Happy Thursday. Back from Argentina – spent time in Buenos Aires, Mendoza, and Patagonia (El Calafate and El Chalten).

On to today’s IFOD – how long various things are.

Intestines: If you removed your intestines, how long would they stretch? The small intestine is about 20 feet long and the large intestine is about 5 feet long.

Circulatory System: All the arteries, veins and capillaries, if laid out end-to-end would stretch about 60,000 miles. For reference, the circumference of the earth is about 24,000 miles. About 80% of this length is due to the capillaries. Its really quite amazing that our hearts are strong enough to push blood through 60,000 miles of piping!

Roads and Highways: There are about 4.12 million miles of roads in the U.S. Of this, the U.S. Interstate Highway System is currently 46,876 miles long, or about 1% of all the roads. Another 180,000 miles are major state highways.

Longest Road in the U.S.: Route 20, running from Newport, Oregon to Boston is America’s longest road. It’s 3,365 miles and runs across 12 states.

Rivers: The U.S. has over 250,000 rivers which span more than 3.5 million miles. The longest river in the U.S. is the Missouri at 2,540 miles long (the Mississippi is a close second at 2,340). There are over 84,000 dams on these rivers. IFOD: Some Dam Facts.

Internet Backbone: According to a study by a team led by University of Wisconsin Professor Paul Barford, the main backbone of the internet in the U.S. consists of 542 major trunkline cables spanning 113,000 miles. Here’s a map:

Additionally, there are over 300 undersea cables stretching 550,000 miles that connect the internet globally. Here’s a map of those cables: