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David K. Israel
Tuesday Turnip
by David K. Israel - April 10, 2007 - 8:56 AM

turnip.jpgIt’s time for another whimsical Tuesday Turnip search wherein I type a random phrase and we see what kind of interesting factoids “turn-up.”

Today I typed in “has the largest,” unearthing the following:

  • Cesium (Cs), tucked in the lower left hand corner of the table, has the largest known atoms.
  • Scientists say that a giant squid (Architeuthis dux) living in the depths of the ocean has the largest eyeballs of any living creature today. The typical giant squid’s eye can measure up to 10 inches in diameter, about half the size of a basketball. (On land, the record for biggest eyeballs is held rather surprisingly by the ostrich. The ostrich eye has a diameter of about 2 inches, roughly the size of a ping-pong ball.)
  • The largest eyeballs of any creature ever apparently belonged to an ancient marine animal, known as an ichthyosaur that lived millions of years ago. Scientific American reports that this undersea creature had eyes about the size of bowling balls, which enabled keener eyesight within murky ocean depths.
  • Technically speaking, Sprint suprisingly [sic] has the largest amount of coverage.
  • Britain has the largest zombie PC [ed. note: bot-infected computers] population of any country on the planet, according to the latest Symantec Internet Security Threat Report.
  • What South-American country has the largest population? Brazil has the highest population among countries in South America.
Comments (2)
  1. Interesting results, especially all the eyeball stuff.

  2. The eyeball stuff always interests me too… but the note about the diameter of a basketball threw me off. It says that a diameter of 10 inches is about half the size of a basketball. I’ve never see a 20″ diameter basketball.

    After a bit of checking, I found that a regulation sized basketball is 9.39″ in diameter. Maybe they meant to say that it was about the same size as a basketball.

    Still, very interesting!

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