100 things we didn't know last year

5 min read Original article ↗

Interesting and unexpected facts from daily news stories are picked out by the Magazine for its weekly feature, 10 things we didn't know last week. Here's a selection of 2015's best.

1. It costs £300 to operate on a constipated goldfish.

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2. Traditionally, police horses in England's Thames Valley force can be called Odin, Thor or Hercules, but not Brian.

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3. Barack Obama calls David Cameron "bro".

Find out more (Time), external

4. The first sports bra was made from two jockstraps.

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5. One in 10 of Britain's train carriages still flush toilet waste straight on to the railway tracks.

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6. Jamaica, Colombia and Saint Lucia are the only countries in the world where a woman is more likely to be a boss than a man.

Find out more (Washington Post), external

7. You don't have to speak French to become French-language Scrabble world champion.

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8. Kolo Toure, the Ivory Coast and Liverpool defender, hasn't touched his own dog for seven years.

Find out more (Metro), external

9. An egg can be unboiled.

Find out more (Metro), external

10. There are four different ways to pronounce diplodocus, and the way children say it is probably more technically correct than the academics' preferred option.

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11. A 51-year-old software engineer named Bryan Henderson has edited Wikipedia 47,000 times to remove the ungrammatical term "comprised of".

Find out more (Backchannel), external

48. Reddit has a very detailed 9,000-word guide to the dos and don'ts of giving away Game of Thrones spoilers.

Find out more (Reddit), external

49. Oliver Cromwell supposedly called the Magna Carta the "Magna Farta" - he didn't like it.

Find out more (New Yorker), external

50. Most kangaroos are left-handed.

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51. Marvel Comics stipulates that Peter Parker must be white and straight but Spiderman can be of any ethnicity or sexual orientation.

Find out more (Washington Post), external

52. The word "twerk" dates back to 1820.

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53. Heaven exists but hell does not, according to the theology of Sepp Blatter.

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54. UK officials discussed plans to relocate the entire 5.5 million population of Hong Kong to Northern Ireland in 1983.

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55. Three-times F1 world champion Niki Lauda swapped his trophies for unlimited free car washes.

Find out more (Reuters), external

56. Playing Tetris for 12 minutes the day after a traumatic event can reduce flashbacks.

Find out more (Smithsonian magazine), external

57. There are four main personality types into which people can be categorised when drunk: "Mary Poppins", "Hemingway", "Nutty Professor" and "Mr Hyde".

Find out more (the Drinks Business), external

58. Minions are all male because their creator believed they were too stupid to be female.

Find out more (The Wrap), external

59. Nando's is one of the biggest buyers of contemporary South African art.

Find out more (FT), external

60. In Ohio, it's illegal to disrobe in front of a man's portrait.

Find out more (Slate), external

61. A UK court can determine how short your shorts should be.

Find out more (Caerphilly, Ystrad Mynach and Bargoed Campaign), external

62. Butt-dials aren't considered private conversations in the US.

Find out more (Slate), external

63. A baby is born on its predicted due date just 4% of the time.

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64. For three months, Leicestershire police didn't investigate attempted burglaries if they occurred at odd-numbered properties.

Find out more (The Times), external

65. Reindeer migration is a major live television event in Norway.

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66. Real Paleolithic people, contrary to some of the followers of the fashionable modern diet named after them, appear to have eaten plenty of carbohydrates.

Find out more (Quartz), external

67. MI5 erroneously suspected novelist Doris Lessing of running a brothel.

Find out more (Independent), external

68. US Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders released a spoken-word folk album in 1987.

Find out more (Dangerous Minds), external

69. It is possible to have orgasms in your left foot.

Find out more (New York magazine), external

70. The formula for the perfect poohstick is PP = A x I x Cd.

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71. Silk can be made from the solidified saliva of a clam.

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72. Gorillas have individual tastes in music.

Find out more (Discover Magazine Blogs), external

73. The simpler and more repetitive a song's lyrics, the more likely it is to reach number one in the Billboard Hot 100, debut in the top 40 and climb the chart more rapidly.

Find out more (Psychology Today), external

74. The producer who was Gordon the Gopher's puppeteer ended up as the BBC's head of editorial standards.

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75. Bill Cosby was the first choice to play Sam Malone in Cheers, ahead of Ted Danson.

Find out more (Hollywood Reporter), external

76. In their spare time, US fighter pilots play a mash-up of pool and rugby called crud.

Find out more (New York Times), external

77. Scots have 421 words for snow.

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78. Lies are more convincing when the person telling them needs to urinate.

Find out more (Daily Telegraph), external

79. Spotify's shuffle is not truly random but sprinkles different genres evenly across a playlist and alternates songs by the same artist.

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80. The English composer Benjamin Britten wrote a national anthem for Malaysia, only for it to be rejected in favour of a cabaret tune.

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81. Elephants almost never get cancer.

Find out more (Nature News), external