100 things we didn't know last year
Each week, the [a href="vny!://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/index.html#a007948"]Magazine[/a] chronicles interesting and sometimes downright unexpected facts from the news. Here, to round off the year, are some of the best from the past 12 months. 1. Pele has always hated his nickname, which he says sounds like "baby-talk in Portuguese".
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4578032.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 2. There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6178611.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 3. Urban birds have developed a short, fast "rap style" of singing, different from their rural counterparts.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6209498.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 4. Bristol is the least anti-social place in England, says the National Audit Office.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6215566.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 5. Standard-sized condoms are too big for most Indian men.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6161691.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 6. The late Alan "Fluff" Freeman, famous as a DJ, had trained as an opera singer.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2940413.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 7. The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6198698.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 8. There are 6.5 million sets of fingerprints on file in the UK.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6170070.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 9. Fathers tend to determine the height of their child, mothers their weight.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6154220.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 10. Panspermia is the idea that life on Earth originated on another planet.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6146292.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 11. An infestation of head lice is called pediculosis.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6111476.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 12. The Pope's been known to wear red Prada shoes.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6132242.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 13. The fastest supercomputer in the UK can make 15.4 trillion calculations per second.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6128066.stm"]More details[/a]
14. Online shoppers will only wait an average of four seconds for an internet page to load before giving up.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6131668.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 15. Donald Rumsfeld was both the youngest and the oldest defence secretary in US history.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3690341.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 16. Spending on Halloween has risen 10-fold - from £12m to £120m in the UK, in five years.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6099008.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 17. Coco Chanel started the trend for sun tans in 1923 when she got accidentally burnt on a cruise.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6101740.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 18. Up to 25% of hospital keyboards carry the MRSA infection.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6107892.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 19. The UK population grew at a rate of 500 per day last year as immigration out-stripped emigration.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6109230.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 20. Sex workers in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6090486.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 21. English is now the only "traditional" academic subject in the top 10 most popular university courses.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6071026.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 22. The number of people committing suicide in the UK has fallen to its lowest recorded level.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6083702.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 23. More than one in eight people in the United States show signs of addiction to the internet, says a study.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6062980.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 24. One third of all the cod fished in the world is consumed in the UK.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6061872.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 25. In Kingston upon Thames, men on average live to be 78. In Kingston-upon-Hull it is 73.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6035225.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 26. Each person sends an average of 55 greetings cards per year.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6043426.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 27. Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_6040000/newsid_6046900/6046962.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 28. More than 90% of plane crashes have survivors.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5402342.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 29. Tony Blair's favourite meal to cook is spaghetti bolognaise.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5401250.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 30. The brain is soft and gelatinous - its consistency is something between jelly and cooked pasta.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5392296.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 31. The Mona Lisa used to hang on the wall of Napoleon's bedroom.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5392000.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 32. Barbie's full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5370398.stm"]More details[/a]
33. Eating a packet of crisps a day is equivalent to drinking five litres of cooking oil a year.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5367822.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 34. Plant seeds that have been stored for more than 200 years can be coaxed into new life.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5361396.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 35. There were no numbers in the very first UK phone directory, only names and addresses. Operators would connect callers.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5360892.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 36. The InterCity 125 train was designed by the same man who came up with the angle-poise lamp and Kenwood Chef mixer.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5348976.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 37. Pavements are tested using an 80 square metre artificial pavement at a research centre called Pamela (the Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory).
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5333936.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 38. A common American poplar has twice as many genes as a human being.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5348438.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 39. The world's fastest supercomputer will have its speed measured in "petaflops", which represent 1,000 trillion calculations per second. [a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5322704.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 40. The medical name for the part of the brain associated with teenage sulking is "superior temporal sulcus".
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5327550.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 41. Some Royal Mail stamps, which of course carry the Queen's image, are printed in Holland.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/5292460.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 42. Helen Mirren was born Ilyena Lydia Mironov, the daughter of a Russian-born violinist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5305720.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 43. There is only one cheddar cheese maker in Cheddar, even though cheddar is the most popular hard cheese in the English-speaking world.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5241544.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 44. For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5281344.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 45. Cows can have regional accents, says a professor of phonetics, after studying cattle in Somerset
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5277090.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 46. Involuntary bad language, a symptom affecting about one in 10 people with Tourette's syndrome, is called "coprolalia".
