10 things we didnt know last week.

[dEAR_cHILD]

7. A man-sized lobster lived 480 million years ago.

*mouth waters*

Someone get the butter! I'll get the giant pot!

[Dr Frook]

1. Emails sent in the morning receive longer replies.

2. In September 1944 the New York Times explained pizza to its readers and included a rare use of its plural "pizze" - there was an earlier article but it only mentioned pizza in passing.

3. Handgun bullets sometimes bounce off armadillos.

4. The Queen likes to have her pre-lunch gin and Dubonnet in front of BBC Two's the Daily Politics.

5. Alan Rickman got his friends Ruby Wax and playwright Peter Barnes to rewrite the dialogue involving his character the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, resulting in the line: "You. My room. 10.30 tonight. You 10.45. And bring a friend."

6. State senators in Minnesota are not allowed to make eye contact with each other while on the senate floor.

7. South Derbyshire has the lowest social mobility of any parliamentary constituency in England.

8. University Challenge question setters are particularly inclined to ask about Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

9. Men compete to give bigger online charity donations if the page is for an attractive woman.

10. Einstein's pipe is the most popular exhibit in the Smithsonian Institution's modern physics collection.

[Dr Frook]

1. Shipwrecked 170-year-old champagne tastes "grilled, spicy, smoky, and leathery".


2. The first sports bra was made from two jock straps.


3. Your body odour genes may make you tastier to mosquitoes.


4. You can make perfume from rain.


5. Nearly half of Americans - 150 million people - live in earthquake risk zones.


6. The ocean economy is valued at $24tn, the seventh largest in the world.


7. Chewing something can partially excise "earworms".


8. Alex Salmond changed his signature after being told off by the Queen for having messy writing.


9. Vultures surf on the heat of power plants.


10. "Roadman" is northern slang for someone who thoroughly knows his area.

[Dr Frook]

1. Former UK Liberal Democrat party leader Lord Ashdown told his successor that he used to eat hedgehogs.

2. People drink beer more slowly from straight pint glasses than they do from curved ones.

3. Common People by Pulp may have been written about Danae Stratou, wife of Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.

4. In the north-east of England, Conservative candidates used to wear red, Liberals blue and Labour green rosettes until the 1970s.

5. There were three "revolutions" in western pop music - in 1964, 1983 and 1991.

6. Gold-plated onion cells could be made into artificial muscles.

7. India is the fastest moving "continent" in history.

8. Millionaires' biggest regret is having made a mistake in a relationship with their family.

9. David Dimbleby eats bananas and smokes the odd cigar to stay alert during the UK election coverage. Jeremy Paxman opts for jelly babies.

10. The religious goods business in Italy is estimated to be worth about £3.4bn ($5.2bn) - more than the country earns from exporting wine.

[Dr Frook]

I know everyone is always excited to see this...

1. The world's favourite colour is blue.


2. Micro pigs are offered to stressed students at the University of Exeter to help ease their exam fears.


3. To quit smoking, penalties work better than reward incentives.


4. Radiohead's Thom Yorke appears on the front of an Iranian self-help book about marital and sex problems.


5. A drugs test can detect cocaine use from a fingerprint.


6. The strength of your handshake could predict the risk of a future heart attack or stroke, and is a stronger indicator of death than checking blood pressure.


7. The UK has more lesbian, gay or bisexual MPs than anywhere in the world.


8. Ants use their powerful jaws to catapult themselves out of "death traps".


9. Endangered Andean frogs are being made into "smoothies" in Peru as a supposed natural Viagra and cure for illnesses.


10. Stone Age mourners marked their respect by placing flowers on graves.

[Flobalob]

9. Endangered Andean frogs are being made into "smoothies" in Peru as a supposed natural Viagra and cure for illnesses.

Gotta get me some of that

[Zia-]

9. Endangered Andean frogs are being made into "smoothies" in Peru as a supposed natural Viagra and cure for illnesses.

Gotta get me some of that

;facepalm;

[GarthVader449]

2. Micro pigs are offered to stressed students at the University of Exeter to help ease their exam fears.

Waaaat...

[Dr Frook]

1. Larry King tweets by calling a dedicated voicemail, which is listened to by an assistant who then transcribes his thought to twitter.

2. Marital fidelity is writteninto the French civil code.

3. The highest number of hairdressers in the UK per capita - outside of London - are to be found in South Buckinghamshire.

4. Everyone has a distorted view of their body (but not other people's).

5. Mali has two tax rates - 3% and 30% - and you might be asked which you'd rather pay.

6. The current Devon-Cornwall border almost perfectly matches a genetic division.

7. The ad executive behind the Nike slogan "Just do it" got the idea from the final words of condemned murderer Gary Gilmore.

8. Orangutans make themselves sound bigger by cupping their mouths with their hands, which makes their voice more resonant.

9. The word "budget" comes from the French "bouge" and before that the Latin "bulga" and before that the Celtic word "bolg" - it meant a bag or sack.

10. Most white British people owe nearly a third of their DNA to German ancestry.

[Dr Frook]

1. Marvel Comics stipulates that Peter Parker must be white and straight but Spider-Man can be of any ethnicity or sexual orientation.


2. Rats dream about the places they want to go.


3. The more politically conservative you are, the easier you'll find it to lose weight because you're likely to have more self-control.


4. Listening to heavy metal may make you calmer.


5. Mustard is the by-product of millions of years of evolutionary "warfare" between plants and butterflies.


6. Only 83 black women have ever received a PhD in physics in the US.


7. Indians - most of them Sikhs - currently make up about 60% of Italy's Parmesan-producing workforce.


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


9. Asda might not process your photos if they look too good.


10. William Hague used to only reveal the subject of his questions to Tony Blair with the final word of the sentence - so that the then-PM didn't have time to find his place in an alphabetical folder full of topics.