size to body-size ratio varies quite a lot. The best guess is that a forty-foot-long Tyrannosaurus rex would likely have had a penis length of between ten inches and twelve feet. So now you know. Makes that scene in Jurassic Park take on a whole new meaning, doesn't it?