FACTS OF THE MONTH:

Even without the commercials, an episode of TV's "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" runs fifteen minutes longer than the big-screen "Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Movie".

All the gold in the world would fit into an area 18 cubic yards large.

During its nearly two decades on the air, the female collie Lassie was always portrayed by a male. In contrast, the male Flipper of the 60's TV series was played by a female.

Today (4 July 1997) in most states, people born on the Bicentennial are now old enough to drink.

Character actor Frank Cady holds the record (among comedy series) for the most number of appearances as the same character. He played Sam Drucker in 152 episodes of Petticoat Junction, 145 episodes of Green Acres and 11 episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies.

More than half of the fifty states (27) are coastal states.

The most common blood type in the world is Type O. The rarest, Type A-H, has been found in less than a dozen people since the type was discovered.

Harry Houdini was the first man to fly an airplane solo in Australia.

Less than 3% of the world's water is fresh water. The rest is saltwater.

Ten percent of American men are impotent.

The indentation betwen the nose and the upper lip is called the philtrum. Ancient Greeks considered it the body's most erogenous zone.

Irving Berlin, perhaps the greatest songwriter of the past century, could not read music.

The Olympics will never be held in La Paz, Bolivia. Situated two miles above sea level, an altitude twice as high as Denver, any sort of serious over-exertion can pose serious health problems. Besides, the thinner atmosphere would never be able to sustain the Olympic Flame.

If all the packs of cigarettes smoked annually by Americans were laid end to end, they would circle the earth over twenty times.

Dirty snow melts faster than clean snow.

Scissors were invented by Leonardo da Vinci.

Nickels are only 25% nickel. The rest is copper.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first Presidential candidate whose mother could vote for him. (Although women were given the right to vote in 1920, the mothers of the Presidents between then and 1932 were already dead.)

If you start typing out all the numbers sequentially as words ("one, two, three,...") you won't use the letter 'a' until you reach "one thousand".

The earth's weight increases by a thousand tons per day.

An Arkansas law makes it illegal to enter a polling place FOR ANY REASON while the polls are open.

The shortest war between nations occured when England attacked Zanzibar the morning of 27 August 1896. Zanzibar surrendered thirty-eight minutes later.

A year on Venus lasts 224 days. A day on Venus lasts 23 days longer.

Since the copyright on the name has long since expired, any dictionary can call itself "Webster's Dictionary."

Demographics, the study of something by type of population, was introduced to the television networks in 1970. A year earlier, and the demographic numbers would've kept "Star Trek" on the air. Two years later and many of CBS's most successful series, like "Hee Haw", "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Green Acres" and "The Ed Sullivan Show" would not have been cancelled while still in the Top Ten.

A 'googol' is a number used in scientific research. It is a one followed by 100 zeroes (10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). It is physically impossible to count that high, as the universe itself is less than 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 seconds old. If you could count that high, or write that long, you could write out the number for a 'googolplex', which is a 1 followed by a googol zeroes.

Spiders have transparent blood.

Drowning officially refers to the lungs taking on water, not to the death that taking on usually results in. It is therefore possible to drown and not die.

Warren G. Harding & John F. Kennedy were the only Presidents survived by their fathers.

Contrary to the saying, Nero did not fiddle while Rome burned. Not only was Nero fifty miles away when it happened, the fiddle hadn't been invented yet.

Dwarfs and midgets almost always have normal-sized children.