100 Things We Did Not Know Last Year

Here are a few things we didn't know last year that we know now. These are taken from BBC News Magazine. Follow the above link to the original article.


* Urban birds have developed a short, fast "rap style" of singing, different from their rural counterparts.

* The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.

* Panspermia is the idea that life on Earth originated on another planet.

* More than one in eight people in the United States show signs of addiction to the internet, says a study.

* Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles

* Cows can have regional accents, says a professor of phonetics, after studying cattle in Somerset

* The word "time" is the most common noun in the English language, according to the latest Oxford dictionary.

* A domestic cat can frighten a black bear to climb a tree.

* Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666.

* Music can help reduce chronic pain by more than 20% and can alleviate depression by up to 25%.

* The egg came first.

* Thinking about your muscles can make you stronger

* Goths, those pasty-faced teenagers who revel in black clothing, are likely to become doctors, lawyers and architects.

* In a fight between a polar bear and a lion, the polar bear would win.

* There are two million cars and trucks in Brazil which run on alcohol.

* A "lost world" exists in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of hitherto unknown animal and plant species.