Page 183 - Animal Facts

The director of Nokia received a speeding ticket for 116,000 euros (roughly $152,725) in Finland.

In 2002, police caught Anssi Vanjoki breaking the speed limit on his Harley Davidson. In Finland, fines for traffic violations are based on the offender's income. Vanjoki's fine was an estimate of how much he would make in 14 days, based on his income in 1999. In 1999, he made 14 million euros (over $18 million).

Vanjoki appealed the fine, saying that the 1999 figure was inaccurate, and his income dropped considerably between 1999 and 2002.
(source)

Stereotypes aside, women are far safer drivers than men are.

According to a study completed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, male drivers have a 77% higher risk of dying in a car accident than women! The study comes from a risk analysis database of road fatality statistics. The research also yielded several other interesting findings, such as:

-The highway death rate is higher for "cautious" 82-year-old women than for "risk-taking" 16-year-old boys!
-Though you may have heard rumors about crazy Boston drivers, New England is actually the safest region to drive in!
-The safest passenger is a youngster strapped in a car seat and being driven during morning RUSH HOUR!
-One death occurs for every 100 million passenger miles traveled.

For more road safety statistics, read this full article.

The Hirudo leech has three jaws with 100 teeth on each jaw.

For the mathematically impaired, that makes a grand total of 300 TEETH! The Hirudo leeches have been used for thousands of years by doctors for bloodletting purposes. They can be used to treat hematoma, thrombosis, and even hemorrhoids! (Because I'm sure that when you have a hemorrhoid, you're probably thinking "wouldn't it be great if I had 300 teeth biting it right now?"). They can also be used in surgery during tissue transplants.
(source)

300 million years ago, the United Kingdom was located at the Equator.

At that time, the UK had a climate similar to the one Central Africa has today. This was in the Carboniferous period. At this time all seven of our modern-day continents comprised one enormous landmass called "Pangea." The large ancient trees that grew near the Equator eventually died and fell into equatorial swampland. Over millions of years, this timber became carbonized and formed the rich coal deposits that can now be found throughout much of Scotland. Back then, the UK also experienced a lot of volcanic activity.

Read more about the Carboniferous era including where fossils from that time period can be found.

The world's smartest dog knows 1,022 words!

Chaser, a border collie, has been trained to recognize 1,022 words, more than any other animal. This dog has an even more extensive vocabulary than Alex the parrot.

Chaser learned all these words over the course of three years. Researchers taught Chaser the names of hundreds of toys, one by one. Nine out of ten times, Chaser can now retrieve the correct toy out of a group of twenty.

The researchers had hypothesized that dogs have a special propensity for understanding language, based on the thousands of years that dogs have been used for farming and herding.

Watch a video of Chaser in action!

(source)

Here's a dog that isn't all that smart.