january-2012

Facts
figures +
Numbers, knowledge
and nuggets of up info
Words: Anna Whitehouse
Illustrations: Sam Vanallemeersch
Fly away success
98% great
Animated Pixar adventure
Up was the best reviewed
release of 2009, according
to film review aggregator
website Rotten Tomatoes.
Some 98% of reviews for
the tale of a grumpy old
man who floats away
by attaching balloons to
his house were positive.
Worldwide the film grossed
a whopping $731 million.
Plane crazy
€3.5 million model
Possibly the most elaborate
model airport in the world,
Knuffingen in Hamburg cost a
whopping €3.5 million to make.
Created by brothers Frederik and
Gerrit Braun, it’s part of city
attraction Miniatur Wunderland.
The model is based on Hamburg
Airport to a 1:87 scale, with
40,000 lights, 15,000 model
people, 500 cars, and 10,000
trees. Some 40 planes and
90 other vehicles move
about at once completely
autonomously, guided only
by highly sophisticated
processors and sensors.
24 Holland Herald
Fat bustard
20kg bird
UP
The plump-breasted kori bustard (ardeotis kori)
of northeast and southern Africa, and the great
bustard (otis tarda) of Europe and Asia are tied
for the record of world’s weightiest flying bird,
each tipping the scales at an average of 18.5kg.
A 20kg male great bustard was recently found
in northeastern China, but the obese avian
couldn’t get off the ground.
“You have enemies? Good. Th at
means you’ve stood up for something,
sometime in your life”
Winston Churchill
Ear piercing
8th octave
Australian opera singer
Adam Lopez holds the
record for the highest
note ever sung by
a male, managing a
half step above the
C in the 8th octave,
or a semitone above
the highest note on
a standard 88-key
grand piano. Before
emitting the ear-
piercing sound live on
national television, he
was asked if he’d had
any accidents as a
child, such as landing
awkwardly on the
crossbar of a bicycle.
He hadn’t.