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5259916.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 47. Watching television can act as a natural painkiller for children, say researchers from the University of Siena.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4795287.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 48. Allotment plots come in the standard measure of 10 poles - a pole is the length of the back of the plough to the nose of the ox.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4776325.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 49. When filming summer scenes in winter, actors suck on ice cubes just before the camera rolls - it cools their mouths so their breath doesn't condense in the cold air.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5219924.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 50. There are 60 Acacia Avenues in the UK.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5199520.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 51. Gritters come out in hot weather too - to spread rock dust, which stops roads melting.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5193486.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 52. Forty-eight percent of the population is ex-directory.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5168570.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 53. Red Buttons - real name Aaron Chwatt - took his surname from the nickname for hotel porters, a job he did in his teens.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5178496.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 54. The CND symbol incorporates the semaphore letters for N and D for nuclear and disarmament.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5149520.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 55. While 53% of households have access to a garage, only 24% use them for parking cars.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5105090.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 56. Mortgage borrowing now accounts for 42% of take-home salary.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5128220.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 57. The word "time" is the most common noun in the English language, according to the latest Oxford dictionary.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5104778.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 58. Forty-one percent of English women have punched or kicked their partners, according to a study.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/5092100.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 59. Dogs with harelips can end up with two noses.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/5084260.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 60. The clitoris derives its name from the ancient Greek word kleitoris, meaning "little hill".
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5013866.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 61. A domestic cat can frighten a black bear to climb a tree.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5067912.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 62. Thirty-four percent of the UK has a surname that is ranked as "posher" than the Royal Family's given name, Windsor.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5047982.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 63. The Downing St garden is actually a Royal Park.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4488146.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 64. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5047848.stm#tue"]More details[/a] [/p] 65. The more panels a football has - and therefore the more seams - the easier it is to control in the air.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5048238.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 66. One in four smokers use roll-ups.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5031088.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 67. Music can help reduce chronic pain by more than 20% and can alleviate depression by up to 25%.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5012562.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 68. The egg came first.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/5019682.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 69. Humans were first infected with the HIV virus in the 1930s.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5012268.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 70. Sir Paul McCartney is only the second richest music millionaire in the UK - Clive Calder, is top.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4993862.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 71. Publishers have coined the term "Brownsploitation" for the rash of books that have sprung up in the wake of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code blockbuster.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4985812.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 72. Modern teenagers are better behaved than their counterparts of 20 years ago, showing "less problematic behaviour" involving sex, drugs and drink.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4994538.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 73. George Bush's personal highlight of his presidency is catching a 7.5lb (3.4kg) perch.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4982338.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 74. Britain is still paying off debts that predate the Napoleonic wars because it's cheaper to do so than buy back the bonds on which they are based.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4757181.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 75. Five billion apples are eaten a year in the UK.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4765067.stm"]More details[/a]
76. In Bhutan government policy is based on Gross National Happiness; thus most street advertising is banned, as are tobacco and plastic bags.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/happiness_formula/"]More details[/a] [/p] 77. Metal detector enthusiasts are referred to as "detectorists"; there are about 30,000 in the UK.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4966424.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 78. The Labour Party spent £299.63 on Star Trek outfits for the last election, while the Tories shelled out £1,269 to import groundhog costumes.
[a href="vny!://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/index.html#a007948"]More details[/a] [/p] 79. The best-value consumer purchase in terms of the price and usage is an electric kettle.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4940182.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 80. Camel's milk, which is widely drunk in Arab countries, has 10 times more iron than cow's milk.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4930094.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 81. Iceland has the highest concentration of broadband users in the world.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4903776.stm"]More details[/a][/p] 82. There are 2.5 million rodent-owning households in Britain, according to the Pet Food Manufacturers' Association.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4872436.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 83. Rainfall on the roof and gutters of a three-bed detached house can amount to 120,000 litres each year.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4884792.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 84. Thinking about your muscles can make you stronger.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4861268.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 85. The age limit for marriage in France was, until recently, 15 for girls, but 18 for boys. The age for girls was raised to 18 in 2006.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4838090.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 86. Six million people use TV subtitles, despite having no hearing impairment.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4862652.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 87. Goths, those pasty-faced teenagers who revel in black clothing, are likely to become doctors, lawyers and architects.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4828230.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 88. Nelson Mandela used to steal pigs as a child.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4816266.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 89. There are an average of 4.4 sparrows in each British garden. In 1979, there were 10 per garden.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4835208.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 90. The Himalayas cover one-tenth of the Earth's surface.
[a href="vny!://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/planetearth/"]More details[/a] [/p] 91. Lord Levy, recruited by Tony Blair to raise money for the Labour party, made his own fortune managing Alvin Stardust, among others.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4816692.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 92. In a fight between a polar bear and a lion, the polar bear would win.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4809976.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 93. If left alone, 70% of birthmarks gradually fade away.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5194394.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 94. There are two million cars and trucks in Brazil which run on alcohol.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5263384.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 95. US Secret Service sniffer dogs are put up in five-star hotels during overseas presidential visits.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4766670.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 96. Flushing a toilet costs, on average, 1.5p.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4766460.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 97. Tufty the road safety squirrel had a surname. It was Fluffytail.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4690166.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 98. A "lost world" exists in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of hitherto unknown animal and plant species.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4688000.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 99. The term "misfeasance" means to carry out a legal act illegally.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/4661202.stm"]More details[/a] [/p] 100. In the 1960s, the CIA used to watch Mission Impossible to get ideas about spying.
[a href="vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4642780.stm"]More details[/a] [/p]
