Random facts of the day

As you know last week I shared some random facts from my daily calendar.  Here are this weeks selection:

• Though treatable today through medical advancements, impotence has been considered grounds for divorce in many different cultures for centuries
• Herman Mudgett, also known as Dr Henry Howard Holmes, was America's first serial killer.  He built a massive mansion in Chicago complete with trap doors, secret passageways, hidden staircases, fake walls, and rooms lined with asbestos that could be turned into gas chambers.  When caught in 1894 he confessed to 27 murders but researchers believed there could be more.
• In the US at least 7 fatalities and numerous severe injuries have been reported among bungee jumpers using a hot air balloon as a platform.  In 2 instances, no-one noticed the balloon lost altitute making the jump cord too long and the jumpers hit the ground.
• If you urinate when swimming in a South American river you might encouter the candiru, a tiny fish that will follow the stream of urine to its source, enter the body and flare its barbed fins requiring surgical removal.
• Bottled drinking water has been marketed as clearner and more pure than tap water but, in a recent study, a 1/3 of bottled water showed significant chemical or bacterial contamination.
• A 998 storm pelted Quebec in Canada with freezing rain and enveloped the city in a layer of cement-like ice, causing 30 deaths and weeks of electric power outages for millions of Canadians.

After reading these facts which, as you can see, are not light-hearted facts I have already decided to return to a funny daily calendar next year.