Selected items from:
BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | 100 things we didn’t know this time last year
26. The full names of Scooby Doo’s Mystery Inc members are: Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, Scooby “Scoobert” Doo. Shaggy is actually Norville Rogers.
31. Herrings break wind to communicate and keep the school together.
43. In 1911, Pablo Picasso was one of the suspects arrested for the theft of the Mona Lisa.
70. And reports of UFOs have dwindled since the late 1990s. In the UK, sightings have gone from about 30 a week to almost zero; it’s a trend echoed in the US and Norway.
75. Freak conditions above Everest can cause the sky to “fall in”. An analysis of weather patterns in May 1996, by University of Toronto researchers, said eight people died when the stratosphere sank to the level of the summit.
81 . When people are in love, weird things happen. Men get more female hormones, and women get more male. Scientist Donatella Marazziti says it’s as if nature wants to eliminate what can be different in men and women, perhaps to help the mating process.
89. Continuing in this cheery vein, more than 1.2 million people die in traffic accidents worldwide each year. The first was Bridget Driscoll, knocked down by a car travelling at 12mph in London on 17 August 1896. The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death, and warned: “This must never happen again.”
99. Dom Perignon, the Benedictine monk, was originally employed by his abbey to get the bubbles out of the champagne, according to Gerard Liger-Belair’s new book, Uncorked: the Science of Champagne.