BUBBA'S
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

NOTICE THAT NEW QUESTIONS ARE NOW ON TOP!

Ashlee asked, "How old is the oldest tree in New York?"

My research indicates that it is a tree called The Queens Giant, in Queens, New York.The tree is a Tulip-tree and is 40 meters tall and about 400 years old. To find it, I used the search terms "oldest tree" +New York in Google.

Amber and Tyler asked, "What is the most used joke?"

According to the few websites that are not blocked by NISD (The district doesn't seem to have a sense of humor. Or, maybe too many jokes are a little trashy!), the most commonly used jokes in our country are pranks and cruel tricks. The most common of them appers to be the tap on the shoulder from behind gag.

Catena asked, "What is the most commonly used dish soap?"

Well, Catena, you didn't qualify your questions so I will answer it in three ways. At my house, the most commonly used dish soap is DAWN. According to a recent report by Information Resources, DAWN also holds 34% of all dishwashing liquid sales in the United States, making it the top seller nationaly. However, in South Africa, the top seller is "Sunlight".

Julianna asked, "Are there more male or female professional dancers?"

Interesting, Julianna. My first thought would be that it was about the same. However, my Internet searches reveal that at the college level three times as many females study to become professional dancers as men. This trend continues into the professional workforce. Part of the reason is that there are more types of "professional" dancing available to women in our country. Since the web sites talk about some of those categories too much for my taste, I won't post them here.

Jenna asked, "What is hair made of ?"

This is another one of those sad ones for me. Mr. Baker didn't send me the e-mail on time, and I forgot to send him the answer after Spring Break. That means Jenna gets an automatic stump!

Marco asked, "Where do the chickens from Chick-Fil-A come from?"

This was not that easy. There is no real information on the Internet. I had to call the corporate headquarters. The answer I was given was that the chickens come from many regional suppliers that must comply with very strict Chick-Fil-A guidelines.

Leyla asked, "What kind of dog grows the tallest?"

This is such an easy question. Unfortunately, it didn't get answered in time, so it is a "stumper". The popular answer is the Irish Wolfhound. However, in this Wikipedia article, it mentions that Great Danes are getting bigger.

Ashlee asked, "What is the year with the most birthdays in January?"

Unless you know something that I do not know, Ashlee, January always has 31 birthdays.

64. (received on 02/08/08 & answered on 02/14/08 )

There are many theories and suspects. The Internet claims that it is easier to say who didn't do it, than who did. Don't get excited though. There is no stump here. Since I was a little boy I knew who did it. It was the person who pulled the trigger on the gun from which the bullets that struck President Kennedy that did it! Problem solved!

Hector asked, "Why do we have eyebrows?"

There are many answers for this question, Hector, according to several sources on the Internet. First they make us look nice to others. That's why so many of us pluck and tweeze our eybrows to perfection. Who wants a unibrow? Another reason is for non-verbal communication. Believe me, when my mama raised her eyebrows, I knew to straighten up and act right. The last reason I will mention is that eyebrows keep sweat from going into our eyes. They are arched to channel moisture away from our eyes.

Abel asked, "How many birthdays are there in a year ?"

The answer is 365 for most years and 366 for leap years.

61. (received on 02/05/08 & answered on 02/14/08 )

Well, Kirk, you asked me a question while I was out of town for two days attending the TCEA conference. When I got back, I had 5 days of make-up work to do because of being out sick for three days right before that. I simply could not get to work on Bubba. Therefore, even though I have some answers, I am going to give you a stump because of the time limit. Here are my answers, which, since I have to give you a stump anyway, are coming right off the top of my head: Some people would say planets like our own, which sustain life are rarest. Others would probably claim that Ruby Worlds are the rarest. Enjoy the stump!

Amber asked, "Who was the person who first invented heart transplants?"

This was a tough one. Most people want to talk about the first doctors to perform heart transplants on human beings. A search through historical accounts on the Internet indicates that getting to that first human transplant by Dr. James Hardy, who died recently, took decades of steps. It was the work of early scientists like Erlich, Lansteiner, and Metchnikoff which paved the way for others like Alexis Carrel who learned how to keep an organ alive outside of a body. You can read a brief and interesting history of heart transplantation at Columbia University's Department of Surgery web site by clicking here.

Mia asked, "What was the highest number of babies born in one year?"

I searched several different web sites and the most consistent answer appears to be 1957 for the United States. Believe it or not, world birth rates have been declining, instead of increasing.

Chase asked, "Why are hurricanes given names, but tornadoes are not given names?"

I searched the Internet using Google and your entire question. That lead me to several websites that listed reasons. First, hurricanes are in the weather for a long time and get tracked and talked about for several days. Tornadoes suddenly appear and don't last very long. Second, there are more than a thousand tornadoes in the U.S. each year. We would be buried in names, if we named them all. Some tornadoes do get names "after" they have come and gone. Usually they are the ones that do lots of damage. If you would like to read more about hurricanes and tornadoes, visit the Fema for Kids disaster pages.

Lindsay asked, "Does outer space ever end?"

Well, Lindsay, that is hard to answer for sure. Modern theories argue whether or not outer space is finite or infinite. That still does not answer questions about the end of outer space. I will quote this information from an article on the answerbag web site:

Using this theory, just as the surface of a sphere has no end, but it has finite area, so the universe has no end, but has a finite volume.

56. (received on 01/08/08 & answered on 01/09/08 )

First, Andrew, we need to make sure we know what the word "technology" means. I went to Wikipedia to get that as my starting point. Wikipedia says, "Technology is a broad concept that deals with a species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its environment." My translation: Technology is knowing about and using tools to do things for us. This lead me to a search on the history of tools. That took me all the way back to the Stone Age. Rather than being a century, this was a long time in history that stretched from about 2,000,000 years ago to about 12,000 years ago. According to the many sources I reviewed, humans were using lots of tools during that time period. We call it the Stone Age because the tools that we have found were made of stone. That doesn't mean they didn't use other tools made of wood or bone, only that those tools have not survived the ages. By the way, many scientists think we are still in the ending years of the Stone Age. That kind of explains some of those crazy drivers out there. Don't you think?

55. (received on 12/21/07 & answered on 01/07/08 )

I searched in Google using the keywords "Santa's childhood" and learned that the best source for information is the book Nickolai of the North which chronicles Santa's early life. You would have to read the book for yourself, but evidently, Santa, an elf, was adopted and raised by a human couple. I would assume they gave him his presents.

54. (received on 12/21/07 & answered on 01/07/08 )